Category Environment Modularity

Topics about making modular environment art for games.

Modular means pieces are made to fit together according to a common pattern, so just a few pieces can be reused multiple times to create a bunch of variety.

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Modular Design & Workflow

How to plan out the development of modular environment pieces, and the workflow for creating them. The design of modular pieces is closely linked to game design; see for more.

• UDK Modular Masterclass - Efficiently Creating and Entire Scene with Tor Frick - ($) an Eat3D tutorial by Tor 'snefer' Frick<
  >Abandoned warehouse modular workflow in UDK, using Modo and Photoshop.
• Post apoc scene Breakdown - by ['[HP' Pinto]]<
  >Details about the creation of a modular abandoned warehouse.
• Modular Building Workflow - ($) a 3dmotive tutorial by Tyler Wanlass<
  >Covers planning and workflow for modular buildings using Photoshop, 3ds Max, and UDK.
• Skyrim’s Modular Approach to Level Design - Transcript from GDC 2013 talk on Skyrim's Modular Level Design <
  >An excellent in-depth article on Bethesda's environment art system.
• Modular Environment Design.rar - by Kevin Johnstone<
  > East Coast Game Conference 2011 slides of the talk "Modular Environment Design, Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the grid".
• Investigation into Modular Design within Computer Games (8.6MB PDF) - by Scott Jones<
  >Research paper on modular workflow. Definition, benefits, history of modularity, usage, methods, case studies, UDK and 3ds Max. See the Polycount forum thread Modular design within games.
• Workflow techniques and modularity with Unreal game technology - by Epic Games<
  >A guide to setting up your art-to-level-design pipeline and designing modularly.
• Modular Environment Art applied from plaster tabletop sets - by 'Makkon'<
  >Polycount forum thread with great visual breakdowns of modular tabeltop models.
• Environment workflow from an artist working on a Crysis mod - by Stefan Morrell<
  >A modular city building and its texture sheet.
• Mod Facade Challenge - by Joe 'EarthQuake' Wilson<
  >Breaking up a building into modular pieces and designing the texture sheet.
• Adam Bromell's sketchbook thread - by Adam 'adamBrome' Bromell<
  >Breaking an environment down into modular pieces.
• Chris' sketchbook thread - by Chris 'cholden' Holden<
  >Environment design & modular workflow.
• Visually Appealing Building Guide - by Christopher Albeluhn<
  >An excellent breakdown of how to create visual interest with game buildings. Additional tutorials here.
• Modular Building Design Workflow? - a Polycount thread <
  >Discussion about creating modular buildings, with interiors and exteriors.
• Modular Environments in UDK - a tutorial by Thiago 'Minotaur0' Klafke<
  >Covers the techniques used to make Zest Foundation.
• Environment workflow @ EpicGames - by Kevin Johnstone<
  >A summary of the modular workflow used at Epic on Unreal Tournament 3.
• Gears of War 2 modular modeling (Polycount Forum) and Gears2 Environment Art Step by Step (ZBrush Central) - by Kevin Johnstone <
  >Tips and screenshots of using the grid for modular work, as well as a ton of useful insight into the Environment worflow at Epic. A highly recommended read!
• Modular Mount & Blade - by 'gutekfiutek' <
  >Modular workflow for the mod "Polished Buildings" for the game Mount & Blade.
• Modular brick wall tiling - by Glynn Smith<
  >Tips and screenshots for sculpting modular brick walls.
• Generic wall tutorial - by Bram 'Peris' Eulaers<
  >Using 3ds Max and Mudbox to sculpt tilable modular sections for a stone wall.
• Rock modeling approaches - a Polycount thread <
  >A variety of approaches for sculpting individual rocks and tilable cliffs.
• Creating Perfectly Tiling Meshes in Zbrush for use in Videogame Environments - by Owen 'SHEPEIRO' Shepherd<
  >Using ZBrush's 2.5D canvas to tile stamped meshes, then using Maya to model tilable geometry.
• Working with Modular Sets - by Philip 'PhilipK' Klevestav<
  >How to design and texture modular sci-fi wall panels.
• Working with Modular Rocks - by Philip 'PhilipK' Klevestav<
  >How to design, model, and texture modular rock assets, using Crazy Bump, Photoshop, and 3ds Max.
• Modular Floor Tiles - Outlined in Shadow - a Polycount thread <
  >How to work around UDK modular problems.

Units and Scale

The units and scale you use is very important. Modular meshes should be built to snap to a unit-based grid, and physics calculations depend on certain scales. Fortunately, game editors usually have a scale setting you can use on import to convert from 3d modeler scale into proper game engine scale.

• UDN: Unreal Units - what units and scale to use for scenes in Unreal Engine. (Gears of War: 2 units = 1 inch, Unreal Tournament: 1 unit = 2 cm)
• CryENGINE SDK: Measurement Reference - what units and scale to use for scenes in CryEngine. (Crysis: 1 unit = 1 meter)
• Unity: Import Settings for Meshes - what units and scale to use for scenes in Unity. (Unity physics: 1 unit = 1 meter)

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