3D Shelter

Controls

Mouse: look around

W/Z: forward movement

A/Q: left movement

S: backward movement

D: right movement

Concept

I wanted to recreate the diversity of architectures you may find in Japanese suburbs or alleyways. Like a medley of different styles and materials stacked on top of one another, garbed in cables and exterior AC pipes.

Goals

Accurately recreating the architecture and conveying the atmosphere of the street was my main goal. I wanted to recreate as many details as I could as well as the variety of different structures you could find there, which was often a creative puzzle in transcription of complexe or awkward, organic shapes into 3D topology.

Considering the size of each set piece, it was important to me that I have a system that allows for mixing and matching of different pieces to create emergent structures and a lot of variety, without increasing the scope of the project too much.

Rendering a lot of buildings also meant I needed to be really strict both when modeling and texturing my objects in order to keep the highest visual quality possible while still hitting my target framerate even when displaying the 560 buildings, each of which can be comprised of 1 to 4 modules.

Process

I started by gathering references (just a few pictures to keep a strict and coherent art direction) and drawing up concept art of the different architectures and materials I would want to create.

After planning out the scope of the project, I modeled the modules one after another in Blender then textured them. The materials and texturing were done in Blender, sometimes on multiple modules simultaneously due to returning materials (concrete in particular can be found in a lot of the modules).

Once that was done, I implemented my models and the generation logic into Unity and added lighting to create a suitable atmosphere that would also make it easy to look at every object in detail.

Check out the rest of my portfolio at: mgabbardo.com

Contact me at: m.gabbardo@gmail.com

Find me on LinkedIn at: @GabbardoMarcel