Stylized Moomin House Environment Crafted With Substance 3D & UE5

Introduction

Hi! My name is Mikhail Andrukevich, and I'm a Texture Artist at Soyuzmultfilm. My path in 3D began in 2019 when I grew disappointed with the university and my chosen profession. By the way, I returned and finished my studies and got a degree in programming. In general, I decided to try to find myself in something else, and quite by chance, I came across a video interview with an Environment Artist in CD Project RED. I had already created Unity games before, but after watching the interview, I got very excited about the idea of 3D. I went on academic leave for a year and by chance, I agreed with the popular at that time magazine 3D Papa to barter. They gave me a 3D course for a year, and instead, I managed their social media. That's how my journey into 3D began.

This is my first game-ready model in my life:

I acquired my skills gradually, trying out different programs and pipelines. The most important thing that helped me, I believe, was my lack of fear of the new: I just jumped in and kept going, did not think about what would happen or not, and did not get upset when something did not work out. It was simply a matter of long hours and hard work.

I have participated in various projects, including animation, children's mobile games, and PC projects. My most serious work was on the HAWKED project by MY.GAMES, a visually very interesting game, the guys from our team did a good job. Hello everyone, if you are reading!

Getting Started

Initially, I just wanted to get mentored by Sergei Panin, and after that, I began to think about what kind of location I should do. I thought about it for a while, but then I remembered how much I wanted to watch the Moomin TV series. I started watching it, fell in love with it, and that's when the decision was made. I was also inspired by the works of Viktoriia Zavhorodnia, be sure to subscribe.

I approached references following this workflow:

I found original sketches and drawings by Japanese artists who created the animation:

Watched several episodes of the series and took screenshots:

In the process of working, I looked at them and chose more suitable detail styles for myself since the details differed from frame to frame when creating the anime.

When I realized that I couldn't find how it was done in anime or didn't understand, I had to think a lot and turn to real buildings and details of building houses:

Initially, the compositional question for the main shots was decided for me by anime artists. I considered their solutions very good, and choosing the ones I liked, I took them as a basis, trying to repeat them by introducing some changes from myself. Still, 2D and 3D do not always look the same in this regard. Of course, I found the rest of the shots during the flyby and played with the camera settings.

The process of creating the main shot:

Modeling

When creating this scene, I mainly used 3 approaches:

• Low-poly and ZBrush: It was the most standard pipeline;
• Low-poly, baked sculpt, and textures: I won't say anything new here, it's a classic;

• Low-poly + self-bake + Smart Material texturing: That was the main method of work.

Because I set up my material on one object using wood or stone from the Substance 3D library as a basis, I saved a lot of time. Skipping the sculpture stage and using smart materials greatly accelerated the work. Life saver!

• Low-poly and tiles: This was my first experience using tile textures.

Before that, I took an introductory course in Substance 3D Designer, but I never put my knowledge into practice before this work! Also, as you may have noticed, I used face extrudes on tile models to create a silhouette and additional detail. The main thing here is not to overdo it.

I used a fairly ordinary set of programs to create all this beauty: Maya for modeling and UV unwrapping, ZBrush for sculpting, Substance 3D Painter, Substance 3D Designer and Photoshop for textures, PureRef as an inspiration board, and, of course, Unreal Engine 5.

In general, I really liked working on all the objects, although I can single out the doors separately, I liked them in the work because they are made very simply and at the same time quite beautifully. All that was needed was to make a low-poly, UV, bake on itself and texture with the help of pre-prepared smart material.

My vegetation is 50/50, made by me, and bought from the UE5 Marketplace. As I said earlier, I was inspired by Victoria's work. Fortunately, she recorded a series of video lessons on YouTube. So, I used them to create trees, bushes, and flowers:

Here are the steps of the process of creating a tree model. You can also watch the full process in Victoria's videos:

The most important trick for saving time is not trying to do everything by yourself. I had a certain time frame and pace, so I needed to be able to prioritize. I worked on the vegetation because I had wanted it for a long time, and there was an ideal option. And I tried to close everything that I didn't have enough time for with ready-made solutions.

