Game artist Oleksandr Mazyura, who is working on the experimental shooter Azimuth Cold about the Ukraine of the future, told how he reconstructs mosaics at bus stops using artificial intelligence.
Game artist Oleksandr Mazyura, who is working on the experimental shooter Azimuth Cold about the Ukraine of the future, told how he reconstructs mosaics at bus stops using artificial intelligence.
«The events of my FPS demo project Azimuth Cold take place in 22XX in southern Ukraine. Without going into details, we can say that the environment is in a state of decline, like in the STALKER or Metro series. This is the aesthetics that you would expect from such a place, but with some unexpected twists,» said Mazyura.
He says 3D scanning is often the most effective way to create complex, real-world objects, such as an authentic mosaic bus stop. But sometimes this method is not suitable, for example, if the object is located in a war zone.
Another option is to create such an object manually. The developer noted that this is the best approach, but it requires a lot of time and effort.
«However, for my project, I decided that a convincing 'likeness' would be enough. I don’t need to recreate it down to the smallest detail, and in fact I want it to be in a more ruined state than it really is. To convey the feel of the object, a generative approach to mosaic is enough,» says Oleksandr Mazyura.
He used a photo of a bus stop from the village of Abrikosivka in the Kherson region and divided the model of the object into mosaic, concrete, and reinforcement.
«For mosaics, it is very important to preserve UV coordinates on a high-density mesh. In about an hour of working with Nanobanana, I was able to create several mosaic and non-mosaic albedo and height maps with very low resolution. In a few places, the AI lost the apricot-shaped motifs, but I used these errors as an opportunity to add „wear“ in later stages,» said Oleksandr Mazyura.
The developer noted that he textured the object in Substance Painter using Megascans materials, and also used Nanite technology from Unreal Engine version 5.6.
