Grounds Keepers Cabin (Save Station)- For Chai Games

A save station cabin, used to signify to the player that there is an opportunity to save at that location in-game. This collection of assets was made for Chai Games' upcoming Horror TPS, with location and lighting constraints in mind, predetermined by existing asset packs purchased by chai games, I was able to design the cabin based on how the light would flood through in the set location. This is supposed to read as an old grounds keepers hut or shed, a place they would go for some time away from the castle, keep their tools and have a break from work, so this heavily inspired the theme of the assets inside, such as the train poster and classic plane tin mug, followed by the wellies and garden tools. I wanted to create a sense of abandonment whilst also indicating there were people there before the player, posing questions about what happened to them.

The overall polycount is 22,265 (with the save station book considered separately due to the nature of interaction with the player).

I followed a generic pipeline for most assets, using a high-low bake to bring out sculpted details, for the wood I started with sculpting in Nomad, and then used Bridge decals combined with overlayed curvature maps and hand painting to really draw out the detail in the wood while in Substance Painter. For other assets like the Tarp I created entirely in Substance painter using a combination of their materials and hand painting, I also used the tileable substance template to create 2 alternate concrete materials which I went on to combine in unreal. I chose to create the concrete material as an editable material instance because I always want to push myself to spend more time learning the material editor in unreal, allowing me to provide more complex and procedural shaders that are highly reusable and varied.

For the final in-game renders, I was allowed to implement my own lights into the project, so I chose to add a variety of rect lights to create a more prominent bounce light from the moon, this allows the scene to remain within the horror theme while ensuring most of the assets are readable.

I was responsible for the idea generation, blocking, modelling, texturing and full rendering process of these props, my files were created in my own ue4 project and zipped to allow the dev to migrate my folder across, so all texture implementation and shader creation in-game was created by me too. In total there are 10 materials, many smaller assets share themed texture maps with some props requiring their own map, and each texture map has its own folder labelled accordingly to ensure easy re-use by the dev.

I am so happy with the final outcome of this set of assets, I spent a lot of time trying to make sure my assets flowed together and suited the theme of the game, trying to make the cabin feel lived in without taking the grungy dirtiness overboard. I think this is the best I have done to dress my assets in a way that flows with their surroundings, the simple cobwebs also help as separate planes to exaggerate the age of abandonment and this can be changed as much as the dev intends.

I also chose to feature my model in Sketchfab this time because it allows thorough inspection of my modelling, as well as the ability to see each texture map and the wireframe of my models.

I can also officially share the teaser trailer for this game created entirely by dev Chai Games, with a demo announcement date due any time soon, please check out Chai Games on Steam to see their other work too.

Please note in the development of this game I am only responsible for the asset kits and rendering I show on my ArtStation, if there is ever a surrounding exterior environment, foliage and exterior lighting featured, these are all part of pre-existing asset packs purchased by the Dev Chai Games and the final in-game outcomes are subject to change according to the devs requirements.