Borderlands 3 (FanArt): Concept to Model

Mellow Yellow

This was a great learning experience and a fun project! I wanted to test my skills by modeling an asset straight from concept. I ran into a few challenges that forced me to think outside the box and use my artistic freedom. Nonetheless I want to share my process and the steps I took to produce this piece. The take away from the project was to see how fast I could model, uv, and texture a model. I also saw this as an opportunity to further enhance my hard surface modeling.

Concept

I wanted to limit myself to how much time I had on this asset so, I treated this process as if I received a design from a concept artist. The concept I went with was the MIRV shot gun from Volta studios.

Concept belongs to Volta Studios.

Blockout to Modeling

During the blockout phase I wanted to focus on the overall shape. Overall the gun had many pieces so I focused on modeling the macro shapes then the micro shapes. While modeling I started UVing to save time. Plus I found it less stressful to UV after modeling a final piece.

Blocking out the larger sections before getting into the finer details.

Connecting the detailed pieces.

 Materials

Getting into the material phase I tested my model in engine. With the release of Borderlands 3 being rendered in UE4, I felt I was in my element. One major question I asked myself was: 

"How did the developers and artist put the outline on their models?"

After doing some research I learned they used a post process on some selected assets and hand painted for others. The hand painted aspect was done do to the fact that post process shaders are expensive. Nevertheless I wanted to try my hand at both.

In game render of the post process.

After testing the gun in engine and readjusting the size and width, I started working in substance painter to start applying materials. The materials were a combination of substance designer and substance painter. This process was actually interesting as I was drawing the lines on a 3D object. Once I finished adjusting my materials I built the shader in Ue4 that allowed me to adjust paramaters on the emissive color, brightness, and normals.

The finished textures from left to right; Normal, Base Color, AO-Roughness-Metallic

Presentation

To present my work I chose Ue4 to render the gun in real-time. Using what I learned in Marmoset and other professionals, I was able take shots that would best show off the details.

Mirv Front

Mirv Back