Marc Quaglia
Beach Day
• I have created this environment to demonstrate my ability to work in both realistic and stylistic textures. Although I do not focus my art style on hand drawn textures, I feel confident enough to display my ability to adapt to anything that may be required of me. I really enjoyed making this environment as it pushed my attention to detail and helped me learn a lot about lighting and colors.
• My Involvement: Environment Artist
• Created and designed the entire environment
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Landscape Material
• The Landscape Material is created with the use of 3 different materials. Once the 3 materials are combined I then go to the landscape painting tool and paint over the land with the desired materials. I chose to use the Yellow Sand as the base. I layered over that sand with the Rocky Sand which acts as a sort of transition for the last layer (which is closest to the water) known as the White Sand. Not all of the beach is followed by this as I think it may be overwhelming and takes away from the overall look of the island.
Yellow Sand
Rocky Sand
White Sand
Water Material
• Creating the Water Material was one of my favorite parts of this environment. Below I have some screenshots to display how I managed to make the water the way I did.
Displacement
• The nodes I had used for the displacement allow me to create a ripple effect in the water rather than having just a flat plane with a material. This displacement also allows for a cool wave effect against the shoreline of the island. I created a black and white Noise image that I used with a motion node, as well as creating parameters that I can edit in a material instance at any point while set dressing the world. To get the vertices moving this noise map needs to be connected to the World Position Offset.
Foam and Shoreline
• One of my favorite parts of the water material has to be the water foam. by using the displacement of the water I had made before, I can now create two parameters known as Foam Strength and Power. Foam Strength controls the Intensity of the foam and the Foam Power controls how much is seen. All the foam is attached to emmisive.
Foam Color
• The last part I included in the water material is the color variation that I can apply to it through its Material Instance. This is important as I can allow my self to change the foam color due to a possible sky color I choose. Little details like this allow me to adapt to changes that I may decide later on in the project.
Miscellaneous
• Some other things I had played with are Shadows and Vertex painting. I have worked with vertex before but wanted to show how I create a simple Wind Effect.
Shadows through Post Processing
• I have realized through teachings and my design background, that using the color black is never the best idea. Once I noticed that all my shadows were being cast as black I had to change it. Normally I would have created a dark blue or purple but since the environment calls for a stylized look I thought it would be more appealing to see the shadow color and bring another element to the scene. I created this shadow look by adjusting contrast and saturation within the Post Processing box.
Vertex Painting Assets for Wind
• The environment had a nice flowing water and I had made the decision to add a similar look to anything with leaves. When I start Vertex Painting in UE4 ( I did not Vertex Paint through Maya or any other program) the asset appears all white. I painted the areas I wanted not to move black and made a gradient on other parts to allow more and more movement. I did this process for the grass and all other plants to create a sense of wind through out my scene. I had even Vertex Painted the Beach chair and umbrella.
Asset Model Sheets
• I have created Asset Sheets for some of the models in the environment to show how many Tris each model has and also the maps I used for each individual Model. A wireframe of the model/ models are in the sheets as well to show my edge flow.
A Relaxing Fly-Through
• Just a simple video showing off some features of my environment. The importance of the video is to show the movement of the materials / models. I added wind to foliage and created a dynamic sky and water shader that only gives the world more character.