Environment Design

Exploration of Theme

Main Themes

• Horror
• Science Fiction
• Fantasy
• Historical

Sub-Themes

• Alien
• Corruption
• Utopia
• Dystopia
• Celebration
• Decay
• Family
• Beauty

For my Environment and subsequently 3D Asset, I chose Science Fiction for my main theme, and Alien as the sub theme. I chose these two due to them complimenting each other.

Science Fiction was chosen because I felt like I could explore more freely what I would like to make and not be made to follow a standard, for example to make something historical most of the time you have to replicate and use similar structure methods as to things in the past. I didn’t chose Horror as that and alien typically are used in cliches. Fantasy was out the question due to it being more stylized than everything else and I typically go for more realistic types of structures.

Alien was chosen because I felt like I could branch out into things, such as an alien world where you have to explore an advanced civilization that collapsed. This could also decay but Alien is the main Sub-Theme due to the outside environment and the overall theme could fit better if it was alien and not a destroyed sci-fi environment.

After thoughts

I think I should have chosen a more wild bunch of themes instead of choosing the ones I already know very well.

Research

Whilst researching I remembered a game called Fallout 4 and subsequently the rest of the franchise. I felt like this type of game would work perfectly as an inspiration for the inside environment.

I felt as if I could change the story to why this was here being that an alien world fell into collapse and had to build bunkers and then they froze themselves until it was an optimal time to be unfroze.

With a bit of clean up had a few different architectural decisions I could make this vault into something alien Sci Fi without the horror elements that occasionally attach itself to these kind of environments.

Using Fallout 4 as a base I was able to come up with a couple block outs of what I feel this should feel like. This ended up being a huge part of the final models. Bearing in mind this is going to be imported to Unreal Engine, somethings have to have collisions created to make a player doesn’t get stuck. For example, the massive room on the right is a single mesh therefore nothing can go inside.

Planning

The plan is to keep the person who views the video that will be presented a seamless watch through all the rooms and then in the Centrepiece. The drawn plan I presume allows that to happen.

In my planning, I had 7 areas I want to fully develop and give each its own unique style and have people think that something used to be here but is now no longer there.

Changes

Many areas was cut down and made into smaller rooms or totally gone due to time constraints.

I started off by making the first thing the player will see, this is arguably the main thing that the viewer should see as it will affect the rest of the environment. If it started with a bad model then the viewer will sub consciously think all the other models are sub par.

Building the environment

At this stage i needed to block out the environments, I did this using blender and using some more better assets made in the previous room to fill out the environment better. It gives a good idea behind what the final will eventually look like along with giving the proper scale to things like the vault door.

I then created the second room just beyond the vault door. making sure nothing that clips will be in view and that everything has a scale applied to make sure nothing is too big or small.

I also made a duplicate to the vault door frame to make sure I have a backup in case the Boolean fails.

I wanted the main room to feel grander than the rest of the areas that have been explored, this is done by making everything essentially bigger than what was previously put. It makes you feel like a small cog in a big machine. I wanted this place to feel like a practical place that is useful and not like beaty piece that was only made to be seen. I did this by having it feel bigger than what is seen. This was done by manipulating the scale of the balcony’s to make them look higher and therefore grander than before.

Block out reasoning

I mostly block out using blender due to it having more freedom than UE. I can create what ever I want in blender and then I can create the asset with the block out next to the final piece. Since a fair bit of the environment was made using blender I feel like it was necessary to point out the reasoning behind making it in blender rather than UE.

Changes

With Unreal I found out quickly that making everything myself would be an impossible task. I therefore decided to cut the final room and opt for a more contained environment that I could easily do with the resources I could either buy or get for free. It made more sense to me, because if I spent the entire time with just the main structure I would have no time left for filling out the environment and creating the video for for the project.

That being said the first two rooms were mostly done by me and then changed to better fit the theme while in UE5. This are things such as the walls in the first room being changed to stone walls and the walls on the second room being changed into tiled metal walls. The same also happened with the ceiling adding more depth to it; these changes happened because before hand it all felt flat and i needed to add in depth with out faking it with normal maps.

Somethings were not used in this stage, like the stop sign at the top of the vault. However, I did not need to change the asset due to the ability to not look at that location that makes people think the asset is not finished yet, I also covered it up using lighting.

Importing to Unreal

The result of adding the scene into UE and adding a few extra details to the scene with asset packs.

All assets were successfully imported including all the animations I had made for them.

All materials and objects were successfully imported. fbx files include the materials and UE changes the blender file materials into the UE material editor version correctly most of the time. This only doesn’t work if it is a procedural material made in blender.

Problems?

I had a few small problems with the imports. The scale on a few objects were off however I was able to sort it using the scale tool with UE. Another problem was they weren’t connected due to them being in two different fbx files, however moving them manually worked fine along with using the asset packs to hide any imperfections.

