Made for my Virtual Environments class at UTD, the Ruined Church is an environment designed to be the remnants of a Romanesque cathedral’s sanctuary after an attack by an unspecified enemy destroyed the rest of the cathedral. Someone has recently arrived at the ruins and is attempting to take shelter in the shadow of the crumbling walls.
Made in Unreal Engine 4 using Maya 3D Modeling and Substance Painter, Ruined Church utilizes industry standard PBR practices. Inspired by the film 1917, and the video games This War is Mine and Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth, as well as the bombing of various cathedrals during both WW1 and WW2, I decided to use a realistic art style to accurately depict the ruined cathedral.
Some of the major elements of design I took into consideration were value, form, and space. Streams of light that flow in from broken walls and holes in the ceiling provide most of the contrast in the scene since most of the brickwork has a similar hue. The light and value comes mostly from natural lighting to highlight both the destruction and the serenity of the scene. The environment is based heavily on Romanesque architecture and has clearly defined forms that adhere to this style of architecture, while also showing the brokenness of the ruins by breaking these familiar forms. The space of the environment is also carefully curated to match the negative and positive space of Romanesque architecture while also creating new negative and positive spaces with the destruction of the physical building.
The environment utilizes shades of grays, browns, oranges, and blues. Most of the environment is shades of grays and browns as most of it is the physical structure and ruin of the church, including its pews and altar. The natural lighting streaming in from the outside is varying shades of blue, dependent on whether or not it is shining through stained-glass windows. There are small patches of gold decoration leftover from the church utilizing shades of orange to provide contrast and direct attention where required.
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