Created: February 2021
This scene depicts a coastal ruin that has recently been occupied by Vikings following their quest to find a home. I started this scene a while ago while getting deep into Assassins Creed Valhalla, discovering ruins such as this that had been occupied by Vikings in game. Seeing those ruins in game inspired me to make some of my own. I wanted to create a semi-contained scene outdoors which in itself creates a challenge, one that is always fun to tackle and figure out. Visual storytelling is always a first in my mind when it comes to creating an environment. Why are things the way that they are is a question I love answering with visuals. Creating a scene like this ruined structure gives way to a lot of possibilities. I decided to create a scene where it is clear that before settling this small ruin, there was a struggle, a fight and not everyone made it through. None the less, they must press on and continue their journey, not letting those lost die in vein. Getting detailed and nitty-gritty with texturing is something I love doing as well, which in this scene was a must. I created this scene using Maya, Substance Painter and Designer (Designer for the StoneWall Material), Unreal, Zbrush, and utilizing the Quixel Megascan library for background elements like foliage and rocks/cliffs and the ground materials. Lighting this scene was also fun, utilizing one main light source and using GI to get all those nice bounced light elements plus constant tweaking in the post process volume. I also dove back into Unreal's Niagara particle system to finish off some particles to implement in the scene as well. If you read this all the way through, thank you and I hope you enjoy!