Creating Interior 3D Environments for Games

Plan and reference an abandoned mall transformed into a library, while outlining a blockout, asset list, materials, and Unreal workflow for an interior game environment.

Create an unreal engine 5 project and build an interior blockout using modular walls, pillars, and floor panels with modeling tools.

Create a blockout in Maya by building modular walls, pillars, bottom trims, and floors, export as FBX, and import into Unreal with combined meshes, proper scale, and snap-ready pivots.

Create level art by blocking out interiors with pillars, walls, escalators, and entrances, using snapping, duplication, and modeling toolkits to establish height, trim, and storefronts.

Prototype the interior by refining escalator and railings for a blockout; map store sections and entrances, adjust lighting with a post-process volume, and export to unreal.

Develop a multi-story interior blockout by recognizing load-bearing walls, extending them across floors, and forming a semi-circle floor with bent blocks to fit escalators and circulation.

Continue the blockout by shaping floors and walls, duplicating sections to form a large square space for restaurants, and adding ceilings, bends, and railings for a cohesive interior flow.

Continue the blockout by adding stores, adjusting gamma lighting, organizing assets, and exporting top sections to Maya as static meshes for clean iteration.

Create a large steak house storefront blockout with a wide entrance, framed openings, and an extruded sign, then refine with bends, lattices, and decorative frames.

Develop a cohesive interior blockout by refining bars and pillars, creating glass elements, duplicating and mirroring components, and exporting to Unreal for final placement.

Create and duplicate generic stores in Maya to build a three-store blockout, add windows with bezier curves and sweep mesh glass, then export to Unreal for quick lighting mockups.

Continue the blockout by detailing railings, beams, pillars, and the ceiling, add planters and seating, and export to Maya for a unique ceiling.

Design wall tiles material with Substance Designer, creating clean and damaged tile variations, and export height, normal, and ambient occlusion maps for realistic interior game environments.

Create a wall tile material by iterating noise-based damages, selecting tileable patterns, blending edge chips and dirt layers, and balancing base color, normal, height, and roughness maps in Substance Designer.

Enhance wall tile textures with tiling, dirt, and edge highlights using gradient fills and Perlin noise, then expose height and dirt controls and export presets for Unreal.

Develop a master material in Unreal Engine that uses worldspace UVs, tiling, and grunge-based dirt to blend clean and dirty wall textures with controllable base color, roughness, and normal maps.

Create dirt shaders for interior walls by converting world position to local space, forming top and bottom masks with grunge breakup, and controlling results with lerp and mask strength.

Learn to author vertex-colored damage textures in Maya, export to Unreal via FBX, and refine dirt, roughness, and normals using grunge maps, masks, and lerp-based blending.

We focus on building a damaged tiles material, combining cracks, grout, and missing tiles with procedural noise and edge detection to create organic wear in a shader.

Learn to craft damaged interior tiles by balancing color, sharpening edges, and adding noise variations with masks and histogram scans, then layer cracks and ambient occlusion.

Design a plaster material for interior game walls using a flat base, a normal map built from layered noise, directional warp, and masks, with a damage switch to toggle textures.

Create a base plaster material for interior game environments using gradient map, dirt passes, and grunge humidity, then generate clean and dirty presets with exposed normal and roughness maps.

Create a directional wood material using anisotropic noise, histogram scans, and masks in Substance Designer. Tiling, warping, and a subtle normal map refine the look for game environments.

Create a post-apocalyptic wood material by layering base color with random grain and residue, using gradient maps and noise. Refine roughness and color with grunge textures for weathered wood look.

Develop a metal and plastic material workflow by creating a reusable metallic map, base color with noise, and targeted roughness and normal maps, then switch to plastic in Unreal Engine.

Create a floor tile material by duplicating wall tiles and refining the graph. Adjust base color, dirt, grout, and marble veins with gradient maps and histogram selects; export textures.

Apply a layering technique to create realistic floor tiles in interior game environments, using uniform base colors, veins and dirt layers, blending modes, and color replace for flexible balancing.

Create a procedural carpet texture for interior environments using a substance graph, vector maps, and tiling patterns; tune height, normal, and ambient occlusion maps for realistic Unreal and Marmoset renders.

Create a simple office ceiling material with a 4x4 tile pattern and lights, using masking, histogram scan, height and normal maps, and emissive outputs for PSR export.

Turn pillar models into final assets by applying unique UVs and tiling controls with swapped master materials. Unwrap UVs, bevel corners, and apply weighted normals for realism.

