building a sci-fi facility with one trimsheet

It took Andrew Kelley only 10 days to craft this beautiful sci-fi facility. Learn how he used a single trim sheet to create this entire scene. Sometimes the simplest approach is the most efficient.

Introduction

Hey there, my name is Andrew Kelley. I'm a 25 year old Environment Artist from Kansas. I've wanted to make games ever since I played Donkey Kong Country 2 on the SNES when I was 3. My first experience with 3D was in high school, where I took a video game design and animation class. We didn't have any 3D modeling software, so everything was primitives placed in DarkBASIC. That was a much simpler time! After high school, I went on to study Game Art and Design at the Art Institutes International - Kansas City, which I graduated from in 2015. I decided to focus on environments, because I was really intrigued and amazed by the worlds that people create in games.

Trimsheet Planning and Approach

When I set out to work with trimsheets, my first step is to gather plenty of reference from games that use them. Games like Doom or Destiny have some really amazing uses of trims and great shapes, so I tend to use those two a lot for reference. It's important to plan your trim like a jack of all trades, so you can tackle many different situations with the same solution.

With that in mind, I start planning on how my trimsheet will accent my modeling. Things such as simple bevels to help soften hard edges on meshes, shapes that would be too time and polygon costly to model, and, details that would serve a function if it was in real life, like latches, vents, bolts, etc…Having a quick blockout of the scene is also really important at this phase, as you can easily visualize what could go where. I usually paint over a quick blockout to help me better visualize my ideas.

There's a great GDC talk on trims that's available that really helped me when I was starting out using trims here: https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022324/The-Ultimate-Trim-Texturing-Techniques

Trimsheet Process

So when all of that's done, it's time to actually make the trimsheet. I've created them in nDo, Substance Designer, and by hand in 3DS Max. For this project, I used 3DS Max to model the sheet, then Substance Designer to bake it. Then I used Substance Painter to texture it. I really like this workflow, because you can reuse the shapes you create on high poly models, and you can build up a library of common shapes for the future like screws, indents, and welds.

For this scene, I decided on a 2:1 ratio (2048 x 4096) to fit a bit more shapes and decal/details in. I wanted to only use one trimsheet, so I merged the top half and bottom half together after texturing them in Painter. I kept the albedo in greyscale so I could easily change the color of it with a blend node in Unreal. Roughness was kept quite simple, so I could change it's values in Unreal as well. I also baked an opacity map out and put it in the albedo's alpha channel for use with my detail/decals.

POM Detail/Decal Use

The detail/decal portion of my trim sheet was used with some Parallax Occlusion Mapping to help make them pop a bit more. I did only use them sparingly, because I wanted to try to keep my assets around the 70/30 detail range.

Masking the Modularity

Something that I noticed when putting my modules together was that the roughness map I created for the trim was a bit lacking. It was easy to see seams, even with it being pretty simple. Also certain parts were a bit low res. I decided to help alleviate that by adding a roughness map over the trim's. At first I just box mapped my assets in UV channel 02 and used that in my material, but seams were still pretty visible. After that I decided to try map it to world space.

Doing this I was able to have an additional roughness mapped over everything, and the seams were much harder to spot. It really helped on the glass surface on the floor, as before you could easily tell it was the same bits of roughness repeated.

Challenges

When you're limiting yourself to a single trimsheet, some challenges come with it. When starting out there can be option paralysis, and the urge to over trim everything. It's important to give the eye places to rest, and you have to be aware of an asset's place in the overall scene. I mentioned the 70/30 design rule before (70% rest area, 30% details), its a really useful thing to keep in mind when putting the composition together. Also, I always have a main camera shot set up so I can constantly go back to it to see how the modules are reading and if it's too busy or not.

However, the reverse can also be challenging. Limiting yourself to only a single trimsheet can feel, well, limiting! You have to find creative ways to use the sheet so it doesn't look like the same thing plastered all over the place. This is where my master material came in handy. I could control the color, roughness value, metallic value, and strength of the normal. All of these options helped me differentiate materials from each other.

Learning from the Project

I learned a lot from this scene! I'd say that the most important thing I learned was how to see the forest for the trees. That's something that I always have to catch myself on, because I'll sometimes get so caught up in the details that I put the composition off. It's really important to have a sense of how the scene as a whole is. It's definitely something that I'll be able to take to future projects and implement to make my work better!
Improving my Workflow

There are a couple of ways that I've improved my workflow over the years, but the best way has always been seeking critique and advice from other artists. Being a part of a community and swapping critique and advice really helps you grow as an artist. Getting different viewpoints on your work will really expand your horizons. Another great way to improve your workflow is to try things that are out of your comfort zone. While doing that, it's easy to spot areas in your workflow that can use improvement.
Lighting Process

If I wasn't so focused on environment art, I'd probably focus on lighting. Lighting is extremely important and can really make a scene pop. I haven't done the old blue and orange scheme in quite a while, so I figured I'd go for it with this piece. Something that I've tried to focus on while lighting recently is how a place would be lit in real life, where are the light sources, is it lit enough for people to work there? What kind of a story can you tell with the lighting? Originally, the scene was only lit with the wall lights, with the oxygen refill station casting a contrasting color, as it was the focal point. While thinking about the story, I decided that it would be interesting if there was a maintenance person working on the tubing that flows through the walls, and thought it would be a cool detail to add some standing lights that would signal that the area was being worked on. It gave me an excuse to have that contrasting light be brighter and tell a little story.

My lighting setup was pretty simple, I have moveable lights for the standing lights/generator, 3 large static fill lights, and stationary wall lights. Most of the scene was baked except for the standing lights and the generator on the second floor, as there was too many lights overlapping to bake it efficiently.

Here's my Lightmass settings.

Coming Up Next

The next project I have coming up is part of DiNtober over on DiNusty's discord, where you're challenged to create a scene in one month! Since October is home to Halloween and all things spooky, I'm going to be making a horror themed scene. I'm really looking forward to it!

Parting Advice

A little parting advice is to always try to plan things out beforehand. Too many times I've caught myself flying by the seat of my pants and just going into projects too fast. This can burn you out or get you unfinished projects if it's a big one. Taking the time to really come to understand the scope of your project and breaking everything down into manageable tasks will usually (in my experience) lead to you being more organized and able to complete the project quickly and efficiently.

I hope this talk shed some light on my process and helped some of you out! If you want to see more projects from me or have some questions, you can follow or message me on Artstation!

Cheers!