{"id":8760,"date":"2022-12-08T09:06:11","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T15:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=8760"},"modified":"2022-12-08T09:06:11","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T15:06:11","slug":"uw-stout-professor-re-creates-area-landscape-features-to-inspire-award-winning-digital-art","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-stout-professor-re-creates-area-landscape-features-to-inspire-award-winning-digital-art\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-Stout professor re-creates area landscape features to inspire award-winning digital art"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image<\/a><\/h2>\n

\u2018After Arcadia\u2019 wins juried art prize at M+DEV Midwest Game Developers conference<\/h2>\n

The natural environment of west-central Wisconsin helped inspire an award-winning piece of 3D art created by a UW-Stout game design professor.<\/p>\n

Andrew Williams\u2019 still image of ancient ruins, \u201cAfter Arcadia,\u201d won the juried art contest at the\u00a0M+DEV Midwest Game Developers conference<\/a>\u00a0held recently at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, the fourth time a UW-Stout professor or student has won the prize.<\/p>\n

Williams, former director of the\u00a0game design and development-art<\/a>\u00a0undergraduate program, created the environment using a variety of software including Unreal Engine 5, Maya and the Substance 3D Suite.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy\u00a0goal for \u2018After Arcadia\u2019 was to build a large-scale, nature-focused scene from scratch. I digitally re-created the rocks, rivers and native plants from our part of the state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the final elements came together in August and September of this year, I wanted to capture the hazy feeling of afternoon sunlight in late summer. These natural elements provided a setting for the ancient ruins and helped communicate the dramatic sense of scale I was seeking.\u201d<\/p>\n

To develop the art, especially the rocks, Williams used photogrammetry, in which 60 to 300 photographs of an object are taken from every angle. The images are adjusted and combined to create a 3D model consisting of several million polygons.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the model is manually cleaned up and adjusted to reduce the high polygon count, it can be brought into the game engine where lighting and other visual effects can be applied. The end result is a photorealistic 3D object,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Other techniques used in creating \u201cAfter Arcadia\u201d included building the surface textures of the ruins in specialized texturing software like Substance 3D Designer and Substance 3D Painter.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
UW-Stout Professor Andrew Williams, School of Art and Design \/ UW-Stout<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To see a fly-through of the environment and learn more about the project, go to Williams\u2019 Artstation portfolio site.<\/p>\n

The exhibits at M+DEV featured three UW-Stout games created by students and faculty from the game design and development-art program and from the computer science program, which has a concentration in game design.<\/p>\n

One of the games was Witness to the Revolution, which was presented by Williams. He is developing the game, a historical representation of the Boston Massacre, with other faculty and alumni. The first third of the game is scheduled for release in December.<\/p>\n

The other games presented were:<\/p>\n