Learn the ART of Video Games

On October 31, 2018

Release date:2018, October

Author:Kevin Oxland

Skill level:Intermediate

Language:English

Exercise files:Yes

What you’ll learn
At the end of the course, the student should have a solid understanding of art fundamentals, the complete video game art pipeline and how to take a concept image and turn it into a 3D scene that is game ready.

Requirements
You should have a keen interest in video game environment art. It would be beneficial if you had a basic understanding of art fundamentals. You should certainly play games and if you stare in awe at your games, and wonder how on earth they created such stunning scenes, then you can find out right here. This course is more art focused than it is technical.

Description
Creating environment art for video games can be a technical endeavor, but at its core, it’s an art form. Simply pulling assets from an online store, and dropping them into an off the shelf game engine isn’t enough in today’s competitive industry. You need fundamental art skills, and if you want to stand out from the crowd… you need to create your own art and present your skills.

With 30 years of game development experience in an art and design capacity, I will show you, from an artist’s perspective, how to create your own game ready 3D scene from scratch, as if you were working in an industry studio. You will start literally from a blank page, go through art fundamentals and the whole asset creation process, and use that knowledge to construct a visually stunning 3D game environment presented in Unity. You will create every asset yourself. You will not be using library assets.

Creating art is at the heart of this course, but creating visuals is not just about the art, it’s also about the ideas and the design that spawn the art. You will start at the beginning, at the design phase, and learn how to extract art related information from a game design document and create a map for your scene.

Create an art brief for your own project.
Create a Map / Level design.
To create stunning concept art, you need a firm understanding of art fundamentals.

The Horizon Line
1, 2 and 3 point perspective
Light, shadow and value
Color
I will then take you through the process of creating concept art, and show you techniques you can use to create quick speed paintings based on the fundamentals you have learned.

Create Concept art from scratch
You will break down the visual brief and the concept art into assets and create a plan to build them yourself to a professional standard. With that behind you, you will move into the biggest part of the course, building your scene.

Learn to use 3DS Max and Substance Painter.
If you’re a beginner, I will teach you how to use 3DS Max, an industry standard modelling package. If you’re intermediate and you know how to use it, you can skip this part. But once you’ve mastered the basics, you’ll begin creating a white box environment based on the design and the concept in previous lectures.

Create white box environments using basic modelling techniques.
Finally we’ll move into more advanced modelling and UV mapping techniques, and build ALL the components for our scene, using our white box as a guide. We’ll create PBR textures in Substance Painter; export everything from 3DS Max, and drop it into Unity where we’ll build the scene using the assets you have created.

Create detailed, final assets
UV Map
Create textures in Substance Painter
Build and light the scene in Unity
This course is perfect for anybody seriously wishing to pursue a career as an environment artist in the games industry and would like to experience the process and pipeline from scratch.

It’s suitable for beginners to Intermediate levels.The more advanced artists may find that you’re going over old ground in some areas, but it can still be a worthy refresher course. Over time, the course will get regular updates and keep on trend with industry techniques and standards. New content will also be added in the future.

This IS NOT an animation course and it IS NOT a character modelling course. Both of those are very specific disciplines within the game industry, and here, we are primarily focusing on highly detailed, quality, environment creation.

Who is the target audience?
This course is aimed at beginner and intermediate 3D environment artists, who is interested in learning how to create top quality environments for video games.

