Hi!
I’m a 3D environment artist – for 15 years I’ve been designing worlds in Unity and creating modular 3D asset packs. For most of my career I’ve been on the “environment” side of development: from the first blockouts, through level design iterations, to the final art pass and real-time optimization.
I don’t churn out generic “blocks” – I build hand-crafted locations with personality. I push low-poly beyond simple cubes, sculpting and refining shapes so they stay lightweight but feel almost like photogrammetry, catching light in interesting ways instead of looking like random boxes. I design both natural environments (forests, swamps, cliffs, fields, cemeteries) and urban ones (small towns, ports, industrial zones, retro cities) for devs who want worlds with a distinct vibe, not just filler geometry.
Here’s where you can see this in action: my ArtStation portfolio. I post cross-sections of worlds I build as personal/hobby projects – necropolises, swamp towns, retro sci-fi spaces and stylized settlements. I also handled full worldbuilding on Survival Machine (Steam): from blockout and choosing modules/props, through set dressing, mood and lighting, to gameplay-ready optimization. For me it’s a key reference case that shows how I work in real production, not just in a single “beauty render” scene.
Unity is my main engine – I know its quirks, workarounds and traps around modular environments. I target them with carefully chosen add-ons and my own AI-assisted tools that strip away dry technical work, kill repetitive clicking, and let me spend ~90% of my time on art… but that’s a story for another thread ;)
Godot, Unreal and Roblox are engines I want to explore deeper from a pipeline angle: how their prefab/Blueprint equivalents behave, how to handle LODs and collisions, and what asset formats devs actually expect. Long term I don’t want to just drop “raw models” there, but curated sets tailored to each runtime.
I’m publishing more and more stuff on itch.io, and instead of guessing based only on my own research, I’d rather ask developers directly what you actually use and what really helps you ship. I keep an eye on tags, trends and devlogs, but nothing beats talking to people who are knee-deep in their engine, juggling sprints and pushing builds.
Over the next quarter I’ll be posting only free packs here – from small “single shots” (test scenes, single biomes, mini locations) to trimmed slices of my bigger Unity Asset Store packs, reworked as self-contained modules, not scraps. The goal isn’t to dump full commercial sets, but to share ecosystem fragments you can actually build with, test your pipeline on, and see if this world-building approach fits your project.
So now’s a good time to drop your needs and gaps: solid sci-fi corridors on a modular grid, stylized fantasy villages, low-poly graveyards or swamps, or specific “utility” scenes for lighting and optimization. Treat this thread as an open line to an environment artist – ja bring experience and asset-market insight, you help steer priorities so what lands here serves real games, not just pretty screenshots. And yeah, comments under my devlogs are very welcome.
1. Which engines are you currently using?
Unity / Godot / Unreal / Roblox / other?
For which engine do you most often look for ready-made support?
1. modules for level art (walls, floors, ceilings, terrains, biomes),
2. models/props (filling the world, environmental storytelling),
3. lighting/post-process (test scenes, profiles, presets),
4. optimization (LODs, proxies, collisions, lightmap-ready meshes),
5. prototype scenes (ready “playable spaces” to immediately test gameplay)?
2. What kinds of projects do you work on most often?
More like:
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large, continuous worlds (RPG, exploration, survival, base-building, immersive sim), where biome consistency, sane modularity and performance on bigger maps really matter, or
smaller productions: mobile games, arcade titles, roguelites, short levels/puzzles, where clarity, readable flow and fast iteration matter more?
You can also clarify whether your projects are mostly:
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singleplayer (more cinematic pacing, heavier focus on mood),
co-op / multiplayer (more emphasis on readability and performance),
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jam/experimental (lots of prototypes, little time to polish assets).
All of this has a big impact on how you design modules, density of detail and performance budgets in practice.
3. Setting and visual style
What kinds of worlds do you most often place your games in: fantasy, sci-fi, post-apoc, cozy, horror, realistic contemporary settings (cities, suburbs, industrial), immersive sim, retro-futuristic vibes, or something very niche?
And what kind of visual style do you usually work in?
1. realistic (closer to photorealism, more focus on detail and materials),
2. stylized (strong shapes, simplified textures, more graphic look),
3. low-poly (deliberately simplified geometry + clear silhouettes),
4. retro-pixel / PSX (limited palettes, “noise” and aesthetics of older generations),a mix of those approaches?
4. Where does environment work “hurt” the most?
time – scope gets slashed as sprints and deadlines take over, and environment slides to the bottom of the priority list
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lack of experience in level art/composition – it’s hard to find a good rhythm of space, readable paths and strong POIs without solid examples and a modular base;
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performance – polycount, LODs, draw calls, lightmaps; it’s easy to overshoot detail and then fight frame-drops;
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lighting / post-process – everything is “kind of okay”, but the mood just doesn’t land, or the scene looks good from exactly one angle,
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motivation drop – the original vision was ambitious, but lack of time/tools/assets turns the world into a simplified version of the idea.
If you have your own classic environment “pain points”, like “I always get stuck on X when doing environments”, please add them. That’s
5. What kind of 3D assets do you want to see on itch.io?
Do you prefer engine-specific packs:
1. ready prefabs / Blueprints,
2. test scenes with correct pivots, collisions and LODs,
3. post-process profiles / lighting setups,
or more engine-agnostic packs:
4. FBX + textures + a few variants,
5. neutral materials for further tweaking,
6. sets built with a “engine-agnostic” mindset you then plug into your pipeline yourself?
Are you more into modular building blocks for your own worlds (walls, corners, junctions, biomes, terrains), or ready scenes/biomes you can tear apart and adapt to your project while preserving their rhythm and composition?
If this forum section allows polls, I’ll add a simple one for: engine / game scale / setting.
If not, you can answer in a quick format like:
Engine: Unity / Godot / Unreal / Roblox / other
Scale: large, continuous world / smaller game / arcade
Setting + style: e.g. “low-poly fantasy”, “retro sci-fi”, “dark post-apoc”
Main pain point: time / experience / performance / motivation / other
Asset type: engine-specific packs / universal packs / mix
Based on your answers I want to better steer future environment packs on itch.io so they actually support production and your daily workflow – not just look nice in a thumbnail. Thanks in advance for any concrete replies, from detailed breakdowns to short, to-the-point answers.