I used different sets, taking from them what I thought best suited the mood. Stylized Nature Pack for stones and pines. Stylized Orasot Bundle for water and grass. Stylized Birch Forest for tulips, Stylized Dynamic Sky & Weather System for the sky, and EasyFog for fog.

Here are all the modules of the house I used in the final scene:

Texturing

I'm an old believer, and I only use Maya for unwrapping UVs. So far, I have enough of its functionality, and I know how to handle it well. In my current job, I constantly make UV for models before taking textures to work.

To create tile textures, I used Substance 3D Designer. I made the tile for the walls of the house myself using the knowledge gained while learning 3D Designer. Here it is:

For the basement, I used Stylized Tile Generator by Jeff Horal, very nice stuff, I recommend:

I decorated the exterior of the house with the help of extrusion polygons and vertex paint, everything is simple here:

Here is my shader that I made for tile textures. It uses 2 sets of textures and allows you to mix them through height maps and vertex paint, I also added a third material with a variable color so that it was possible to tint the joints of objects. It is also possible to make a color split with 3 different masks.

The river material is taken from the Orasote bundle as I wrote above, a good shader with all the necessary settings, I recommend this one:

I enjoyed creating reflections in the glass for windows and made a video on how I did it:

Lighting & Rendering

For the final scene, I decided to maintain the original composition, as the artists who created the initial design did a fantastic job. Instead of altering the composition, I focused on adding my own details and enhancing the existing elements.

I chose a stylized PBR approach with bright, contrasting colors to capture the cartoonish aesthetic, which was essential to staying true to the source material. At the same time, I wanted to add a touch of materiality to give the scene a bit more depth and realism. This blend of stylization and realism was something I felt would strengthen the visual impact.

Throughout the process, I had a clear vision in my mind of how the final scene should look. I was careful to stay true to this vision while giving it my own unique spin, ensuring both recognition and personal creativity were present in the final result.

For the final presentation, I focused on polishing and cohesiveness, ensuring the lighting, camera angles, and textures all worked together seamlessly to showcase the scene at its best. I wanted to create an immersive experience that not only looked great but also conveyed the intended mood and atmosphere of the environment.

I turned on the neutral-cold lighting and slightly raised the shadows. In Sky Atmosphere, I chose the blue color to create the right mood and added the necessary accents using SpotLight.

A useful tip that I learned about lighting is that you can use various objects outside the camera's view or hide them in the scene using the Actor Hidden in Game setting in the properties. This helps a lot in creating interesting shadows and makes the picture very different.

Conclusion

It took me about 3 months to complete the entire scene, working approximately 4 hours a day, every day. This project was a significant challenge for me, as I had little prior experience with Unreal Engine 5 before starting. However, throughout the process and during the course, I immersed myself in learning a vast amount of new information, which I was able to apply practically in a very short period of time.

The main challenges I faced involved mastering new tools and workflows in Unreal Engine while balancing the creative aspects of the scene. But these challenges were a rewarding part of the process, as they pushed me to grow rapidly both technically and artistically.

What I enjoyed most was the opportunity to bring a unique vision to life, particularly designing the environment in such a way that it felt immersive and authentic to the inspiration from Moomins and storytelling. The hands-on experience taught me the importance of both technical precision and creative intuition, and I'm proud of how much I was able to achieve in such a condensed timeframe.

From this experience, I learned how to efficiently manage time and overcome obstacles through continuous learning and adaptability. It reinforced the value of hands-on practice in mastering new software and workflows.

In addition to Victoria's video, I would like to recommend these tutorials to beginners:

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to do this interview! I am open to suggestions and feedback on LinkedIn, ArtStation, or by mail.

Mikhail Andrukevich, Texture Artist

Interview conducted by Amber Rutherford