Table of Contents

Start Here 01:55
Introduction 01:55
What to Expect 18:16
Course Structure 05:37
Software You Will Need 06:50
Hardware You Will Need 04:58
Join our Facebook Group 00:38
CREDITS 00:13
Visual Design 28:16
Visual Design Introduction 02:56
Visual Design Brief 07:22
The Game Map 11:22
Design Challenge 04:07
Design Conclusion 02:29
Art Fundamentals 01:12:10
Art Fundamentals Introduction 02:14
Composition and The Golden Ratio 12:58
Vision Field 09:24
Horizon Line 02:48
1 Point Perspective 03:45
2 Point Perspective 02:47
3 Point Perspective 07:22
Vainishing Point Is Off The Page 04:10
Colour Terminology 10:39
Value and the Colour Wheel 13:33
Perspective Challenge 00:50
Fundamentals Conclusion 01:40
A Fundamental Quiz… 6 questions
Creating Concept Art 02:39:08
Concept Art Introduction 02:19
Visual Style 05:39
Some Sketching Exercises. 15:35
Gather Reference Material 05:03
The Thumbnail Sketch 06:35
Your Next Assignment: 06:58
Blocking Out Initial value in the thumbnail 10:42
Going Big, and Blocking Out Shapes 16:34
Adjusting Shape, Composition and Value 18:41
Progress Update 04:52
Adjusting Value and Adding Texture 22:20
Adding Detail and Color 20:27
Create Supplement Drawings / Studies 05:30
Further Reading: ART Books 07:16
Concept Art Conclusion 10:37
Concept Art Quiz 5 queations
3DS Max Overview 51:24
3DS Max Introduction 01:37
Downloading and Installing 3DS Max 06:18
3DS Max Viewport Layout 07:21
3DS Max GUI 14:08
3DS Max Control and Keyboard Shortcuts 11:59
3DS Max Configuration Set Up 08:06
3DS Max Overview Conclusion 01:55
A 3DS Max Quiz 5 questions
Setting Up Unity 21:02
Setting Up Unity Introduction 01:15
Downloading and Installing Unity 03:45
Setting Up Your Project and Scale In Unity – Import Your First Model 11:59
Max to Unity Challenge 01:54
Setting Up Unity Conclusion 02:09
Modelling Basics 01:40:12
Modelling Basics Introduction 01:37
What is a Vertex and an Edge? 06:37
Triangles, Quads and Topology 14:13
Backface Culling 05:18
Normals and Flipping Normals 05:11
Transforms: Move it, Rotate it and Scale it 09:32
Edge Loop and Extrude 07:29
Extrude Along a Curve 04:20
Primitives, Mesh and Poly Mode 12:09
Smoothing Groups 09:00
Xform – Everything Is Not As It Seems 04:41
Challenge: Create A Basic Model 00:53
Challenge Solution: Basic Model 13:27
Modelling Basics Conclusion 05:45
Modelling Basics Quiz 6 questions
White Boxing 03:55:31
White Boxing Introduction 02:18
Unity Challenge Solved 04:27
Breaking Down the Concept 08:05
Build Simple, White Box Props: Part 1 17:10
Build Simple, White Box Props: Part 2 08:17
Gathering Reference Material 04:15
Build an Oak Tree: Use Soft Selection 17:11
Challenge: Build a Second White Box Oak Tree 01:57
Using Freeform on the Second White Box Oak Tree 11:40
Build Various White Box Trees: Using Curves 20:20
Hut Main Structure: Using Poly Cut: Part 1 14:45
Hut Main Structure: Using Poly Cut: Part 2 15:06
Hut Roof, Chimney: Using Isolation Mode 21:31
Hut Porch, Steps and Hand Rail 24:41
Hut Door: Pivot Positioning and Animation 06:10
Rocks: Flagstone Slabs (steps) 12:51
Rocks: Using FFD and Noise: Part 1 22:11
Rocks: Using FFD and Noise: Part 2 + Challenge 16:04
White Box Final Rocks 01:38
White Box Modelling Conclusion 04:54
White Box Modelling Quiz 4 questions
Building White Box Scene in Unity 02:46:04
Building White Box Scene Introduction 03:21
A Quick Tour of Unity’s Layout 07:49
Displaying the Map in Unity 10:48
Export From Max | Which format? (August 2018) 05:25
Bringing White Box Objects Into Unity 20:11
Create Terrain in Unity: Part 1 14:59
Create Terrain in Unity: Part 2 24:42
Import Standard Assets: Let’s Walk Around 06:59
Build Scene in Unity: Part 1 15:05
Build Scene in Unity: Part 2 20:23
Build Scene in Unity: Part 3 18:10
Add Collision to Your Scene 09:50
White Box Scene Conclusion 08:22
White Box Scene Quiz 3 questions
Building Detailed Geometry 05:47:33
High Detail Geometry Introduction 04:40
Steel Barrels From a Primitive: Using Insert 20:24
Axe: Using 2D Projection Reference 24:08
Flagstones: Using Turbo Smooth 10:02
Hut Introduction 02:54
Hut Door and Frame, Using ‘Chamfer’: Part 1 17:23
Hut Door and Frame: Using Chamfer: Part 2 20:20
Hut Walls: Part 1 16:24
Hut Walls: Using Cut: Part 2 11:44
Hut Walls: Part 3 18:09
Hut Porch: Using ‘Group’: Part 1 19:38
Hut Porch: Part 2 19:24
Hut Porch: Part 3 16:31
Hut Window, Using ‘Bridge and Connect’: Part 1 19:09
Hut Window, Using ‘Bridge and Connect’: Part 2 16:25
Hut Roof, Using Array. 20:04
Hut Chimney 11:07
Gathering Reference Material 19:10
Oak Tree: Using Splines: Part 1 15:56
Oak Tree: Part 2 18:38
Oak Tree: Part 3 13:30
Tree Review 03:03
Detailed Log Challenge 03:08
