Production Week 1 - 3

 

Development Week 1 - 3

Week 1 - 5/03/2023-11/03/2023

Grass and Runtime Virtual Texturing

To begin my first week of development, I created a low poly grass mesh using a single 2D plane in my preferred 3D software, 3Ds Max. I then added a few loop cuts to my grass model which would allow it to move more freely when applying wind to my scene. Lastly, I clumped several of these grass meshes together to form a clump of grass before importing the model into Unreal Engine 4 and painting it on my landscape using the foliage brush. 

Development shot 01 - Added grass to my landscape and blended it in with the green landscape tones using 'Runtime Virtual Texturing'

Using Runtime Virtual Texturing (RVT) was a new process for me and decided that I would use a tutorial created by Victoria Zavhorodnia on Youtube (Source, 2022) to help with learning this technique. This was such a helpful tutorial that assisted me in not only learning RVT but also showed me how to create fluffy stylized trees that were ideal for my scene. 

Below, I have included two screenshots to show how I set up both my Grass and Landscape material.

My grass material within UE4

The Landscape material as set up in UE4

As you can see in the grass material above, I included a noise texture that I used in combination with a panner node in order to add a rather cool stylized wind effect to my grass. I created this wind noise texture in Photoshop beginning with a simple fiber modifier, I then added filter effects such as Liquidfy and twirl distortion to the texture to get the wavey lines you can see below. Lastly, I blended the seams using an offset modifier and the healing brush as a way to ensure that the texture was more seamless and avoid the dropoff being too harsh when applied to my grass.   

The seamless wind texture that I created in Photoshop at a resolution of 1024 x 1024

Foliage

For the next stage in the development process, I created some foliage that could be scattered among my grass and really push that Ghibli aesthetic. I created the foliage texture within Photoshop and applied it to a 3D plane within 3Ds Max, I then set up a few variations of flowers and imported them into Unreal Engine to complete this step. You can see the foliage texture below and how my foliage looked when applied to my scene (development shot 02).

Development shot 02 - Created and implemented foliage to my landscape

My foliage texture and texture mask (1024 x 1024) which were both produced using Photoshop

Bushes and Trees

Once my environment had foliage, I moved on to creating trees for the scene. I used the software TreeIt which was a free piece of software that I utilized to produce procedurally generated trees. This would speed up development time and allow me to create some great meshes in what felt like an instant. I then created various leaf textures that I would use on the canopy of my trees but found one specific texture that seemed to work the best. This resulted in the canopy of my tree's having a fuller look.

I wanted to also mention that I initially used a single brown colour on my tree trunks within Unreal but was not overall pleased with how they looked. To solve this issue, I UV unwrapped the trees manually within 3Ds Max and imported my mesh into Substance Painter to apply a more hand-painted look, similar to the Ghibli style that I was aiming to apply in my scene.

As for the bushes in my environment, I simply used a scaled-down version of the tree canopy meshes. This worked well for the time being but was not an ideal decision and something that I would go on to change at a later date, however, as of now I wanted to populate my landscape to get a better sense of how my scene would look overall and this quick solution would suffice.

Development shot 03 - Using the software TreeIt, I procedurally generated trees and canopy tops which you can see here in my environment

This is the simple Leaf texture mask that I used to give the canopy of my trees a thicker look

Was not satisfied with the single brown colour that I initially used on my tree and in the end, replaced it with this 1024 x 1024 hand-painted texture which better suited the Ghibli style.

To achieve the hand-painted look, I followed a simple guide created by Stylized Station on Youtube (source, 2021) that would allow me to set up my own master material within Substance Painter. Using this master material, I could then simply adjust values when needed to give my textures more of a varied look and achieve a hand-painted Ghibli style of texturing without the need to actually hand-paint every asset individually. I would then use this master material for every asset in my scene and the perfect way to keep a more consistent style of texturing across my entire environment.

