{"id":455,"date":"2018-02-15T01:22:20","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T09:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jamesman.com\/secure\/?page_id=455"},"modified":"2018-02-19T00:56:16","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T08:56:16","slug":"system-shock","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/jamesman.com\/secure\/system-shock\/","title":{"rendered":"System Shock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Project Date:<\/strong> 2018
\nCreated with:<\/strong> ZBrush, 3ds Max, Substance Painter, Photoshop, & Unreal Engine 4
\nResponsibilities:<\/strong> Environment Art Lead, environments, props, lighting, FX, & shaders<\/p>\n

Environment Breakdowns:<\/strong> I was responsible for the initial concept art breakdowns and blockout pieces for the design team to work with.\u00a0 I built all of the tileset pieces featured in the screenshots, while the other environment artists on my team were tasked with building most of the props.\u00a0 Most of the tileset pieces were built in 3ds Max then texture in Substance Painter.\u00a0 For the areas featured in the screenshots, I did all of the layout, set dressing, lighting and FX work.\u00a0 For the pipes and wires hanging from the ceilings, I created Spline Mesh Blueprints so that the layouts and density could be varied throughout the environments in unique and interesting ways, and could be edited in-engine.<\/p>\n

Prop Breakdowns:<\/strong>\u00a0When the design team communicated a specific need for a prop (such as functionality for the Utility Lift) I was responsible for building it to meet those needs.\u00a0 I used 3ds Max and Substance Painter to author the pieces.<\/p>\n

Shader Breakdowns:<\/strong> Throughout production, I was responsible for all of the Master Materials, including the holograms, blurred glass, and layered shaders found through the environment.\u00a0 I built an Uber Material with switchable parameters that varied the necessary complexity of instanced materials based on their usage in the environment.\u00a0 Some of the parameters included vertex paintable layering with masking, roughness and metalness tuning, emissive tuning and world offset for vertex manipulation and animation.\u00a0 I was also responsible for the character shaders involved in the freezing and shatter tech, which could be adjusted to work for either organic or metallic surfaces.<\/p>\n