Forgotten Ruins

A ruin lost to time and nature, once the sacred grounds for a now lost clan

This work was my first time making an environment while following the game art pipeline as well as my first time using Unreal Engine.

This piece started life as concepts on a scrap of paper while it was slow at work and during my breaks. Once I started to learn more about 3d modeling and game engines, I took to making it a fully realized and developed environment.

For the Hero Asset aka The Cube Crystal, I used a mix of Maya, Zbrush and Substance Painter. I took inspiration from the Minecraft End Crystal as well as Meridia's Beacon from Skyrim. That inorganic look in an otherwise natural looking place, it looks otherworldly and out of place. I used Opacity and Emission to give a more magical feel to them, I added a slight pulsing to the emission to give it a bit of life. One thing I wish I did add animation to the Crystal, having it spin and bob slightly on the spot, giving it more life then just having it static.

Forgotten Ruins Textures

For this piece, I developed several textures, all tileable and made in Substance Designer. (Not all were used in the final piece). A lot of the textures were inspired by the designs by 3dEx (https://www.artstation.com/3dextrude) and Alysson Soares (https://www.artstation.com/karalysson). Those textures were the sand, grass and stone brick, using Unreal 4 Terrain Tools to paint on the texture, the merging/blending of the sand to the grass was all done in the engine. Below this is are some of the texture breakdowns.

brick breakdown
sand breakdown

After improving my skills, I do wish to come back to this environment and remake it, adding all the improvements I mentioned, adding more to the scene and optimising it more.