Seeking the inspiration

We often want to start working on something but don't know on what to start working ? That's why we all need some inspiration. Some need a little like small single picture, others need mind blowing experience by traveling to mountains or to nearby located lake. Same thing is about digital environment arts/design or how others like to call it. I could confirm from my experience that by playing games you can get quite thrilling visual inspiration. Graphic engines are getting updated almost every year so do the games. Every next gen brings us stunning visuals. Nowadays were are close to photoreal graphics games and there's no doubts about the future. Games, mods and modded games are great and endless inspiration origin !

It's also important to mention that if you see scene which you like or something thrills you, don't forget to take screenshot of it ! Our memory very likely to forget things so having a screenshot(s) from scene which you liked and by extremely useful when you decide to start working on something. I don't have copying on my mind, but in this way you can way easier understand how digital environments are designed, how static objects are placed, take a look on shadows and compare their color to sky color or you even can try to beat game scene visuals by recreating it in different way. Newer stop believing in yourself and you will reach something :)

What is more, there are a lot of things around us what can inspire, you just need to have sharp sight.
 I gain a lot of inspiration from places were I visit etc so newer forget to travel and expand your outlook.
That's all for this time. I will try to write more helpful tips for 3d environment design.

I also added some my favourite screenshots from various games what I have played in last 3 years. It may inspire someone hehe

By the way, suggestions, notes or random ideas are welcome in comments section :)

(Screenshots were taken from following games: Dead Space 3, Skyrim, Metro 2033, Crysis 3, Thief, Battlefield 4)

Post-Apocalyptic environment second update. Over 4 million polys. I used low poly grass to reduce ingame lag, because it already drops below 20 fps on highest settings and pretty low res.

New post-apocalytical environment WIP 2015

Something inspired by "The last of us". In last few weeks I had a lot of fun by creating new virtual world of my own. Devastated and overcomed by nature city was my first vision so I encouraged myself to start realizing it by CryEngine. I specially made new high-quality materials for almost every static object.

playing with lighting/projects polishing

I decided to post some some more random images with my work. Right now you can see earlier version of abadoned environment level with first set of lighting :)

Post apocalyptical environment (dusty setting)

Post apocalyptical environment (dusty setting)

You can check out blog post about this level design below:
http://ainasdesign.blogspot.com/2014/07/post-apocalyptical-aftermath-like.html

Dusty sunset make this level looking way different, but not worse right ?

Post apocalyptical, aftermath-like environment

This time I decided to design something bigger and more detailed. First idea was abadoned lab, but as usualy my concept turned into something better :D

I got inspired by The last of us, Crysis 3 and russian fps ,,Survarium". I mixed a lot of design techniques and got pretty nice result. Also this level is totaly improvisation- I had no actual concept or art. It was design just in process :)

This time I was responsible not only for terrain, level design but for assets too. I made custom textures for custom assets (models are not mine). 95% are custom assets.

Software used: CryEngine 3.5.8, GeoControl2, Adobe Photoshop

Design period: One month

Northern Crash

Idea was simple- design frozen environment set somewhere is arctic. Sadly new CryEngine built lost one very usefull feature whitch let cover objects with snow (It was C3.4.4 as I remember) so I needed to reskin helicopter wreck. However, result was way better then I expected :)

Every my work inspires me to design something bigger, something more beautiful to eye. So stay tunned and expect something better coming :)