Practice 1: Developing Skills, Development Project 2, Post 4
Texturing
I imported my ambient occlusion, curvature and normal maps into Substance Painter from Marmoset, and then started to block out my base colours - primarily adding shading from the AO before moving onto hand painting details. I’m aiming for recreating Arcane’s painterly details with this model, and started by creating planular forms on the face.
Rendering
I wanted to move my model into Marmoset Toolbag early to see my textures in alternative lighting, and the desired pose. Once I had my base colours and started a rough layer of hand painting, I posed my model in Maya, without rigging her, and set up simple lighting of one directional main, a bounce and rim light, to give her some form. From this quick set up I most obviously noticed the shadows of her outfits causing issues, as well as stark AO lines on the clothing.
Fortiche's amazing artists finally shared a behind-the-scenes look at some of the models prepared for the Nextflix show.
I came across another helpful article on creating textures in Arcane’s style, the turn table screenshots are really clear references for me.
I really enjoyed the direction this model was heading in though, and was very happy with the progress I had made so far. There are notable areas that need improving, and I barely got started with creating hand painted textures. I really look forward to finishing her off, and wish I had planned my time better to not spend so much time making small changes to my Development Project 1’s optimisation, and getting cracking on large changes to my Development Project 2.
References
Sergeev, A (2022) A Closer Look at Texturing in Arcane. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/a-closer-look-at-texturing-in-arcane (Accessed: 18 January 2026).
Practice 1: Developing Skills, Development Project 2, Post 3
Baking
For this project I wanted to learn baking within Marmoset Toolbag 5, rather than using Substance Painter. Without the need for precise naming conventions it definitely saved me some time doing it this way, and I enjoyed learning a new skill of creating the maps separately before importing them into substance painter for texturing.The ambient occlusion results were softer then the standard for Substance Painter, and consequently this method is definitely something I’m interested in trying again.
There are a few baking issues present on my model at this stage, which I haven’t had time to fix: I need to separate the hair into different baking groups and improve the AO baked maps on this sculpt, but due to time constraints, I wanted to move onto texturing.
Practice 1: Developing Skills, Development Project 2, Post 2
Retop
My last project took a considerable amount of time to retop everything by hand, so this time around I attempted to speed up the process by doing some of the retop in Zbrush. I Zremeshed some of the items, and used the lowest subdivision levels for others. When creating my sculpt I started with clean low poly topology, which definitely helped in my favour at this stage, when creating the lowpoly. I re-toped the hands and face by hand to get specific deformable topology, and the hat, since its unusual shape meant getting a Zremesh version that wasn’t spiraling was proving difficult. I then cleaned up the Zremeshes, adding extra loops to improve form, and optimising.
For material allocation, I separated my model into face, hands, hair, eyes, and then two extra texture sheets for the clothing and accessories. I could have combined the face and hands onto one texture map, but I wanted more control over the face details staying sharp. I kept the strands of the hair separate to gain a cleaner bake, and improve the animation potential.
Practice 1: Developing Skills, Development Project 2, Post 1
Sculpting
In starting my second development project, unfortunately I hadn’t left myself with a great deal of time in comparison to my first project. I started off by improving my sculpt from assignment 6, competitions, in Zbrush to bring the bust I had so far to a more comprehensive level. With this project, I aimed to use Fortiche’s Netflix TV show, Arcane as reference, and heavily used their sculpts and textures as the goal for level of detail and form.
I spent a long time in the sculpting process trying to get the shape of the hat looking correct, and ended up splitting it up into several pieces to create the form I was after. I continued to use Zbrush for the clothes rather than marvelous designer, due to the stylistic, simple exaggerated forms I wanted to achieve. In terms of the clothing folds, Ladislas Gueros’ work on Arcane’s sculpts created subtle volumes, rather than simply indenting the area with the dam standard brush. I used her work as heavy reference when improving upon the clothing for my sculpt, and I feel I have a much stronger idea of how fabric deforms around a bod by studying her bust sculpts.
On finalising the model, I cut out the torn sections of the clothes, decimated and moved to Maya to prepare to retop
Research
While doing further research into Arcane’s texture, I came across some realtime characters by Pavel Marchankau. I hadn’t seen work like this done before, especially real time characters, and I was thrilled to see he’d created some 80Level articles about his workflow:
Created using ZBrush, Substance 3D, and Unreal Engine 5.
Pavel Marchankau shared the workflow behind the Assassin project, talked about the texturing process using the smudge effect, and showed the
The selection of characters were created for an indie project, Bagna, and feature a very effective smudge effect in his renders, which was what originally caught my attention. The skin texturing was what interested me the most about his characters, appearing like a Van Gough oil painting, and Marchankau’s exaggerated colours have provided me with inspiration for creating forms. He completed all his textures within Substance Painter, which made me very excited to try his approach, as opposed to several other artists I’d looked at who used 3D Coat. He frequently used the smudge brush to blend his fill layers of separate colours, which is something I am excited to try with this project.
