3D Environment Artist
Chung Chiao Lu
Project 02
Southern Swamp Treehouse
1
Intro
This piece is partly inspired by the Redmond Treehouse in Redmond, WA. I was fascinated by its structure and decided to recreate it and place it in a different biome. This is my second environment creation in Unreal Engine. Being a big nature lover, I've always wanted to create a rich environment full of all kinds of foliage. I am very happy that I was able to fully dive into Speedtree and create a swamp biome with iconic trees and mosses from Southern United States. This was also my first time implementing Houdini into my modeling workflow, and I was amazed by the power and potential of procedural modeling. Huge thanks to my instructor Julian Elwood and Vu Phan for helping me with bringing my environment creation skills to the next level!
2
Asset Breakdowns
To emphasize the organic look of patched walls and roof, I first created the block-out model and mess them up a little bit in Maya, then I adding tiling textures made by me in Substance Designer. Most of the models and materials are my creation except for the bucket in the boat, fallen leaves model and decal textures from Quixel.
Foliages
One of the bioindicator of wetland habitats in Southern US is the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) . It thrives in standing shallow water and often has Spanish moss hanging on the branches, which plays a big part in the iconic swamp landscape look. Other common swamp foliage I created for this project are: Green Ash, Giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida), Giant Cutgrass (Zizaniopsis miliacea)
3
Material Breakdowns
For this project, I created a total of six different tiling materials plus some variations for different damage/wear levels in Substance Designer.
4
Procedural Modeling
During this project, our instructor Julian Elwood introduced us to procedural modeling with Houdini. I decided to explore this new realm with this opportunity and created a rope generator that is driven by a spline and have control over diameter, the amount of rope strands and rope twisting. It was my first experience with procedural asset generation and it showed me how powerful this workflow is.
Thank you for reading!