Light shafts I made to create fake volumetrics.

The goal here was to create a completely modular scene, minus a couple of hero objects, but have everything look unique. The two mains ways I fought the modularity was with the grime decals and vertex painting through materials.

To break up my brick walls, I created differing LODs for each of the 3 brick corridors depending on how close to the camera each part was, which had the added benefit of making my most expensive assets more efficient. On the mortar walls, you can see the decals I used to vary up the walls even more. There are two grime decals, 4 different warning signs (“Danger”, “Beware of Getting Pinched”, etc.) and a couple of Easter egg decals I threw in for fun.

For the water and the moss, I used Vertex Painting to paint out the areas where I didn’t want water or moss to appear. With this method, I was able to paint out opacity and really get specific with my scene. To get a realistic silhouette with my moss, I tessellated the mesh, which allowed the viewer to see even more shadows and details; details that a normal map wouldn’t be able to display.

For the atmosphere, I created four different particle systems: one for ambient fog, one for dust, one for the smoke coming out of the grates, and one for splashing water drips. These subtle details were the icing on the cake that really brought that extra touch of life to the piece.

The Power of Material Functions