The finished model with shaders, in engine.
The vision for this project was to make a static center piece for an in game environment and bring it to life via shaders, vfx and sound. The key atmosphere surrounding this organism is: Uncertainty.
I wanted to make an organic shape invoking the players curiosity, but which was also intimidating.
I wanted to make an organic shape invoking the players curiosity, but which was also intimidating.
Main roles:
Sculpting, Modeling, Texturing, Tech(implementation in engine, vfx, shaders, lighting and sound design).
Sculpting, Modeling, Texturing, Tech(implementation in engine, vfx, shaders, lighting and sound design).
Software used:
Blender, Zbrush, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Unreal Engine & Photoshop.
Blender, Zbrush, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Unreal Engine & Photoshop.
The shader
To create variation in the shaders movements I blended textures in the base color, normal map, emissive and displacement. This created a great variation which supported the organic vibe of the model.
Node overview of the shader.
The finished shader.
Concept
I created the 3d model in Zbrush based on a single concept drawing from an earlier game project. I thought a lot about textures, scale and colors for this organism. It was important for me to create the perfect contrast between light/dark areas, hard/ soft shapes to make the top part of the organism the center of attention.
- Concept art: Sofia Holm Paulsen
As it was a somewhat living organism I took inspiration in nature and especially in how spider webs are formed.
- Art bible screenshot (pictures from the internet).
Base Mesh
Sculpting web details
I used cloth simulation in Zbrush to generate the base mesh. It was important for me that the silhouette of the object was created from all angles before I moved on. Next step was to mask out some of the model and start drawing the spider web formations.
Inner part of the organism - texture created in Substance Painter
To catch the contrast between light and dark from the concept drawing, I chose to seperate the model in an inner and outer part.
Additional surface detail created in Substance Designer.
Final texture without alhpa mask.
The outer part of the texture was mainly created in Substance Painter, but I made a material in Substance Designer to apply extra details and break up the light reflection.
Problem solving
Based on the textures generated in Substance Painter and the 3D model from Zbrush I made an alpha-mask to cut out parts of the outer mesh. It looked horrable. I tried to fix the generated mask, but it didn't help, so I cleaned up the alpha-mask manually in Photoshop.
Generated alpha-mask(Left side) - Cleaned up alpha-mask (Right side).
In game screenshot.