At the beginning of the semester, a vote was held, and I was assigned to work on Cindy’s DayDream project (link) as Environment Designer.

Working as an environment artist is my comfort zone, as I’ve been studying 3D for a long time, and it was the chosen format for our vertical slice. Main difficulties was working with people I never teamed up with before, as well as adapting to Unreal Engine requirements.

During the first week, our team decided to figure out our communication approach, distribute responsibilities, and conduct individual research regarding our role and the game.

Role meaning
Starting with this article, I found it easier to understand my role in the team, as well as to identify the differences that separate me from another person who was assigned the role of Level Designer.

Overall, the team had three roles, which all somehow related to the creation of the game’s visuals.

Technical Artist – the person responsible for the intersection of mechanics and the visuals themselves.

World Designer – this term is more interchangeable with my specialty as an environment artist, so trying to draw a line, we decided that mine would be asset creation, while others would be responsible for level design and interface development.

Environmental Artist (me).

I’m already familiar with 3D, but wanting to improve my current skills during this semester, so my goal is to focus efforts on a more professional implementation of assets and optimizing their appearance for the game, ultimately achieving a finished product that meets vertical slice requirements.

Vertical Slice is a playable version of the game within small scope that must represents its main highlights and representation, and since environment is an important part of this, I have enough time to male models that represents:

• Polished model blocking
• Topology considerations, creating low/high poly or mid poly models, depending on our stylizing choice.
• Proper UV mapping that takes tiling into account
• Texturing
• Creating the necessary shader in Unreal Engine