Cliffs, rocks, and chimney smoke trail

Next, I chose to create a cliffside mesh to complete the landscape of my scene. To produce this asset, I used Zbrush to sculpt various details onto a simple piece of box geometry. Once complete, I remeshed the high poly model in 3Ds Max, UV unwrapped the low poly model, and then used Substance Painter to bake the normal maps before applying a texture to complete this asset.

In addition to this cliff asset, I create a simple low poly rock with a few sculpted details and applied that to my scene as the finishing touches.

Just to mention, I did have some spare time during the day and wanted to experiment with a smoke trail that I could apply to my chimney. I remembered a video created by Stylized Station (source, 2022) which I had watched recently and showed just how you could produce a smoke trail effect. I began by creating a seamless smoke trail texture within Photoshop and using a panner node and a niagra system I was able to create a simple yet effective smoke trail for my scene. 

The seamless smoke trail texture is shown on the left and the mask gradient that I used is shown on the right (both created at 1024 x 1024)

Development shot 04 - Added a cliffside to my scene

Week 2 - 12/03/2023-18/03/2023

Vines 

To begin my second week, I created vines for the side of my cottage. This was a design choice that I made due to seeing several real-life cottages also having climbing vines and thought the addition of vines to my own cottage would really enhance the visuals in my scene.

I made these vines by simply creating a vine leaf texture in Photoshop and then applied this texture to a 3D plane within 3Ds Max. I created a vine stem for my vines using the line tool in Max and then placed vine leaves along the stem to complete the look.   

Development shot 05 - Added vines to my cottage

Vine Leaf texture and texture mask (1024 x 1024)

New bush mesh and Tomato plants

At this point in my project, I was really unhappy with how the bushes of my scene looked and would flicker when moving the camera around my scene. I believe that this issue was due to having too many leaves overlapping in the mesh as the mesh was resized rather small and clearly too compact. To fix this issue, I returned to TreeIt to create a new bush mesh in the same way as I created the canopy for my trees. This latest mesh looked so much better and also solved the flickering problem.

For my next step, I created three different tomato plants to populate the garden of my scene. I began by creating the tomato plant leaves using the same process as I did when creating my foliage, however, in addition to this process, I made some low poly spheres with a tomato texture applied (another texture that I made in Photoshop with some very simplistic tomato-coloured gradients) to finish the model. I then used the tomato plant to create other variations by adjusting the location of the tomatoes and leaves.   

Tomato texture and opacity mask (1024 x 1024)

Stepping Stones

Once my tomato plants were set up within Unreal Engine I moved on to creating some stepping stones that I wanted to line along the garden entrance to my cottage. This would better define the entrance to my homely cottage and give the bland pathway a little more character. To create this asset, I sculpted some stone-like details onto a high poly mesh within Zbrush and then decimated the model in 3Ds Max to create a low poly version. Lastly, I baked the high poly details onto my low poly mesh to create a normal map for my asset and instead of applying a texture in Substance Painter, I decided to use the Runtime Virtual Texturing technique in Unreal Engine (with the normal map applied) in order to blend the colour of my stones with the pathway that it was placed upon.

How the stepping stones look with RVT applied (image taken at the end of my project) 

New Pathway texture

With the stepping stones in place, I realised just how unhappy I was with the overall look of the pathway. The two cream colours that I blended together and used for the paths were just too simplistic and did not fit with the Studio Ghibli art style that I was trying to achieve. As a solution, I returned back to Photoshop and used reference images to help create a more Ghibli-like hand-painted path texture. I produced two variations of this texture, the alternate version had added pebbles and would further be distinguished by having the brightness slightly altered within the Unreal Engine material.  

The simple hand-painted pathway texture (1024 x 1024) that I created in Photoshop

An alternate pathway texture with added pebbles (1024 x 1024)

Development shot 06 - Really pleased with how my scene was starting to look and especially fond of the new bush meshes and pathway texture 

Long planters

Creating the planters was a straightforward process. I simply used resized cube geometry within 3Ds Max and added wooden details to the box during the Substance Painter texturing stage. As for the flowers used in my planters, I made use of the existing foliage plants but organised them differently to create a new set of flowers.  

