Wrong Turn

References & Inspiration

As a massive fan of NaughtyDog’s The Last Us, I was inspired to create a post-apocalyptic stairway that would fit well into the world. My goal was to stay true to the game creation pipeline and create a modular kit, trim sheet, and tileable textures spread throughout the scene.

The project took me five weeks to complete under the supervision of Jon Arellano.

Software

• Maya
• Zbrush
• Substance Painter
• Substance Designer
• Unreal 5
• Marmoset Toolbag 3
• Photoshop

Blockout

I knew that I wanted to create a scene that could be finished in the time frame given to me. I created a rough block in Maya to get my ideas down and placed it into Unreal in order to observe scale and perform a quick lighting test.

I continued to model my modular kit jumping from Unreal to Maya.

Modeling & Sculpting

Once I was able to complete all of the low-polys of my building interiors I moved on to the cordyceps.

I had to take a few tries at these models, ultimately deciding to make three large clusters of the cordyceps and two versions of the ones that dispersed. Once I found a place that made me happy, I baked my highs and lows together.

Materials

After completing my first pass of modeling, I placed my first round of textures in order to understand the lighting adjustments I would need to achieve the apocalyptic atmosphere that NaughtyDog provides. I was able to create all of my tileable textures in Substance Designer. The one texture I did not create, which was created by my lovely partner Jake Lipelt, was the crawling misealim

All textures had been created in Substance Designer, with minor tweaking for the “Peeling Paint” in Substance Painter to push the paint away from the plaster effect.

As I had limited wood pieces in my scene, I created a single detailed trim sheet that could be utilized in all of my wood assets.

Asset Placement & Level design

After collecting several references of stairways, I was able to find the most compelling composition with the additional guidance of my professor Jon Arellano.

Polish & Final Pass

My polish phase went through several different iterations, as I wanted to create sickly lighting. In order to produce my desired effects, I added grunge decals to create a grimy atmosphere, added and tweaked Unreal’s ambient dust to mimic floating spore particles, and added the FEDRA poster in a nod to the game’s own lore.

Conclusion

Overall, this project gifted me with great experience and guidance that I can call back on for my future projects. From start to finish the project took me five weeks to complete, and I was able to gain insight for my career by following the traditional industry pipeline throughout the process.

As I continue my journey as an artist I wanted to say thank you to all who supported me. Thank you for reading this article and thank you to GamesArtist for reaching out and giving me this amazing opportunity.

If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me!