ABANDONED OFFICE SPACE

PROJECT INTRODUCTION/ MOOD BOARD

For this year’s edition the challenge for environment artists was to create a scene using Unreal Engine 4, while placing 4 briefly described elements in the scene. The project had to revolve around one of the topics, in my case I went with the office. 
The project had size constraints as the scene had to be closed withing an area of 30m3. This made me think that a good project for that size of environment would be a small office room. I prefer creating interior scenes because it is easier to plan out the scene in more detail. 
The reason why I wanted to create an office space is that I always enjoyed playing games like F.E.A.R and Mirrors Edge, where large portion of the game takes place in office buildings. The point of my project is not to create an office that has been abandoned for many years, but rather one that has been left quite recently, based to some sort of viral outbreak. This is challenging as the office cannot be destroyed but at the same time it has to feel like something bad happend. I have acheived this by various details in the scene. One of them being the spilled coffe on the desk, another one being the TV with no signal and the laptop which has been blocked. The centerpiece of my object is the large TV placed on the wall. In  game scenario it would instantly attract the attention of the player upon entering the room. My environment shows a modern office space that is why I decided that the decorative piece of the scene has to have a storytelling aspect to it. The flipboard adds more of an office vibe and immerses the player into what might have happend inside the builiding.

This project enabled me to learn a lot in terms of modular aspects of game design, it enabled me to become more fluent with asset workflows between different programs and in general it was a lot of fun to participate. Below are attached different final renders of the scene. I wish all the best for all the participants of this year’s Searching For the Star 2019.