kylessmith’s submission — VIKING VILLAGE: 3D ENVIRONMENT ART CHALLENGE

UPDATE
Hey guys, unfortunately I won't be able to finish the rest of the challenge. Have some important business to attend to. Best of luck to everyone! I'll try to make the next one.

Day7 1/2: More Materials
Had enough time to squeeze this update in, grassy ground material that I can change up for reuse.

Day7: Substance Designer, first tiling texture

This week has been moving a little slow but still moving forward and making progress

A lot of my normal map information is going to be stored in my tileables, since I'll only be using sculpting to better define the silhoutte

Day 6: Further Modeling and Material Planning

To get a better idea of how I want the finished product to look, I further developed the modular pieces. This just helps me get a better understanding of how much I can actually reuse something in a scene. The next step for my kit is sculpting.

I also took the time to refine further my material plan. Five tileable textures should take me as far as I need in the scene. Any additional detail will end up being added with RGB masks and blending normals.

Day 5: Unreal setup
Finalized the blockout that I like the most in terms of proportions and scale. I wanted to establish my composition so I utilized a few assets that I previously created, but will be replacing when I create new foliage pieces. Next steps will be to start a pass on tileable textures.

Day 4: MAJOR PIVOT (False Alarm)
Quick update for today, having some things come up and will have to dial back my scene. NVM We’re in the clear, major update this weeke!

Day 3: Asset List & First Blockout
Back after the weekend and a few days stuck in office lol.
Wanted to ensure that my plan is going to work if I want to create a modular building that could see reuse over and over again. The original concept was scaled to a being like Tyr so I had to make a few adjustments to the proportions so that it would make sense for a regular sized human. I never like to overcomplicate my first blockout. Just basic, stupid simple. Medium blockout coming soon with more details and testing modularity.

Day 2: Concept Revision and Adjustments
Story for my scene is finalized. Gathered the rest of references that I need to AT LEAST get started, but will be gathering more as this scene develops. I liked the original concept, but want to take this opportunity to practice modularity and creating kit pieces. So I had to make a few minor adjustments to the concept:
I'm not a concept artist by any means lol

I wanted to up the aggressiveness of the dragestil architecture and make it a lot more angular for the ornamental pieces. Along with that I'll be making a few other adjustments.

Next week starts a huge bulk of the work!

Day 1: Initial Reference Board, Planning and Story Development
Every good environment does an incredible job of telling a story. Having a story can help drive elements of your textures, lighting and assets required for your scene.

I liked this reference for the overall composition and layout of the scene. I'll be using it as a starter for my concept as I interweave elements of Norse mythology into the scene. Folkvangr is a realm of Norse mythology often overshadowed by Asgard, as they both gather souls of the departed. I like the aesthetic idea of meadows and forests being a stark contrast to the often harsh and cold climates depicted. For story elements I added in the mention of the Wild Hunt, an event that has many depictions in northern European folklore. More commonly the Wild Hunt is seen as an omen of war, or catastrophic events about to occur. Large storms in the early centuries could have made Viking's believe that the Wild Hunt was real.

Each week I've set milestones that I'm hoping to have completed, with enough space on the back end of the project to fix and finalize everything.

Day 0: Initial Thoughts
Approaching this challenge, I want to take into consideration all aspects of the brief. After analyzing the brief, I came up with the following plan that will help kickstart more creative thoughts in the coming days.
For today, initial ideas and inspiration reference were gathered.

1 / 2

A much more thorough reference board and plan will be fleshed out in the following days.

Name: Kyle Smith
Country: United States
I have read the terms and conditions and am eligible for prizes