Mech Head in Space Port
The Mech Head in Space Port project is a 3D scene with all assets and all textures created by me. Set in a space port, the Mech Head is being repaired with the mechanical arms that come out to meet it. Based on several different designs and games, the space port itself is designed to be futuristic and sleek across the board, with the ship company insignia inscribed on many of the boxes and cannisters around. The Mech Head is based on a lot of different robot heads and is to be slightly worn in places in order to give the illusion of being in need of a repair team.
Video
Software Used
Tools Used : Unreal Engine 4 - Material Node Scripting
: Photoshop - Texture Map Creation
: Substance Painter - Texture Map Creation
: AutoDesk Maya - Asset Creation
The first thing I created was a basic reference and style guide sheet. This pulled from different forms of media and different types of those media.
The Space Port came from games such as PSO2, Warframe, and Mass Effect. The key was keeping the blue colors alongside the clean white to make it look futuristic and keep with the background of space.
The Mech Head itself, in design and shape, came from Japanese Gundam and Pacific Rim mainly. Some custom designs from PSO2 were also imported in order to have a rough design premade to translate and further modify.
The lighting was based on Square Enix's Tomb Raider. The dark lighting and atmospheric fog helped to improve the amount of details that could be shown to the viewer. While the fog covered them up, I used the sparse lighting to give the important features a higher sense of hierarchy
Process
Space Port Inspirations
Mech Head Inspirations
I started by making a set of drawings and layouts in order to line the designs made in Maya up with them. This allows me to keep close to a pre-made design and worry about customizing the details after the base blocking could be finished.
Drawings for the layout and UE4 Base Imports
The space port and the mech head were both created modularly, so easy to be assembled and simpler on the game engine to render. The model sheet for the space port includes all untextured versions and was for placement, after the blocking out in UE4.
Space Port Model Sheet
Mech Head Model Sheet
I then went to texture the rest of the pieces in Substance painter. I created custom materials and textures in order to keep them all generally aligned with one another. After the textures, I created, in substance, some alpha presets in order to make the logo, which had to appear on several different props around the room, unified no matter the size or shape of the prop.
Textured Space Port and Mech Head in Standard UE4 Level
The next piece was placement of all props and the mech head in a basic lighting sense in UE4. I placed them in the correct locations for the props and replaced the stand in features I created in maya with the new UV'd and textured versions.
Base Lighting and Textures applied to UE4
![FirstPassLighting].PNG](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/051d8c_81ec08ae5abe4f3299b0fd192e45db31~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_326,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/FirstPassLighting%5D_PNG.png)
Finally, I worked on the lighting and the atmospheric fog, making use of fog maps, god rays, and raytracing for the reflection bounces and the map lighting as a whole.
Second to Final Lighting Pass
Final Lighting Pass after Critique and Feedback
