Customizable Alien Eggs (2023)
This is my first original, independent work after graduating from FIEA. This is a pack of alien egg assets intended to be uploaded and sold on the Unreal Marketplace. The idea was to create a large pack filled with highly-customizable assets, which is what I've achieved here. All the aspects of the materials for the props here are parameterized, and easily accessed and modified by the user through material instances. I was also intending to fill a niche, here, since there don't really seem to be any good alien egg assets on the marketplace right now, and with as broadly useful and configurable as these are, I figure they ought to have good appeal. Besides, creating something this creepy and cool seemed like a lot of fun, which is exactly what I need to keep me going through a challenging project like this.
For the purpose of this project, I created 10 alien egg models - two variations each on a theme (from left to right, they are "hanging," "heap," "stalk," "stumpy," and "wall," intended to give any scene with these eggs in them a good deal of visual variety, and make them fit in with whatever environment they need to. Each of those ten models has three variant textures on the egg section, to give even more options - a smooth egg, a lumpy egg, and a veiny egg. The materials of these eggs are highly customizable - the colors can be changed, the egg has detailed reflectiveness and opacity options, and there are built-in in-material animation options. To give the eggs more detail, I also created five models for embryonic creatures to place inside the transparent egg portion - left to right, they are "blob," "fetus," "grub," "squid," and "tadpole," which will help the user further customize the egg models to suit their needs. Like the eggs, the creatures also have customizable materials, including emissive portions to give them eerie highlights.
All of the items in this pack are below 7.5k triangles - most of them hover around or below the 5k mark, with the fetus models tending to skew a bit higher. This is to make sure that they're easy to use and don't unnecessarily strain user hardware.
This pack of models can be purchased on the Unreal Store at the following link: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/customizable-alien-eggs
An overview of all the assets in the project, for scaling.
The embryo models on their own, to show off greater detail.
A demonstration of what the embryo models look like inside of the eggs, to show off their potential application.
Variants of hanging egg #1.
Variants of hanging egg #2.
Variants of heap egg #1.
Variants of heap egg #2.
Variants of stalk egg #1.
Variants of stalk egg #2.
Variants of stumpy egg #1.
Variants of stumpy egg #2.
Variants of wall egg #1.
Variants of wall egg #2.
Another overview of the models, as they appear in the demonstration level of the pack.
A demonstration of the easily configurable materials of the eggs.
An example of one of the material instances for the eggs, to show off customizability.
Another egg material instance for demonstration.
An example of one of the material instances for the fetus model, to show off customizability.