Art Spotlight: Location Series

In Art Spotlight, we invite Sketchfab artists to talk about one of their designs.

Hello, everyone!

My name is Jenya. I’m from Russia. For a 4 years I moonlighted as a 2d game artists and studied in university, and now I’m starting work as a 3d artists. Mainly I am working as a freelancer. And at the moment I am working as 3d game artists at Ubisoft.

I was asked to tell more about the series of maps. It was an interesting project, rpg game in fantasy style. I did this project in the studio “Overmobile”. It was supposed that every location had to contain the event, the battle with the boss and the arena, i.e. 3 interactive objects in each location.

The project began, of course, with a detailed task, selection for references and discussion. Of course the content of the map was chosen by my supervisors, but some freedom of imagination were given to me. It is a pity that the project is still in development, I would like to see it live, and boast to my friends:)

I would like to show you the process of creation from the beginning to the end on example of the forest location.

In general each map took about 10 working days. 2-3 days I was modeling, unwrapping took one day, 3-4 days for texturing, and few days to correct the feedback. I intended to use fewer polygons, because the game was for mobile devices. But I was not limited when I started to paint a model, because the texture size can always be reduced.

This is my workflow: I drew simultaneously from the front (like a final picture in game) and in the perspective (this is convenient to understand the shapes). The first location was supposed to have a friendly fairy atmosphere of light, visually nonaggressive and passable, because it is the first and the easiest part of the game where you learn the gameplay basics.

When I finished the maps, I had to combine them together, and edit the textures to get a smooth transition. I bent a long line of maps in a large semicircle. And as a result we got a big drum. After post-processing the scene would be filled with different special effects like glowing, it would acquire depth etc.

That’s the approximate look of the environment drum in the game. This is the reconstruction, because I can’t find the original picture:)

I planned to create about 10-15 maps, but apparently the game is not worth it. In general I enjoyed creating environments like these – especially considering that it was almost the first time I began to work as a 3D artist.

Thanks for your attention!

Thanks Jenya!

You can find more of Jenya’s work on her Sketchfab profile.