Modular Kits for Game Environments w/ Jon Arellano

Join Jon Arellano, Environment Artist at Sony Santa Monica, as he delves deep into one of the most important disciplines an environment artist has to master: modular kit creation. From general tips & tricks to more hard-surface and organic specific pipelines, Jon breaks down each step of the workflow to give you a comprehensive overview and guide you on your learning journey towards mastering modular environments.
Check out Jon's work:
➡️www.artstation.com/jonarellano
Find Jon on Social Media:
/ jon-arellano-61b181ab
/ jonarellano3d
⏲️SESSION TIMESTAMPS⏲️
00:00:00 - Intro
00:05:10 - Overview of Kit Theory
00:10:45 - Complexity of Modular Kits
00:14:40 - Kit Prep and Organization
00:18:50 - Demo Part 1: Hard Surface Kits
00:40:30 - Demo Part 1: Organic Kits
00:48:30 - Demo Part 2: Texturing Hard Surface Kits
01:06:20 - Demo Part 2 - Texturing Organic Kits
01:08:40 - Shader Set-Up in UE5
01:17:23 - Blending Between Assets
01:22:05 - Resources & Outro
MENTIONED/LINKED RESOURCES
Kitbashing
www.artstation.com/artwork/1e...
Rubbles/Debris
www.artstation.com/artwork/vJ...
Trim Sheets
www.artstation.com/artwork/lR...
Smaller Reusable Kit
www.artstation.com/artwork/D5...
Architecture
www.artstation.com/artwork/r9...
Organic Rock Kit
www.artstation.com/artwork/8w...
COMMUNITY ACCESS
Get access to our Discord community and resources:
www.beyondextent.com

[@PolygonAcademy]

really well thought out tutorial :) the part where you match grid and texel density is essential for no seams and easy mental calculations for making new pieces quickly and easily.

[@ChillieGaming]

The last tutorial on your channel was 2 years ago. Really hoping for a comeback from you.

[@bee3D]

Agreed with this other guy! Your trim sheet tutorial was great hope you make more

[@Bulborb1]

Legend

[@simonmakdesielias8964]

I hope you are doing well! Missed all of your tutorials and videos. You really understood what beginner are after and what they need to learn, and more importantly how to teach it!

[@BeyondExtent]

Jon really gave it all for this tutorial, it's amazing how those little things make life so much easier. Hope you're doing well over there PolygonAcademy!

[@bs_art3625]

One of the best modular tutorials I've seen. Thanks for doing these!

[@SodaDjinn]

So many universally good tips and tricks that are even valuable for a Blender user like me. I'll come back to this video a lot of times, that's for sure!

[@josephvanwyk2088]

Man,,,,,, I've been waiting for a video like this for years. I wish I saw this back in 2018.

[@Niko_3D]

Wish I had this video available few months ago when I was designing my own modular kit for a project! xD

[@charactername263]

Early on I see it mentioned that kit based workflows are restricted by Game Object and Draw call limits. Usually games that decide to go with a kit based workflow should optimize their engines for moving static assets into just huge single vertex and index buffers and then the static scenery can be passed through GPU culling etc and never touched on the CPU again. For static scenery there shouldn't be a game object / draw call limit unless the engine is not designed for the workflow. This does increase the cost to unlocking and then moving static geometry, but that should be rare.

[@jiwonjung6254]

That's a very kind explanation. I think it will help a lot of people. It's very hard to produce a video. Thank you for your hard work.

[@joejohn96]

Hi Jon Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us which is help us a lot to build an environment kits. I would like to ask you Where can I find Mirror tool which yu used in the video which I super cool to use in Maya.

[@Rice01ful]

Yes, I would like to know about that mirror tool as well! It was mentioned at 29:30

[@Chauxz]

me too :o

[@marcuscolello]

I would also like to know the name of the mirror tool please. Thanks!

[@kurtmcgivern86]

I also would love to know where you got that mirror tool from. Really could have saved loads of work.

[@LikaAlaska]

me too, it would be really helpful

[@nucleardrifting3864]

That mirror tool would have been great to know when I was making models for a project a while ago.

