The Gates | Unreal Engine Environment Project
May 2024
Introduction
This project showcases a meticulously crafted night scene designed to evoke a sense of mystery. The central elements include a giant mask-shaped gate, traditional Japanese Toris, and ambient trail lamps, all set within a hauntingly atmospheric environment. Responsible for modeling and texturing the hero objects, set dressing, lighting, rendering, and post-production.
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The project demonstrates a complete 3D workflow, from initial modeling and sculpting to texturing and environment creation in a game engine. The project focuses on creating an immersive and eerie atmosphere with technical execution and artistic vision.
Skills
poly-modeling, detailed sculpting,
UV layout and normal baking,
PBR texturing, set dressing,
procedural blueprint development,
dynamic lighting, and global illumination
Software Used
Maya, ZBrush, Substance Painter,
Unreal Engine, Quixel Bridge,
After Effects
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Breakdowns
Shot 1
Shot 2
Assets Turnarounds
Project Timeline
WEEK
1
Research
&
Sketch
​Researched Japanese traditional culture and architecture, and designed a torii gate that integrates the Oni masks.
2
Modeling
Modeled the hero objects: the torii gate, the toriis, and the path lights. Each object was box modeled in Maya.
Vertices: 224
Faces: 161
Triangles: 322
Vertices: 10429
Faces: 10304
Triangles: 20608
Vertices: 285
Faces: 265
Triangles: 532
3
Modeling
&
Mood Board
Decided the scene would be a night scene with a slight horror ambiance. Researched night temple scenes and forest scenes for lighting and color references.
Sculpted the surface details and brokenness of the hero objects in ZBrush.
4
UV
&
Texture
Made the UV maps for the hero objects, baked the high-poly models on the low-poly models to generate normal maps, and made textures in Substance Painter. Made three different textures for the toriis, such that they had more variations in the game engine. ​
5
Set Dressing
Built the landscape and made the textures. Placed the hero objects based on the sketch and added stairs, floors, and tombstones to make the scene more complete. All other assets are from Quixel Bridge.
Placed small plants as instance foliage and trees as static meshes.
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6
Details
&
Polishing
Add debris, branches, blood, and other details to make the scene more complete.
Used blueprints to make the rope on the gate. Assets are from Quixel Bridge.
7
Lighting
&
Camera
Finalized the lighting with volumetric fogs and points lights. The screenshots on the right show the difference between the scene with basic lumen lighting (directional light and skylight) and the scene with extra point lights, exponential fog, and volumetric fogs.
8
Rendering
&
Editing
Animated the camera motion and rendered 5 sequences. Edited the final film and used "Chant II" by kenji Kawai as background music.