Work from 2014
PTC Engineering Corridor
Concept By: Billy Wimblet 
My work featured on crydev front page:PTC_Engineering_Corridor

Here is an insight into my thought process when initially looking at this concept. it may be similar to other artists but thought I would include it in my postmortem, as it may be helpful to the beginning artist. Depending on the environment concept or prop concept I mentally try to break it down. I look for pieces that are modular, pieces that will need asymmetrical non-modular texture, and sometimes where possible pieces that could share the same UV space even if not modular. I then try to separate those pieces into categories of importance. Will they be populated around the scene? is it a centerpiece? will it be at eye level with character? is it something that the character will pass up quickly? I initially asked myself these questions when deciding on texture sizes, amount of textures, and amount of space it would get within the UV space.

After I have figured out what my initial thought process is I began to start thinking about how exactly I will start building the assets. I thought about what will give me the quickest turnaround with the least amount of quality loss in comparison to building the asset with all the time in the world. For this environment, I used a number of software even though it could have easily been done with the basics such as Maya, photoshop, and CryEngine. However, I used ndo2, Maya, Photoshop, Zbrush, headus UV layout, topo gun, Xnormal, CryEngine, and marmoset toolbag. I already know I can do something like this with the basics, I'm just trying to get as efficient as possible with other software, especially ZBrush. 

When I lit my scene originally I tried to match the concept as much as possible but then realized more interesting and dynamic lighting was possible. With this new light setup, I tried to really lead the eye to the centerpiece while also leading the player in the right direction. There were a number of particles that were re-tweaked and re textured that originally came with the engine as I am not that experience in making particles from scratch. A good set of decals were also used to break up the modular pieces and create interest in the textures. 

Conclusion. I really learned and/or got more efficient from working from this project, which included but was not limited to the use of gloss maps, parallax occlusion, lighting and working within the engine, and creating interesting textures. I was really happy with the overall project.  I'm ready to start my new project which is already in progress but I'm not sure if I will be using CryEngine or hop over to UDK,