Creating Stylized Mausoleum from Modular Parts

Introduction

Hi! I’m Sheila Alessandrini, a freelance 3D Environment Artist from Italy. I’ve always loved traditional art, which I began studying in high school before joining the Academy of Fine Arts, where I graduated in Graphic Design.

I worked in that field for several years until I decided to follow my passion for video games. That led me to study 3D on my own and start a new career.

As a freelancer, I’ve now had the chance to work on different projects to create props and environments, mostly with a stylized setting, which I prefer the most.

The Lost Mausoleum

For my next project, I wanted to create something that would give me the opportunity to dive deeper into the study of modularity and trim sheets, especially those made in Substance 3D Designer.

I then stumbled upon “The Lost Land of Mausoleum” made by Duowei Feng, and not only was it a concept that I really liked, but it was also perfect for my purpose.

The first step was studying the concept. In Photoshop, I highlighted repetitive elements and areas where trim sheets could be applied, using different colors to mark each. Planning these reusable parts ahead of time helped streamline the process and reduced the need for revisions later. 

I also made mockup trim sheets to map out where each element would go in the final trim, allowing me to estimate space requirements. While I made a few adjustments afterward, the initial layout was close to the final version. 

Once the planning was complete, I started a new project in Unreal Engine, blocking out the scene using only basic shapes.

I wanted the camera angle to match the concept art from the start, so I created a simple material overlay of the concept image and applied it to the camera. To do this, I created a Material Instance from my Master Material, allowing me to easily adjust the opacity of the image with a parameter. Then, by selecting the camera, I added the Overlay Material Instance under Post Process Material. This setup allowed me to view both the concept and my environment simultaneously, making it easier to match the concept’s perspective more accurately.

After setting the right view and finishing the initial blockout, I exported the scene to Blender to refine the shapes and divide each modular piece. I then exported these pieces back to Unreal, replacing the original blockout.

The Blender addon Batch Export was especially helpful here, as it allowed me to export groups of meshes without needing to center them in the scene each time. Once exported, it keeps the original pivot point of each mesh, regardless of the asset's position in the scene.

Sculpting

The god bass relief was an important part of the scene, and since I wanted to have more control over the shapes, I went with a different approach.

I first started with a rough blockout made in Blender, which I then exported to ZBrush to sculpt.

In ZBrush, I used the Move tool to shape the body parts and relied on symmetry in the initial stages as much as possible. Once I was satisfied with the basic anatomy, I merged all the parts and began adding slight variations on each side, being careful not to go too detailed to maintain a stylized look.

When working on stylized elements, I made extensive use of the Orb Brushes, especially the Orb Cracks brush, which was ideal for detailing the hands and creating folds in the clothing. Once I was happy with the sculpt, I did a quick decimation of the model and exported it back to Blender. There, I scaled it down onto a square plane, preparing it for baking in Substance 3D Designer.

Inside Substance 3D Designer, I baked the model to get the normal and height maps, with these textures I then incorporated the bas-relief into my third trim, which was mostly made of the bigger and last details.

Outside the Concept

Once well underway with the scene, I decided that I wanted to make use of all the modular parts to create something that wasn’t shown in the concept.

I then started imagining a possible entrance to the temple on the back side of the main view, and I also wanted to add a personal touch to it.

I had a photo of an old wooden door I took some time before that I thought could fit perfectly into the scene, and I used this as a starting point to create the rest of this entrance, the other props are just a reuse of what I already had.

The door is completely textured with trims and wood tileable, but I also added some moss details with masks in the second UV channel.

Vegetation

Even though it isn't the main focus, plants and trees add a nice color contrast to the scene. For the water plants, I created some leaves by sculpting them in ZBrush and then baking them in Substance 3D Designer.

For the trees, I made a bark texture, and to avoid repetition, inside Unreal Engine, I added a second normal map with adjustable scale and intensity.

