Japanese Abandoned Classrooms

This project was done in the span of 4 weeks, and it was a big challenge for me. I had to work in an entirely procedural workflow for efficient real-time production, which is something that I have done in the past with models, but never with textures. For this project, all the textures were done using Substance 3D Designer and with the intention of being completely tillable. I had almost zero experience with Designer and was terrified of using it for my textures, as I am a big fan of the artistic workflow of software like 3D Painter. The technical workflow of Designer was always a big deterrent for me, and I could not grasp the way to use it. I had to resort to a couple of tutorials to understand the ways to create specific materials, while still changing a lot of aspects so that they were not mere copies; and with that information, I would attempt to make my own textures. While I still prefer using 3D Painter, I feel like I can start a 3D Designer project without the fear I had before. The models and layout of the level are pretty basic, as I wanted to focus mostly focus on the textures and the lighting, areas in which I feel I was lacking. For this project, I learned about BSPs in Unreal 4 and used them to quickly come up with a modular layout for the level. I then exported those BSPs to Maya to get the correct proportions and started modeling. I also learned about Vertex Blending, and I wanted to use it in my scene to make it seem more interesting and less repetitive. For this I planned on keeping a checker pattern for my models’ vertices, to be able to paint on them inside of Unreal. Vertex blending ended up being way more valuable for my project, as I used it to not only blend between two textures but also to paint with opacity in certain objects, like the banners hanging on the walls or the windows, to make them look broken. Inside Unreal, I created a Master Material for all my opaque textures, with as many options for customization as possible, to later create Material Instances and play with the different values and inputs to improve the look of the textures. Overall, I am very happy with the mood and look of the scene, and I feel like I learned a lot of amazing techniques to speed up my process, increase efficiency, and obtain better-looking results.

Substance 3D Designer tutorials used:
Wood: https://youtu.be/HVkExICVQes
Brick: https://youtu.be/mDmgd9eszDw
Rust: https://youtu.be/X_EbiJ5_Cq0