Forgotten Ruins
A ruin lost to time and nature, once the sacred grounds for a now lost clan
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This work was my first time making an environment while following the game art pipeline as well as my first time using Unreal Engine.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
- © Elisabeth Buttigieg - Game Artist
- Design is a customised verion of Massively by HTML5 UP