UNREAL ENGINE 5 | PHOTOSHOP | ZBRUSH OR RELEVANT MODELLING SOFTWARE | SUBSTANCE PAINTER

Design and overpaint an environment with Ellie Cooper from Athena Productions, using the power of Unreal Engine

AUTHOR Ellie Cooper

Ellie is an art director at Athena Productions, a studio of concept artists and matte painters specialised in Unreal Engine. athena-productions.com

TEMPLE OF ATHENA A personal concept art environment inspired by Greek mythology

I often receive questions from artists about what software they should be using to create concept art, and how they are conflicted on which software to sink their time into learning – Iagree! You see one person on social media do an amazing painting in Blender, another in Photoshop with no 3D whatsoever. Concept artists are not lacking for choice on software and are often lost on what to use for their work – and in my experience there is no one correct answer!

I have used my fair share of programs, such as Octane, Blender and even SketchUp, but Unreal Engine offers unique advantages: real-time rendering, Nanite, Megascans, Lumen, MetaHumans and so much more that can be hugely beneficial to concept artists.

I work at a studio called Athena Productions, which is a concept art and matte painting studio consisting of artists specialised in Unreal Engine 5. I will be giving an insight into the studio’s pipeline and how you can create a peaceful temple environment using Unreal Engine 5 and Photoshop.

01 INITIAL BLOCKOUT

Start with a blockout and establish your camera for the main focal point and surrounding structures. You can use Cubes from either the Place Actors menu which you can toggle from Window, or the quick-add dropdown on the top left above the viewport. You can also add a mannequin to help guide your piece with scale and distance, found in Content>Mannequin>Meshes.