The final project for my Bachelor's in Digital and Game Art at ETIC: a solo Unreal Engine 5 environment
based on a concept by Chenxuan Liang. From research to final renders it took about six months, planned
on a timeline I re-prioritised as the deadline approached.
The focus was on industry-standard workflows: modularity, trim sheets, consistent texel density
and a fast pipeline. Two modular kits build every facade, snapping to a grid that matches between
Blender and Unreal. Three custom tileable materials from Substance Designer cover floors and walls, and two
trim sheets handle everything else, from building trims to props. This saved VRAM and replaced dozens of
one-off textures. A texture atlas drives the building number plaques.
Materials go from Substance Designer to Blender for preview and UV tweaks, then import automatically into
Unreal, which kept iteration quick.
Render showcase: a flythrough of the finished plaza in Unreal Engine 5.
Concept by Chenxuan Liang, fading into the finished scene.High field-of-view overview of the plaza.The clock tower, the scene's hero prop, textured entirely with trim sheets.Buildings assembled from two modular sets that vary in height and width.Lighting only, with Ultra Dynamic Sky and EasyFog. The light streaks in the background are emissive fog cards.
Timelapse from blockout to the final result.Parts of the reference board: the target style and mood, real-life reference, and references for specific assets and materials.The timeline in Notion. It started ambitious; as the deadline approached I weighed time spent against time left and cut assets by priority.Before the blockout, I used the artist's sketches to estimate distances, then overlaid them on the blockout in Unreal as a base to iterate on.Modular kit. Pieces snap together on a grid shared between Blender and Unreal.
Swapping modular pieces in place, thanks to the shared grid and consistent pivot points.Assembled modular buildings, shaded with wireframe.Texture strategy: tileables for large surfaces, unique textures for single assets such as the lamp post, trim sheets for everything else.
Applying the trim sheet to a building in Blender. The trims line up with a snapping grid for fast, pixel-perfect placement.
Texturing pipeline: save a material in Substance Designer, preview and adjust UVs in Blender, and it imports into Unreal automatically.Props and tileable floor pieces made for the scene.Cinema asset.Clock tower asset.Restaurant asset.Lamp post asset.