Detailed Geometry Conclusion 05:42
Detailed Geometry Quiz 3 questions
UVs, Materials and Textures 01:19:07
UVs, Materials and Textures Introduction 01:54
What are UVs? 14:58
What are Texture Maps and Materials? 07:10
What is a Multi-Sub Material / Object and Material IDs? 04:58
PBR in Unity: Introduction 10:11
PBR in Unity: Albedo 09:36
PBR in Unity: Metallic 17:47
PBR in Unity: Normal 09:51
UVs, Materials and Textures Conclusion 02:42
UV, Materials and Textures Quiz 4 questions
Preparing, and Applying Terrain Textures 01:16:16
Terrain Texturing Introduction 01:26
Sourcing Terrain Textures 08:37
Preparing Terrain Textures in Photoshop 12:57
Authoring Terrain Textures in B2M: Part 1 15:13
Authoring Terrain Textures in B2M: Part 2 06:56
Preparing The Smoothness Alpha Channel 04:35
Applying Textures to Unity Terrain 23:26
Terrain Textures Conclusion 03:06
UV Unwrapping Different Types of Object 03:36:12
UV Unwrapping Introduction 02:25
UV Unwrapping Basics in 3DS Max 22:09
UV Unwrapping Flagstones: Merging Multiple Objects 15:11
UV Unwrapping a Metal Drum: Using Straighten (sort of) 18:01
UV Unwrapping an Axe: Creating a Multi-sub Material 21:29
UV Unwrapping an Oak Tree: A Complex Shape 19:45
UV Unwrapping the Hut Introduction 03:46
UV Unwrapping the Chimney 23:43
UV Unwrapping the Hut Roof: Part 1: Tiling 14:44
UV Unwrapping the Hut Roof: Part 2 15:45
UV Unwrapping the Hut Handrail 06:18
UV Unwrapping the Walls: Using Tiling – Part 1 19:22
UV Unwrapping the Walls: Using Tiling – Part 2 09:27
UV Unwrapping Hut Window: Using Flatten 17:11
UV Unwrapping Door: CHALLENGE 01:48
UV Unwrapping Conclusion 05:08
UV Unwrap Quiz 4 questions
Creating Foliage 04:05:32
Foliage Introduction 02:13
Making Grass: Part 1 13:34
Making Grass: Part 2 23:27
Making Grass: Part 3 19:27
Finalising Your Grass: Part 4 09:58
Bringing Your Grass into Unity 23:48
Tree Leaves – Sourcing and Preparing 14:02
Making Small Tree Branches: Using Freeform Branch 20:22
Making Large Tree Branches: Using Object Paint 18:32
Rendering Large Tree Branch Textures 24:18
Rendering Tree Branch Normals in 3DS Max 20:20
Creating Large Tree Branches 19:25
First Tree In Unity 11:19
Building The Final Oak Tree 19:41
Vegetation Conclusion 05:06
Creating Textures and Materials 06:04:34
Textures and Materials Introduction 02:39
Substance Painter 2018 UPDATE (April 2018) 14:18
Substance Painter Overview 17:58
Painting the Barrel: Part 1 23:13
Painting Dirt onto the Barrel: Part 2 17:28
Painting Rust onto the Barrel: Part 3 11:09
Using Alphas on the Barrel: Part 4 14:57
Setting Up the Axe With ID Masks 15:34
Painting the Axe : Part 1 – CHALLENGE 17:12
Painting The Axe: Part 2 – CHALLENGE SOLUTION 21:45
Chimney: Combining B2M with Painter 18:18
Painting the Hut Chimney: Part 2 18:47
Painting the Hut Window Frame: Seperating and Importing to Substance 21:14
Painting the Hut Window Glass: Using Opacity in Substance 17:36
Just Add Rocks 15:10
Sourcing a Texture For the Hut Walls 03:20
Final Hut Modifications 09:06
Extracting Materials From Objects Inside Unity (May 2018) 02:47
Bringing Final Objects Into Unity: Part 1 18:38
Bringing Final Objects Into Unity: Part 2 08:59
Oak Tree Bark – Adjusting Texture Direction: Part 1 20:00
Oak Tree Bark – Adjusting Texture Direction: Part 2 17:25
Oak Tree – Placing it in Unity: Part 3 12:16
Mask Using Poly Select 07:37
Painting the Hut Door: CHALLENGE…continued 02:45
Painting the Hut Door: CHALLENGE SOLUTION 08:37
Textures and Materials Conclusion 05:46
Creating Your Final Scene 03:19:24
Final Scene Introduction 04:32
The Thing About Unity Trees 10:23
Replacing the White Box: Scene Population: Part 1 14:06
Replacing the White Box: Scene Population: Part 2 11:14
Environment Particles:Part 1 18:39
Environment Particles: Part 2 20:10
Using White Box models for High Detail Collision: Part 1 23:02
Using White Box models for High Detail Collision: Part 2 06:16
Scene and Mesh Preperation for Lighting 08:32
Lighting and Fog: Day into Night 22:16
Lighting and Post Processing: Part 1 19:35
Lighting and Post Processing: Part 2 19:57
Lighting and Post Processing: Part 3 10:17
Final Scene Conclusion and Next Steps… 10:25
Importing The Asset Package 03:24
How to Import the Asset Package 03:24
Optimisation 21:53
Optimisation Introduction 03:07
Creating LOD Models 11:18
Importing LODS into Unity 07:28
NEW: Using the Narrative In Your Art 46:21
Narrative Introduction (April 2018) 03:16
Character Bio (April 2018) 13:44
Loosely Sketch Your Ideas (May 2018) 05:30
Planning Your Models (May 2018) 04:06
Completed Models In Substance Painter (June 2018) 08:50
Final Scene (June 2018) 10:55
BONUS LECTURE 00:18
BONUS LECTURE 00:18