Hi, my name is Lucas Ramos and I’m a student at Universal Arts School in Spain.
As part of my final project for my first year in the Videogame Art masters I’m creating an environment based in the following idea:
A small town in a mountain forest at Christmas season…
The idea behind the project is to apply everything I learned throughout the year (and also continue developing my skills). Here is an image with my idea and references.
Continuing with the updates here. I created the houses and shops using the modular kit and also updated the town limits so it doesn’t look as if the town is floating in space.
Also, I did a first pass on the lightning. Actually it should be darker, but since I haven’t started with the lamp posts and christmas lights, I make it brighter so that in the mean time we can actually see something.
Finally, I started modeling my hero asset… it will be a small cabin used as rental place of ice skating skis (located near the frozen lake). Looking at it right now, I believe it is a bit big, maybe I’ll reduce the size later.
Weekly update on my final project.
I changed the hero asset because the cabin was not appropriate to manually texture, so I created a new model and started working on it. Let me present you, the Sleigh…
Sorry I didn’t make an update last week, I had some conflicts and couldn’t advance on the project.
For this reason, and because there where some errors on how the Hero Asset was being done, I’m obliged to change a bit the project so as to make sure everything can be done by the expected date.
Anyway… here are some shots on how the Hero Assets ended up, and how the project changed.
New update on the project.
I added textures to the big buildings and modelled the floor to start texturing it. I also added the different models to block the street so as to limit the environment.
Here are some shots on how everything is going…
Hi everyone,
This week I focused on the floor. Texturing it and in introducing multiple small assets so as to not leave the environment empty.
The assets are modelled but not yet textured, but I just add them to the environment so as to give an idea as to how it will look!
New update:
I textured the assets that where in grey and added some cars to make it feel more real.
Also, I finally modelled the Christmas Tree and added some lights to make it more merry. Next will be to add more lights to the rest of the assets and vertex paint the town hall and probably add more decals everywhere.
The town is coming together beautifully. As a total Christmas fangirl, this project feels magical and charming. The town layout and surrounding forest/mountains make the project feel even more dreamy. Can’t wait to see the final product.
Greetings @Rolithunder; I hope you’re doing well. My apologies for not seeing this thread sooner. Since you began your journey in April, I am pleased to know that you have overcome various development challenges and made significant progress; congratulations! Your Christmas Town looks excellent, and I am eager to see how it continues to evolve as you update this thread.
Thanks for the encouraging messages. Indeed a lot of work was put into this project and there where many challenges to face in the process.
Unfortunately, as I said at the beginning, this was the final project of my masters at Universal Arts School and now that the masters is ending, there won’t be any more progress (probably in the future I’ll continue this as a personal side project.
Nevertheless, I’m happy with how it all came together. Let me show you the final screenshots…
I’m currently producing a short animated film project that might interest you.
This project is led by a team of independent filmmakers, students and recent graduates. We’re creating a slapstick comedy short for our Post-grad in Animation.
We are still in the early stage of development of the project and you could be part of it. This is initially an unpaid collaboration, but it is an excellent opportunity to gain experience working on a film project and to add to your portfolio. We’re mostly looking for artists for modeling, sculpting, lighting and compositing and the main softwares are Maya and Unreal.
If this is something that would interest you, you can add me on Discord! The user is cat#9390
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!” 
