Sci-Fi Environment

    I've been meaning to move into environments for a while now, and since I recently finished that laser weapon I can finally start on this sci-fi scene. Originally I had only planned on reusing meshes and still having unique textures, but now that's changed. I'm gonna focus on using a more modular, efficient workflow. Spent the past couple days looking into modularity, particularly texture sheets and effective ways of getting the most out of them. This is definitely out of my comfort zone, but any mistakes I make during this process will definitely help me learn.

     Normally, my projects can take quite a while, but this one will be very fast paced, hence the need for modularity. The goal is one week. I'll be making some texture sheets tonight, as well as setting up a master material in UE4 that I'll be able to create instances from, to use with each imported mesh. The rest of the weekend will be dedicated to modeling, making sure to unwrap as I go using my texture sheets, staying on the grid, and testing everything in UE4. Monday through Wednesday I'll mostly be working in UE4, making sure materials and decals work properly and lighting the scene. I've allotted plenty of time for each stage of my process to allow for any inevitable fuck-ups, but hopefully things will go smoother than I'm expecting. I'll be posting updates daily.

     Here's a couple images showing my thought process so far. The paintover doesn't break everything down...I can, and will, reuse any smaller assets that aren't further broken down by color. Just wanted to move on. The other image just shows how I plan to break the texture sheet up. I'll be reusing textures as much as possible, and adjusting them in-engine with instances as needed. I'm trying to keep the number texture sheets to a minimum. I should be able to get away with 3, but may need a fourth. We'll see.