Environment Thumbnails 2

 Here's the first post for this: 

https://isaacsuniwork.blogspot.com/2025/04/week-9.html

Over easter I did a very basic 3D level blockout to make it easier to do environment thumbnails:

Scale is always really difficult for me, so importing it into unreal and walking around was really useful so that I could adjust the size of buildings and such accordingly.

It took me a while to figure out how to import stuff from Maya into Unreal and be able to move the objects around (the gimbal would just slide around but the objects didn't move with it). At first I moved all of the stuff that was already in Unreal over to where the imported stuff was, turns out I had to tick a box that said something like "dynamic actor," (which I figured out myself, google wasn't helpful as it was either the AI overview or slightly different problems). I think to be able to walk around between the buildings I'd also have to import everything individually, but this is only something basic to help draw the level design and keyart, and I didn't have the patience to do all that.

before this I also briefly sketched a level blueprint:

Onto ship thumbnails:

Nothing seemed to look right, which I think is partially because I'm not that interested in space ships, but also because I mostly draw characters. It was after this I decided to go for the repaired/ stolen enforcer ship route, and so I started trying to sketch the enforcer ship which was a lot harder than I thought it would be:

Eventually I roughly traced it so I could understand it a bit better, then copied that and added some nameless-esque embellishments:

Then I sketched it out on paper to make sure I could actually draw it, it's not perfect but I'm happy I managed to get it to mostly resemble the source material. I also only just realised that this handheld hoover would make for a pretty good laser gun or ship - I won't have time to go back and redesign either of the character's weapons now so I'm using this for the ship instead:

I used these clippers too and sort of photobashed these objects together, and then sketched that:

This is pretty much as far as I got for the ship design, I'll come back to this later.

Building thumbnails: (these were a lot easier/ more approachable)

The nameless are semi-aquatic and also seem to have kind of organic technology (either streamlined shapes or as if it's made from living material) so I've tried to incorporate that into the building designs.

What seems to be the only official Nameless environment art doesn't have any buildings or infrastructure in it, so I've had to base it on the characters and their armour. Also because of this, I experimented with having the buildings surrounded by "vegetation" (used loosely because it seems to be a mix of coral and seaweed-like plants/ trees), either hidden on the ground or built on top of the reef/ forest type thing.

 

 

 

Research + References: