How to Design a Ghibli-Style Version of Elden Ring's Limgrave in 3D

Introduction

My name is Shen Jia, I am from China. I used to work for Archosaur Games as a Senior Environment Artist, and currently, I work for PaperGames. I worked on Love and Deepspace and a mobile Avatar game. I used to work in architectural landscape design and film art and finally decided to be a game designer. This work gives artists more room to play and the possibility to design different styles and scenes, and I enjoy this diversity. 

This project was my first attempt at a stylized setting. I spent a lot of time on the topic and finally decided to pay homage to my favorite game – Elden Ring.

I still remember the shock when two years ago I discovered the world created by Hidetaka Miyazaki for the first time. This project was a dream of every game producer and, at the same time, was driving every player crazy. My clumsy re-creation of one of the game scenes is a tribute to Elden Ring as well as an attempt at styling. As we all know, the Souls series of games are dark in style. I wondered – if I change the essence of the style, will the scene with a depressed atmosphere transform into a dreamy countryside castle? I was eagerly looking forward to this possibility.

The Art Style

First, I looked for some style references that I think were suitable. I drew inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki's films, which refer to the traditional hand-drawn effects, and other cartoon rendering projects.

Second, I took a full screenshot of the scene from game's perspective. 

Third, I tested the actual size of the game map and quickly built it in Unreal Engine.

Finally, I decided to make the tutorial scene in Limgrave and reduce the scene by one-third. The stylized scene is relatively generalized, the model complexity isn't high, and the overall color block is emphasized. Also,grass and vegetation in the field are widely represented . 

Blockout

The white boxing stage is crucial, and it is necessary to recreate the game ontology as much as possible but also to take into account the characteristics of the style.

I repeatedly referred to the game scene, confirmed the space composition of the location, and also identified which split objects were needed. I enjoyed this process, allowing myself to further learn the advantages of Elden Ring space design, while also having some ideas of my own that I would like to work on.

Landscape

The scene area is relatively large, and I wanted to make a multi-functional set of materials. The ground needs to be mixed with multiple maps. At the same time, it also needs to address the repeatability of the tiles and the integration of objects. The ground plants can be auto-generated without manual brushing.

I considered that I would need four or five texture groups for base terrain material.

LB Height Blend: There is a noise effect at the interface of different materials:

Parallax Occlusion Mapping:

For different pixel depths, I made two different tiles and added noise texture.

I added Runtime Virtual Texture for the fusion of terrain and ground objects.

Assets

Having verified the white box and confirmed how many types of objects are needed, I presented the production process and ideas for a few main objects. At this point, I would like to thank my teacher LiZi for providing the production idea of card rendering.

The plants are the main style effect object in this scene. I was going to make them first.

A grass model was made in Maya. I also modified vertex normals to unify to the Y-axis.

I used texture in a solid color and added it directly inside Unreal Engine. The grass material required color area noise, color waves, wind, and interactive features.

Material parameter adjustment:

Random color noise distribution:

Grass wind:

Color-rippling wheat without cast shadows:

Bush

I made a bush model in Maya with a 45° triangular insert. Then I created a bush shape outline.

Inserting elements in array:

Transferring spherical normals to plant inserts:

Making material inside the Engine:

I also added simple grass wind.

Then I increased the index of Color Random.

Texturing

I used the Substance 3D Designer workflow for stylized texturing, and the Substance 3D Sampler to make fast changes to some realistic textures.

The hand-painted effect can be reduced by adding some random strokes, blurring structures, subjectively dealing with color saturation, and, where necessary, adding some contrasting colors, echoing warm and cold shades to make the map more vivid.

Designer is the main software for texturing, which can draw all the effects you want, but its production process is relatively complex. You can use Sampler for a quick stylization texture process, and then decide if it works for you.

For other objects, such as stone and architecture, I followed the regular workflow which didn't have any specific steps.

Environment

In the wild world, sky and clouds can occupy a high proportion of the screen, and it is necessary to focus on their color, lighting, and silhouette. In Limgrave, the primary colors of the skybox are green and yellow, with high contrast and grey tones.

Hayao Miyazaki's sky and clouds are light and transparent. The clouds are soft in shape, and the sky is almost clear.

I decided to combine the overall effect of the artist to increase the shape richness and number of layers of the clouds.

Light

In Unreal Engine 5, I tried several lighting systems and finally chose Lumen, which greatly improved the scene.

Settings in Directional Light: Dynamic Light, Light Shafts:

Cascaded Shadow Maps display the quality of close shadows, while Distance Field Shadows depict distance shadows.

Settings for skylight:

With ExponentialHeightFog, through two layers of fog and volume fog, the depth space is opened to create a stylized tone.

Cloud shadow:

I added cloud shadow material to the Directional Light material function.

PPV is a good way to tone, but it is recommended to use it with caution, trying to adjust the tone to the right range in the early stage, and then using PPV to check the color.

Conclusion

Working on masterpieces like the works of FromSoftware allows me to significantly improve my artistic skills. For instance, I've dived into the development of environment technologies and shaders.

The attempt to create stylized artwork has brought me recognition from many people but also has drawn criticism from others. I know that my project has imperfections, and I need to hone my art level. Also, it allows me to see the room for improvement. Therefore, I hope that designers who love art try new ideas. The result is not important, the process is the gold.

I express my gratitude to the 80 Level team for the opportunity to share this project with you.

Shen Jia, Senior Environmental Artist 

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine