Creating a Stylized Barcelona Environment Using a Modular Architecture Kit

Introduction

Hi! My name is Frankie Povarchik. I'm a 25-year-old 3D Environment Artist and indie game developer based in Barcelona, Spain. Video games have always been my biggest passion, and I've long been driven by the idea of creating worlds that players can explore and experience for themselves.

Last year, I released my first commercial game, Sands of Hope, developed with Guateke Studios (a tiny team of two!), where I was responsible for the art direction, 3D art production, and environments. After that experience, I decided to focus on developing my environment art skills and building a stronger portfolio through personal projects. My goal is to join a game studio as a 3D Environment Artist, where I can continue learning and contribute to game environment production.

This Barcelona-inspired environment became an opportunity to take a step forward in my workflow, particularly in modular architecture, material creation, and environment composition. Throughout the project, I wanted to understand not only how to achieve a convincing final result, but also how to build a more efficient and structured production process.

Project Overview: References & Planning

For this project, I wanted to create a stylized urban environment inspired by the streets of Barcelona. Since I currently live here, I had the opportunity to explore interesting areas in person and take my own photographs of the architecture, materials, and smaller details (you can see one of my photos in the conclusion!). I wanted to capture that feeling of walking the city without reproducing a specific street exactly.

For the visual direction, I looked at games such as Overwatch, VALORANT, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, aiming to balance stylized shapes, readable materials, and believable architecture. I drew inspiration from Lydia Zanotti and Thiago Klafke, whose environments helped shape the direction I wanted to explore. 

Before starting production, I gathered references in PureRef and broke the environment down into its main components. I focused on identifying reusable architectural elements, the materials I needed to create, and the smaller details that would make the scene feel convincing.

From the beginning, I established three main goals: improve my approach to modular architecture, develop a stronger material workflow using Substance 3D Designer, and learn how to bring all these elements together into a cohesive environment in Unreal Engine 5.

Building the Modular Architecture Kit

Modularity was one of the main focuses of this project. I wanted to create an architectural kit that would allow me to build several different structures while maintaining consistent proportions and a unified visual language.

Modular kit overview screen

I started by working in Blender, creating the main architectural shells that would later become the buildings in the final scene. Rather than treating every building as an independent asset, I approached the architecture as a collection of reusable elements, including walls, windows, arches, doors, and other structural details.

One of the most important considerations was finding the right balance between flexibility and consistency. The modules had to be versatile enough to accommodate different building layouts, while still fitting together naturally and preserving the architectural character I wanted to achieve.

Building a shell breakdown

Once the individual pieces were ready, I could combine them into larger structures and create building variations without modeling every facade from scratch. This also made it easier to iterate on the composition of the environment, since I could modify the architecture without rebuilding entire buildings.

Creating a building using modular kit shells

This method changed the way I thought about the production process. Instead of focusing on individual buildings as isolated assets, I began thinking about the environment as a system. Each module had to work on its own, but it also had to contribute to the larger composition once assembled with the rest of the kit.
As the project progressed, I continued refining the architectural elements and their combinations, looking for ways to add variety while keeping the overall environment coherent.

Early blockout to final timelapse

Material & Texture Workflow

Once the architectural foundation was in place, I focused on developing the materials that would define the environment's visual identity. For this project, I wanted tileable materials to form the foundation of the texturing workflow, letting me reuse them across multiple assets while maintaining a consistent level of detail.

I created the main materials in Substance 3D Designer, where I could build procedural textures and adjust their parameters as needed. This workflow was particularly useful for architectural surfaces, since the same material could be applied to different meshes and scaled across large areas without requiring unique textures for every asset.

Substance 3D Designer material overview screen and comparison with real reference images

With Overwatch and VALORANT's visual direction in mind, I aimed to balance stylization, impressionism, and realism. My goal was to create surfaces with slightly exaggerated forms and an almost painterly quality, while preserving believable material properties and lighting responses. This approach allowed me to give the architecture a distinctive, stylized appearance without losing the tangible feel of real-world surfaces.

Material close-ups in the engine

Another important part of the workflow was the use of trim sheets for repeated details, such as borders, edges, frames, and decorative elements, that can be textured efficiently by reusing sections of a shared texture. By incorporating them into the project, I could maintain visual consistency across repeated architectural elements. Combined with the tileable materials, this gave me a flexible texturing workflow that could support the environment's scale.

For trims, I used Photoshop, which gave me more direct control to add and refine details. One technique I explored was using a 45-degree normal direction to create the illusion of sculpted surface details. Rather than relying exclusively on realistic surface information, this method helped me produce a more stylized response to lighting, making certain details feel more deliberately shaped.

