Moonlit Bar: GAME 380 Scene
Final Renders
These are the final rendered images from my GAME 380: Portfolio class at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I started with my initial project from GAME 336: Applied Game Art with goal being to make this environment more dynamic and etherial looking. The vision for the original project was to create a brewery inspired by early 14th century alehouses. This combined with an old rumor that alewives were the original inspiration for witches, I decided I wanted to create an environment that played into both of those themes. What inspired me most was light play with the sconces. I wanted the witchy theme to shine through and create shapes on the walls, as though it were magic. Overall, this project was one of passion. Through my portfolio class, I learned very important things about myself and the direction I want to take my career.
Where We Started
This is where I ended my Applied Game Art project and began my Game Portfolio project. My hero asset for this project was the circular bar underneath the skylight. From there, I took inspiration from a particular tavern in Prague that was built in the 14th century. I was drawn to the vaulted ceilings, the dank and cozy atmosphere, and the pillars, which served as anchors for the project as a whole. An image of a nightlight with star-shaped cutouts came across my Instagram feed, so naturally, I had to put it in. Thus, a witchy 14th century alehouse was born! As for my portfolio project, initially, I wanted to create a working inventory system for a first person shooter game set in an environment made with these assets -- a souls-like inspired weapons system if you will. However, I quickly realized my true passions lay in 3d modeling, texturing, and environments.
Hero Asset: Circular Bar
Since this environment was meant to be a tavern, obviously I had to include a bar. The goal for this asset was to create something that would be accessable from all angles. The idea is that guests could walk up to the bar from anywhere in the tavern and grab a drink. I also wanted the hero asset to be dead center of the environment, with streams of light illuminating its presence. The materials, however, couldn't be too modern, as this was supposed to be set sometime during the 14th century. So, I decided on a wooden bar top, wooden slats on the side, and a stone-carved base. The wooden slats were hand-carved. Literally. They were sculpted in zBrush and baked onto a low-poly base in Substance Painter. I then took the normal information from that bake to set the lighter color into its deepest grooves and the darker color onto its peaks. I was quite proud of myself with that one.
Arches and Pillars
This was one of my favorite assets in the whole project. Vaulted arches and freizes are two of my most beloved architectural features, so it was amazing to be able to combine the two into one asset. This is where I did more experimental detailing with height maps. Both the images on the freize and the carvings along the arches were made with custom height maps in Adobe Photoshop. The freizes depict the alewives at work while the carvings on the arches were for visual flare and contrast. The mossy texture was made with Unreal 5's material graph using the WorldAlignedBlend node and a generic moss texture from Substance 3D Sampler. It gives me a fantastic level of control over how much or how little moss I want on the asset.
Witch Hat Sconces
I came across an image of a wall sconce that had star shaped cutouts along its cage that projected stars onto the walls and thought, "I have to have that for my environment". I've been told that lighting can often make or break an environment, so if I'm going to potentially screw-up my entire project, I might as well have fun, right? WRONG. This asset took a lot of retopologizing just to get rid of the n-gons. The UVs were hell to sort out, and at the end of it all, its still a pretty bulky asset for something so small. I'm sure there were other paths forward, but by the time I realized it, I was already done with this thing. At leaast I got a cool light effect out of it though.
Cauldron
Once again, I present to you another light feature. No brewery is truly complete without a vessel with "witch" to brew. We can present that all of the substance in the various barrels scattered throughout the environment are filled with shiny green goo! Either that, or we can say the cauldron is "just a marketing gimick." Either way, I had an empty area and filled it with a shiny thing. The cauldron and spoon themselves are quite underwhelming as stand-alone assets, and you can't really see their textures in context, which is why I opted for in-context photos. This asset was fairly simple and gave me no trouble really. As with everything else I have shown thus far, it is primarly a object for light play. It glows just enough to draw attention to iteself, but not so much that it pulls away from the centerpiece of the environment. The bubbles that it exudes is just a niagra system with a bubble png I made in Photoshop that I feel gives the asset some life.
Props!
This section is just to show off little doo-dads that I made to fill out the environment and make it feel more lived-in. The mugs all over the tables make it feel abaonded more hastely than a simple closing of the establishment. The brooms on the walls are to futher illustrate the "witchy" theme. The barrels were for storage and may still contain ale that was once consumed by tavern-goers far and wide. The hanging plants, which were inspired by Trailing Pothos and Wisteria, respectively, and the mushrroms, show that nature has reclaimed this place while adding a bit of whimsy. And of course, the candles were added for both light and lore; something has to provide light in the evening in a tavern with no electricity. I gave the hanging foliage a little wiggle as well to make things more dynamic.
Fly Through
To finish things off, here is a final fly through of the finished environment. Enjoy!