Hair
Spending most of my time analysing the arcane sculpt models at this stage, it took me a while to realise that they are simply blockouts for the hair, the final rendered characters use haircards. While I am worried I won’t have enough time to explore haircards for my model, it is definitely something I’m interested in improving.
Alternatively, Ulysse Soubiran creates a beautiful Arcane inspired bust sculpt, with hand painted sculpted hair, achieving a beautiful result. This is likely much more realistic to try to achieve with this project.I particularly like the effect of light on the hair, the impressionistic brush stroke feel with a square brush keeps a painterly vibe.
Particularly noticeable aspects of this interview with JHill, was that Ulysse created this bust purely with Zbrush polypaint. He also makes use of subsurface scattering in the final render within Marmoset, which really softens the render shadows, which will be useful to experiment with myself at that stage.
References
Collins, E (2025) Check Out This Game-Ready Character with Complex Texturing. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/modeling-an-assassin-using-zbrush-substance-3d-painter-xgen (Accessed: 18 January 2026).
Marchankau, P (2023) Modeling an Assassin Using ZBrush, Substance 3D Painter & XGen. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/modeling-an-assassin-using-zbrush-substance-3d-painter-xgen (Accessed: 18 January 2026).
J Hill (2025) Arcane Style with ZBrush ft. Ulysse Soubiran | Pixel Peeps | Episode 17. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f58hYrRKBZw (Accessed:15 January 2026).
PBR Texturing, Material Application & Final Renders - Post 5
Introduction
This final blog documents the texturing and presentation stage of Development Project 2. After completing the modular modelling and assembly of the building, the focus shifted to applying PBR textures, testing material consistency across modular assets, and producing final renders using minimal lighting.
The aim of this stage was to ensure the building reads as a cohesive structure while maintaining realistic surface detail suitable for real-time environments.
PBR Texture Selection
Free 8K texture of an old, rough beige-brown brick wall with deep mortar joints, heavy surface relief, weathered edges and subtle discolorat
For texturing, I used a brick wall PBR texture sourced from Poly Haven. Poly Haven provides high-quality, physically based materials that are suitable for game engines and real-time workflows.
The selected brick wall texture includes:
Albedo (Base Color)
Normal map
Roughness map
Ambient Occlusion map
This texture was chosen because it closely matches the material observed in my real-world reference photographs and suits the industrial architectural style of the building.
Importing & Material Setup in Unreal Engine
The PBR texture maps were imported into Unreal Engine and assembled into a single material using the Material Editor. Each texture map was connected to its appropriate channel to ensure physically accurate shading.
Care was taken to:
Maintain correct texture scale
Preserve surface detail without exaggeration
Keep roughness values balanced for realistic light response
Applying Textures to Modular Assets
Once the material was created, it was applied consistently across all modular assets, including wall modules, corner pieces, and the assembled building.
Key considerations during this process included:
Aligning the brick pattern across modular seams
Ensuring the texture tiles seamlessly between modules
Maintaining consistent scale from individual assets to the full building
This step was essential to avoid visible breaks where modular pieces connect and to ensure the building reads as a single cohesive structure.
Overview of Modular Assets
modular assets created and used for the final building assembly. These assets were designed as individual, reusable components that could function independently while also working cohesively when combined into a complete structure.
The modular set includes:
Wall modules with different window variations
Door and entrance modules
Corner and structural wall pieces
Stair modules and small architectural extensions
Fence, railing, and gate elements
Utility props such as pipes and exterior units
Each asset was modelled with consistent proportions so that they align naturally when assembled. By applying the same PBR brick material across all relevant modules, visual continuity was maintained between separate pieces, allowing the building to read as a single unified structure rather than a collection of individual parts.
Minimal Lighting & Rendering
To evaluate the material clearly, the building was rendered using minimal lighting. A simple lighting setup was used to:
Avoid overpowering the texture detail
Test material response under neutral conditions
Focus attention on surface quality and form
This approach made it easier to identify any texture stretching, tiling issues, or shading inconsistencies across the building.
Final Outcome
The final renders demonstrate that the PBR texture works effectively across both individual modular assets and the complete building. The brick material adds realism and visual weight to the structure while maintaining consistency across modular connections.
This stage confirms that the modular system functions not only structurally, but also visually when textured and presented as a finished asset.
Conclusion
The texturing and rendering phase successfully completed Development Project 2. By using high-quality PBR textures, aligning materials carefully across modular assets, and presenting the building with minimal lighting, the final result achieves a clean and believable architectural appearance. This project demonstrates a full modular environment workflow from reference research to final rendered output.
References
Poly Haven Brick wall PBR texture. Available at: https://polyhaven.com
This blog documents the stage where the previously modelled modular assets were assembled into a complete building structure. The aim of this phase was to test how well the individual modules worked together when combined into a single architectural form.
This stage focuses on practical construction and visual evaluation of the modular system.
Assembling Modular Assets
The modular wall, window, corner, and secondary elements were combined to form a full building facade. By stacking and repeating the same assets, the structure was extended vertically and horizontally to create a complete building.
