Game art breakdowns: a curated library

An art breakdown is a post in which an artist takes apart a finished environment or asset: the kit pieces, the trim sheets, the materials, the wireframes and often the numbers behind them. This page collects breakdowns by artists who worked on the shipped games, plus a few personal projects and tutorials, and sorts them by what you can learn from them. Each entry links to the artist's own page; every image below loads from that page only when you click it.

#Reasons to study AAA breakdowns

A tutorial shows how one person would make something. A breakdown from a shipped game shows how something was made under real constraints, and the artists usually say what those constraints were.

• They show the problem as well as the result. Matthew Trevelyan Johns explains that texture memory on The Last of Us Part I was being consumed by many small unique props, which is why he built a trim pipeline to replace them (ArtStation: The Last of Us: Part I...Trim Pipeline). Vytautas Katarzis says the environment team on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's Shanghai was "very small" and time was tight, so "smart modularization was a top priority" (ArtStation: Indiana Jones and The Great Circle - Shanghai…).
• They give real numbers. Johns maps his trims at 512 px per metre and estimates about 80% of his Lab assets used them instead of unique bakes (ArtStation: The Last of Us: Part I...Trim Pipeline). Jared Sobotta's bricks tile at 6×20 so damaged and clean variants blend (ArtStation: Brick and Concrete Generator). Numbers like these are hard to find anywhere else; see texel density and trim sheets.
• They show the team. Shipped environments are shared work. Paweł Kostecki took over the Great Circle tomb kit from another artist's first architectural pass, and other artists then built custom pieces from his finished trims and tileables (ArtStation: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - Tomb Kit). Sobotta credits modeler Anthony Vaccaro for the level build and prototype meshes on his Last of Us brick and erosion pages (ArtStation: Brick and Concrete Generator; ArtStation: Erosion Breakdown). Read every breakdown as one person's share of a team effort.
• They are shared on purpose, to teach. Sobotta releases tutorials "for free to help share some knowledge" (ArtStation: Creating Beach Cobbles in Zbrush/Substance…); Dylan Abernethy made his UV series free because he found advanced layout techniques "tricky to understand" when he started (ArtStation: Better Understanding UV Layout Techniques for…).

For how to make your own breakdown, see making (and reading) an art breakdown; for portfolios generally, see portfolios.

#How to study a breakdown

Learning from a breakdown works best with a fixed routine:

1. Find the constraint first. Read the text for the reason behind the work: memory, team size, time, a moving level, a season system. Everything else follows from it.
2. Name the system. Is the space built from a kit, from trim sheets and tileable materials, from unique sculpts, or a mix? Sort each image into one of these.
3. Count pieces. On a kit sheet, count straight walls, corners, transitions, caps and glue pieces. Note how few are unique.
4. Read the wireframes. Where are the polygons spent, and where are bevels baked into a normal map instead (see bevels and chamfers)?
5. Write down every number with its unit: texel density, texture sizes, tiling ratios.
6. Check the credits. Note who did what, so you don't attribute a whole level to one artist.
7. Rebuild a slice. Recreating a small part at the same scale shows how the system works in practice (see the exercise at the end).

#Modular architecture and kits

Vytautas Katarzis — Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Shanghai. Breakdown. A small team building a dense old town. Look at how a handful of prefabs assemble into whole streets of facades, and at the image of "a chunk of level art isolated for clarity" (ArtStation: Indiana Jones and The Great Circle - Shanghai…). Also useful on reference: he was "drowning in reference" and chose to stick to "only a handful of pictures" of surviving old architecture (ArtStation: Indiana Jones and The Great Circle - Shanghai…). Illustrates modular kits, gathering and using reference, kitbashing.

Paweł Kostecki — Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Tomb Kit. Breakdown. One kit "used to assemble all of the tombs" on the Gizeh map (ArtStation: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - Tomb Kit). Look at the kit-piece sheet next to its wireframe, and at how the kit was handed from artist to artist: an initial architectural pass by Michael Tran, expanded and finalised by Kostecki, then extended by others "using finalised trims and tilables" (ArtStation: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - Tomb Kit). The wall, ceiling and floor materials have their own linked posts. Illustrates modular kits, trim sheets, tileable materials.

Tim Wilmsen — Baldur's Gate 3, Glasshouse Modular Set (Larian Studios). Breakdown. A set built "from start to finish" by one artist, first planned for the Iron Throne, then extended with pieces for The Foundry, Lower City buildings and Ramazith Tower (ArtStation: Baldur's Gate 3 - Glasshouse Modular Set). A good example of a kit outgrowing its first location. Look at the sheet captioned "Trim + Assets created for the glasshouse set" and the separate tileable. Illustrates modular kits, trim sheets.

Adrien Thierry — Dishonored, The Golden Cat. Post. The bath house's models and textures, with sheets captioned "All exterior modules", "Exterior modules" and "Texture sheet" (ArtStation: The Golden Cat). A compact example of a building kit laid out next to the one texture sheet that serves it. Illustrates modular kits, texture atlases.

