List of the assets to model:
- Door
- Windows
- Stained glass
Arches- Stairs
- Sofa/Armchair
- Table
- Cloths and pillows
- Chest of drawers
- Light Fixtures
- Divider Screen
- Bird cages
- Tea cup/Tea pot
- Vases/Bottles
- Candles
- Decorations/Ornates
- Flowers
- Mirors
Mirror shards
I don’t have much experience in modelling complex assets, so I avoided wasting time on it. Instead, I focused on simple objects that could add uniqueness to the scene without much effort. Since Art Nouveau is not a well-known style, it was hard to outsource all the models I wanted. This was another motivation for me to model them myself to achieve a more accurate vision. To create ornate details and organic shapes, I mostly used curves, bends, and soft brushes as my sculpting methods. I wish I had time to implement the use of ZBrush, but that would be too inefficient given the time constraint I had. For more complex shapes, I started with a simple plane and modelled it by adjusting vertices in the orthographic view. I also had to remodel some of the 3D scanned assets and retopologize those. While modelling, I often used bevels to achieve smooth, round edges and individually adjusted edges/vertices to achieve a non-uniform look, characteristic of hand-made objects.
I also made sure that all the furniture assets had right architectural idmensions to ensure the reality illusion.
While working on asset modelling, I made sure to incorporate moon and flower symbols wherever possible. To add authenticity to the scene, I also researched Alfons Mucha’s furniture concepts and archival architectural pieces. For more complex sculptures, I outsourced them from museum scan projects in Sketchfab. However, after transferring the assets to Unreal, most of the details were lost. I attempted to optimize the assets by reducing the number of polygons and retopologizing them to eliminate triangles. Unfortunately, due to the massive number of faces, it wasn’t possible to unwrap the assets later, so I had to leave them in their original form. Nevertheless, I chose to keep them as I appreciate the organic forms they introduce.
Modelled assets (the close-ups of the models):