Props! Unreal Sample Project - Cropout

Delighted to share my work for Cropout - an Unreal Engine sample project I worked on with a small team for Epic Games.

I was the sole environment artist on this project and was provided with a basic framework from which I needed to concept and model all assets (I didn't make the terrain and water). It was great to do everything from start to finish, and to come out at the end with a full repertoire of published stuff I can show here. I don't think that happens very often!

The workflow for this had to be absolutely immaculate and correct as the project is available to be downloaded, pulled apart to learn from, and reused. Each level of asset (4-6 growth stages) has a unique unwrap and texture applied so the assets can be used in people's own games. The models are very high poly to showcase what UE5 and it's lodding tools can do.

It was my first time working with Nanite, and it was definitely a learning curve being able to work with such a high poly budget- it felt quite contrary to everything I have learned up to now. All I had to make was the lowest LOD and all other LODs were generated in UE5 by Arran. We went for a slightly toy-like look and I like how it plays against the realistic lighting in the scene.

On launch day Arran, Oswin, and myself joined a stream to discuss the project in detail. It was a bit tough as my internet went terrible halfway through, but I think I got my points across, ha! It was great to revisit the project months after I had finished on it and chat with the team. I live for little projects like this, it was so nice.

Enjoy pulling the project apart!!

Thanks to Arran for the in-game screenshots.

Shout out to the team I worked with;
Arran Langmead - Art direction and project mastermind https://www.artstation.com/arranlangmead
Andreas Suika - Animation system and more https://twitter.com/AndiDev_
Oswin Neumann - Character concept, modelling, animation https://www.linkedin.com/in/oswinneumann/