Realistic Roof-Top Project

At the start of the university year I was due to start work back in Munich at a multi media agency, who produced imagery and film from a range of pipelines for all kinds of clients. My role there would have been to assist in the CG aspect of the production. Focusing on After Effects animations, Vred renders, post production of image and film, 3D modelling and more. Unfortunately I had to turn the position down due to some complications on their end and I made a more beneficiary choice to return to BMW to do a Bachelor Thesis.

After a bumpy start and a few more hurdles before I finally got settled in Munich and started work at BMW again, I was admittedly rather behind on the Professional Brief projects that I had been set alongside the work placement. Also due to starting my Final Major Project/Bachelor Thesis early to adhere to my contract length at BMW, my time delegation for the Professional Briefs became varied hence only starting to properly execute the projects now.

Before christmas I chose the 'Metropolis Roof-Top' brief as my first project of the three we were assigned. The small projects, lasting three weeks each, were designed to be representative of the sort of briefs we should expect to see in the professional industry.

I chose the realistic rooftop for multiple reasons; firstly because I have an interest in environment creation, secondly because the majority of games I find appealing are those that try to emulate realism, and thirdly because I had been out of the game art loop for a while whilst working for BMW I hadn't really had any experience of Unreal Engine 4 yet and I felt the best way to delve into the alien PBR pipeline was to focus on replicating real world materials.

I began R&D for the project immediately and a choice quickly presented itself. Whether to try and achieve a pristine aesthetic, something of the likes of a James Bond scene

or to aim for more of a grungy Ganglands setting.

I chose to go forward with the grungy aesthetic as I felt like it could offer a lot more scope for interesting textural work, and with programs like Substance Designer becoming more prevalent over the past year I understood that there were some favorable tools to be implemented that I hadn't had chance to use yet.

From riffling through reference I became drawn towards to the idea of making a rooftop basketball court. The verticallity of the framework would allow for some visually pleasing compositions and I could already begin to envisage the wonderful scope for debris and material properties present in such a scene.