Role: 3D Environment Artist & Level Designer
Software Used: Blender, Unreal Engine, Adobe Substance Painter
Description
“Whimsical Village” is a stylized, mobile-ready 3D game environment designed with a cozy, fantasy aesthetic. The level features unique, organic architecture—onion-dome and garlic-shaped huts with thatched, pointed roofs—nestled in a lush, crater-like valley. The project showcases a complete workflow from initial asset modeling to engine integration, level layout optimization, and interactive game-map UI design.
Production Process & Workflow
1. Concept & 3D Modeling (Blender)
- Asset Creation: Designed and modeled modular architectural assets, focusing on a playful, organic silhouette. The houses combine smooth, bulbous plaster shapes with sharp, stylized wooden roof frames.
- Optimization: Modeled with strict polygon budget constraints in mind to ensure the assets run smoothly on mobile hardware without sacrificing the distinctive, curved silhouettes.
- Environment Layout: Arranged the huts, hand-placed stylized trees, foliage, and decorative props (barrels, crates, wells) to form a natural, winding flow for player exploration.
2. Materials & Lighting (Unreal Engine)
- Engine Integration: Imported the optimized meshes into Unreal Engine to build the final game-ready scene.
- Texturing & Shading: Applied vibrant, saturated materials to enhance the “whimsical” and cheerful atmosphere.
- Lighting Design: Set up a bright, warm directional light (simulating midday sun) paired with soft, stylized shadows to emphasize the deep valley topography and make the white architectural elements pop against the green terrain.
3. Level Design & Interactivity
- Pathing & Composition: Designed a clear, interconnected stone pathway network (as highlighted in the production layouts) to guide the player’s eye and control movement throughout the village.
- Interactive Placement: Populated the level with interactive touch-points, crafting stations, and loot chests, optimizing the spatial layout to balance visual storytelling with core mobile gameplay loops.
4. UI Map Design & Stylization
- 2D Translation: To complement the 3D level, I translated the high-angle architectural layout into a 2D cartoon-style world map.
- UI Integration: The hand-drawn aesthetic features custom map icons, region banners, and a UI legend, serving as a functional in-game navigation asset that perfectly mirrors the 3D environment’s exact proportions.
AI-Generated Map:
