dark - a complex breakdown of a tv show inspired enviroNment

Here is Vlad Vanzariuc with an in-depth breakdown of his ‘Dark’ environment, inspired by the TV show of the same name. If you want to learn about how to fully utilise third-party assets, create compelling composition and storytelling, and push your environments to the next level, this goldmine of an article is a must-read.

Introduction

Hey everyone, my name is Vlad Vanzariuc. I’m originally from Romania and I am now currently working as a Senior Environment Artist in Stockholm. I first found out about 3D when I was in high school and I’ve been hooked on it ever since.

I got my start in the industry in a small indie studio in Bucharest which unfortunately folded in about 6 months. I kept working on my portfolio and managed to get an internship at Ubisoft’s Bucharest studio, which lead to a full time position as a Level Artist. There I worked on a number of great games, out of which my favourite is still Ghost Recon Wildlands. It was one of the first games to use Houdini on a large scale and the whole team working on it was incredible. I’m still friends to this day with a lot of the people from that team, it really was a great experience. I’m currently living in Stockholm, looking forward to the amazing summer we have here.

Video games have been love at first sight for me and luckily that still hasn’t changed. The first game I played was probably Super Mario on a knockoff NES, but throughout the years I’ve had countless games inspire me. I could go on forever talking about inspiring games, but the latest ones are Zelda BOTW for its amazing open world and sense of wonder, Firewatch and Life is Strange for their incredible environmental storytelling and Red Dead Redemption 2 for the gorgeous graphics.