Create final walls by adding static switch parameters for bottom and top dirt on pillar and wall materials, then apply clean and dirty plaster presets to unique uv maps.

Master modeling and texturing a floor block in maya and unreal, including floor, wall, and ceiling tiles, bevels, trims, and UV mapping for seamless transitions.

Fix misaligned floor pieces in Maya with snap and bend, refine UVs for tile textures, then export the floor block and prep pillars for railings.

Design two railing styles in Maya, balance with tileable textures, and create modular pieces for production-ready interiors in games.

Create and align railing components for game environments in Maya, export and refine beams, adjust seams, and apply wood and metal materials for Unreal integration.

Create a second railing segment in Maya, refine with beams, bevels, and transitions, then generate a tileable metal texture via Substance Designer and implement an alpha masked material in Unreal.

Create interior game railings using modular pieces, duplicating sections, and careful pillar alignment; bend and position beams for seamless transitions, then polish with timing in mind.

Create reusable store components in Maya, starting with pillars and window frames. Apply weighted normals and plaster or wood materials, and plan scalable enterable stores.

Model final enterable stores by shaping doors and windows, aligning pivots, and using mirrors to ensure correct proportions; refine normals, bevels, and glass for game-ready interiors.

Install glass storefronts with planes, align and smooth panels, mirror components, and apply plastic, metal, plaster, and wood textures. Optimize UVs and export to Unreal.

Duplicate the second store, align the pillar and frames with plaster and wood beams, design large windows, and plan a text plate while exploring megascans textures.

Model final enterable stores with modular blocks, trims, and bevels, then design windows and frames using triplanar UVs and material variants, while preparing megascans textures for Maya and Unreal.

Create the final enterable store route by modeling wooden planks, unwrapping UVs, applying rustic wood textures, adding frames, doors, and glass, and preparing assets for Unreal import.

Balance proportions and scale in interior stores by adjusting heights, window sizes, and materials, using scale references and unreal engine workflows to achieve logical, consistent storefronts.

Master practical interior store modeling by simplifying window geometry and applying plaster and black plastic materials. Apply beveling and edge optimization in Maya to ready generic store variants for export.

Learn how to add modular storefronts and polish interior 3d assets by tweaking pillars, tiling, vertex painting, and texture work, while fixing dirt maps and floor gaps.

Build a roof frame with metal panels and heavy beams, detailing joints, bolts, and construction lines in Maya and 3ds Max, guided by a pragmatic blockout workflow.

Continue constructing the ceiling by duplicating and aligning beam segments, adding a central beam and top windows, and plan extrusions, joints, pivots, and uvs for detailing.

Model and refine a ceiling beam system for interior game environments, using extrusion, bends, lattice tweaks, pivots, and careful joint planning.

Push and align ceiling pieces to prevent clipping, extract faces for safe adjustment, and manually place parts before testing in unreal and refining with sweeps and bevels.

Split ceiling window geometry using reference planning, splines, and sweep mesh to create even panel divisions. Compare methods and refine spacing for a future lighting pass and detail work.

Add bevels and place ceiling joints, adjust pivots and angles in vertex mode, export to unreal as static meshes, and duplicate joint walls to complete blockout with world axis alignment.

Learn to build a glass ceiling for games by creating separate glass panels, applying a dirty green algae shader, and using splines, world-aligned textures, and moss grunge.

Fix distance field shadow issues in Unreal Engine 5 by turning off effect distance fields on the ceiling glass and exporting the glass separately from Maya in the same position.

Create broken glass in Maya with the pull down it plugin, using shatter fracture and draft mode. Learn to isolate pieces, extrude edges, and clean geometry for convincing destruction.

Watch a timelapse of creating our ceiling for a game interior, part 10, illustrating the ongoing workflow in building interior 3D environments for games.

Clean up assets, then set up the first lighting pass with movable rectangle lights, a main light, skylight HDRI, volumetric fog, and post effects.

Create a set of 3D text signs for interior environments in Maya, adjusting extrusion and fonts, duplicating for variations, removing back faces, and exporting as assets.

Model and place department name signs in a game interior, adjust scale and rotation, test color schemes, and optimize geometry with bevel and triangulation techniques before exporting to Unreal.

Apply bevels to models and assign lambert materials to separate parts, then export, import, and assemble a burger joint sign for a lighting preview using HDRi, movable lights, and post-process.

Learn to build an escalator in Maya with splines and sweep mesh, export parts for scaling, import at 0.01 scale, and refine with bezier curves, bridges, and weighted normals.

