The NUBA Project
Game Director - Andrew Johnson | Character Designer - Jelena Rois
Programs - Unreal Engine | Adobe Substance
My role - Art director
2024 | Computer game | Master project
The project blends analogue and digital artistry in game development, introducing a framework to forge unique visuals. It challenges conventions, offering fresh solutions and insights for game developers and artists. The primary objective is to push the boundaries of conventional game art by integrating custom shaders and materials that replicate analogue textures and aesthetics, fostering a distinct artistic expression within the gaming environment.
Here my responsibilities were:
Environment Art and Design, Texturing, 3D modelling, Unreal Engine Integration, World Building, Art Bibles and Visual Dev.
Final Renders in Unreal Engine 5
How the materials were created inside Adobe Sampler
Recording 2024-06-11 180313.mp4
Creating materials from crayons, watercolors and acrylics
The method is to create an atlas, a three by three grid, separated from size, small, medium, large brushstrokes and then by mediums of your choice; watercolors, acrylics, crayons, etc. Then photo scanned into Photoshop, remove the background and making opacity masks for each pattern. Limitations help the creativity flow, mixing the different brushstrokes around- brainstorming different patterns to use for materials creation. Integrating the patterns into game development, I used Adobe Substance Sampler, usually used for photorealistic materials. When the materials were created, I used Substance Painter to apply it and paint onto the 3D models. Then exporting them into Unreal Engine 5, marking the proof of concept.
Appendix A Art Style and The Art Bible of the Environments of Nuba.pdfThe world of NUBA
Starting off with establishing the World of Nuba. When fleshing out the visuals of the environments, it was important to have contrast between different regions, giving each of them a positive and a negative personality. So when exploring, you can be able to tell its identity, the assets having a strong contrast profile by utilizing shape language and color theory.
The plateau started off as mushroom huts, but moved on to a more European medieval, overgrown steampunk like architecture, reason being due to the low fantasy genre. Through the trees and nature uses great expression, playing with curves and exaggeration that could foster a sense of direction in-game.
Recording 2024-06-11 181512.mp4Appendix B Environment Concepts and development (2).pdf