Details in Environment Production

How is it seen? Is it on mobile? Then you would work best if you work broadly because the screen is so small. Desktop? You can go further because of more powerful GPUs and bigger monitors, but then you have to find balance in time investment vs. quality. That balance comes down to just how good you are and what tricks you know.

This may insult some people, but I think art is all about tricks, formulas, and what’s in your mental toolbox. Bob Ross could make a snow-laden mountain with the sharp side of his palette knife, dabbing randomly on the canvas. He’d take a fan brush and dab that on the canvas to make the best pine trees you’ve ever seen. One of my favorite Substance Designer tricks is my grunge generator node. It simply takes in a bunch of noise texture inputs, blends them in all kinds of crazy, nonsensical ways, and outputs a grunge map that’s unique. But that grunge map is actually pretty important because, with masking and gradient mapping, it serves as the basis for future details in my albedo maps. Another huge lifesaver is binding node creation to shortcut keys. The only way to do this is by using the program, “Auto Hotkey.” You can program keyboard commands through scripting in Windows or Mac. For example, if I press Alt-1, a levels node is placed on the graph. Alt-S is “invert greyscale.” This saves me TONS of time and is something I strongly recommend! Time savers like this allow you the ability to achieve more detail!

Low Poly Art

It’s certainly more forgiving because you’re working more with shape and color but not texture. But like all art, there is more to consider than just the “thing” you’re making. What is your color palette? Is your contrast and saturation level balanced and under control? Are the visible edges truly revealing the surface type? Are you leading the player through the environment with good composition? Relying on traditional design principles separates good art from incredible art.