Unpeaceful: How to Make a 3D Room Environment for a Video Game
Leandro Grasso explained how he set up a 3D room environment for the Unpeaceful project, detailing how he created the computer and how he set up the lighting to achieve a visual narrative.
Introduction
Hi everyone! I'm Leandro, and I started my journey in 3D art three years ago. I transitioned from a passion for landscape photography to a passion for creating 3D environments, as the two are closely connected in many ways. Recently, I contributed to a project called Unpeaceful, creating my latest environment for my friend Filippo Sineri's video game, which will be released next year.
Unpeaceful
To create this environment, I gathered references from various scenes and projects. I aimed to meet my friend's gameplay needs, as my environment mainly serves to provide context to the game. My primary inspiration was Dustin's room from Stranger Things, especially for the wood, some of the materials, and the wallpaper.
I started with a simple blockout in Blender, using the mannequin to maintain correct proportions. First, I tried to imagine how the room should look: I created modular pieces and then moved on to the props, using cubes, cylinders, and other basic shapes to understand how I wanted to organize the space.
Once the blockout phase was complete, I began modeling the props. For this environment, I didn't use a high-poly to low-poly workflow. Instead, I worked with a mid-poly approach, using chamfers, weighted normals, and triangulate modifiers in Blender to speed up the process, since I needed to create many props to fill the room. This workflow allowed me to save a lot of time.
One of the props I'm most satisfied with is the IBM computer. To model it, I used camera matching based on the references I collected. I created a mid-poly asset that maintains a solid look from every distance.
UVs and Texturing
All UVs were unwrapped in Blender. I used Texel Density Checker to set a texel density of 1024 px/m with a texture size of 2048. For this task, I grouped as many assets as possible, trying to make full use of the available space. To pack the UV islands, I used UVPackmaster, which allowed me to maximize space efficiency.
Regarding the texturing process, for this project, I used several master materials: one for the modular pieces with tiling textures, one for the props with unique textures, one for glass and translucent objects, one for displays, and one for decals. For the tiling materials, I used Quixel Megascans textures, which I modified in Substance 3D Designer, while the unique textures were created in Substance 3D Painter.
A special mention goes to Harley Wilson for his breakdown on LCDs, which helped me achieve the result seen in my project. I customized it to fit my needs by adding a panning gradient to recreate the look of old screens when recorded through a camera.
As for the unique textures, I didn't use any particularly complex techniques, but I'm delighted with how the posters turned out. I created a mask from a real black-and-white paper texture and used it to achieve a crumpled paper effect.
Composition and Lighting
Regarding the composition, once I finished the blockout, I placed the first camera and then positioned the others while keeping the final result in mind. I initially focused on small details and gradually worked toward revealing the entire room through the final shots. Every asset was placed to enhance the visual storytelling of the scene. I created clusters of large, medium, and small props to make the environment more visually appealing.
When it comes to lighting, I used a PBL approach, or at least I tried to, since I'm not a lighting artist. The PBL Database add-on helped me a lot in understanding how to set the correct values for the directional light, the artificial lights inside the room, and how to control EV through auto-exposure by moving closer or farther from light sources.
My goal was to achieve a natural look. For that reason, I didn't tweak the post process too much. I mainly adjusted the color grading by cooling down the shadows and applied a slight white balance correction, since the scene was initially too orange and felt unnatural to me.
Conclusion
This project is the third piece in my portfolio since I started creating environments one year ago. It took me three and a half months to complete. It will be integrated into a video game called Unpeaceful, which is being developed by my friend Filippo Sineri.
The main challenge was managing the entire production schedule, as there was always the temptation to keep adding new elements to make the scene more accurate. In situations like this, I recommend creating a clear list of objects and testing them directly in the scene.
You can keep adding small details indefinitely, but at some point, you realize that the environment is complete and works well as it is. Using references from movies or video games is extremely helpful. Personally, I used Bloodlines 2 as a reference for how to scatter assets naturally throughout the scene.
I want to thank Alberto Casu and Alessandro Gallucci for their valuable feedback throughout the process, and thank you as well to anyone who took the time to read my breakdown.
