For environment Design we were tasked with creating an environment based off a Main theme and Sub theme, for my environment i came up with 2 concepts and chose one to create.
Theme/Location Exploration and Research
For my first environment i thought of Historic/Decay with a temple like structure situated in a cave or cavern, one that belongs to an ancient society like the greeks or the romans, my inspiration for this idea was quite heavy already as i had seen media and games with this similar idea that i really liked, this is the one idea i had that had inspiration from various mediums which made it an ideal candiate for me to undertake.
The film Journey to the center of the Earth (1959) is the main inspiration for this idea, it involves a group of researches that trek to the center of the earth from Iceland and travel all the way down until they reach the lost city of Atlantis, there are shots of the group walking through an old decyaed market street of the city and i found the set design and composition of the shots to be really inspiring and so i took some shots of my own when watching to reference for layout and esign ideas.
For games the main draw of inspiration is The Forgotten City, it is about a person who finds ruins of an old superstitious Roman city underground and in dong so finds a portal there that leads to that same city but in the past, i took most inspiration from it’s prime state before it was ruined as i really like the lighting and the way the structures were laid in the caverns area with bridges resting on cliff edges and sides, the mosaics and gold statues i really liked also.
The Tomb Raider games, more specifically Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a source of inspiration that i researched for the dcay aspect of the environment, the game features many run down archaic structures covered in foliage and overgrowth, the game has many sections where the player must traverse underground in parkour sections, water tunnels where the player submerges under to reach the next stage of the level, the design for these gameplay segments i took note of.
I drew some inspiration from paintings, this medium i used mainly for lighting inpsiration and compositon, most of the paintings i found have biblical connotations such as one depiciting Gods plagues on Egypt, one plague being darkness which is fitting for my environment situated in a cavern, some paintings also show people inside temples and old ancient structures with flaming torches while they talk which i found useful for torches that i woud place around the environment.
The Seventh Plague of Egypt
The Ides of March
Joahua Orders the Sun to Stand Still
The paintings of the sky and plagues i think are really useful for Lighting purposes, Ive thought of an idea of light coming through a large opening in the cavern that will cast light on everything on the exterior but still needing some torches for the sides that light cannot reach which is where The Ides of March painting would come in quite useful for torch light reference.
The next theme i had in mind was Sci Fi/Corruption and involved an ancient alien lab inside the moon, , the idea i had was that it was where humans were created by aliens and then planted on the Earth, however since it is abandoned, and not in use all of the failed experiments are still lurking around, the concept is heavily influenced by poplar conspiracy theories about the moon and human origin and so i tried to kind of mash them together and create something relatively new.
The main game inspiration for this is Soma, it is about a man who’s mind is uploaded in an experimental brain scan machine in 2015, and then he wakes in a mechanoid suit under the sea in the year 2104 afte his mind is downloaded, he ecounters an ai that repairs anything alive or dead in order to make it as close to human as possible after the planet is destroyed by a comet killing nearly all humans, the designs of the bases an the labs i found quite inspiring especially the monsters so i had this in my mind when playing it.
For films i looked at Prometheus by Riddley Scott, it is about a race known as the Engineers who created humanity by planting their DNA on the earth allowing life to evolve, a space crew find an ancient star map that they follow that leads to the engineers home planet where they find their structures and an engineer in hybernation, the design of the structures i thought were uniwue and so i took some references.
The theme i chose to work on was the Historic/Decay idea, i was feeling confident about it and really wanted to give it a go and so i began moodboarding thinking up what it could look like.
I created an initial layout sketch of what buidings would be going where, i just focused on the composition of the buildings first, shortly after i had the idea of a small islet in the middle of the cave where all the buildings would go, the center piece would go in the middle in a courtyard center layout with the buildings lining either side and the temple front and center, the dociety i’ve thought of for this would be an ancient Greek theming, with a god temple, one devoted to Zeus as the biggest building.
Planning and Conceptualisation
The idea of a small town that goes with the temple was something that i’ve thought of, taking inspiration from my research with the market streets and courtyards, the bath house would have a wall caved in letting the sunlight touch the water which would cause algae to grow, adding to my decay theme, small market stalls that still have their items and produce would be good to show what life may have been like in the town and show what kind of items people would have bought, the garden i’ve placed in my concept sketch as i want it to be the main source of overgrowth on the town, with vines spreading from it and clinging to all the other buildings as inspiration from the overgrowth in Tomb Raider games. Below is an initial blockout of the cave with the islet i made, in the capture i am working on getting the light composition correct and in a satesfactory state.
