Getting Started
I have always been inspired by the natural beauty of Japan, its rich traditions, culture, and architecture. With so many inspiring places, I knew I wanted to create an environment like that someday. And playing the Ghost of Tsushima game only strengthened my desire. This game beautifully captures the feeling of living, breathing nature and its undying beauty, which always surrounds us. With this project, I aimed to create a dynamic environment that captures a sense of life and presence. And also to check new versions of Unreal Engine 5 and tools that can help me achieve this.
Choosing references and rewatching my screenshot collection for this project was not an easy task, there’s so much stuff I wanted to create. The Ghost of Tsushima artbook was a huge help, it’s beautifully done and played a big role in shaping my vision for this project. One of its concepts, created by Romain Jouandeau, caught my eye and was the main inspiration for me. I highly recommend this artbook, it’s packed with incredible, inspiring artwork throughout.
I always begin a project by collecting a set of references and learn all I can about the subject, it helps me understand it and set a clear direction from the start. I don’t focus on building a massive reference library upfront, I prefer to expand it gradually as the project evolves. That said, it’s essential to find references on composition, mood, and lighting of the scene, without this foundation, progressing with the project becomes much more difficult.
When it comes to tools that help me with this task, I like to use PureRef for my library of references. I also gave Miro a shot, but for personal projects, PureRef does the job perfectly.