Create a reusable escalator spline and sweep mesh, apply booleans and bevels, and prepare trim sheet, glass, and stairs for a game-ready interior environment.

Export the escalator to Unreal, adjust angles and thickness, and refine pivot and placement; duplicate stair pieces for variation, and prepare collision and a trim sheet for texturing.

Refine an escalator model by adjusting stair geometry, applying mirrors, and preparing a trim sheet. Learn texture planning with Photoshop and Substance Painter, plus color masks and stickers.

Create a trim sheet texture by building a plane template in painter. Configure base color, height, roughness, metallic, normal, and masks, then export 2048 textures in a PBR workflow.

Apply textures to the escalator model using a trim sheet and worldspace uv, unwrap uv shells, assign materials, and prepare shaders for tileable metal, rubber, and trim sheet surfaces.

Create and manage multiple UV maps, including map three for mask in Substance Painter, then export to Unreal and implement world space versus unique UV switch in the shader.

Create an escalator interior mask in Painter by baking ambient occlusion and wiring multi-channel dirt, edge, and roughness maps, then export to Unreal with a single material.

Import trim sheets and create escalator materials in Unreal Engine, balancing base color, normal, roughness, and metallic maps with Painter masks.

Add a dust system to props with layered grunge, noise, and adjustable alpha, and build simple custom escalator collisions in Maya and Unreal Engine 5 for smooth movement.

Place escalators, rotate, and verify alignment in Maya to ensure fit before Unreal. Build tables, desks, and chairs as blockouts with a 0.01 scale reference for export.

Create a chair by shaping a square top slab, beveling edges, and forming a rounded, dented lip. Extend with legs, topology refinements, and reusable chair clusters for scenes.

Create interior 3D environments by modeling compact desks, chairs, and modular wall elements, then add clusters and tarp details for realistic office cubicles.

Unwrap and lay out UVs for communal table and desks, copy UVs between meshes, and prepare masks while assigning Lambert materials and exporting assets for Unreal.

Create interior prop assets in Unreal Engine by building masks, baking textures from low-poly to high-poly, and applying dirt, roughness, and ambient occlusion to desks and chairs.

Create chair and desk clusters in Unreal Engine by merging selected models into a static mesh, adjust pivot points, and export for tarp layering, enabling rapid variations and realistic interiors.

Deliver cloth-covered interior assets by using Marvelous Designer to simulate fabric on chair and desk clusters, export as OVA, and integrate with Unreal via FBX, fabric presets, and GPU-accelerated simulations.

Import Marvelous Designer exports into ZBrush to add wrinkle alphas for cloth detail. Bake normal maps, remesh with ZRemesher, decimate to a low-poly, and export to Maya and Unreal.

Bake high to low poly normals in marmoset toolbag and export cloth assets to Unreal, then apply a detail normal map via a master material to cloth-covered props.

Create cloth covered assets for interior 3d environments using a timelapse approach, highlighting shine and texture.

Model three modular bookcases for a game environment in Maya, establish scaling, build shells and panels with bevels, and explore wall versus standalone versions.

Create interior 3D environments by building a modular bookcase from panels and cylinders, duplicating parts, and UV unwrapping to create a reusable mask for multiple variations.

Create a game environment bookcase by assigning materials, baking UVs, exporting to Unreal, and painting dirt, dust, and masks in Painter; then generate standalone and small variations.

Create wall variations for bookcases, including large and small versions, apply UVs and masks, fix ambient occlusion and weighted normals, and export to Unreal.

Create book textures in Photoshop, assemble varied book covers, and apply them to book models with UV layouts in Unreal Engine, mindful of copyright and post-apocalyptic dirt effects.

Create base books in Maya, adjust sizes, and export only the books for Unreal placement. Unwrap UVs, orient shells, and apply book covers texture while building varied, low-poly volumes.

Duplicate and rotate books to create open variants, adjust height and thickness, and paint dirt in the UV editor to build varied book placement inside bookcases for game environments.

Create diverse book variations, set up textured materials with dust and atlas textures, and merge actors into bookcase clusters in Unreal Engine 5 to rapidly populate interior library scenes.

Learn to create simple gravity simulations of books in Maya using bullet rigid bodies, randomize transforms, and hull colliders, then export as FBX for Unreal.

Model and texture banners for interior game environments, building a top pole in Maya, and producing three variations—perfect, ripped bottom, and wind-blown ripped—with cloth simulation in Marvelous Designer.

