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ENVIRONMENT ART
Blog Breakdown behind my recreation of the 2008 Spiderwick Chronicles hallway.










Closing Thoughts
FINAL POST For my final post on this project I wanted to look back at my process and do a general overview of what I felt were my successes and shortcomings across these past 3 months. Successes: Observation: I do feel I did a respectable job at translating the key elements and composition of the main inspiration scene. With elements like the archway and staircase being a pretty damn close recreation. These were also the most efficient videogame appropriate workflow elements,


Week 12:
CINEMATICS!! The final stage of this module was the creation of a cinematic and collection of beauty shots. Approaching these I created a "Master Camera" that was duplicated around the scene. Using the cinematic viewport and 3rds grid I setup a collection of shots showing a variety of different aspects of the environment. (My favourite of which being the desk covered in all manner of beautiful clutter) One technique that helped create even more details were the cobwebs. These


Week 11:
House De-Keeping? Finally the time has come to make some big changes... My next steps were: Lighting alterations and Decals! For starters decals and modularity breakup. When approaching this I referenced a video by Jonjo Hemmens, an incredible ex Falmouth student I had the pleasure of meeting last Expo Day for a portfolio review. In this stunning and informative breakdown of his recreation of Disco Elysiums "Tequila Sunset" Jonjo discusses a method of creating damage decals t


Week 10:
Props Props Props! Following from my previous post my next goals were to populate my scenes with more props. The most important of which being my final "Hero Asset" which was to be Arthur Spiderwick's Fieldguide. For this I already had my PureRef board setup with various images of the movie prop so starting modelling in Maya. For this prop I made a basic LowPoly version and HighPoly for use in the baking process. Whilst for a rather basic prop being really nothing more than a


Week 09:
Peer Review Actionable Feedback: For this part of the project we had a good opportunity to seek feedback from others during an allocated Peer Review run by Louise. As with any creative pursuit there is only so much you can garner from looking at your own work constantly, thus it's often essential to seek views from others as they will often see aspects that may not have been considered or assist with focusing efforts away from relatively inconsequential tasks that you may per


Week 08:
Further Updates/ Prop Population Having acquired a time machine this is me posting from the previous couple of weeks... Starting this week I aimed to create further set dressing elements. My scene has been looking completely barren and devoid of any life. Thus what better place to start than books, no scene is ever complete without them: personally owning an ever growing collection of old tomes I thought it would be a good opportunity to use some SubstanceSampler's image to m


Week 07:
MURAL DEADLINE General health update for the scene! Overall the piece is gradually getting there, the majority of bulky elements have now been textured. Leaving mainly: picture frames, secondary chair and vases to texture next. Which whilst the overall big impact pieces have been done (which isn't that obvious due to many of the colours being similar to the placeholder ones) what will truly start bringing everything together is the smaller props and decals etc as it greatly


Week 06:
Textures Textures Textures As promised in my previous post, I set out into the headache that is Designer. However to it's credit this is exactly where the program shines, it's ability to dynamically update in a well interconnected node system with an immense level of control made this dare I say an enjoyable process. Per many tutorials and other graphs out there my wall texture was a collection of edited noises all layered upon one another to create the paint finished I wante


Week 05:
ZBRUSH DONE!! As I setout to do this week I have finalized the ZBrush Trim elements of my scene. The process behind making these involved using ZBrush's "CurveTube" brushes to create the decorative sweeping shapes combined with sculpting individual leaves and using "Bend Curve" modifiers much like what I created for the spiral acorn element. (That leaf actually made an appearance in many of these sections so was certainly worth making early on). Newel Post Mid Section: I feel


Week 04:
WEEK 7 Scene Update & Personal Crit As there is a mural submission due I thought this would be a good time to do an overall review of the current stage of my scene. To begin I have reconstructed my entire scene, so every asset has been replaced and placed around my combined blockout that was originally imported in unreal. So it now properly utilizes my modular kit meaning any changes made to a wall for example will update every instance of that mesh. Speeding up my ability to


Week 03:
PROPS Over reading week I started sculpting some of the props required for my scene. These were a: "Whatnot"- a 19th century one to be precise (a 3 tiered open piece of furniture used to display a selection of objects) (or whatnots and thingy mi bobs) Aforementioned display items - 3 vases/ decorative bowls the middle of which being a Ironstone Mason Vase. A selection of Modular lamps - These all share a texture set saving both time and increasing performance should this be


Week 02:
I have done a new lighting pass, wanting to incorporate the circular window. The thought process being my hero asset will sit on the desk, illuminated by the window, drawing attention to it. Making it both stand out as a focal point as a stand alone image and if it were a game scenario telegraph to the player what is important. I would like to push this further and find out how to create convincing light rays and eventual floating dust particles using Niagara systems. ZBRUSH


Week:01
For the past week I have been gradually modelling more elements and props within my scene. I have decided to go for the main downstairs Hallway and hopefully adjacent room. (The outside can be a nice little personal project for one day in the future) By this point I've got a baseline for all the parts I will be using (Mostly walls, doorways, staircase elements and decorative trim) One element that did cause me some grief was the creation of a modular stair piece that would fi


Introduction to GAR203
BRIEF : “Create a cinematic in UE5.1 of a 3D game environment based on a live-action film / television series of your choice using professional content creation tools and development workflows.” Brief specifics : • Your scene must be based on a scene from a live-action film or TV series. • Your scene must be rendered in Unreal 5.1 • Software to be used in the module – Autodesk Maya, Pixologic Zbrush, Substance Painter & Designer, Unreal Engine. • The cinematic should be betwe
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