Adrien Thierry — Dishonored 2, Clockwork Mansion maintenance areas. Post. The spaces behind the mansion's moving walls, where "the walls and grounds can move" (ArtStation: Clockwork Mansion maintenance areas). Look at the wall modules and wall textures, and at the pipes captioned as found "in many other Dishonored 2 levels" (ArtStation: Clockwork Mansion maintenance areas): props built once and reused across a game. Illustrates modular kits, hero assets, props and filler.

Jon Arellano — God of War Ragnarök, Kit Assets (Santa Monica Studio). Breakdown. A "Breakdown of various assets used in Asgard" by a senior environment artist at Santa Monica Studio (ArtStation: God Of War Ragnarok - Kit Assets). Arellano is one of the two artists featured in Class Creatives' modular-assets video (YouTube: Ultimate Guide to Modular Assets | Sony Santa…). Two points in the post are useful: he notes that many props were kitbashed, and that many pieces were concepted and built by artists across several studios, credited by name (Timo Pihlajamaki, Dannie Carlone, Kyle Bromley) (ArtStation: God Of War Ragnarok - Kit Assets). Illustrates modular kits, kitbashing, hero assets, props and filler.

Eric Blaida — The Last Chapel (personal project, UE5). Breakdown. Not a shipped game, but a clear portfolio-scale summary: "Modular kit, two 4K trim sheets, custom snow shader, Nanite and Lumen throughout" (ArtStation: The Last Chapel – Modular Snowy Environment |…). Useful as an example of how a solo piece can borrow production methods. Illustrates modular kits, trim sheets, planning a portfolio piece.

#Wireframes from shipped levels

EMC3D - Game Art's topology videos on God of War and Naughty Dog name the artists whose work they analyse (YouTube: Why Does God of War's 3D Environment Art…; YouTube: Why Does Naughty Dog's 3D Environment Art…). Their own ArtStation posts show the wireframes in full.

Edgar A. Martinez — The Last of Us Part I, Bill's Town building wireframes (Naughty Dog). Breakdown. Martinez, a senior environment modeler and layout artist at Naughty Dog, is the artist cited in EMC3D's Naughty Dog video (YouTube: Why Does Naughty Dog's 3D Environment Art…; ArtStation: "The Last of Us: Part I"…). The post pairs "Before and after" images of each Bill's Town building with a wireframe of its front and back. He notes that "All building share many instances" and that the renders show the highest LOD (ArtStation: "The Last of Us: Part I"…). He also worked on the game's vertical slice and was responsible for the first section of Bill's Town, from architectural concept to modeling, props, set dressing, collision and UVs (ArtStation: "The Last of Us: Part I"…). Illustrates topology, modular kits, level of detail.

Nate Stephens — God of War III, Environment Art. Post. Stephens is one of the two artists named in EMC3D's God of War video, which also names God of War 3 (YouTube: Why Does God of War's 3D Environment Art…). His post is short: "A level I built for God of War 3. I was responsible for all modeling, sculpting, texturing, layout and lighting", followed by a beauty shot and two wireframes (ArtStation: God of War 3 - Environment Art). Compare that sole credit with the long team credits on Arellano's and Martinez's recent posts. Illustrates topology, polygon and triangle budgets.

#Trims and baked bevels

Matthew Trevelyan Johns — The Last of Us Part I, Trim Pipeline (Naughty Dog). Breakdown. The most complete trim case study in this list (ArtStation: The Last of Us: Part I...Trim Pipeline):

• Goal: "a functional replacement pipeline for the many uniquely baked 1-to-1 assets".
• Layout: measured high-poly panels at 512 px per metre, with duplicate sizes for grooves and rivets.
• Modeling rule: hard edges and 90-degree angles; the bevel comes from the normal map, which saves polygons.
• Result: about 80% of his Lab assets used baked-bevel trims rather than unique bakes.
• Tools: Substance Designer templates for artists, and a Houdini tool built with the tech team and SideFX Labs that auto-unwraps models to the trim layout.

He also notes the technique is not new, pointing to a similar method on The Lego Movie Videogame (2014) (ArtStation: The Last of Us: Part I...Trim Pipeline). Illustrates trim sheets, bevels and chamfers, texel density, the mid-poly workflow.

The kit entries above also show trims in use: Kostecki's tomb kit and Wilmsen's glasshouse both pair the kit with trims and a tileable (ArtStation: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - Tomb Kit; ArtStation: Baldur's Gate 3 - Glasshouse Modular Set).

