Collapse - A Naughty Dog Inspired Environment in UE4

Joe Taylor takes us through his creation process of Collapse, an abandoned, overgrown library influenced by the Uncharted and The Last of Us games. Learn how Joe broke down his concept, created story as well as how he utilized modularity and trim sheets. And that’s just the start!

Intro

Hi everyone, my name is Joe Taylor and I recently started as a Junior Environment Artist at Rebellion North. I also graduated from The University of Huddersfield this year and I grew up in Sheffield, England. When I was younger I was always interested in traditional art and gaming was my biggest hobby, which naturally lead to me becoming interested in games art.

Inspiration For Collapse

For this piece I decided to work from a concept which I found on ArtStation. As a huge fan of the Uncharted and Last of Us games I wanted to work on something which pushed the saturated colours and contrast in the overall image, with a post-apocalyptic theme to the world. With each piece I’ve done so far I’ve tried to learn something new or practice particular skills an environment artist should have. My focus for this piece was to learn to use master materials, trim sheets and modular assets to work on a large interior scene. I also was able to practice baked lighting and the process of lightmapping for the first time.

Before I start to work on a scene I gather as much reference material as I can. This includes real world reference for individual models and materials, as well as composition and lighting. I also try to find either a recent game or some work on ArtStation which successfully pulls of the mood that I want to create or the art-style I’m wanting to work to. I collect examples of the quality of assets and materials in the relevant games to act as a benchmark, in this case The Last of Us and Uncharted.

Composition

The focus was to get the viewer to look towards the damaged mobile light tower in the distance and the damage that has happened around it. Hopefully after looking around the image the viewer can imagine it being a world similar to The Last of Us, with it looking beautiful and chaotic at the same time.

Colour and Light

I translated elements I liked from the references I’d saved and then implemented them into my own work. I look at the trailer for The Last of Us 2 and gathered reference of Uncharted 4 to see how they’d used colour. I’m a huge fan of how Naughty dog use high contrast and saturated colours to make chaotic environments look beautiful and engaging. I framed the image using vignette and cooler light values around the outside of the image. The brightest and warmest point of the room is around the focal area to draw the viewers eye to it. I also used bloom on the light coming through the collapsed openings to make the areas of destruction and overgrowth stand out further.

Lighting

Story

There is chaos in nature when left untouched. 'Collapse' explores the remains of a grounded post-pandemic world.

I tried to make sure that the damage made sense throughout the environment. The ceiling damage has knocked over chairs and tables as well as caused bookshelves to fall over. Areas where bookshelves have fallen over have impacted the surroundings, the bookshelves have damaged railings they’ve hit and books have spilled onto the floor. The light tower at the focal point is damaged because it was hit by the collapsing debris. All of these elements sell the idea that this was a library that has become structurally damaged and overgrown. The door has been barricaded which suggests that whoever was inside wanted to keep someone/something out. The army crates suggest there has been a military presence and pushes the idea of the world being a potentially violent and dangerous place in its current state. I wanted to keep this theme of it being a dangerous world as subtle as I could.

Foliage

Learning foliage wasn’t one of my goals for this project, so I decided to use a pack. For the foliage in this project I used an Ivy Pack from Unreal Marketplace by SilverTm.

Modular Kit

I used a modular workflow for the architecture, which allowed me to iterate more as I had fewer pieces to work on. It helped to simplify the environment’s architecture down into a dozen assets which made it easier to manage throughout the project. It also made it easier to fit the staircase in as I could easily see where it needed to slot into the second floor, due to the rounded values I used for the length of the modular pieces. I used a height of 5m and width of 3.5m for all the wall pieces, I tested it in engine first and that was what felt right. I left in some extra loops in the geometry for when I would later use vertex painting. The architecture was textured using a trim sheet and tiling texture for both wood and stone.

Trim Sheet Workflow

One of my goals for this project was to practice using trim sheets for the first time. I used tutorials by Tim Simpson (PolygonAcademy) on YouTube to help me wrap my head around the workflow. Throughout the project I became faster at mapping assets to the trim sheets and moved onto more complex objects each time.

Materials

One of the other goals I had for this project was to experiment with custom materials in Unreal. For this project I created dust based on direction, dirt based on the AO and used vertex painting. Each of these helped add variation to my tiling textures and trims that I used for the architecture.

Inspiration

A huge part of my inspiration is from the games I play. Games like The Last of Us, Uncharted and God of War clearly have had an influence over the work I’ve chosen to create. I find being interested in a project is one of the most important things because it means you’ll have more motivation to see it through. I often find inspiration by looking through ArtStation and saving work that I am drawn to. I try to follow Artists and show support for the people that inspire me. Throughout a project I like to post my work-in-progress on Twitter, which can help me get some feedback and help build a presence on social media. Some of the artists that inspire me are Dannie Carlone for sculpting, Alec Tucker for composition, Peter Tran for lighting and Tim Simpson for lighting and environment art. These are just a handful of the artists that have work that resonates with me and they really need to slow down so we can catch up haha!

Feedback

This leads me onto the Experience Points Discord group, which along with Twitter is my main place to post my work and ask for feedback. Kieran Goodson suggested for me to join Experience Points and DiNusty Empire, which are two of the more popular groups out there. They have not only helped me get feedback but also connected me to a community of artists which is quite exciting. It’s also inspiring to see works in progress from other people and the thought processes that other artists use when making their own work.

Tips and Advice

For people early on in their careers I would recommend getting involved in anything you can. This could be taking part in competitions, game jams or joining Discord groups like Experience Points. Until around a year ago I hadn’t taken part in any competitions or joined Discord groups, I’ve found that recently I’ve felt much more connected to the game art community by sharing my work more, getting feedback, or just chatting with like-minded people.

In terms of competitions I think the pressure of the deadline can be motivator to put more work in and complete a project sooner. During times of low motivation, I also recommend listening to podcasts from other artists or watching videos on how they’ve overcome it. As an artist you will go through phases of ‘I’m so much better than I was 5 months ago’ to ‘this other person’s work is so much better than mine.’ Once you realise that everyone does this and that even the people you look up to occasionally doubt themselves, you’ll start to focus more on the positives in your work. Always remember that everyone moves at their own pace and just try to continually improve and eventually you will get where you want to be.

Future Works

I’ve just started a new project which is inspired by The Pacific Northwest and Native American culture, as well as a stylized prop project. I’m planning to improve my texturing and sculpting abilities among other things through the following projects I work on so they might take a while. I’ll be posting regular updates of the projects I make on Twitter @JoeTaylorArt and in the Experience Points Discord group as I make more progress.

Outro

I learned a ton from doing the Collapse project. From using baked lighting, trim sheets and shaders to modular kits. I completed my goals I set out for the project, it’s not perfect and I have a long way to go as an artist to get to where I want to be, but what I’ve learned from this project puts me one step closer. I think it’s important to start any project with a goal, to make sure you achieve some form of growth or improvement as an artist at the end of it, with that in mind the project was a success.

I hope you enjoyed the article, thanks for reading!