Building a Stylized Environment, Volume 3

Ideation to Creation: Assembling the Scene in Unreal Engine

Description

In this series, Martin Teichmann, Environment Modeler at Naughty Dog, takes you through his complete production workflow to build a stylized game ready environment; a process that requires not only technical and artistic knowledge, but also insight into the mechanics of game play in order to deliver the best experience for the player. In this final volume of a three-part series, Martin guides you through the process of assembling the scene in Unreal Engine 4. He starts by setting up the Unreal project and dresses the scene by placing all the main elements that were created in Volume Two. From there, he covers the first lighting pass by importing an HDR image to be used as a material for the Sky Sphere in Unreal. Martin then places the mid-elements and castle details, followed by the first bake. Additional assets are added, and the rock and stone materials are set up and painted to the 3D mesh using vertex painting. Scene lighting now gets updated along with a final material polish pass while taking care of the gameplay adjustments and optimizations needed for a smooth game experience. For those looking to develop their environment art workflow, this title concludes the series with techniques derived from Martin’s in-depth industry experience, providing the student with the necessary knowledge to create a game ready environment with Unreal.

Duration: 4h 24m

Format: HD 1920x1080

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Martin Teichmann

Environment Artist at Naughty Dog

Martin Teichmann is an environment artist working in the games industry. In 2007, Martin started his career at Deck13 in Frankfurt Germany. After a short freelance period he then joined the team at Crytek as an artist on Crysis 2 and Crysis 3. In 2013 Martin moved to Rocksteady London where he worked on Batman Arkham Knight as an Environment and Lighting Artist, then in 2015 he made the move to Los Angeles to work at Naughty Dog. He has contributed to Uncharted 4, Uncharted Lost Legacy and is currently working on The Last of Us Part 2.

Working with Martin has been a true pleasure, I worked with him on Crysis 2 and Crysis 3 and Martin is a young passionate artist that are not a lot of in this industry. He makes each each texture, each model, each texture or anything he touches with such care and love that really makes his work stand out above the rest and it really pays off in the end. It was a pleasure working with him these years, and I hope our paths cross again in the future, because artists like him, you don't come across too often. He's a great guy to work with as well, sit down with him to discuss anything and you'll always learn something new! You throw passion and talent into a blender, and Martins juicy work is the result!
- Helder Pinto
Senior Environment Artist on Overwatch Blizzard Entertainment
I was lucky to have worked with Martin during Crysis 3. From the first prototypes done in pre-production until the level we were responsible for later in production, his initiative and art skills made the difference for every design we did together. Martin is a talented artists. He has an excellent understanding of architecture, scales, lighting and always delivers the best quality. But what really makes him stand out is his passion for making great video games. I highly recommend Martin, he would be a valuable asset for any team.
- Rodrigo Santoro
Lead Level Designer

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