STRANDED

ROLE

3D Artist

DESCRIPTION

Stranded was a environment design project of mine which focused on creating a tropical environment that would serve to tell a story about a survivor(s). The focus was to built a tropical environment from the ground up using Unreal Engine 5.

YEAR

2022

Type

Game and Environment Art

PLATFORM

Unreal Engine 5

VISUAL MEDIA

CREATION PROCESS

Creating the Terrain

In order to create the terrain for the Environment I used Unreal Engine 5's built in Terrain and Landscape system. Although the Landscape system itself is a plug-in, after using it and playing with the system for a while it proved to be an effective option to creating a simple terrain for my environment.

Adding Water to the Island

An island isn't really an island without water right...
Just like the Terrain system, I used Unreal Engine 5's own water plug-in system to generate and position the water level to a level I preferred. The Water System is in BETA right now and so I had little control over how I could make the water look and behave, however the vanilla settings for the water system proved helpful in the look of the final design.

Fixing the Terrain

At this stage I was messing around with the Terrain trying to get it to look the way I would like. This process took a lot of back and forth movement between the terrain and the ocean itself. I went ahead and used two different terrains in order to create mountains that I could later touch up with assets.

Setting Up Materials

Once I got the terrain to a state I liked, I started gathering Assets and Materials and setup multiple sand texture materials for painting.

Painting the Terrain

Now I get to the fun part of this project for me, which was set-designing and painting the environment. I started with painting the terrain, by mixing and matching all the different sand materials I gathered.

Adding Mountains and Foliage, and tweaking the Terrain

At this stage since the base terrain design was finalized, I started tweaking the environment, I added in rivers and lakes in which the ocean water would flow through. Furthermore, I started adding in some tropical foliage in order to populate the island. For the mountains I used different rock assets that I scaled up and repositioned in order to get the desired result.

Adding in a Rocky Shoreline

Using the rock assets that I used for the mountain, I also used them to add some depth to the ocean water by making a rocky ride to the shoreline.

Adding Assets

I used Unreal's Best Friend Quixel Bridge to gather good looking assets that I could use for my terrain. When gathering assets and materials it was important that most of my assets fit into a proper theme. I went for a rocky beach shoreline setting, and so I chose assets that would help facilitate that setting.

LET THERE BE FIRE!

Once I populated the island I wanted to tell some sort of visual story. This is where I gathered some extra assets in order to tell some sort of story of shipwrecked survivors. Using an asset pack I added in the fire particles for a campfire area, and adjusted the particle system a little bit in order to fit my setting.

Final Touch-Ups

Final touch ups came down to adding in some prop assets, on land and at sea. And tweaking the lighting a little bit to try out different looks.

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