mai linh au

she/her ✦ 3rd year 3D Games Art & Design @ University of Hertfordshire

Mai Linh is a final-year Games Art student at the University of Hertfordshire working to become an environment artist specialising in foliage and vegetation production. She has a passion for creating stylised and colourful, textured hand-painted work for lighthearted and whimsical games.

featured work

about me

I am a 3D games artist experienced with Unreal Engine 5. My primary modelling packages are Maya and ZBrush, and I typically texture my work in Substance Painter and Photoshop/Clip Studio Paint.

I love playing JRPGs and most indie games, especially roguelike/lites and Metroidvanias. I also enjoy crocheting, baking and composing and playing music on my violin and piano!

ville haute

One of two environment concept pieces produced for my first assignment in university in my first year. The brief was to create two illustrations inspired by two real-world cities - one in the modern day and one historical. This piece illustrates a contemporary street based on the Ville Haute area in Luxembourg City.

new tower of babel - redesign

Redesign of the New Tower of Babel from Metropolis (1927) in a high-fantasy theme for part of my film concept art assignment from my first semester of second year. The tower here is designed to serve as the main ruling headquarters for the monarchs of a fairy kingdom.

Pounce! is a fast-paced action multiplayer party game that seeks to put a twist on the familiar cat's game of laser chase.

This project was produced over the course of around three to four months for the second semester of our second year at the University of Hertfordshire. As the principal environment artist, I took responsibility for greyboxing, laying out and lighting the Kitty Glade, our demo level. I also handled the production of the level's foliage and tiling materials.

We were fortunate enough to receive a Draft Selection for this project as an entry to The Rookies 2024.

demo level: kitty glade

The Kitty Glade is an elegant, high-class cat cafe/tea room situated in a lavish greenhouse that serves as a natural feline sanctuary and a beautiful venue for special occasions. Our concept was inspired primarily by the lush extravagance of Victorian palm houses combined with the eloquent origins of afternoon tea culture.

greybox

main area

extension

materials

This page is the full collection of tiling materials I produced for my second-year group project 'Pounce!'. I plan to update these with further polish and refinement in the future.The floor tile and bark materials were sculpted in ZBrush and baked/textured in Substance Painter, while the grass and dirt materials were made with Substance Designer.

foliage

Working on a level set in a greenhouse was the perfect opportunity to dive into the world of foliage creation in combination with my forays into hand-painting for 3D, something I have always been interested in as a new 3D artist with a predominantly 2D background.The base atlases from which I created my branch atlases were painted in Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint, while the branch atlases and majority of the foliage models were done in SpeedTree (exceptions have been noted under images).

hero asset: cat tree

The main attraction of the scene, I largely referenced the branches and foliage of the Dipteryx olifeira tree from South America when designing the atlases for the cat tree. Since it is a tree situated in a greenhouse, an attraction that typically hosts more exotic and foreign plants, I decided it best to use references of this nature.As the tree would have platforms built and stacked around it, I had to limit the branch growth when modelling them onto the trunks.These custom trunks were sculpted in ZBrush and textured in Substance Painter, while the branches were modelled on in SpeedTree.

general foliage

These foliage models were used to compose the majority of the scene population. The specific and hanging foliage models remained within the interior of the level, while the generic foliage assets saw use both inside and out of the greenhouse to give the impression of a world outside.

The hanging foliage models were handmade in Maya and distributed around the scene using Unreal Engine's built-in Foliage mode.

The fantasy fashion capital of Brocatelle awaits your prowess in Coût de Couture, an action role-playing & management game where your strength lies in creative style and strategy!

Design and grow a couture brand unique to your whims on your journey to stardom as a Mage Modiste raring to conquer the forces of fashion and evil alike while helping others discover their beauty within.

Coût de Couture is a final year project currently in production at the University of Hertfordshire, planned to be a short, playable demo providing a taster of the game concept. In addition to leading the environment art production of the project, I am also managing its production and direction as a project lead.The pieces below are work I have completed for the pre-production stage of the project in our first semester of third year.

props

This is an assortment of hero props I created during the pre-production stage of Coût de Couture to populate the Sewing Room level.The concepts for the props were created by Devon Fell-Smith.

sewing table

vanity mirror

wardrobe

foliage

A collection of foliage models and forest materials I produced for the pre-production of my degree group project, Coût de Couture. I experimented with different foliage creation workflows utilising SpeedTree and/or Maya with hand-painted textures and explored stylised material creation further with Substance Designer, which I find to be most efficient for producing tiling materials.The concepts for the flowers were created by Devon Fell-Smith.

flora

materials

forest of liars: demon teeth

I wanted to challenge myself to recreate a scene from a concept that would allow me to explore and understand more technical art in relation to stylised foliage and scene creation. My focus for this project has also been on practising my abilities with composition and lighting for a scene.The original concept art for this scene was produced by Sylvain Sarrailh.