Most problems can be fix easily if the person knows what they are doing, fortunately I have had vast amounts of experience therefore any problem I found I knew what to do to fix them, I also didn’t have the foresight to screenshot any problems I had, this was things like level sequence not working properly.

Creating detail

Detail in any place is always important as it is what gives the locations the style and story.

Adding items from asset packs that suit the themes of the base environment help the scene feel more lived in better due to fact that people are never perfectly clean and there will always be clutter anywhere. If there isn’t it leads to a discomfort in the brain that makes the place feel unreal. Therefore, filling out the environment with clutter everywhere, makes the scene feel more real even if it isn’t this is why stylized games can make you feel homely, as if you could go there, it also makes the scene less boring.

Having practical effects also help as it makes it seem more fluid rather than a bunch frozen piece of time.

Environment Storytelling

making a story with the environment is always important, because it can make people wonder what has happened and it makes people more intrigued in the environment. For example, if you saw blood on the floor leading up to a door with a dead body, your mind will automatically wonder why that person is dead and then you look around to see any more clues, there might be bullet casings on the floor and then they can piece the clues together. This makes the viewer more tied to the video as it means they can do something other than just watch.

In my case I was using the destroyed vehicle, empty casings, and broken doors to make the person think why is this alien creature so important to the people who work here, why was it in a vault in the first place defended by 2 massive doors? This with the fact that the power has gone haywire only lighting particular areas such as the corridors and doors(anywhere without spewing power). with the practical systems and the vat not being active as seen by the front panel not being active. I also added loads of rocks on the floor to make it seem like the ceiling is slowly coming apart and dripping through the cracks.

Composition, Lighting and colour theory

I tried to make the lighting set the mood as much as possible. The light is the brightest whenever you are in the safest possible place and when it becomes darker it forces you to focus on the only lit places directing the eyes towards the things I want the viewer to see.

In each area I made sure that there was a distinct way the camera should go through the environment leaving open spaces in the debris. I was also making sure each area had even lighting unless it called upon having worse lighting to build the ambience and the feel of the place.

I wanted each area to have a unique colour palette, for example the first room was all blue as the vault door encompasses the main camera shot. The second room was filled up grey with yellow mood lighting making the room feel claustrophobic and still. The third room was filled yellow with white lighting to also show how still the space is; it also made the room feel smaller than it was. The Alien room was a mix between grey and cyan making the room feel cold making you feel anxious when going around the weird alien. The last room was filled with yellow warm lights with a purple sky outside to make you feel uneasy when in this room.

Beauty shots

A compilation of shots to show off the environment.

Final Video

I made this video to show off the environment, using all the skills I developed during this time into this. it is recorded using OBS and using 16000 bit rate, .mp4 format and rendered in DaVinci resolve. It was recorded at 1920×1080 at 24fps.

Audio was taken from https://freesound.org This was the best place i found to get audio for the video, i use this for everything from my personal projects to my videos i create for my Game Jolt page. https://gamejolt.com/@Zillious

I am using DaVinci due to me wanting to make sure to master the free sources in case I want to do indie work where I cant afford the paid versions. This is why I specialise in blender and am learning MAYA.

Reflection

This project made me realise that I cant create everything myself, sometimes I have to use other peoples assets if I want something to be done to the very best standard that I can produce. This being said, i will use this knowledge going into other game creating journeys as I will be less dependent on my self to create everything, even if someone else did it better. However, that doesn’t mean that creating things myself isn’t good as the vault door came out especially well, and personally I think it looks the best out of everything I made during this process.

Comfort Zone

I have also noticed that during this I never stepped out of my comfort zone. I made everything to what I have done before. This being realistic interiors and physically working objects. Some times I should realise that not everything has to work properly, however being an engineer it will be hard to fight this. I also notice that I should branch into different styles such as making something fantasy with a cell shaded approach. If i were to do a different theme I would probably do fantasy and make something magic like if it came from The Witcher universe.

Audio

One thing that I despised during this was the audio. I was unable to make the video audio feel like it was there fully. It always sounded off. But I finished it to what I wanted it to sound like and I think I did a good job replicating what I had envisioned, especially with the door sounds. I think it would make a good opportunity for me to learn more about audio during my times off.

Video

I think if I had to do anything differently it would to make me start at the loading bay and work to the vault door and then at the end I could lift my way out into a massive desolate area with a small village in the background, I was thinking of this as in the entire scene nothing gave depth to the world we are on. It always felt man made and not like we are not on earth like I wanted it to feel like.

Found Assets

I used four asset packs, these were:

Abandoned factory

Big Lumen Station

Modular Abandoned Fallout Shelter

Niagara Hologram Pack

All of these can be found on the Epic game market place, they are mostly paid assets that I tried to use to their full extent.