After awhile of tinkering with it i still wasn’t feeling great about the lighting and landscape, i felt that the cave opening was too high and was too level with the islet which isn’t what i wanted as i wanted the light from the opening pointing down and in order to do that i would need to lower the landscape to have the opening higher, i also wasn’t liking the lower landscape around the main area being obscured in darkness, the whole blockout felt a little too clastrophobic and the idea of a small island holding a relatively big ton to the quality i wanted didn’t inspire confidence so i decided to scrap the island idea and design another top down layout that could accomodate my idea, i still wnated to keep the temple and certain other buildings for the time being.
For the cave this time around i created a large hollow box with the modelling tool so that i can then add the rock assets around it, it also helped with the quixel assets as they are one sided meshes so the light would punch through without the blockout, i spread the structures aroun a bit more so i could have room for adding more structural detail to te other buidlings, once that was added i then started work on designing the bath house for placement later, i followed the layout of a typical bath house through researching layouts, this took up most of my time as i focused on modelling meticulous details such as the heated hypocausts under the floors, the biggest main room is the pool room where people would go to swim and socialise with others, i followed the typical lattice shape for the ballustrades to try and keep it historically accurate, i took inspiration from the Forgotten City with the walkways resting on rock surfaces so that the people could get around the town.
I was feeling confident about getting the bath house finished but the whole time creating it i had trouble with texturing the building due to it being one mesh, i looked up some resources on model painting and found out about tri painting and that did work for some surfaces but others didn’t work with it which made it quite frustrating, i spent awhile on this bulding and jsut decided in the end to cut it as it wasn’t particularly relevant to the environment as the the main focus is the temple and the center piece.
I made some quick adjustments to the layout plan to accomodate the change since the tample is going ot be the only main structure of the piece, the garden wil be replaced by the atural overgrowth around the environment while the market will be cut entirely, the coins i planned to sprawl around the market will be repurposed for some environemental story telling for the environment, it is a temple so i think it could be used as offerings to a god instead of background furnishing.
I started from the beginning with the entrance and then worked my way up to the temple, the environment itself is sequestered in the mountains with overgrowth, it hasn’t been in full use for a few years and so the paths are not as well travelled as they should be, parts of the entrance walkway have collapsed due to falling rocks and structural instability, some torches around the entrance and the environment are still lit to show that looters and others have come to still worship their old god or steal the offerings left behind, i’ve attempted to show this everywhere throughout.
For the entrance way into the main cavern i punched a hole through the cave box and placed some stiars down into the space.
Shortly after i punched the hole throguh i started filling out the cave space with rocks first before i continued placing structures, i wanted to fill everything out to see how much space i would have to add the temple and pathway, it also would have helped to get more of an idea of composition rather than just looking at a greybox the entire time, the main light source entracne i tinkered with moving rocks around since i needed room for a planned statue i wanted to place there, a flatter surface was needed since i felt it would look pretty good with a statue sitting at the mouth overlooking the area, having it above the center piece would be ideal as the 3d model i am designing is a brazier on a plynth as sacrificial fixture.
Once filled out i began blocking out the pathway to the building entrance, i started with the original forked path seen in my previous top down sketch but i deleted it and stuck with one path heading to the right, as the secondary path wasn’t really needed anymore, i later added a light source when blocked and filled as i didn’t anticipate the area being as dark as it was and i didn’t want to manipulate the geometry of the environment i had laid out just for it.
For the structural meshes themselves i used the Ancient Mountain Temple Pack by Dekagon Studios, this is the asset pack i used for most of the temple, i made my own alterations to the meshes and textures of the objects to help fit them into the theme i am trying to create, i placed a stone archway and some columns and walls to flesh out the entrance area and then started using the landscape tool to add foliage and dirt since the area was too clean, the pack i used was modular so i could pick apart sections of the structure to make them look run down and decayed, i used grass from the modular ruins kit for the foliage.
The interior went through many re designs for the center, I started with doing a second floor but then settled on a first since I wanted to save some time for detailing and finishing off the rest of the cave area, originally the center piece was going to be on the second floor so it would be mid level with the statue but i think it looks fine where it’s ended up. I wanted water damage and flooding in the temple to show it’s age and neglect, it’s built on quite a marshy section of soil so when not maintained it will start to sink and collapse which is what i am attempting to convey.
