Glacier Bunker - A UE5 Game Environment
"Glacier Bunker" is the result of my Master's Project ICA at Teesside University. Inspired by one of my favorite games, Gears 5, I revisited the full game environment design process, this time imagining a frozen sci-fi military research facility.
In this project, I explored and reinvented several advanced techniques, including mid-poly modeling, custom layered shaders, shared material hierarchies, ice and snow shaders, and vertex painting. With playability and optimization at the core, crucial for any real-time project, I carefully designed both the environment and pipeline to achieve a highly optimized, visually rich, and playable scene.
Glacier Bunker - Render01
Glacier Bunker - Trailer
Glacier Bunker - Render02
Glacier Bunker - Render03
Glacier Bunker - Render04
Glacier Bunker - Render05
Glacier Bunker - Render06
Glacier Bunker - Render07
Glacier Bunker - Render08
Glacier Bunker - Render09
Glacier Bunker - Render10
Glacier Bunker - Breakdown
Glacier Bunker - Modules01
Glacier Bunker - Modules02
Glacier Bunker - Modules03
Glacier Bunker - Modules04
This is the reference board I gathered for my project, "Glacier Bunker." The environment is heavily inspired by the game Gears 5 and its concept art.
I used a mid-poly modeling workflow, optimizing geometry by removing unnecessary vertices and using weighted normals. This kept the meshes detailed yet efficient for modern games. The approach worked well with the shared layered material system.
Left UV Set: Non-Overlapped for baking normals and masks, Right UV Set: For keeping texel density consistent through all assets.
An example of the RGBA masks I painted for the sci-fi assets, used with the layered material system in Unreal Engine. These masks control edge wear, paint variation, dirt, and snow layers on top of the base paint layer.
In this video, I explain the layered material workflow I developed from scratch, designed for use with both sci-fi assets and rocks.
Base Materials Showcase : Paint, Metal, Rust, Large Shaped Rock, Detailed Rock, Concrete and Snow
This image showcases my rock creation workflow, from the base model to ZBrush detailing, UVs, mask painting, base material creation, and the final look in Unreal Engine, Using same layered material workflow.
This image shows the ice asset workflow: modeled in Maya and ZBrush, masks baked and painted in Substance Painter, and finished with an advanced ice shader using parallax occlusion and masks to create a fantasy-style crystal look.
Ice Shader In Action!
Developed a lightweight animated fog shader in Unreal Engine using noise and parallax layers to simulate cold airflow, enhancing atmosphere without sacrificing performance.
Wall asset creation pipeline, almost same as rock pipeline. Base in Maya, Sculpting and decimating in Zbrush, Dual UVs in Maya, Mask Painting in Painter, Base Materials In Designer, Final shader in Unreal Engine combined with vertex paint.
Lighting milestones, some post-processing setting.