Week1: Concepts
At the start of this project, I believe having an idea of the outcome imagery is important. As it is a base to settle the project into the tone of where every parts is going to be. After studying from my main visual reference——The Rosymorn Monastery from Bulder’s Gate, I’ve tried to relate this epic, legendary, ‘dusty in times’ style to some real life monasteries( and also a little bit of mystical sense of reference form Hogwarts Legacy).
A dungeon should be dark, should be old, should be a place hoarding up artefacts carved into stone and history. With all of these brainstorming of ideas, I sketched up this conceptual design of corridor hall.
// Improvements: Looking back at this concept stage of work, the first draft of design is indeed not perfect. But I do believe it settles the key tone of aesthetics of this project while working further onto it.
Week 2-4: Block outs and modularity
Having the design of concepts settled, the next step is to move on to some block outs. Considering about the efficiency, I started with blocking with cubes and extruding them to form the base and side walls, keeping everything simple and geometrized. The circular symbol on top of the gate is planned to be simplified at this stage, and could be improved later on with trimmings or decals.
Week 5: Trim
Moving on further, with the basic model done, I shall get this dungeon with some texture and tone. Looking up for cold, rough, and rocky references of templates.
Week 6-7: Sculpting
Most of my sculpting is done within both Zbrush and Maya, for Zbrush is convinient for complicated accessories, and maya is efficient when working with geometric shapes. For example, I’ve done my pillar with extruding tool in maya, but carved the crown-like decoration in Zbrush; and sculpted out my hero figure in Zbrush, but applied the cape and helmet in Zbrush.
Week 8-9: Unreal
Bring all segments to unreal, I applied all the texture and decals with trimming and tilling templates.
Week 10: Lignting
For lighting, I have imagined this scene with a dark, mysterious atmosphere. There for I stared out with some fire lights on the torches, and a plain skylight as the basic logical lighting, then bring is all dark to fill it with orange fire light.
Week 11: Improvements
At this stage of the project, It is now mostly done and steady. Although after a closer look for this dungeon, I caught some details that could be brought to next level. Therefore I went back to my concept, and redesign the circular symbol and my hero asset. Then sculpted it again in Zbruch, make sure it kept in a reasonable amount of faces so that is efficient, applied some metallic texture for the armour. On the other hand for the symbol, I draw this symmetrical picture in Photoshop, and applied it as a decal in UE. Fire lights on the ceiling lamp is also added.
Week 12: Presentation
In conclusion for this 12 weeks of work, I ended up with this complete version of my dungeon figure. Review overall, there is indeed places of improvements to be done, such as some scratches or minor damages of stone to express the story. But within the time given, I should be proud to say I have done the best I could.
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