How to Create Desolate 3D Railway in Dystopian Setting

Introduction 

Hi, I’m Iris Karapanagioti, a 3D Environment Artist based in Athens, Greece. Art and video games have been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember, so it always felt natural to combine the two. I originally started out as a 2D animator and earned my BA in 2D Animation. While I enjoyed working in the 2D space, I always felt something was missing. I found myself wanting to push things further. That urge to add more depth and atmosphere to my work is what eventually led me to 3D.

A year after graduating, some friends told me about Think Tank Training Centre, and I jumped at the chance to apply. From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to focus on environments, even though most of my previous work had been character-focused. What pulled me into 3D was the way it allows you to build entire spaces that feel alive and tell their own stories. That aspect really clicked with me.

Studying with Think Tank Online gave me the skills and structure I needed to make that transition into 3D. One of my first big projects was my Intermediate term piece, Soviet Bathroom. That project was a turning point for me, it pushed me technically and creatively, and it’s when I really fell in love with environment art.

Since then, I’ve been focused on improving, growing my portfolio, and continuing to explore storytelling through environments.

Station Lockdown

For my final project at Think Tank, I had the chance to work with Jeremy Cerisy as my mentor. He really helped keep me on track and gave me a lot of valuable feedback, along with insights into how things work in the industry.

One of the first big steps was picking a concept I’d be excited to spend a few months developing. Luckily, I had already come across the perfect one before the term even started, City 17 by the incredibly talented Atem Turskyi. The moment I saw it, I knew it was the one. It had everything I love in a setting: a grim, moody atmosphere, that post-Soviet feel, and a sense that something bigger and more mysterious is happening beneath the surface. As a huge Half-Life fan, it immediately clicked with me.

I also wanted this project to be a step up, something that would challenge me technically and be larger in scale than anything I’d done before. Working on a bigger environment meant having to think more about how everything connects and supports the overall mood. I saw it as a great opportunity to push myself and learn how to keep a larger scene cohesive and believable.

Even though I didn’t want to make straight-up fan art of such an iconic game, I felt like this concept was the perfect starting point, something I could use as a base to build my own world and ideas on top of.

After talking with my mentor, the first step was making the scene my own. I started by writing a short narrative to guide the world building: “A desolate urban railway under military control, with propaganda and authority shaping the atmosphere.” This became the foundation for everything that followed.

From there, I began breaking down the original concept and figuring out how to push the narrative visually. I photo-bashed over the artwork to test different ideas and see what would fit. Once I had a clearer direction, I went through every part of the scene, both from the original and the new additions, and gathered real-world references for each element. This helped keep things grounded while making sure the scene felt believable and cohesive.

Composition & Blockout

I approached this project with the intention of subtly reinterpreting the original concept through my own creative decisions, while striving to achieve a high level of realism despite the scene’s large scale. I broke the process down into several key stages to manage both the artistic vision and technical execution effectively.

I began by blocking out the scene with basic geometry in Autodesk Maya. My main focus at this stage was matching the camera angle as closely as possible to the reference, while making sure the layout, scale, and proportions felt right. I wanted the space to not only look accurate but also function in a way that a character could realistically move through and interact with.

One of the adjustments I made was to the train design. In the original concept, the train was about the width of a single person, which worked visually but felt a bit tight for gameplay or interaction. To make it more usable while still keeping the original feel, I slightly increased its width and tweaked the design to allow characters to move inside more naturally.

I followed a high-to-low poly workflow for most of the hero assets, such as the AKM and the traffic lights. The base shapes for the traffic lights were created in Maya and then imported into ZBrush to add surface details like concrete damage on the base, dents, and scratches on the metal body. After detailing, I baked these details onto a low-poly mesh. I used a similar approach for the stairs leading to the station.

For the AKM, I focused on achieving as much accuracy as possible to the real weapon. After modeling the high-poly details, I used Maya’s Quad Draw tool to create a clean, efficient low-poly mesh. Lastly, the baking was done in Marmoset Toolbag to get a clean bake and adjust any errors.

For more generic or background props, I modeled directly in low poly, emphasizing strong silhouettes and relying on detailed textures rather than complex geometry. A good example is the barrel in my scene, which uses simple shapes but reads well visually.

To save time on the background buildings, I created modular kits that I can rearrange to create multiple apartments.

When it came to UV unwrapping, I did all of it manually in Maya. I tried to keep the packing of the UVs as efficient and clean as possible, minimizing wasted texture space.

I kept the texel density consistent across assets, with a texel density of 10.24 px/cm at a 4,096 resolution, based on how much screen space they take up, higher for important hero assets and lower for background props to keep a good balance between visual quality and performance.

Texturing

Texturing, like modeling, is handled in clear stages. I begin by determining which assets will use tiling textures and which need unique textures, depending on their screen presence and importance within the scene.

For many of the objects in my scene, I created unique textures in Substance 3D Painter, using real-life image references to ensure realism. Depending on the object, I researched how different materials age, wear, and accumulate dirt or damage over time to create believable surface details and tell a more authentic visual story.

