Leartes Studios on Its Approach to 3D Environment Creation

Introduction

Hi, I am Oguzhan Kar, a 31-year-old former Architect and 3D Environment and Lighting Artist who is now the Founder of Leartes Studios, based in Istanbul, Turkiye. We founded the company with my colleague, Control and Automation Engineer Serdar Urkmez.

Leartes Studios is a digital art studio founded in 2019. We specialize in 3D Environments using game-ready Engines such as Unreal Engine, Unity, Godot, and more. We have asset packs on various platforms such as Fab, Unity Asset Store, Leartes Store (Cosmos), and others.

We also provide outsourcing services in the game art field and have previously worked with companies such as Epic Games, Microsoft, Tencent, and others. Lately, we have expanded our fields in education, offering various courses and online tutorials and partnering with educational Institutes and student clubs to support the community and expand our reach.

We have a passionate team that is always keen to improve their work and knowledge, and we are always open to new and interesting projects.

Leartes Studios

I remember the date we started creating our environments for the market. We were looking for some assets for a Project we were working on with Serdar. We could find assets on the market to create the environment. We have noticed a gap in the market for environment packs that offer both artistic quality and technical optimization. Along with my co-founder, Serdar Ürkmez, we wanted to create a studio that could bridge this gap by combining our backgrounds in architecture, automation, and 3D art.

Digital stores were functional but it was not enough. The idea of creating a library of digital assets for developers and other artists was a great motivation for us.

South American Slums

The idea of the South American Slums environment was the result of one of our brainstorming. We wanted to create real-world locations that are rich with storytelling potential. We tried to capture the feeling of the neighborhoods. For inspiration, we looked at references from Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. We also gathered reference images from street views to ensure we captured the authenticity of materials, architecture, and urban clutter.

Our Production starts with Ideation and brain-storming. We create mood boards and concept art. Once we have a clear vision, we break down the environment into modular pieces focusing on scalability. That helps us a lot while we are doing modeling.

When modelling we try to find a balance between detail and performance. Texturing involves creating rich and realistic or artistic materials that reflect the story of the environment. Lighting is a crucial step where we set the mood. We experiment with different lights in the scene to find the best way to highlight the important elements of the levels while ensuring optimal performance. Rendering builds on the lighting, aiming to have realistic results.

Working in Unreal & Unity

Preparing an environment for both engines starts with creating the environment in Unreal Engine. This allows us to take advantage of its tools and features to set the foundation of the environment. Once the Unreal Engine version is complete, we adapt the assets and materials for Unity. We create our environments with a specific pipeline that we have developed through the years. This pipeline helps us to convert the environment to Unity.

Both engines support modular workflows. This allows developers to build and customize their environments using reusable assets efficiently. For texturing, both engines are working with PBR so the assets have a realistic appearance in lighting and shading. They also support features like LOD systems, enabling performance optimization.

In my opinion, the main difference between the two engines is the lighting. Unreal Engine has more advanced dynamic lighting, making it easier to make real-time changes, while Unity often requires more manual adjustments to get similar results. Unreal Engine also uses Blueprints for adding interactive elements, which is simpler compared to Unity, where custom scripts are needed. Additionally, Unreal Engine includes Nanite, which allows us to handle high-poly assets without requiring manual optimization.

Despite the differences, we are trying to share environments that can excel developers who are using both engines.

Distribution

Much like the rest of our projects, South American Slums are available on Fab, Epic Games' new marketplace.

Fab is offering 100% revenue to publishers in 2024, which is great for them. We are always in contact with our friends on the Fab team, and we always share our feedback. We have some ideas for improving its features, which we have already shared with the team.

Conclusion

We think that apart from the software, the most important things are the quality of the work and what they offer to customers. Customers always rely on getting better products which includes more. Now that Fab supports all software and every artist and company specializing in different software, we think that Fab is a go-to marketplace for all digital artists. You can find our products available on Fab here. 

Oguzhan Kar, Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Theodore McKenzie