Whimsical Pond

A small level I created using Maya, Photoshop, and Unreal Engine 4.

My goal was to create something I could finish in the span of a few weekends and build a level in which I hand painted all the textures. I decided to build a low poly pond scene and began by blocking it out in Unreal 4. From there, I imported the Unreal scene into Maya and modeled all my assets over the old scene. I created modular rocks and trees that could be duplicated and resized for variability, while still keeping the total asset count fairly low. When all the modeling and texture work was completed, I pulled everything into Unreal 4 and set up lighting, post processing, etc. The end result was a soft nighttime scene illuminated by fireflies and a low ambient light.

Initial Graybox

I blocked out the initial level in Unreal Engine 4 using the graybox brushes available. Blocking out in Unreal allowed me to establish scale, then import the scene into Maya where I started building over the UE4 scene.

Maya work & Texturing

In maya I modeled out various low poly assets including rocks, planks, grass, trees, and a waterfall with a lake along with other small props. From there I did a quick color texture pass on all assets to assess my art direction. I ended up changing the color palette early on!

final result

Pictured above, the first two photos are the final scene in Unreal 4, and the bottom two are the completed scene in Maya. Bringing the scene into Unreal 4 allowed me to customize the lighting, post processing, and allowed me to quickly build small emissive fireflies in the scene to create soft lighting.