For bigger surfaces such as flooring, walls, and larger objects, I chose to create tileable materials because they are efficient and easy to reuse. They help keep texture quality high without needing huge image files, which is great for performance.

All of my tileable materials were done in Substance 3D Designer. One of the first materials I set eyes on making was the train station ballast. I started by testing things out, ultimately deciding that creating individual rock shapes and multiplying their amount, size, and rotation in a Tile_Sampler node was the best course of action for me.

One of the materials I really enjoyed creating was the damaged asphalt. I did a lot of research beforehand: looked at how others approached it, gathered tons of real-world references, and even went out and took my own photos. Once I had a good feel for the surface, I started building it procedurally, starting with a base using noise nodes for the asphalt texture. Then I added cracks and damage using directional warps and blended noises. I used gradients and masks to add surface variation like stains or wear. Finally, I tweaked the roughness and normals for depth and added small debris for realism.

The wall tiles and plaster were materials I had originally created for a previous project, the Soviet Bathroom scene. Since I already had a strong foundation, I decided to build on that work and tweak the materials to better match the style and needs of my current project. This allowed me to save time while still ensuring the materials felt cohesive and context-appropriate.

Decals & Breaking Tileable Textures

To break repetition and add specific design elements to my tileable textures, I used several techniques, one of the most effective being masks. For example, with the concrete tiles, I created two versions of the material: one clean and one damaged. By setting up a second UV set in Maya, I was able to create custom masks in Substance 3D Painter to precisely place the damaged areas where needed. Exporting the mask and using it in Unreal Engine 5 was straightforward and efficient.

Another example is with my train rails. I used a mask to blend three different tileable materials: the base metal, rust, and dirt. The rust was applied selectively, avoiding the areas where the train wheels would make contact, while the dirt was focused in the crevices and along the bottom. This approach allowed me to break up visible repetition and blend tileable materials in a way that looked both natural and intentional.

For my decals, especially the graffiti, I created everything by hand in Substance 3D Painter. I drew the graffiti myself, making sure the colors really stood out. My personal experience with spray paint and graffiti definitely helped when it came to choosing colors and coming up with designs that felt authentic.

Some of the other decals, like wall leaks and stains, were made in Photoshop. That gave me more control over shapes and blending, which helped them sit more naturally on the surfaces.

Using both tools gave me the flexibility to get the look I wanted and add extra detail to the scene.

Lighting & Effects

For the LED screen, I didn’t want to just throw on an emissive texture and call it a day. I wanted it to actually feel like a real LED display, with that detailed RGB pixel structure. So I created a texture that mimicked the RGB pixel layout and then layered it over the screen content using a Multiply node in the material. That way, the pixel pattern would blend naturally with the image underneath.

To make it glow, I adjusted the emissive values so the colours felt bright and vibrant. It’s a small detail, but it really made the material feel a lot more authentic.

For the sky, I initially tried tweaking the default Unreal Engine setup to achieve the look I wanted, but no matter how much I adjusted it, it just didn’t feel realistic or match the atmosphere I had in mind. So I started exploring other options and came across Ultra Dynamic Sky. After installing it, there was definitely a bit of a learning curve; it’s a powerful but complex tool. With some trial and error, I gradually figured out how to get the results I was after. I managed to create a cloudy, overcast sky with added rain, occasional thunder, and a layer of fog to really bring the mood together.

Composition

After I had all the textures in place and the cameras set up, my next goal was to make the world feel lived-in. I started by scattering the assets I had already made in places that felt natural, then created additional props based on what the scene needed. I added things like paint buckets and tool bags to suggest ongoing work, and small details like cigarette butts and cans to show signs of life and activity in the station.

Near the train, I placed crates and weapons just outside the doors to hint at some kind of operation or mission. I also wanted to give the viewer a subtle sense of direction, so I included a slightly open door with cables running into it, suggesting that something important was happening behind it and inviting the player to move forward.

Conclusion

The project took a little more than a full term to complete as part of my mentorship at Think Tank Training Centre. It was a long process that involved a lot of iteration, late nights, and pushing through technical and creative challenges. One of the biggest hurdles was getting everything to

feel cohesive, making sure all the elements, from lighting to storytelling, worked together to create a believable, lived-in world. Another challenge was striking a balance between staying true to the concept by Artyom Turskyi while also making decisions that suited a 3D environment and worked in real time.

Throughout the project, I learned a lot, both artistically and technically. I gained a better understanding of scene composition, lighting, and how to use storytelling through environment design. I also learned how important planning and reference gathering are at the start, and how crucial feedback is along the way. Having support from my mentor, Jeremy Ceris,y and guidance on camera work from Murari Przebierala really made a difference.

For beginner artists, I’d say don’t be afraid to take on something that feels slightly out of reach. That’s where you grow the most. Stay consistent, ask for feedback often, and don’t get discouraged if things don’t look perfect right away; everything is built step by step.

Iris Karapanagioti, Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Emma Collins