This process helped to:
Verify that assets align correctly
Check proportions at building scale
Identify any visual gaps or inconsistencies
Ensure the building reads as a cohesive structure
Assembling the building allowed the modular system to be evaluated in a real architectural context.
Integration of Secondary Elements
Secondary elements such as balconies and the fire escape were added to enhance realism and architectural depth. These features help break up large facade surfaces and reinforce the building’s functional design.
Because these elements are modular, they were attached directly to the main structure without requiring changes to the core building assets.
Evaluating Visual Consistency
Once the building was assembled, attention was given to overall visual balance and consistency. This involved reviewing:
Alignment of windows across floors
Consistency of wall proportions
Placement of secondary elements
Overall facade rhythm
This evaluation ensured that the building feels believable and structurally coherent.
Conclusion
The modular assembly stage successfully resulted in a complete building constructed from reusable assets. This phase confirmed that the modular components function correctly when combined and provided a solid foundation for final refinement and evaluation in the next stage of development.
This blog documents the modelling stage of Development Project 2, where the planned modular components were translated into individual 3D assets. The focus of this phase was to create clean, reusable building parts that could later be combined to form complete structures.
At this stage, the priority was accuracy, consistency, and reusability, rather than final detail or texturing.
Asset Modelling Approach
Each modular element was modelled as a separate asset, allowing it to be reused multiple times across the building. The modelling approach focused on keeping the geometry simple while clearly defining architectural forms.
The main goals during modelling were:
Clean silhouettes
Consistent proportions across assets
Minimal but effective geometry
Reusability across multiple building variations
This ensured that all assets could work together as part of a single modular system.
Primary Modular Assets
The primary assets created include:
Plain wall sections
Window wall modules
Door or entrance sections
These assets form the core structure of the building facade and were designed to repeat vertically and horizontally without visual issues.
Structural & Secondary Assets
In addition to primary facade elements, supporting assets were created to handle structure and variation:
Corner modules to define building edges
Base and top sections to ground the structure
Secondary elements such as balconies and fire escape components
These assets add depth and realism while remaining modular and reusable.
Pivot Placement & Consistency
Correct pivot placement was considered during modelling to ensure assets could be positioned easily later. Pivots were placed logically based on how each asset would connect to others, such as:
Bottom edges for wall segments
Inner corners for corner modules
Attachment points for secondary elements
Consistent pivot logic helps speed up environment construction and reduces alignment issues.
Preparing Assets for Reuse
Before moving to assembly, each asset was checked for:
Consistent scale
Clean topology
Correct orientation
Matching proportions with other modules
This preparation ensures that the assets can be reused efficiently and combined in different configurations without requiring rework.
Conclusion
The modular asset modelling stage translated planning into practical, reusable 3D components. By focusing on clean geometry, consistent proportions, and logical asset separation, the project is now ready for the next stage: assembling the modular assets into complete building structures.
Following the visual research phase, this stage of Development Project 2 focuses on planning the modular building kit. The objective of this phase was to analyse architectural repetition, define modular components, and plan how the building could be assembled using reusable parts.
At this point in the project, the emphasis was on understanding structure, proportion, and repetition, rather than technical alignment systems.
Understanding Modular Structure
Modular design relies on identifying repeating architectural elements within a building. By studying the reference images, the facade was broken down into logical repeating sections, such as windows, wall segments, and structural corners.
This process helps to:
Identify which elements can be reused
Reduce the number of unique assets
Maintain consistency across the building
The focus was on visual rhythm and architectural logic rather than technical constraints.
Planning Module Proportions
The planning process involved analysing:
Floor-to-floor repetition
Window height and width consistency
Spacing between architectural elements
Overall facade balance
These observations informed the proportions of each modular piece, ensuring they could be reused vertically and horizontally without breaking the visual flow of the building.
Modular Asset Breakdown
Based on the analysis, the modular building was divided into clear asset categories:
Primary Facade Modules
Plain wall sections
Window wall sections
Door or entrance sections
Structural Modules
Corner pieces
Floor separation elements
Base and top sections
Secondary Modules
Balcony units
Fire escape platforms and stairs
Decorative trim elements
Separating the building into these categories helped simplify the planning process and prepare for the modelling stage.
Repetition & Visual Consistency
The facade design relies heavily on repetition to achieve visual complexity. By reusing the same modules across multiple floors, the building maintains a consistent appearance while minimising the number of unique assets required.
Decorative elements were treated as repeatable trims rather than unique features, allowing detail to be added without increasing complexity.
Conclusion
This planning stage established a clear modular structure for the building. By focusing on architectural repetition, proportion, and asset categorisation, the project is prepared for the next phase: modelling the modular assets. This approach ensures efficiency while maintaining visual coherence
References
Google Images Apartment building facades, modular repetition and elevation references. Available at: https://images.google.com
Pinterest Architectural facade breakdown and modular building reference imagery. Available at: https://www.pinterest.com
