Marchand Venter FIEA Art Blog

Summer Project 03 - Trim Sheets (19th Century Renaissance Furniture)

Goals for the project:

Understand the trim sheet pipeline
Utilize Substance designer or Maya to create a trim sheet as well as tile materials.
Document and demonstrate the (Ultimate trim sheet) method mixed with (Worn Varnished Wood Master Material)
Create multiple 19th Century Renaissance furniture pieces utilizing the trim sheets and display the final results in UE4
Finally, Display the final model in a scene posted to add more action and interest.

MileStone 02 (07-22-2018)

Took a lot of time and research but I am finally happy with my understanding of trim sheets as a modeling concept. To test out the pipeline I tried my hand at creating a quick and dirty version of the first dresser, utilizing the trim sheet and packed RGB uv2 texturing method. Here are my results in UE4.

MileStone 04 (08-07-2018)

Here is the current state of this little project. I am pretty happy with the overall concept and think now have a good understanding of how the trim sheet workflow works. I want to try and push this further by supplementing other furniture pieces,

Summer Project 02 - News Truck (FortNite)

Goals for the project:

Recreate the concept of the reference image in the vane of Fortnite by Epic Games.
Utilize Substance designer to create a wall and floor that will be displayed alongside the Truck.
Finally, Display the final model in a scene posted to add more action and interest.

Reference:

Goal:

Schedule:

Project Begins 05/14 and ends 06/13

06/11 - 06/17:

Finish Old Project Summer Project 01 Final Rendering
Start Blockout of Summer Project 02 News Truck

06/18 - 06/24:

High Poly Pass on every major shape
Set up display in Marmoset

06/25 - 07/01:

Resurface truck
UV low Rez model
Work on Texturing
Start Substance designer aspects

06/06 - 06/13:

Final Texturing
Finish Substance Designer props
Set up Rendering Passes

Mile Stone 02 Submission (06-24-18)

A little behind in this milestone. However, I am making progress on the high poly stage and found a good scene set up in marmoset.

Mile Stone 04 Submission (07-08-18)

Wooo final turn in

Summer Project 01 - PsychicStoreFront

Goals for project:

Learn more about modularity and making environmental kits
Recreate a realistic Unreal shot that closely matches up to a photograph image
Integrate Substance Designer workflow directly into Unreal
Learn more about how to create ware and tear using material blending in UE4
Learn how to mimic the lighting by matching the master reference shot
Learn about the creation of cloth in Marmoses designer
Learn about the creation of neon light in UE4

What is the environment:
A small snapshot of a weathered New York City Psychic storefront at night. A heavy focus on realism.

Mood:
For this project, I wanted to create a more mysterious inviting mode that is represented in the concept image. As you are walking back from a late night of work, you stumble upon this rundown psychics storefront.

Possible complications:
I think a complication of this project might be the lighting due to how strong the contrast in the lights are, ranging from very dark to very light neon.

Props vs Building models

List of props:

Folding Door Gate
Display Case Props

Neon Sign
Hand Palm Guilds
Photo Frames
Head Bust
Stretched Male Statue
Tarot cards

Neon Sign
Neon Sign Power Cables
Frame
Curtains
AC unit with a Plastic cover

List of Building Assets:

Display Box “StoreFront”
Two Small Doors

Door Lock

Wall Pillars
SideWalk Curb
Sidewalk Cellar Door
Awning

Substance Designer Materials

Chiping Painted wood Yellow
NYC Sidewalk

Schedule:

Project Begins 05/14 and ends 06/13

05/14 - 05/23:

Blockout Pass in maya representing every props and shape that will be in the final scene.
Base UE4 scene set up, begin importing props
Working on lighting
UE4 Camera Set up

05/23 - 05/30:

High Poly Pass on every major building asset
Display Box “StoreFront”
Two Small Doors
Door Lock
Wall Pillars
SideWalk Curb
Sidewalk Cellar Door
Awning
Door Lock
Continue Lighting
Work on Neon Light in UE4

05/30 - 06/06:

High Poly Pass on Props in the display case
Folding Door Gate
Display Case Props

Neon Sign
Hand Palm Guilds
Photo Frames
Head Bust
Stretched Male Statue
Tarot cards

Neon Sign
Neon Sign Power Cables
Frame
Curtains
AC unit with a Plastic cover
Resurfacing and texture work on Building Assets
Lighting
Substance designer Materials

06/06 - 06/13:

Resurface and Texture Props
UE4 final render + marmoset scene

Mile Stone 01 Submission (05-21-18)

This milestone I was able to complete everything task I set for my self. I also made a google sheets document in order to keep up help with project management.

So here is the Maya block out.

And here are the assets imported into UE4

Mile Stone 02 Submission (05-28-18)

Ok time for Milestone 2 due to date (Half way). While I have been making good progress overall I think I might be a little behind of my original goal for this turn in. It had been hard balancing 3 different projects at the same time.

I did get a chance to make some substance designer textures for the sidewalk and learned a little more about material instancing as well as Vertecy colors and material functions.

I broke down all the assets in my Maya scene and placed them individually into UE4, setting up the bridge for the geo. I am in the process of getting the first pass on as many structural assets as I can, in order to have texture files linked.

Mile Stone 04 Submission (06 -10 -18)

Final turn in, some of the props still need a lot of work. However, its time to turn something in.

3D VR Environment Scene

Working on a new VR UE4 Project

Met so many amazing artists and fellow game devs at GDC 2018. After seeing so many amazing projects I felt I needed to start my own!

So I am working on a new UE4 VR Environment!!!!!

After thinking about it on the plane ride back home, and doing some research on the mood and themes I wanted to hit. I landed on the idea of a Cryptocurrency Investment Firm weeks after the market crashes.

I have always been fascinated by the idea of cryptocurrency and wanted to play around with the idea. So the weeks after the collapse of the worldwide cryptocurrency market, the firm is in the middle of liquidating all their assets, including their home office.

I need to work on having more detail in the building structures as well as create office furniture to bring the scene to life. Things like Desks, Chairs, Computers, Fans WATER COOLERS!!

BUT I thought it would be useful to my self and others if I started posting my Work in progress shots here, along with any cool tips and richness I come across.

(The current state of the scene as of 04/01/2018)

I am learning a LOT about the concept of trim sheets and how to use them appropriately in your scenes. For example, everything you see up here is using Two Normals maps. I have very very basic trim sheets at the moment as I am still trying to wrap my brain around how to use them. BUT DAM is it fun to use them to add detail to SIMPLE models.

I am using Substance Designer to create my sheets, as I don't really know how to use the Quexel suit just yet.

(Trim Sheets used in the scene as of 04/01/2018)

I use Maya to model and test Modularity of my walls and such.

Using Substance Designer to create trim sheets

(UPDATE APRIL - 04 - 2018)

Taking a break from adding props to the environment, and learning a little bit about blueprinting in Unreal. I wanted to add some light flickering to my scene but I wanted to make a blueprint that gave me more control then just multiplying a sine to the emissive channel. Still working on the Blueprint but it's turning out rather well.

I am trying to add more movement to the scene to make it feel more visually interesting. So elements like the light flickering and stock market light stips help.

Next, I need to take a little bit of a break from this scene and think about what look I want to go with. So far it learning into a more darkly lit scene but I want to and experiment with different lighting scenarios and see what kind of mood I can get.

Update 04/06/18

I felt like it was hard for me to work on congruency of the shapes as well as the materials in the lit scene. So I decided to create a "control group" map for the assets. This should help me better match everything in the scene later.