Once I finished unwrapping the UVs on each 3D asset, I proceeded to texture the objects. For the final render of the exhibition, I made sure to assign 2k textures to small objects and 4k textures to larger objects and walls. To maintain a unified look of the interior, I constantly referred to the colour palette from the concept art and ensured that all objects had similar hues and values. As the interior contained many assets, it was crucial to keep the design balanced and not overdo it with too many colours.
To create a stylized brush stroke effect, I started by creating a base layer. Then, added multiple brush stroke layers with cell textures to enhance the hand-painted style and create colour variation. To achieve a hand-painted look, I used filters such as sharpening and blur slope. I also experimented with different brush stroke layer modes, such as overlay, darken, lighten, soft light, and screen, to find the best effect. Additionally, using AO, edges, and light highlights helped me add depth to the texture.
I found that creating procedural stylized materials in Substance Painter was much faster than painting them by hand. Since I had limited time and so many materials to create, I needed an efficient way to mass-produce cohesive textures. To do this, I created a few smart materials and used them first to see what base looks good on a specific asset. Then, I would adjust it and add details as needed. Even though I used Substance Painter, I still managed to give the scene a unique appearance by incorporating Photoshop textures into the process.
In my texture creation process, I found the tutorials below to be incredibly helpful in improving my workflow and learning new techniques. I particularly found the use of filters to be essential in creating unique and patchy textures. The Blur Slope and Sharpening tools were especially transformative in my Photoshop paintings, helping me maintain a consistent look throughout the space. Custom surface creation based on height and normal maps was another technique I enjoyed utilizing, as it allowed me to quickly differentiate the appearance of my textures without the need for extensive manual painting. This feature proved especially useful in distinguishing between surfaces of varying heights, given my preference for a highly stylized approach that often involved flattening textures.
For the walls and decorative materials, I created the textures with Art Nouveau patterns in Photoshop and then applied them to the object in Substance Painter. I also used them to block out the assets’ textures and colour palettes for the interior. I specifically faced some difficulty with the window material as recreating the opacity of the window glass was not easy. I also felt that the added textures would alter the properties of the window, making the texture less recognizable. After finalizing the surfaces in SP, I tested them in the Unreal Engine.
To ensure I am applying custom textures to the assets effectively, I created a mock-up of the finished room. This helped me identify the best colour combinations and image placements. After careful consideration, I decided to apply textures only to the walls and larger objects, as using them on every model would result in a very busy environment.
Unfortunately, I encountered an issue where some assets had multiple UV sets, which caused the textures in UE5 to become distorted. To fix this, I had to re-export and re-import multiple meshes. Additionally, I noticed that the textures transferred from Substance Painter appeared much darker in UE5’s render view. To address this, I adjusted the lighting and brightness levels of the textures. I had previously blocked out the interior, which made it significantly darker in the render view. For textures that lost details, I went back to Substance Painter and adjusted their values. In hindsight, I should have tested the base textures first in Unreal Engine. However, I believe that underexposing them was still better than overexposing them, as it allowed me to work with dark textures by adjusting light sources.
Final textures
Other Tutorials
Artscape (2022) Substance Painter Stylized Hand Painted Texturing – Tutorial for Beginners. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVRdep73hCQ (Accessed: 03 November 2023).
Lighting Boy Studio (2022) Arcane Tutorial Part 2 : Deep Dive Into the Arcane Look and Camera Projections (Blender 3.0 / EEVEE). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adBbCdu7D_U (Accessed: 06 November 2023).
References
Bradbury (2023) Arts and Crafts Friezes. Available at: https://bradbury.com/do/arts_and_crafts_friezes.html (Accessed: 26 October 2023).
Internet Archive (2023) Complete Catalogue. Available at: https://archive.org/details/CompleteCatalogue1905/mode/1up?view=theater (Accessed: 26 October 2023).
Internet Archive (2023) Decorative Vorbilder. Available at: https://archive.org/details/dekorative-vorbilder-14/page/n51/mode/2up (Accessed: 26 October 2023).
Internet Archive (2023) Traite De Peinture. Available at: https://archive.org/details/traitedepeinture03boud/mode/1up?view=theater (Accessed: 26 October 2023).
The Public Domain (2023) Plants and Their Application to Ornament (1896). Available at: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/plants-and-their-application-to-ornament-1896/ (Accessed: 26 October 2023).