The Hideout

Take a trip to the The Hideout, a moody, atmospheric tavern inspired by Hunt: Showdown. In this article we learn how Sophie crafted highly polished props, used Substance Designer and ZBrush to create realistic materials, used lighting to create atmosphere and much more!

Intro

My name is Sophie Williams and I’m currently a Junior Environment Artist at Sumo Digital - I’ve been involved in 3D Game Art for around 4 years now. Like most people I was always interested in video games growing up and loved collecting art books and seeing ‘behind the scenes’ of how games were made so it felt like a natural transition to then pursue a career in Game Art! 

Composition

I wanted to use a concept for this project so I could put most of my attention on asset creation, material creation etc. without getting too caught up in composition, lighting, and colours. This scene was based on the wonderful Green Dragon Tavern concept by Evgeniy Musienko. I really liked the composition of the original piece as it had a good amount of detail and multiple points of interest without being too overcrowded so it felt perfect for a 3D piece and as such the composition was based off of this concept. 

I used what was already there to tell the story of a lone survivor. I used the lighting to help indicate the areas of interest which ended up being primarily the left side of the scene with the ‘temporary workstation’ area and the large door at the back which would result in a decent amount of rest for the eye. 

Colour Palette

I ended up going with the classic orange and blue colour palette with this piece as it felt the most natural with subject matter. I have always enjoyed using warm vs cool colour palettes to help focus the eye on points of interest. In this example I tried to use it to suggest a cold, maybe desolate feeling with the candles and wood burner being an important source of light and warmth. 

I wanted to create a sombre mood with this project and give the impression of silence aside from the crackle of the wood burner. It would feel like an area of rest similar to the mood of finding a safe room in games like Resident Evil, knowing that there could be danger just outside. 

Scene Narrative

Using inspiration from the world of Hunt: Showdown I wanted to create a small space that someone could be using as a base whilst trying to survive in a hostile world. 

I liked the idea of someone living under a tavern as portrayed in the concept so I spent some time thinking about the person living there. Initially, I planned to replicate the concept as it is, however after some thought I felt it would be good practice to try and build off of what was there and give it my own spin. 

Something I try to keep in mind is that it’s good to really try and push a theme as much as I can in a piece, it can be easy to go too far with it but it’s much easier to pull your set dressing back than it is to try to add more to just get enough. 

Lighting

I am very much NOT a Lighting Artist however I do still enjoy experimenting with it, I was definitely lighting for the overall aesthetic and not optimisation with this piece! 

I focused on lighting the main area where the person would be spending their time, working on their weapons, making a meal etc with a highlight on the workbench. I placed a spotlight over the gun and workbench to help make it ’pop’ slightly more, whilst this definitely isn’t accurate to real life it helped to bring the final scene a lot closer to what I had envisioned in my head. 

Initially I had the candles on the right side lit as they are in concept but as I progressed with the scene I found with my chosen lighting set up that they distracted the eye a bit too much. Instead I chose to use fill lights to help balance the scene and the use of post processing and LUT to achieve the final result. 

Using Lighting To Create Mood

Lighting has a huge impact on the feel of a scene and is something I hope to improve and learn more about! In this case I used the lighting to help push the feeling of the scene. I used the lighting to make the scene feel cold in some areas and warm in others, I wanted it to feel hostile yet comforting at the same time. I believe creating these juxtapositions and contrasts in an environment is really important to making an interesting piece. 

Material Creation

I wanted to use this piece as an excuse to try out a few different methods for material creation. 

I had wanted to try out the ZBrush to designer method so I thought this would be a great time to try out Dannie Carlone's tutorial for this! It was super helpful as it went through the techniques step by step and came with a set of brushes. If you are able to, I cannot recommend getting tutorials like this enough when wanting to learn about new techniques.

I am very much in the process of feeling more comfortable with Designer, it definitely isn’t a software I’m very confident with so I’m hoping to make a lot more progress with it this year, as a result there is definitely much I could improve on. I made sure to collect plenty of references and go back and forth between Designer and Unreal as I went to check how they appeared in the scene. 

The wooden trim sheet was textured in Substance Painter using a wooden smart material I had put together previously. I mainly try to work by layering colour variation, damage etc separating it out as much as I can to make it easier to iterate and add and remove changes as needed.

