The Snowdesert is the second concept for a game idea. In contrast to the dark underground cave, this scene is filled with brightness and is outside.

The Modelling Process

Just like the previous concept, these models are simple. The most complex is the bunker entry, but even that isn’t optimized. For a concept that is perfectly fine; a gameready asset should have less polygons. The terrain was made with Gaea and is somewhat optimized, since a high poly mesh would’ve been too many and a low poly mesh would’ve lost most features. The ring of rocks around the planet is actually a 3D model as well though it really shouldn’t be. This should of course be embedded in the skybox in a real game. I made this ring of random stones with Geometry Nodes.

Assembling in the Engine

This time, much of the time went into two Niagara particle effects. One is the individual snow flakes passing by and the other is a more subtle particle effect with fairly giant fog cards. Here it was important to fade them out towards the ground.

The task that took by far the most time was adjusting values in the directional light, sky light, sky atmosphere, post processing, exponential hight fog.

Conclusion

As a concept I think this is doing its job. As mentioned, it is definitely not a game ready scene. There is a ton of overdraw through the particles, which can probably not be entirely eliminated but certainly reduced. I’m not entirely happy with the colors but it does contrast well with the cave scene and could make for an interesting switch within gameplay.