Trim Sheet application in engine

Trim sheet close-up

Throughout this stage, I became increasingly comfortable with the relationship between procedural texture creation in Substance 3D Designer, texture editing in Photoshop, and material setup in Unreal Engine. Beyond creating materials that looked good, I was learning how to structure them so they could be reused and adjusted throughout the project.

Breaking Repetition through Material Variation & Surface Storytelling

One of the challenges of working with reusable materials is avoiding the repetition that can appear when the same textures are applied across large architectural surfaces. Although tileable materials and trim sheets provide an efficient foundation, they need additional layers of variation to make the final environment feel real.

To address this, I developed a workflow in Unreal Engine that combined several techniques, including vertex painting, RGB masking, decals, and overlay masks. Each technique offered a different way to add variation and detail that helped the surfaces feel more integrated into the environment.

Painting some details

Vertex painting allowed me to blend different material variations directly on the meshes, giving me precise control over how and where textures transitioned across a surface. To fine-tune these transitions, I incorporated a height mask that let me adjust the blending between softer, more gradual transitions and sharper, more defined boundaries. I also used RGB masking to introduce color variations, helping break up visual repetition and make larger surfaces feel more natural and less uniform.

Decals and overlay masks provided additional ways to bring in localized details and imperfections without having to rebuild the underlying materials. Decals let me place details precisely where needed, while overlay masks added surface information while preserving the original material.

What I particularly liked about combining these techniques was that they allowed me to approach variation as more than a purely technical problem. Each layer could contribute to the visual history of a surface. For example, I used decals for the areas beneath windows and balconies, where dust and imperfections naturally accumulate.

Instead of simply repeating a texture across a wall, I could gradually build up a more convincing surface. This became an important part of making the modular architecture feel more lived-in and real.

Final surface storytelling close-ups

Set Dressing: From Modular Architecture to a Believable Environment

Once the main architectural structures and material systems were in place, I moved on to assembling the environment in Unreal Engine and adding the props that would give the street its final identity.

I wanted the environment to feel like a street you might discover while walking around Barcelona, with enough visual variety to reward closer inspection without overwhelming the overall composition. I added foliage, wall decorations, street furniture, and other everyday objects to break up the architectural repetition and give each area its own character.

Props screen

Prop placement was just as important as the assets themselves. I distributed visual interest throughout the scene using clusters of objects and smaller details to guide the viewer's attention, while leaving less busy areas to let the architecture breathe.

Vegetation was particularly important, helping soften the hard architectural surfaces while introducing additional color and shape variation. I created some of the plants and pots myself, while other foliage assets came from external sources that I retextured to better fit the environment.

This was the stage where the modular kit started to feel like a complete environment rather than a collection of reusable assets. The architecture provided the structure, the materials established the visual language, and the set dressing gave the street its personality.

Lighting & Atmosphere

Lighting and final polish brought the environment's different elements together into a cohesive scene. I worked progressively, starting with the lighting and base materials to establish the overall mood and ensure the architecture read clearly, before refining the environment with decals, additional props, and visual effects.

Throughout this process, I made sure no single element felt disconnected from the rest. The materials had to respond well to the lighting, the props had to fit naturally into their surroundings, and the additional details had to reinforce the visual identity of the environment rather than distract from it.

Lighting passes

Detail lighting

My goal was to capture the feeling of walking down an ordinary Barcelona street, where the architecture, materials, and smaller details all contribute to a believable atmosphere. Seeing all these elements come together was one of the most rewarding parts of the project. It helped me understand how much the final impression of an environment depends not on a single technique, but on the relationship between all the different systems built throughout production.

Conclusion

This project has been a valuable step forward in my development as a 3D Environment Artist. I've spent the past six months working on it alongside my job and the EAM course, challenging myself to improve both my technical skills and my overall approach to environment production.

One of my biggest takeaways was learning to approach modularity more systematically. Building an architectural kit helped me understand how individual assets can support an entire environment and gave me a clearer workflow, from the initial blockout to the final scene. Material creation was another major learning experience, helping me understand the reasoning behind my decisions and feel more confident working with Substance 3D Designer, Photoshop, and Unreal Engine 5.

I'm very happy with how the project turned out and with everything I’ve learned along the way. More than anything, it has helped me develop a more structured and efficient workflow that I can carry into future projects.

I'd like to thank Thiago Klafke for creating the course and sharing his feedback, Pere Albacar, my former teammate at Guateke Studios, for his feedback and support, and Aroa Ruiz, Josep Meseguer, and part of the team at Gameloft Barcelona for their valuable insights throughout the process.

I'm looking forward to applying these lessons to future environments and continuing to grow as an Environment Artist.

Don't forget to follow me on ArtStation, X, and LinkedIn to stay tuned for all my future projects!

Thank you for reading!

Frankie Povarchik, 3D Environment Artist