Export a banner uv snapshot and build a book-themed banner in Photoshop with gradient overlays. Render a spiral of books in Marmoset Toolbag and save a png with transparency.

Learn to build and texture banners for game interiors, iterating borders, colors, and masks, then export to painter and optimize with 4K PBR textures and alpha masking for Unreal.

Export Maya banners to Unreal with base color, normal, and roughness textures, apply plastic and metal materials, and set up an opacity master material with alpha mask and subsurface shading.

Learn to create ivy foliage for interior game environments using SpeedTree, photogrammetry textures, and procedural branch generation from a wall.

Create ivy foliage in SpeedTree by crafting leaf cutouts, applying albedo and translucency textures, and configuring two-sided materials, tessellation, and collision-aware LODs for optimized interior environments.

Increase leaf generator limit to 350 to densify foliage, thin branches in Maya, then re-export to Unreal and apply ivy and bark textures with a foliage master shader.

Develop multiple ivy variations from the initial iv, save as new versions, and apply collision, forcing, and spline adjustments to build large hanging foliage for unreal.

Export ivy variants from Speedtree, import into Unreal, and organize by layers and pivots; iterate scales and placements to build dense, varied ivy rows for interior environments.

Save iv zero six, adjust branches, and generate variations to create a climbing ivy look in speedtree with pillar collision considerations.

Learn to craft ivy and foliage for interior game environments by adjusting gravity, forces, and planar settings, importing from SpeedTree, and aligning leaves to floor surfaces for realistic integration.

Import ivy variations, apply materials, and test in real time while adjusting scales and placements to create wall and floor ivy without clipping, using Maya re-imports and time-lapse workflows.

Learn to create modular ivy foliage in Maya, forming square, circular, and triangular pieces, export ivy assets, refine leaves and roots, remove collision, and prepare for level placement.

Place interior props and banners in the level, then run passes for level art, foliage, decals, and lighting to refine the environment. Plan large-to-small asset placement and the foliage pass.

Place props in interior environments by building library-like clusters (books, desks, chairs) and adjusting lighting; use unlit mode and duplication to speed layout, then refine with foliage and varied assets.

Place and refine game environment props, adjust layouts, vary materials and lighting, create seating and study areas, and stage a post-apocalyptic library setting using clusters and marketplace assets.

Place props within a game interior and use timelapse workflows to show efficient, cohesive environment design.

Watch a timelapse of placing props in our environment, revealing prop placement techniques for building immersive interior 3D environments in games.

Place interior foliage using ivy variations and decals to enrich game environments, balancing asset placement, dirt decals, and lighting for believable growth from ceilings.

Place foliage efficiently in interior game environments through a timelapse workflow, exploring rapid iteration in creating immersive 3d spaces.

place foliage in interior 3d environments for games, showcasing a timelapse of the placement process in part 3.

Conduct a lighting pass and foliage polishing, layer foliage, and perform a vertex painting pass to support reflections; refine skylight, reflection captures, and post effects toward color grading.

Apply post effects and color grading using a lut in Photoshop, capture high-resolution screenshots, and refine scene lighting with rectangle lights for a cinematic interior environment.

Paint textures in real-time by selecting assets and applying vertex painting, using green and red channels to add dirt and damage on pillars and walls, then prepare decals.

Learn to create and apply decals in Unreal Engine, using Photoshop textures and Targa files, then build a decal master material with opacity and roughness to place moss and leaks.

Develop decals for interior 3D game environments using a timelapse workflow to demonstrate the creation process.

Polish the environment by finalizing decals and 3D text, adding dust, tuning lighting, and reinforcing surfaces with weathering for final screenshots.

Polish the environment by adding decals to break up floors, test moss textures, adjust decal intensity from camera angles, and apply dirt to ceilings, ivy, and glass.

adjust the sun angle and camera angles to test lighting and depth, then refine subsurface scattering, reverse normals, and place cables, ivy, bookcases, planters, and grasses.

Import megascans trees and adjust ivy color variation, balance albedo and brightness, paint grass, and tune shaders to enhance interior 3D environments while establishing diverse camera angles and final optimization.

Generate foliage LODs in Unreal Engine by setting a foliage group and four LODs. Adjust screen size, enable auto compute, and reduce triangles from 15k to 7k while preserving bevels.

Capture portfolio screenshots with a camera actor in game mode, export PNGs or JPEGs, then create a flythrough by keyframing the camera and rendering at 60 fps.