Remake an ELDEN RING scene with NO MODELS

[music] Hey guys, my name is Filipe and I'm the 3D artist at Thomas Studio. Today I want to show you how you can get away with making an Elden Ring level using no models. No models. No models. Elden Ring is a huge openw world game, so obviously we're just going to make a tiny fraction of it. But using the same principles, I'm sure anything can be built. To get started, I researched some gameplay to find which area could work well for this project. And there were a few options, but ultimately I ended up choosing this one with a bridge. Okay, so I did say no models, but I didn't say anything about Unity Primitives. So technically I'm not using anything that went through Blender or any other 3D softwares and nothing

that was exported as a model. And to make things more interesting, [music] I'm only going to be using the cube primitive directly from Unity. So the first thing is I'm going to use this initial cube to be one of the rooftop platforms for this castle. Then we're going to start making a copy and positioning it. And from this one, we'll get started on these broken walls. Just to add some structure and help us finding the correct shape [music] for this, I'm going to start with larger pieces. And then we're going to make some copies and scale them a little bit. Now, we need to shape our basic brick, and that's the one that we're going to be using for pretty much almost everything. I'm also going to be creating some [music] materials that we're going to apply to these cubes. When I'm thinking about Elden Ring, [music] a lot of colors come to mind, especially since there are so many different levels and [music] settings to explore. But the colors that tend to

prevail seem to be tones [music] and shades of yellow, orange, and brown, as well as some different gray values. So, while I'm making very simple materials here, I decided to set a rule for myself. [music] We're going to limit ourselves to three variations of the same color. Starting from number one, which is the darkest, and number three, which is a lighter tone. Now, with the brick prefab that we created, let's make copies and stack them around this frame that we made [music] earlier, making sure to add some height and angle variation so they look a little bit more unique. Once I was done with it, I made a prefab as well as inverting them using the scale gizmo. Moving [music] next, we're going to make some corner pillars for the castle, and that will help mask away some imperfections while junctioning these walls, which is a neat trick that I've seen been used in a lot of professional games. And just so you guys know, this [music] method of designing a level could get super memory intensive. That's

why a firm understanding of Blender or a 3D art tool should be your ultimate goal. Let's use a brick and then we can start creating some sort of mosaic of stones that we can simply turn into a prefab later. Let's also throw some different shades of gray to add some visual variety. And once a prefab is made, we can simply position and rotate them around to seem that they're all connecting in some way. Even though we're working with simple shapes, it doesn't mean that we can't add some variation to them just by changing their angle or height. Little details like that come a long way and actually make each [music] piece feel unique even though they aren't. For the wooden bridge, let's make a few planks and position them in a row. Then, similar to what we just did with the floor tiles, add rotation and variations of width and scale to make these pieces more interesting. Let's also set up the brown materials that we're going to be

using for the wood. Just like we did with the gray color, we can then make a prefab and start copying them around and changing them so they don't look too repetitive. So, we can't really do curved arches, at least not with one cube. We could use a few [music] stacked together making an arch, but I don't think that it's cheating to just make them diagonal like that. We can also add a black cube for the inside and adjust so it looks like the interior is unlit, which is always a nice trick. going to make a copy of the same platform in the other side and just rotate it. Elder Ring, just like any other Dark Souls game, has a lot of scaffolds [music] and wooden platforms. So, we can use the same objects that we use for the bridge and create some sort of jumping path for the player. We can also add some beans to secure the structure, which always adds a nice

touch of detail and realism, even though we're [music] making something very stylized. I decided to also make a stone rail just to add a little bit of variation here. Something that Thomas often says is how powerful post-processing effects are and how much difference they make even to the simplest art style. And it's certainly the case here as we're going to rely heavily on things like ambient occlusion to help define [music] the silhouettes of the cubes as well as some bloom and vignette to evoke that ethereal atmosphere [music] that Elden Ring has. We can also make use of things like color grading and exposure levels [music] alongside the directional light to assist with achieving the desired result. I also want to make a tower [music] because if there's one thing about Elden

Ring is that it has these amazing colossal structures that make the players feel tiny and helpless. We can see a tower in our reference as well. So I want to make sure that we incorporate that. So, we all know that a cube is not a cylinder, but we can get a little creative and make something out of two cubes that will look interesting enough for a tower structure. We can also reuse the corner pillars for the castle here since they fit well for the same purpose. Let's also make a prefab out of that. And I'll throw in some of them in the distance just like the game does a lot. Even though our reference is a little bit bluish, I want to add [music] that beautiful yellow orangey sky to this piece as I feel that represents how the game looks [music] in its coolest areas.

We can also set up the fog to help blend in the bottom of these massive structures. For the objects, let's keep it simple with a classic wooden box made entirely with cubes. Some final touches include adding some windows and bricks to the tower, as well as reusing the same window [music] prefab to make a door.

Let's also scatter some bricks around in different positions. We definitely don't want them to look too straight [music] and perfect. And you're going to be surprised on how much a little touch like that can really help distracting the player to the fact that we are repeating a lot of the assets here. The same thing can be said about adding some broken boards. More bricks on the other side of these walls. Oh, and let's also not forget these iconic crosses scattered all over the game. Add some fog that uses a square shape for the particles as well as some rain. Make some final adjustments in the scene light and fog. And there it is.

[music] [music] [music] And if you thought that we did well, leave a like on the video and subscribe for more [music] content. And I'm going to go now and play some Elden Ring. I'll see you in the next one.