Hemlock Forest – Environment Breakdown – Jonjo Hemmens

https://gamesartist.co.uk/hemlock-forest-environment-breakdown-jonjo-hemmens/

Environment Artist, Jonjo Hemmens has provided us with a full breakdown of his Western Hemlock/Red Cedar Forest. In this Article, he tells us his workflow on his trees, branch creation, SpeedTree tips, ground foliage, terrain, all of this was made by hand! Also included, texturing, material setups, lighting and rendering!
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A snippet from Jonjo:
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Hemlock Forest (UE4) - A forest in the American North West, with towering Western Hemlock and Western Red Cedars. The forest floor, thick with Sword Ferns, Bunch Berry, Rattlesnake Plantain and Wild Strawberry, to name a few.
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This project combines fully hand-made assets with Megascans. I started this project with the desire to learn more about creating organic assets, and pushing the quality as far as I could. The trees, plants and terrain were fully handmade utilising no scans. I used Megascans to introduce Rocks, roots, embankments, and broken stumps.
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For my first real adventure into organics and foliage, I think it went pretty well and I look forward to pushing these skills further in the future. Being able to have the skills to introduce organic elements into my future work was one of my aims, and I definitely feel very comfortable tackling foliage moving forward. Massive thanks to all my friends who helped with feedback and critique throughout, it really helped push this project further than I could have gone.
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If you're interested in reading about the progress of some of these assets and of the project on the whole, I have two blog posts about it.
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https://www.artstation.com/jonjo
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/AqmKPX