This gallery showcases the assets used to create the stone and ceramic floors. Originally, they were intended primarily for use in and around castles. However, they ended up being widely used across various environments, combined with other assets to create a diverse range of setups.
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For the stone floors, I drew inspiration from the pathways in front of Ueno Toshogu Shrine in Tokyo, as well as the stone flooring areas at Kongobu-ji Okuno-in. I created three tilable textures with different structures, along with a trim sheet to allow for a greater variety of shapes.
These granite floors feature two core material variations: a slick version and a worn version, both with a layer of dark dirt on top.
Since these were static assets, I manually created the displaced versions. The process involved building a low-poly mesh with proper UVs, then importing it into ZBrush to tessellate and refine the details based on my height map. While it’s not as precise as dynamic displacement, it works well for most setups and is not performance intensive.
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For the ceramic floors, I followed the same workflow as with the stone floors, with one key difference—my worn version wasn’t porous and cracked , but rather rough and sun-bleached.
I put a lot of effort into refining the blend mask, designing it to mimic a thickness map with subtle frequency variations appearing in the gradients. My main inspiration came from the stunning ceramic tiles of Himeji Castle's courtyards.
For a long time, I wondered what material they were made of. Then, while in Japan, I had a moment of realization—an old man saw me inspecting some ground tiles in a temple, walked over, pointed at the ceiling, and simply said: "Kawara."
It was so obvious in hindsight! I hadn’t considered that these floor tiles could be made from the same material as glazed roof tiles, but it made perfect sense. That insight helped me refine my workflow, decode my references, and develop a more accurate material recipe.
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These assets were distributed throughout the game, thanks to Hugo Lamarre on the Fortress and Castle Kit, as well as every LA/LD who incorporated them into their level dressing.
As always, the final in-game result was a huge team effort.
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Art Direction, Thierry Dansereau
Lead Architecture, Dominic Gladu-Despatis
Lead Texture, Dimitri Alexis
Lead Props, Antoine Barbot