[@DeLaGallagher]

To help with your export have a look at Maya's game exporter, it's in the File menu, it will allow you to leave your assets in its location and it will zero them all for you upon export. Thank you for this amazing break down.

[@DeLaGallagher]

Hi you mentioned you would be happy to share the mirror script, yes please:)

[@adamplechaty]

So well put together, thanks to Jon for his perfect delivery and big ups for sharing this here!

[@slackamacgaming6721]

Masterclass dude...I appreciate the free knowledge drop...👍

[@Thesi707]

Amazing, thank you so much!

[@kaizu4914]

Thank you for sharing

[@cecileroux7381]

Awesome video - thanks for sharing!

[@johnrborowski]

AMAZING TUTORIAL.. I'm working on a project right now that is totally in line with how I have to alter my workflow. Thank you for summarize the process. These methods absolutely will allow me to make better products for my clients!

[@SnoopThePunk]

This is gold👌

[@harrysanders818]

Such a well made breakdown. Answers some specific questions you seldom find addressed elsewhere. Thanks much!

[@dostoevskyrudenok1245]

Hello Jon! Thank you very much for the seminar, I would like more information about mixing geometry with a surface using Dithertemporalaa, namely how to properly prepare the geometry to implement this effect.

[@photons30]

Thanks for sharing,

[@BeyondExtent]

And thank you for watching! :D

[@RakeshKumar-db5nt]

Thank you so much for this!

[@nikz000]

Meters for the win! Thanks, very informative video

[@rurutie4764]

God you solve me so many questions about kits.Really Thanks for this!

[@michaelgolden4370]

Earned my subscription!

[@knl654]

when i doubt, model it out. nice

[@Magoo277]

Thanks for this amazing video. I've really been struggling with workflow working on my personal project and this brings a lot of things to light. When it comes to translating it from Maya to blender-do you have any good resources on where to find a lot of the tools 3ds max has that could be add-ons in blender? Thanks again for this very informative presentation, it's really helping me get used to this process.

[@TheExcelsis]

Sweet!

[@EmvyBeats]

How do some games look like the models have baked bevels / normals on almost everything? How do they do that & stay optimized? can that be done with trim sheets? or is that some kind of in engine beveling trick like blenders bevel node

[@Avalonanon]

thanks bromano

[@GameDragon2k]

I have a question, hopefully someone can answer. The interior faces are kept between modular pieces as this helps prevent against light leaking and negates the need for double-sided shading. But doesn't this waste space on your lightmap UVs? How would you get around those unnecessary bakes? I would imagine with modular assets, those add up quickly.

[@SuWoopSparrow]

That part seems a bit silly. Never had an actual practical problem without interior faces.

[@RobotArmyInc]

Make a custom light map on a second uv channel, make those back islands really small.

[@cyclonebee2205]

how in the world do you use a fast food mic for your presentation? 😭 But amazing presentation never the less

[@diesergeldjunge4183]

Yeah right xD great presentation and a lot of valuable information. It's almost like all great vids have bad audio quality somehow

[@WelshGuitarDude]

How do you make materials as a material artist or do you just take pictures of real environments? Also do people use kits for materials too?

[@khansaghaz]

do we really need all quads model for game? just start my modelling journey

[@alessandroattanasio2795]

not really, only if the models need to be animated you need to have quad geometry.

[@ChillieGaming]

😱 OMG You have some triangles in your model 😢 Im so sorry your game dev journey ends here

[@khansaghaz]

@@alessandroattanasio2795 thankkks 😅

[@khansaghaz]

@@ChillieGaming tbh that's what i thought would happen in game modelling 😅

[@Vibhu_Kishan]

its better to have a relatively clean modular piece as you wont have many distorions in the UV unwrapstage

[@kwccoin3115]

Sometimes really has to highlight what Env it is applicable like maya etc.

[@fatatalano323]

suppport

[@dubtube6691]

great tutorial but the sound can be improved 🤔

[@TraskySim]

Sorry, dont understand your accent, man.