top of page

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.

​

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

​

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.

1.png

Vertices: 224

Faces: 161

Triangles: 322

Vertices: 10429

Faces: 10304

Triangles: 20608

Vertices: 285

Faces: 265

Triangles: 532

2.png
3.png

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.

微信图片_20240915214704.png
微信图片_20240915214659.png

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. 

​

微信图片_20240915214653.png
4.png
5.png

6

Details 
&

Polishing

6.png

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.

9.png

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.

10.png
7.png
8_edited.jpg

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. 

shot1.png
shot2.png
bottom of page