Overhanging vines and vine flowers

At this stage, I took a few moments to examine my scene. I noticed that the left area of my patio was another area that needed some additional details in order to break up the repetitive look brought on by the patio fencing. To solve this dilemma, I created some overhanging vines that I would place over the fence to produce a more compelling look and ultimately bring the area to life. To further enhance this new addition, I created some vine flowers that I placed among the vines to make the vines themselves more appealing.

Development shot 07 - As you can see, the subtle touch of adding vine flowers would really enhance the overall look of the vines themselves

Week 3 - 19/03/2023-25/03/2023

Stonewall

The first asset I created this week was a stone wall. During the creation of this asset, I encountered a major problem, more specifically during the baking process, as the model had too many visible baking artifacts along the seams. Furthermore, I was not happy with the high poly count of my model as I would not class this asset as a game-ready asset. This was due to my own mistakes when modeling but something that I would fix the following day by simply remodeling the entire asset again. As of now, I kept the asset in place as I knew the wall would only be viewed at a distance. however, after further inspection, I was not happy with the results and a problem that I wanted to address as soon as possible.

Flower pots and a few smaller changes

I took a break from modeling my wall to focus on a simpler asset, the flower pots. This was another asset that was not too difficult to create and was really pleased with the end result. As I did with my other assets, I used 3Ds Max for modeling and UV Unwrapping my prop before importing the model into Substance Painter in order to apply a texture.

Here is a look at my final flower pot model as seen in Unreal Engine 4

After importing my flowerpot model, I decided to take another moment to review of my work so far. It was at this time that I decided to change alter some bush colours in my scene. The bushes situated at the sides of the cottage were too much alike and I felt as though I could add a little more variety by exchanging the colours used. To achieve the new look, I created another material instance from the existing master material and slightly changed the green tones until I was happy.

Below is an image where you can see my scene so far.

Development shot 08 - Another look at my scene so far 

Garden Bucket and remodeling the Stonewall

Next, I created a bucket for the garden which I would fill with tomatoes. This was a subtle touch that I wanted to add as a way to visually tell the story of the owners harvesting their own tomato plants. When texturing this mesh in Substance Painter, I used the normal maps to help give the bucket the wooden grooves (seen in the image below) as opposed to actually adding extra geometry to the low poly mesh. This a technique that I use regularly to fake details on my meshes all while keeping my assets low poly.

A closer look at the tomato bucket mesh as seen in Unreal Engine 4

Once this stage was complete, I returned to recreate the stone wall mesh and fix my previous issues. I simply remodeled my asset to have a lower poly count and used normal map baking in Substance Painter to add some details to the stone. When in Unreal Engine, I decided to use vertex painting so that I could paint moss directly onto my mesh In real time and help create a more believable look.   

Development shot 09 - My scene with the bucket mesh added and an alternative stone wall 

Lamppost

Using reference images of lamposts seen in the real-life Studio Ghibli theme park (official website link), I created my own lampposts ready to be imported into my scene. When texturing this model in Substance Painter, I applied an alpha graphic that I created in Photoshop as I wanted my lamppost to be as similar to my reference image as possible. 

A simple alpha texture that I created in Photoshop to be applied to my lamppost during the texturing phase (resolution of 512 x 512 pixels)

Development shot 10 - I implemented a Lampost model which was created using a reference image of the exact lampost found in Ghibli Park (an official Studio Ghibli theme park in Nagakute, Japan) 

Review

The first three weeks of my project have gone really well and I have only faced a few problems that I was fortunately able to overcome. I am on track with my project plan and confident that I will have my scene completed before my project deadline. All in all, I am happy with my work so far and look forward to continuing my project over the next three weeks. It is really rewarding as an artist to see how your work develops over time and cannot wait to see the end result.