I used a similar technique with the metals as well, micro details and slight variations are very important when it comes to creating believable metals on an asset. 

Prop Creation

To begin, as mentioned before, always try to make sure to gather a lot of references. In this case showing different levels of wear and styles. PureRef is a great tool for this as it is simple to use and I always have it open when I’m working away.

This was a straightforward high to low bake asset, I took the high poly into ZBrush to give it a quick sculpt pass, in most references I found there was never too much damage so I tried to keep it fairly subtle. I also added a few decorative pieces from one of JROTools great ZBrush packs.

I baked in Marmoset Toolbag, I personally enjoy baking in marmoset as the real-time updates and ability to easily check to bake errors etc make the process a lot smoother. 

From here I brought the mesh into Substance Painter to begin texturing. When texturing I will go from the macro to micro detail, I will get the base colour correct before creating fill layers for colour variation to help show wear and imperfections where necessary, from here I will often create a layer just for the base roughness variation before layering dirt, edge wear and scratches on top. In this case I used ‘Rust Fine’ in Substance Painter and after using cavity masks hand erased it until I reached my preferred level of rust. I also layered my AO and Curvature maps at the top of the stack as I find this helps to make the textures ‘pop’ a bit more even if it isn’t physically accurate. 

It is often a very iterative process where I will often take the mesh into the engine throughout the texturing process to see how it looks in the scene.

For the pipe, I simply duplicated and rotated it to hide repeating elements in order to have it reach the ceiling.

Roughness

I think the roughness map is where you can start to tell some more stories in the scene - making shiny objects more rough helps to show the age of an asset - this can tell stories of scratch marks in certain places or fingerprints in commonly touched areas of an asset. 

I tried to build up dust in the scene and displayed this through editing roughness maps - you can see it on most objects within the scene. 

Working Faster

In order to speed up the process I made a trim sheet for most of the wood assets and wooden structural elements in my scene, I made exceptions for the cabinet in the corner and the main door at the back as I felt they required a bit more of a unique touch. 

I treated the crates and bottles like filler props to help dress the scene, as they are not centre stage in the piece I felt it would be unnecessarily time consuming to texture multiple versions of them. 

Areas Looking To Grow

I still have a great deal to learn on my artistic journey! This year in terms of software I am planning to begin learning and experimenting with Houdini. I’m also hoping to finish a couple of environments, using these to learn more about world building, lighting, composition etc 

Inspiration

I try to find inspiration from a variety of sources. Whether it be when I’m out on walks where I’ll take pictures of any interesting areas of the city or country side or from movies, games and photography. I definitely think it’s important to try and expose yourself to different types of media, inspiration can sometimes come from surprising places! 

Feedback

I’ll often try to seek feedback mainly from friends and discord servers. It's important to find people who are honest as this is the best way to improve. Sometimes this might result in having to rework areas of your work but you will greatly improve as a result. 

Additional Advice

The main advice I would give is to always be open to criticism and learning, if there is something you want to learn or to improve at starting a small project to focus on that is really beneficial. When working on projects breaking down tasks and making lists is something that really helps me when working on projects so I can't recommend it enough. Always make sure to collect as much reference as you need when starting a project, it’s easy to model and texture something how you think it looks and have it look very different to how it would in real life. 

Tips For Students Learning Environment Art

Some tips I would give for students learning environment art would be to observe the world around you, little things such as where rubbish is strewn when walking down the street, how everyday objects such as lampposts, and post boxes are seated in the world. Seek out advice from classmates and professionals where you can, as mentioned Discord servers can be incredibly helpful for receiving feedback and also observing other peoples processes. I’d like to give a shoutout to Beyond Extent and their fantastic Environment Art Tips and Tricks Collection and Discord server. 

Future Work

I am hoping to focus more on full environments in the future! I have definitely been guilty of putting hard deadlines on myself in regards to finishing pieces in the past so I will be doing my best to focus more on the enjoyment and learning that comes with creating without worrying about finishing anything any time soon. 

Outro

If you like my work you can find more over on my Artstation. I don’t upload massively often as I’m working full-time but I do the occasional upload of things I’m happy to share that I work on in my spare time.