Da Vinci Workshop

"Davinci Workshop" Concept by Darek Zabrocki
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https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xDR4JE
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About the Project:
Davinci Workshop is my mentorship project at Think Tank Training Centre, developed under the guidance of my mentor Fiona
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https://www.artstation.com/puikaaaa
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It is a real-time environment built in Unreal Engine 5.6, based closely on the original concept art while incorporating some of my own artistic direction.
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The goal was to create a visually stunning, historically grounded environment. I challenged myself to build every asset from scratch — no third-party assets — in order to deeply research and understand the full pipeline: shader construction, material optimization, and prop creation.

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Techniques Used
RGB Masking — color channel variation across surfaces
Material Layering — flexible, layered texturing workflow
2D Texture Arrays — combine RGB masks to limit the duplicate material instance
Custom Primitive Data (CPD) — driving per-instance color variation in combination with 2D Texture Arrays
Unique Materials — non-layered materials for specific use cases
Tiling Workflow — maintaining consistent texel density throughout
Niagara - Candle Flame & Dust
Blueprint - Randomize book and placement based on spline
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Timeline
Phase 1: Oct 6, 2025 to Jan 31, 2026 (3 months 25 days) - Developed within a structured mentorship program at Think Tank Training Centre, collaborating closely with my mentor and peers through regular feedback sessions and critiques.
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Phase 2: Jan 31, 2026 to May 21, 2026 (3 months 21 days) - Continued independently as an alumni, self-managing the project with only occasional mentor check-ins to validate direction and feedbacks.
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Total: approximately 7 months
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Asset Specifications
Texel: 2048 map at 5.12 cm/px
Each asset followed a full production pipeline: Model → UV → Bake → Texture → Engine
Background Props — 2 days per asset, 5,000 tri limit,
Medium Props — 3 days per asset, 15,000 tri limit,
Hero Props — 2 weeks per asset, 50,000 tri limit,
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Software
Modelling — Maya
Texturing — Substance Painter
Materials — Substance Designer and Unreal Engine Material Editor
Engine — Unreal Engine 5.6