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House in the Woods [Shader Dev + Env Art]
_{[Unreal 5.1 // Blender // Adobe Substance Designer + 3D]}

This project was primarilly focused on shader dev. I created the house kit to be modular to save time and used tiling textures for most of the assets created. 3D models were created in Blender, textures were made in Substance designer and any bespoke/baked textures were done in Substance Painter.

In-Game Screenshots

Master Shader Breakdown

The cel-shader works by taking the diffuse colour (the flat base colour of a material) from the scene and applies a darkness or lightness threshold. It then clamps the values between a set field to appear as a solid colour. If the shadow colour is within the threshold, it gets marked as black and if it’s without the threshold it appears as white. This means when added to a multiply layer only the shadow (black) will appear and the white will be masked as transparent. In the same shader material, a comic book dot effect was added. The dot shader uses a sphere mask to create dots that are in screen space. This meant the dots stay a consistent size. The dot colour was set as an adjustable parameter that was easy to change later. During development I had a lot of issues with the Cel-Shader. Many of the tutorials I used for guidance didn’t work with coloured lighting or would only work with Point Lights in Unreal. This took some time to figure out, but I managed to create a shader that works with all lights except from Directional Lighting.The most useful tutorial for this shader ended up being “Advanced Cel-Shader in UE4 & UE5 [Prismati-Cel Part 1]” by PrismaticaDev on Youtube, who provided a fantastic breakdown of the fixes and issues with most cel-shaders in UE4/5. The outline effect is created using an edge-detection and has adjustable parameters for the line effect of the normals and the mesh edges.One element I struggled to blend into the master post process material was the DOF effect I wanted. Inspired by comic books, and how they use less-detail for things in the background I wanted to create a painted effect that was more detailed on closer elements but less detailed on objects further away. I ended up using a Kuwahara filter for this but ultimately struggled to find a way to blend this into my main master material. Although not ideal, due to time constraints, I ended up using it as a separate post process material that was added to my post process array since I couldn't manage to implement it into the main material within the deadline time-frame.

The Kuwahara filter works by decreasing noise in a 3D scene depending the distance of the objects from the screen. It calculates the mean colours between a blend of pixels and overlaps them to create a blended affect. (Code for custom node is based on a tutorial from Matthijs Verkuijlen, 2021)

Post Mortem + Additional Info

Next time I would aim to scope better for the time given, as I feel I didn’t get to create as much detail as I would have liked to. I think that I grossly overestimated my ability to create a project that features an exterior and entire interior, shaders and custom skybox within the time given at University to complete this. This has served as a learning experience and frame of reference for my own capabilities in the future.This was my first time creating a post-process shader in Unreal, so the result here could be optimized more. I learned a lot during this process though and by the end was comfortable enough to come up with my own ideas on how I could achieve certain effect which is a big jump from my starting point which was learning by following tutorials. I'm working on learning more about optimization techniques and such for my next project, with the goal of creating something more usable for actual game-dev purposes.Although most assets in this project are created by me, some such as the Dog model were outsourced, credits to such models can be downloaded here;

• Outsourced List

Silent Hill Room 312

This was a 1 Week project created between finishing my University Degree and starting my first professional role as an environment artist. I wanted to re-create the hotel room from Silent Hill 2, but in Unreal Engine 5.2. The walls and floor are modular and use tiling textures. The assets were created and textured using Blender and Substance Suite.

Copyright-free Images all via Pixabay.com (Used for in-game photographs)Outsourced 3D assets from TurboSquid; Credits listed below:3D 2016 Custom Land Rover Range Rover Sport by KEN3DModels
Product ID: 1495883
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-sport-1495883Grandfather Clock 3D by TheArtOfCG
Product ID: 1245383
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/old-grandfather-clock-3d-12453833D Backpack HD by zompopo
Product ID: 1419017
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-backpack-1419017Wheelie Bin by CianGameDev
Product ID: 1102644
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-obj-mode-wheelie-bin/1102644Female High Heel Shoes Pack by WindTrees
Product ID: 450812
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/max-fashion-heel-shoes/450812Winter Boots by Yarmade
Product ID: 902323
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/winter-boots-fbx/902323Curtains Blue 3D model by ArtSoul
Product ID:1702240
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/curtains-interior-3d-model-1702240clothes basket 3D model by Beilroder IT Zentrum
Product ID: 1194864
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/clothes-basket-3d-model-1194864Plastic chair by Snailhouse
Product ID: 384485
Link https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-max-plastic-chair/3844853D Pets 03(Labrador Retriever) by sh240
Product ID: 1286586
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-labrador-retriever-03-1286586Flower Vase by MStudios
Product ID: 1031039
Link https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-flower-vase-3d-model/10310393D model Table Lamp by Ulul Albab
Product ID: 1927025
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-model-table-lamp-1927025PICNIC 01 model by ESPHERA VIRTUAL
Product ID: 1918737
Link: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/picnic-01-model-1918737