The wall seen to the right in the last picture i removed, since if there is no second floor then there isn’t any way to reach the center piece which will be positioned below the statue, doing this allowed more light to pass through which meant i didn’t have to place more torches which i stil feel breaks the realism slightly for an old structure but the environmental story telling will be explained.
The two lattice fences here and the stairs is what is called an Adyton, in Ancient Greece this is the sector in a temple where only priests and religious servants are allowed, members of the public could not enter this space, this is where my center piece will go, around it will be many gold coins and lavish pots and vases as people of the time would offer items of great value to their gods as a show of appreciation, this is why i have placed the statue in it’s position as the effegy of the deity being worshipped would always be front and center near the Adyton.
I finished up the temple by adding some decal vines to the floors and walls to emphasise the overgrowth, compounding this with some bushes and flowers to add some biodiversity, the flipped chair with the vase on the floor and the coins i’ve placed are there to show that people have scavenged what ehy could in a hurry before leaving, the Adyton offering area used to be abundant with offerings but has overtime depreceiated in value as scavengers have plundered.
The final area of the environment i needed to make was the bigger main entrance, this bigger main entracne is where the temple would have recieved it’s supplies such as brick work, mass offerings and other essentials, leading this way is a flight of stairs with a courtyard and a fountain depicting a smaller effigy of Zeus, this is where people who weren’t priests, or priestesses could go to worship or socialise.
This Sectio of the environment is the where the main pathway leads out of the temple, i’ve placed wagons to show what shipments would have arrived here and also what people would have been taking away, for the outside of the temple i’ve placed some greek mountain meshes provided in the greek pack to try and make the geographic location more authentic, i placed the mountians lower than the environment to give the illusion of height, this is because temples devoted to Zeus where placed on higher terrain, in mountians and such, since he is the god of not only thunder but the god of all.
I asked for some feedback from others and was recommended i change the material of the statue to gold so it could stand out a bit better and i do think that helped wuite a bit, the sunlight reflecting from the metal does make it feel more lavish and imposing.
Made/Found Assets
I found this pack early in the year and thought it would be good for another project i was working on and when conceptualising this environment i remebered i had it ready to use for an ancient historical the anceint historical setting i was doing, the fact i was doing a temple was a positive.
I acquired this asset pack when it was free a few months ago, i was looking for some foliage packs for my temple to hel with the ruined style and i really liked that this pack came with many foliage options to use, i didn’t really use the structural meshes too much save for one wall at the temple entrance.
I used Quixel for all of the rocks seen in the environment for the cave and entrance, i also used it for some historical strcutures like the Roman columns for the entrance, the rocks i used the most were the quarry rocks, the dark brown ones.
I needed some vines so i could add detail to show overgrowth and these came i handy, i did pay a small fee for these but they played an essentail part in my environment and added some much needed details to the walls especially.
I found these on Quixels Unreal store page looking for some trees since i couldn’t find any on Bridge, i wanted my environment to have some trees near the light sources since there is water and light for them to grow, i thought it would make the environment more diverse also.
Reflection
I think the aspect of the work that went well was the texturing job of my landscape and decaling, i think i got it to a good spot and got a decent result i didn’t expect, txture sizes particularly on the landscape have always been anissue for me and i’m happy with myself that i managed to iprove on that aspect of my creation process, i like hat i am learning more of the modelling tool and think that stage of the process turned out well, the bath house stage of my development was a really ample opportunity to cultivate this skill and i feeel i’ve learned quite a bit and have even used my own initiative to research how different aspects of it work such as the material tri face painting.
I feel i could further improve the environment by adding some more story telling to some of the temple areas and even possibly sticking to what i did origially and adding another floor so i could add some rooms for this purpose as i feel i didn’t achieve enough of this to get a narrative across, i was very much hyperfocused on the aesthetic of the piece rather than the narrative shorthand in the environment, lighting is one of my weakpoints that could be improved in this piece, i had issues with the skylight so i ended up having to delete it since it wasn’t working well with my meshes all of a sudden.
If i had chosen another theme i would have focused on creating a mcuh smaller environment so i could maek room for more of the little details as i feel the size of this environment really dilute the things that matter such as the narrative storytelling, i ahd an idea for a fantasy castle with a small throne room that would have been relatively small and i could have had more time to spare for the details there.