LogInQuentin Godillon told us about the creation of 7 Hours, showing how real demolition footage helped make damaged wood and sharing the texturing process in Substance 3D Painter.
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Introduction
Hi, my name is Quentin Godillon, and I’m an environment artist currently working at Playground Games. Before moving to the gaming industry, I was a graphic designer for 12 years. That’s my love of 3D art that made me jump into the gaming industry.
Half-Life is the GOAT for me and many of my generation. I have always wanted to do something with it, but funnily enough, the start of this project was a Victorian house interior and had nothing to do with HL2, but it did grow over time as a short animation.
7 Hours
Watching the Knives Out movie inspired me to try to make a Victorian house. As always in the beginning, reference gathering and blockout are the first steps to find what the scene can be. At this point, I don’t always have a strong idea of what the storytelling will be; I just know what kind of environment I’d like to create.
After a more advanced blockout is complete, I take some time to streamline and organize the number of assets I want to make while also keeping an achievable scope. During this phase, I created an asset to gauge how long it was going to take to make everything else.
Getting feedback is always nice, and while I kept adding to the project, the lack of strong storytelling was apparent. I wanted something more dramatic and impactful, and I was playing Half-Life 2 at the same time.
From there, I did another pass of blockout and reference and made a big hole in the room. At this point, the final idea came together in just a few days. But with a new scope come new problems; now I have to produce a city and a drone. To overcome the amount of work, I chose to use the Substance 3D material library for everything related to the city buildings.
Props
I use a low-to-high poly workflow most of the time, and even start with the low poly with subdivision if I have a good idea of what I want. The baking and painting was done in Substance 3D Painter.
When creating a high poly, I try to introduce small details to give more uniqueness to the asset. In this case, it will be the upholstery nails and the small dents on the edges. Even if it’s a small thing, I trust the accumulation of these small details will make the difference in the bigger picture.
To texture the asset, I go back to my references and try to identify the key materials that I can break down into different layers. For this asset, it was:
- Wood (I’m looking for the pristine version without dirt, leaks,or scratches),
- Varnished coating,
- Dirt accumulating near the ground and in crevasses,
- Slightly worn edges.
The sneaky trap I try to avoid every time is to not use a texture with the damaged or weathering already baked in. In my experience, the result will be noisy and lack intent.
The informed intent given by the reference is what should drive the texture process.
Damage
Making the damaged wood pieces was a fun part of the process, as it was the first time I did something like this. I found a YouTube channel where a demolition company filmed houses being destroyed. At some point, the GoPro is inside the house being wrecked, and the fun game is to find the camera afterward.
Making the texture required multiple iterations, as the first ones were just too noisy or plastic. But in the end, the process remains the same, I go back to my references and try to break down the key elements that make these assets.
City
To match the Half-Life feel, I took some references from Alyx and Prague's real location on Google Street View and, through iteration, narrowed it down to a few modular pieces.
I used these modular pieces to create 2 buildings with the idea to add a material swap on top of them later.
The buildings are assembled in Blender and exported as one mesh to avoid excessive draw calls once in the engine.
For each building, the UV1 is set for each individual piece and is used for the base texture. I then unwrap the whole building on a UV2, which will be used to create an RGB mask and an ambient occlusion mask. This technique allows complex and more unique details with less geometry compared to vertex painting. Though the downfall is that the RGB mask texture size needs to be high enough.
I create the RGB mask in Substance 3D Painter. Decals are a great help to add details without using too much occlusion and AO filters. I assign the layer to the correct RGB channel and export a packed map.
The master material in UE is quite basic; it’s about layering different texture maps driven by the RGB mask. I use a StaticSwitchParameters to add a texture map; this technique avoids useless instructions if, for example, only the R channel is used.
There are also a few exposed parameters, such as colour hue, tiling, or roughness, to quickly iterate in-game.
One last layer is an alpha tiling map to create low-density variation; this map is world-aligned.
Lighting
The right lighting scenario was hard to find, and I went through a lot of iterations. To avoid a stylized mood, I stick to PBR values first by setting the exposure and sun intensity with real-world values. I always end up tweaking those numbers to fit the reference I have in mind.
A trick I use is something I have learned from the world of movies. Adding more light is fine as long as it has a clear intent and supports the storytelling.
On top of the main directional light, I have small rect lights boosting the windows. This gives more depth and emphasizes the space. They also serve as rim light for the props by giving more volume.
Conclusion
It took me a few months on and off to get this one done. Even if I’m not completely satisfied with the result, I’m still happy with what I have managed to do. Projects are just iterations, and I trust the next one will be better. If I have one advice to give, it would be to not be too precious about concepts and ideas and learn to let go and put a few things into the trash bin.