Image below shows the old lighting, materials, and set dressing.
Old Screenshot
Scene Breakdown - visual representation of how I imagined the flow of the scene. Green and red pulls the player's focus towards the end of the path. Yellow leads to the direction of alternative paths and blue "blocks" the player focus.
Following images show a summary of all the assets used in this project, and a few demonstrations on how I would use them while creating the scene.
Most assets, such as scaffolding and rocks, have materials which uses vertex painting and a directional mask. Masking and vertex painting allowed me to hide the repetitiveness of the materials and made assets more versatile.
Material Setup - The rock master material ended up having the most extensive setup, since I wanted a certain flexability. The material breakdown starts with an overview and then goes into specific parts.
The TransformVector node converted the tangent space to world space, which I used to create a directional mask (Top Mask). Adding a Vertex Color and HeightLerp node gave me a mask that was used to blend various tileable textures.
Similar method of using a directional mask was used to blend in a sand texture.
Detail Textures - Example of the rock material with (left) and without (right) Detail Textures.
Renamed and updated project based on feedback from the judges of the Rookies competition. Most significant changes were made to the lighting and materials. The materials were updated with new tileable textures, based of off Jonas Ronnegard amazing tutorials, and detail maps.
I wanted to focus on lighting and the overall composition. Prop and environment assets were placed in order to lead the player's focus towards the far back of the level. Torch light was meant to lead the player to alternative paths and add more visual narrative.
Past its narrative purpose, the scaffolding props were used to enhance the flow of the level by leading or obstructing the player focus.
