Foliage from Quixel. Concept by Sathish Kumar.

This is a real-time lighting and environment art project in UE5 made using Blender, Substance Painter and Substance Designer. The focus was on lighting, material quality, asset variation, tech art tools and performance.

This project was developed in two stages. It started off as coursework where I did the asset production, scene composition and the initial lighting pass. The original goal was to translate the concept art to a 3D game environment faithfully. Explored the use of modular kits, trim sheets, 3D scanning, cloth simulation, construction BPs, PCG scatter tools, vertex painting, multi-UV workflow etc. for the environment production.

I later revisited the project to relight it with freedom to deviate from the concept. This time the idea was to create an interesting space that invites player exploration using lighting. The lighting is more thematic, invoking a sense of hopeful decay and growth from ruin.

The Last of Us: Part 2 Boutique-Motel Laundry concept art by Sathish Kumar: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mDAlv1