Scarlet Diorama - Part 2

Intro

In this devlog, we explore the progress on a 3D diorama created in Unreal Engine 5. The tools we use are UE5, Blender, Substance Painter 3D, Substance Designer and Photoshop.
Last time, we went over the creation of the landscape, its materials on top and the blockout of the bushes, crystals and different parts in the level.

In this new update, we will look at the creation of foliage atlases for bushes, grass and other stylized art.

Video

Watch the full video below and find out timelapses, insights and behind-the-scene views of painting textures and making stylized art foliage.

Video embedded above. Title is "Making a Game Diorama - UE5 & Blender Devlog". The video thumbnail shows a red portal. It sits on a grassy ground with a path in front. There are lots of golden trims. Next to the gold are red crystals that match the scarlet portal. A text points to the portal and says - Create 3D Diorama? - next to the text is a person wearing an Overwatch t-shirt. That is me.

Gallery

Here are before-and-after images, as seen in the video. Watch it to gain the full insight of the creative decisions I took whilst making this artwork.

Screenshot showing a bush prop. On the image in the left, it has lots of seams. On the image in the right, the seams are mostly gone.

In the frame above, we look at using Normal Edit inside of Blender in order to improve the smoothing groups and normals of our foliage mesh.
This mesh is a bush and when it has 3D cards with normals facing in different directions, we get lots of seams. Through the use of “Normal Edit” in Blender, we give a more unified normal direction to all faces. The result is a prop that looks much better when used as foliage. Watch the video to hear further explanation of this approach.

Image collage that has two cuts showing the red portal. On the left, the colors are more purple and pink. On the right, the portal is more scarlet red. The sides of the cobblestone path also have golden snakes in the right side version.

Next we look at the portal cobble and the side golden trims that decorate it. In the initial version, we have flat textures painted in Photoshop. In the improved version, there are more dimensional “snake-like” trims that have gold painted on them.

A different angle of the previous two shots, again put in comparison. The stone gate is seen with a placeholder material in the first image, while in the second one, on the right, it has better painted stone surfaces. An arrow points to one of the crystal lamps and spells out how left version is placeholder with shiny PBR. The right side has hand painted gold textures instead.

At first, we have a sketched out lamp with a floating red crystal. The materials are gray plus an overly shiny gold. In the second version, we can see the progress of hand painting all of the lamp. I also changed the shape of the crystal a bit.

I like showcasing progress screenshots like these because I hope they give you information on how I approach the making of the art and the different decisions.

Prop Images

Here are Substance Painter 3D close ups of some of the props:

A screenshot of a lamp post with a floating crystal in the middle. The base of the prop is stone and it has a wing of gold and hand painted gold motives.

Close-up cut of the trim I used on the sides. I made two or three of those with slightly different length and features and then I scattered them around the cobble stone as a framing device.

Another screenshot that shows the side trims zoomed in. The prop looks like a stone base with a golden snake on top.

Conclusion

In this blog post, and in the video above, we explored the progress on props and foliage created for a stylized art diorama. We discussed the decision making behind turning flat side stones into a more dimensional golden trims. In the video, we also extensively talked about what foliage atlases are and how they are made.

Next Time

In the next video part, I’m thinking of explaining into further detail my hand painting approach when it comes to the crystals above and the crystal lantern itself too. Stay tuned to learn more about all of that!
Happy art creation!

All the best,

Pete.

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