Senior 2D/3D artist Gina Voerde has shared her comprehensive workflow for creating "Merchant's Alley," a vibrant medieval market environment that showcases advanced 3D modeling and texturing techniques. The German artist detailed her process for developing the atmospheric scene, including innovative approaches to wood texture creation in Substance 3D and sophisticated foliage work using SpeedTree and TreeIt.

Voerde, who originally studied illustration with aspirations of becoming a pure 2D artist, discovered her passion for 3D modeling through academic coursework and hobby projects. Her diverse portfolio includes work on notable titles such as Move or Die, Desperados 3, Zoo 2 Animal Park, Mars Vice, an unannounced fantasy RPG, and the recently announced Dawn of War 4. Her unique background combining illustration studies with self-taught 3D skills has allowed her to develop a distinctive artistic approach that bridges traditional and digital art forms.

The Merchant's Alley project began with Voerde seeking mentorship from industry veteran Kem Yaralioglu through the Experience Points Discord community. Rather than jumping directly into production, she followed Yaralioglu's advice to establish clear visual goals by studying the art styles of Wayfinder and Sea of Thieves, both games known for their distinctive shape language and creative use of color in textures, particularly in wood materials.

Voerde conducted extensive research, analyzing art uploads from prominent artists including Jasmin Habezai-Fekri, Matêo Chilla, Bad Rhino Studios, Ranko Prozo, Alena Markelova, Jesse Carpenter, and Anton Shcherbakov to understand their approach to stylization, texture work, and geometry. She also drew inspiration from tabletop gaming props, noting their creative texture techniques and dramatic, exaggerated shapes with intricate details throughout.

The composition process involved creating a medieval stylized alley from the perspective of someone standing streetside, featuring shops filled with fruits, vegetables, and pottery, alongside a shadowy tavern stocked with flasks and bottles, all connected by a bridge spanning the street. Using fSpy for the first time, Voerde discovered that the strong perspective skew made the initial blockout feel awkward and elongated, though she learned to trust the process as it aligned with her original concept.

For her modeling workflow, Voerde initially created the entire blockout in Blender before transferring to Unreal Engine, though she later rebuilt everything directly in Unreal for better control over individual components. She followed techniques from Ranko Prozo's Metal Slug tutorial, particularly appreciating the instancing approach that allowed her to evaluate props within context before final polishing.

The foliage creation process involved utilizing SpeedTree to generate simple bush meshes, then replacing the default leaf cards with custom ones created in Blender. Despite acknowledging this approach as somewhat excessive, Voerde wanted to master the software through FX Maniac's YouTube tutorials. She later discovered TreeIt through Viktoriia Zavhorodnia's tutorials, finding it to be an affordable alternative for tree generation that could be adapted for bush creation through leaf card replacement.

For topology and UV mapping, Voerde chose efficiency over hand-retopology by utilizing ZBrush's decimation and ZRemesh features. The ZRemesh Guide brush proved particularly valuable for creating non-spiraling geometry that simplified the unwrapping process in Blender. While acknowledging that the meshes could be more optimized for mobile applications, she prioritized time savings over performance optimization since the project targeted small-scale environments and pre-rendered stills.

The texturing process showcased Voerde's innovative approach to wood materials, beginning with a solid color base and applying a brush generator created from blended and slope-blurred bitmaps, inspired by Jimmy Malachier's Ghibli Substance 3D Designer techniques. She then enhanced the base with curvature masks for depth and gradients, creating an ideal foundation for hand-painted details that streamlined color picking and artistic decision-making.

Final scene assembly required reconstructing the Blender-created alley in Unreal Engine, a process that initially felt redundant but ultimately provided precise asset placement knowledge. Following Yaralioglu's suggestion to prepare for multiple camera angles, Voerde filled previously empty areas with additional house and shop variations. She found particular satisfaction in vertex painting, following Robot Army's tutorials to achieve realistic effects like covering brick areas with plaster textures.

Overpainting proved crucial for maintaining artistic vision throughout the project, with Voerde taking regular screenshots to paint over areas needing improvement. This technique allowed her to visualize necessary changes in colors, contrast, foliage, atmospheric elements, and even character placement, while using liquify effects to experiment with rooftop shapes for more dynamic compositions.

Lighting presented significant challenges as Voerde's first major 3D scene, particularly since her original concept lacked a distinctive mood beyond basic daytime lighting. She experimented extensively with the SunMoonDaySequencer to explore different times of day while gathering inspiration for potential nighttime variations, ultimately settling on a classic directional light setup guided by William Faucher's tutorials.

To achieve her artistic vision, Voerde strategically bent reality to match her overpaints, using creative lighting solutions such as placing the tavern inside a hidden shadow-casting sphere and employing rectangular lights to simulate bounce light from cloth materials and blue roof tiles. These techniques allowed her to achieve the darker, shadier tavern atmosphere and stronger bounce lighting effects she had envisioned.

The project spanned approximately two to three months, during which Voerde mastered multiple new programs including Unreal Engine, DaVinci Resolve, SpeedTree, TreeIt, and fSpy. Her learning curriculum included extensive tutorial consumption covering vertex painting, layered materials, material blending, SpineTool blueprint creation, cloth simulation, wind effects, foliage materials, and advanced lighting techniques.

Voerde faced personal challenges during the project timeline, having been laid off in November, which created uncertainty about career direction and project focus. The inability to showcase work-created characters due to NDA restrictions and the time-consuming nature of cover letter writing added to her professional concerns. However, involving Yaralioglu as a mentor proved crucial for maintaining project commitment and successful completion.

Mid-project technical obstacles created significant frustration, with recurring issues in material blending, SpineTool functionality, vertex painting limitations, and color space export problems. Voerde found that stepping away from problematic areas to work on other aspects often provided the mental reset needed to overcome these challenges, while community support from Experience Points Discord and experienced mentorship prevented isolation and reduced frustration levels.

Voerde emphasizes the importance of community involvement for artistic growth, encouraging artists to actively post work, seek feedback, and provide constructive criticism to others. She advocates for sharing work-in-progress materials and maintaining engagement with fellow artists as essential practices for skill development and professional networking in the competitive digital art industry.