Tank Town Europe - Miniatures

Panzer 1 - Miniature Tank Set and European Town
We had a lot of fun on this one! A client asked us to help them concept the idea of 3D Miniatures for a video game they were working on. Our job was to help understand, what ultimately creates "the look" of miniatures in real life and how can we convert it into the game work. This small scene was part of our research with the client for understanding that process and developing the art pipeline.
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Panzer 1 Tank + Props - Daniel Santos
Building Architecture - Sebastian Bielecki
Stylized Ground Materials - Javier Perez
Feedback, Composition, Building Textures - Jacob Norris
Art Direction - Said Zamzad
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Some thoughts for helping to create "Miniatures."
- Strong depth of field from the camera, to mimic the realistic small scale that the camera has to capture
- Also the build up of paint on surfaces and the "imperfect" look of the tiny models being put together by hand (wobbly edges, dented sides, paint blended welds
- The sense of scale can be achieved with some exaggerated elements on the models and removing very small details that don't make sense for miniatures
- Adding some simple "paint strokes" into the texture helps as well
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We created a "Stylizer" Smart Material for Substance Painter that was used on more realistic materials from our library to create the "hand painted look" it sped up the R&D time quite a bit to make quick iterations to the environment and the assets. The use of "glue trims" in between different parts of the building helped add the "hand-made" feel to some of the miniature elements in the scene and was a quick way to blended modular elements together in the space. Essentially it was small cylindrical strips of geo that mimics dried glue between edges and connection points on the miniatures. We hope you like it!
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