Overgrown Church

Project done during Term II Environment Art at Vertex School. Big thanks to my mentors Jacob Claussen and Salvador Sanchez, who provided guidance and feedback for this project.

My main goal was to create a camera shot that could match the “The Last of Us Part II” vibe, more specifically Ellie’s house shot. Overgrown Church is built based on a real abandoned building called St. Simon’s Episcopal Church in the rural community of Peak in Newberry County, South Carolina.

After the blockout phase, I created a simple modular kit to build the church. One of the focal points of the scene was the grass, made starting from reference pictures of leaves and grass stems taken directly from my balcony. I used the pictures both as a reference for the modeling part and for the texturing part. After modeling the grass, I baked my original texture using Marmoset Toolbag and then created a grass kit using the cards method in Maya.

I used the amazing work done by Alexis Boyer for the Shadow of the Colossus remake as a main reference and benchmark for the grass crafting. The trees were made by me using SpeedTree. The vines, instead, were created using the same card process I used for the grass (starting as well from pictures I took from my balcony).

Everything is crafted by me except for the props (the chair and the rusty hand saw) placed on the patio, which come from the Quixel Bridge library. The scene is rendered in Unreal Engine 5.

This project was a fantastic learning experience, allowing me to refine my skills in environment art and modular asset creation. I am grateful for the support of my mentors and the inspiration from industry professionals, which helped me bring the Overgrown Church to life.