Fabric Material Library of traditional Japanese Style - Bachelor Thesis Project

Hi everyone!

Here I want to present you my latest project which I also was awarded the international SAE Students Award for the best Game Art Students Project 2022: After months of work, I finally finished my bachelor's thesis and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Game Art Animation at SAE Institute Frankfurt in Germany. It was such an amazing experience and I learned so much throughout this project! My thesis project is about the creation of a little fabric material library inspired by the traditional Japanese kimono fabric culture. This material library is also specially designed for the usage of texturing 3D models using the tool “Adobe Substance 3D Painter”. On this base own kimono fabrics were designed and created as pbr-based procedural Smart-Materials with various editable parameters and presets for "Adobe Substance 3D Painter". Although, every fabric material was entirely created inside "Adobe Substance 3D Designer". The main goal of my project was not only to create materials that are 100% procedural but also to give them a range of customization, editability, and iterative possibilities that allows getting various interesting visual results quickly. To create authentic Japanese kimono fabrics I also took some advice from a specialist in Japanese cultural studies. To achieve the set goals, the Action-Research-Methodology was used to evaluate the WIP status of the whole project (considering technical aspects as well as design and Japanese cultural aspects) through experts in both fields (texture/material art and Japanese Studies). For the first time, I’ve entered the world of material creation and I must say I enjoyed it so much working on those textures. I think I’ll create more artwork inspired by Japanese culture in the future!

Huge thanks to Elizabeth Nedashkovskaya and Louise Melin who supported me throughout the whole art project. Don’t forget to check their artwork out!

https://www.artstation.com/elizabethn
https://www.artstation.com/troglodette

Also, a big thank you goes to Fiona Schwesig for her great support and advice on the etiquette of wearing kimonos and Japanese culture in general.

At the end of this post, you can find a breakdown with some explanation of the whole creation process. I hope you will enjoy it and thank you for stopping by!