Materials

Since my goal was to rely heavily on trim sheets and improve my skills in Substance 3D Designer, I textured almost everything in the scene using SD, except for the smaller props, which I textured in Substance 3D Painter or using other techniques such as RGB mask.

SD made it easy to make quick, non-destructive changes to textures. I started by creating tileable materials, like the stone path, wood, brick wall, and plaster, which I then used as bases for the trims. For example, I used the wood texture from the tileable as a base in the trim sheet to ensure consistent color and texture details.

While working on the trims, I tested them directly in the scene by applying them to the meshes in Blender. I used the TexTools and Texel Density Checker addons to help with straightening UVs for trims and maintaining a consistent texel density for tileable materials, which made it easier to achieve uniform detail across the environment.

Something that I created as soon as I started to apply the first materials to the meshes was an additional scene inside Unreal to test the assets with a more neutral light, and I followed this guide made by Romain Durand to create it.

This approach makes it easier to spot issues, make tweaks, and ensure quality before final implementation.

I used this same test scene also to showcase the final assets and materials used in the environment.

Texturing

For the texturing, it was just a matter of positioning the UVs correctly on the trim sheet, and since I had designed the modular parts with this in mind, it made the process pretty quick.

However, I used a different approach for the large stone circle around the temple by texturing it with an RGB mask. Since it was such a large prop, I sculpted some high-poly details, baked them in Substance 3D Painter onto the unwrapped low poly to create a normal map, and then used an RGB mask instead of traditional texturing. I created three different masks in red, green, and blue, then exported them as a single texture to Unreal. These masks allow for customizable color details, curvature, dirt, or anything else I might want to tweak in the engine. Using the same mask, I also set up the shader to adjust roughness as needed.

Walls and floors are other large surfaces that could potentially fall into repetition if used with only one texture. So for the wall, I blended together a brick and a plaster texture and the floor with a sand material. 

To blend them together, I used vertex painting with height blend. To add additional details and variation for the wall, I also created a decal that affects the normal map to fake normal details with the brick texture.

Final details

Some other final details that are mostly visible only in the video of the final render of the scene are the moving flame of the candles and the wind moving the water plants and banners.

For the moving flames, I used the same material I created for one of my previous projects (Raven’s Shrine). It consists of a black-and-white flame texture made in Substance 3D Designer. By applying a series of parameters, such as panning, the material moves and distorts the texture, which is applied to a simple plane.

The wind moving the plants and banners is made in two different ways: for the plants, I had only to set up an additional node attached to the World Position Offset of the foliage material, with this, I could change the intensity and speed of the wind.

To animate the banners, I imported them as a skeletal mesh and used Unreal’s Cloth Simulation. I painted the vertices I wanted to be affected by the wind, then added a WindDirectionalSource to the scene, making the wind affect the banners realistically by responding to directional changes.

Lighting

While trying to match the lighting of the concept wasn’t easy, the general lighting setup was pretty simple, and I didn’t make use of any post-process or post-production.

The main lighting from outside comes from a directional light, while the inside is lit by some point lights with warm color coming from the candles and some rect lights with a slightly cold tone coming from the top and sides, faking the bouncing of lights coming from the outside.

Conclusion

Creating this environment pushed me out of my comfort zone, challenging me to explore new workflows. Rather than relying on my usual approach of using ZBrush for high-poly models and baking, I transitioned to using Substance 3D Designer for every texture in the scene, which helped me work more flexibly. Another rewarding challenge was creating elements not shown in the concept while still keeping everything visually cohesive. This exercise helped me understand the importance of adapting an established style to new components.

Through this project, I not only learned several new techniques but also gained a new portfolio piece that I’m really proud of. Each step, from planning to final touches, taught me something new and helped me grow as an artist.

I hope this article was helpful and provided some useful insights into the process! Feel free to reach out to me on ArtStation or LinkedIn if you'd like to connect, ask questions, or share your own experiences.

Sheila Alessandrini, 3D Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine