Point-of-view street

My entry for the RenderHub Graffiti Contest 2 - a message spread out over an entire piece of street!


My original idea toyed with UVs projecting from camera in Blender and Unreal - I loved the idea of the words of the graffiti only being visible from a certain angle, a little like an optical illusion!

Above: blockout with basic lighting in Unreal Engine, along with an annotated version theorising how the main angle might look.
I sketched over my model from multiple angles as I developed the street mesh, going back and forth from Maya to Unreal with new iterations of the models while gathering extra references where needed. Scale in particular was a key factor I took care to get as accurate as possible.

For the graffiti itself, I created a series of alpha images in Photoshop, creating a variable material that I could reuse for each individual decal, ensuring that every letter of the graffiti is individually customisable while sharing the same parent material!

I created two concentric cylinders to serve as a fake background skybox, creating a sense of depth beyond the composition.


In addition, I began to divide up individual areas of the meshes to create trim sheets for reusable, modular texturing.




I used Zbrush and substance painter to sculpt and bake the trims - but as I progressed, I felt that I enjoyed the plain 'greybox' feel of the composition, and how the graffiti popped out against the grey background. However, this project was still an awesome learning exercise, and I'm eager to return to it in the future!


My original idea toyed with UVs projecting from camera in Blender and Unreal - I loved the idea of the words of the graffiti only being visible from a certain angle, a little like an optical illusion!


Above: blockout with basic lighting in Unreal Engine, along with an annotated version theorising how the main angle might look.

I sketched over my model from multiple angles as I developed the street mesh, going back and forth from Maya to Unreal with new iterations of the models while gathering extra references where needed. Scale in particular was a key factor I took care to get as accurate as possible.

For the graffiti itself, I created a series of alpha images in Photoshop, creating a variable material that I could reuse for each individual decal, ensuring that every letter of the graffiti is individually customisable while sharing the same parent material!

I created two concentric cylinders to serve as a fake background skybox, creating a sense of depth beyond the composition.


In addition, I began to divide up individual areas of the meshes to create trim sheets for reusable, modular texturing.




I used Zbrush and substance painter to sculpt and bake the trims - but as I progressed, I felt that I enjoyed the plain 'greybox' feel of the composition, and how the graffiti popped out against the grey background. However, this project was still an awesome learning exercise, and I'm eager to return to it in the future!
! REPORT