Research Project: Sci-Fi Modular Assets Using Substance Designer

Sci-Fi Modular Assets

Goal is to learn Substance Designer workflow and how to create modular assets without modeling.

Schedule:
Week 1 - Material 1 (Floor + Grate) & Displacement Test in Engine
Week 2 - Material 2 (Wall)
Week 3 - Integrating materials into Unreal Engine 5, Lighting, & Renders

Lowering the scope of this project compared to the initial pitch because we only have 3 weeks and I need to make some time to finish up my previous projects. Instead of doing a full environment, I'll be doing a diorama slice which will be one floor and wall material that I'll displace using the height information to create geometry in Unreal Engine 5. References are from Javier Perez (material artist).

Video demonstration of how tesselation works in UE4, I'll be translating this into UE5 with displacement methods instead:

I plan on presenting the materials in UE5 together similar to how Marchand Venter displayed his scene below:

Creating a Modular Sci-Fi Environment Using Substance Designer

What I'll be researching:
- How to create modular Sci-Fi materials using Substance Designer
- How to tesselate geometry using displacement maps in UE4

Source: https://www.artstation.com/learning/series/GD/creating-a-modular-sci-fi-environment

End Result

Materials

Goals (Post FIEA)

My goal after FIEA is to work as a 3D environment artist for a mid-sized or AAA studio. My ideal companies to work for are Riot Games and Epic Games. I prefer to focus on stylized art. I'm also interested in working in film/cinematics either for game dev or animated films (i.e. Pixar, DreamWorks).

Current focus would be making more small environments and improving/diversifying my portfolio.

Some extra studies that I will need to learn are:

- Materials and texture practice (understanding base materials and how that will affect lighting/rendering)

- Learning tools/techniques in software (ZBrush shortcuts, Substance, Designer, etc. to help speed up my workflow)

Artstation Collection of Top Ten Artists: https://www.artstation.com/thomas3d/collections/1626497

1) G Liulian - Large scaled oriental inspired environments & value separation (concept)

2) Surendra Rajawat - Interesting compositional environments & color theory (concept)

3) Sylvain Sarrailh - Interesting compositional environments & color theory (concept)

4) Atey Ghailan - Chill vibes in compositions (tone)

5) Jasmin Habezai-Fekri - Stylized 3D Artist (3D)

6) Lucas Maxfield - Stylized 3D Artist (3D)

7) Oskar Woinski - Lighting & dramatic compositions (lighting)

8) Glen Fox - Nice presentations for 3D scenes (3D)

9) Leah Augustine - Environment artist with nice breakdowns (3D)

10) Conrad Justin - Stylized 3D artist with nice dioramas (3D)

First Post

Testing