Building My 3D Art Portfolio: Blog Post #7 - Haunted Hallway Environment Concept

Welcome back to another blog post!

Last post, I was explaining my process for posting my crab to art station, Before we revisit that, I'd like to share a bit about another environment project I've been wanting to work on.

With the recent release of Resident Evil Requiem, I felt absolutely stunned and inspired by the game's graphic detail, creature design, and immersive horror environments. Having just worked on a stylized piece, I felt inspired to create a more realistic one inspired by the game's horror styled environment.

Graco from Resident Evil Requiem

When brainstorming, I found myself inspired by liminal spaces. I started by researching photos of these spaces and felt particularly inspired to create an abandoned school hallway.

Part of the reason I chose this concept was to practice vertex painting in a modular setting. I imagined my hallway having plenty of lockers, but also plenty of rust. To ensure the rust did not look modular as well, I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to practice this technique, as I have not practiced vertex painting before. After analyzing the environments in RE: Requiem, I noticed a lot of modularity broken up by decals and secondary textures, and figured they also used this technique.

The first step to creating my environment was imagining it. I wanted to emphasize the creepiness by also making the environment aged, inspired by 90's era, so I created a mood board with props that I felt inspired to include.

Haunted School Hallway Mood Board

Whenever I'm designing a 3D environment, I like to consider which asset is the most important/stand out the most, and in my mind this asset would be the lockers. So, before mapping out the space, I decided to model my modular lockers first.

Modular Locker

I took my time adjusting the locker's topology to ensure I kept everything as quads, something I have not spent enough time ensuring in my models. previously After Modeling my locker, I started to image how they would look in my haunted scene. To convey an abandoned look, I started to imagine some lockers would be partially opened or even missing doors. I adjusted the door's origin points to its hinges so when I'm placing them in the environment, I can adjust their positions.

Adjusted Origin Points on Doors

Now that I have imagined my hallway and created its most prominent asset, I can begin to actualize the rest of it. For my next post, I will hopefully have my white box/block out completed!