#Tileable materials and material generators

Jared Sobotta — The Last of Us Part I, Brick and Concrete Generator (Naughty Dog). Breakdown. A Substance Designer graph that builds brick from pattern, flood-fill masks, sculpted shapes, grout and overhangs, with albedo sampled from real-world reference values (ArtStation: Brick and Concrete Generator). Look for three ideas: the 6×20 tiling that lets damaged and clean variants blend, the same graph repurposed for other patterns, trims and formed concrete, and Maya vertex painting and blending with six colour channels for moss, damage, efflorescence and mould (ArtStation: Brick and Concrete Generator). Illustrates tileable materials, procedural materials, vertex painting and blending, breaking up tiling.

Jared Sobotta — The Last of Us Part I, River Rock Breakdown. Breakdown. Large rocks sculpted in ZBrush with polygroup edges marking the tiling boundaries; small rocks from two sculpted atlases, one smooth and one sharp, scattered in Substance Designer with seven Atlas Scatter nodes from largest to smallest (ArtStation: River Rock Breakdown). Look at the shared AO and crevice-dust layer that unifies different materials, and at the small rock prototype meshes used where tessellation could not be (ArtStation: River Rock Breakdown). Illustrates tileable sculpts, texture atlases, procedural materials.

Jared Sobotta — Beach Cobbles (free tutorial). Post and video. A start-to-finish cobble texture in ZBrush and Substance Designer, with the tiling sculpt layout, a sea-shell atlas and a stone atlas shown as images; he notes the recording is a couple of years old (ArtStation: Creating Beach Cobbles in Zbrush/Substance…). Beginner to intermediate. Free. Illustrates tileable sculpts, tileable materials.

Jon Arellano — God of War Ragnarök Materials (Santa Monica Studio). Post. "Materials created for Asgard using a mixture of zbrush and Substance Designer" (ArtStation: God Of War Ragnarok Materials). Read it next to his kit-assets post above to see which surfaces the kit leaves to tileables. Illustrates tileable materials, tileable sculpts, procedural materials.

#Terrain, rock and erosion

Jared Sobotta — The Last of Us Part I, Erosion Breakdown. Breakdown. How eroded embankments were built from prototype meshes, terrain geometry and instanced rocks, with a height map displacing the terrain for thicker erosion lines (ArtStation: Erosion Breakdown). Look at the image with the terrain geometry highlighted in blue: it shows how little of the scene is terrain and how much is placed meshes (ArtStation: Erosion Breakdown). Illustrates terrain and landscapes, modeling rocks, trees and terrain pieces, height blending.

#Foliage and vegetation

Théophile Lebeau — Assassin's Creed Shadows, Foliage. Breakdown. Vegetation atlases built from Maya high polys baked in Substance Designer, with a greyscale split into one channel for seasonal colour and one for leaf damage, seasonal LUTs and a procedural damage tool (ArtStation: Assassin's Creed Shadows : Foliage). He credits two technical artists for the LUT and engine integration (ArtStation: Assassin's Creed Shadows : Foliage). Illustrates foliage and vegetation, texture atlases, channel packing.

Davin Saputra — Project: Villa, Weeds Breakdown (personal project). Breakdown. A weeds material with a free Houdini HDA download, crediting the tutorials it builds on, including Dmitriy Korotkov's "Alpha Cut Vegetation for Performance" (ArtStation: Project: Villa | Part 01b - Weeds Breakdown). Intermediate. Illustrates foliage and vegetation, opacity, masked and translucent materials.

#Worldbuilding, set dressing and composition

Michał Janiszewski — The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD PROJEKT RED). ArtStation post linking to an 80 Level article (ArtStation: 80.lvl Article - World Building of Witcher 3). A written breakdown rather than an image one, covering open-world environment art in detail. Points to look for (80 Level: World Building of Witcher 3):

• The world is "story driven": story sets scale, tone and the points of interest.
• Grey boxes are replaced by final meshes, decorations, paths and foliage; a mountain that hid a quest location was replaced with a lake and a shoreline village.
• Modular meshes are planned for reuse: one rock can be a cliff, a climbable platform or a cave ceiling.
• Villages avoid a grid: "having everything slightly imperfect we make it more believable."
• Decoration sets (groups of barrels) speed up dressing; cities get decals, puddles and planks.

Illustrates worldbuilding for artists, blockout, set dressing and art passes, modeling rocks, trees and terrain pieces.

Mario Fernández — Grimward District (personal project). ArtStation post. A new district that could exist in the Dishonored world, broken down from start to finish in an 80 Level interview (ArtStation: 80 Level Breakdown: Grimward District). An example of building a portfolio piece inside an existing game's art direction. Illustrates planning a portfolio piece, worldbuilding for artists.

Edgar A. Martinez — The Last of Us Part II, Ratking Combat (Naughty Dog). Post. One of many Part II areas where Martinez lists "design blockout interpretation" next to architectural concept, modeling, set dressing and collision, with the designer, prop, texture, lighting and FX artists credited by name: "Naughty Dog production is a team effort" (ArtStation: "The Last of Us: Part 2" - Med - Ratking…). Illustrates blockout, set dressing and art passes, level design and environment art.

Jon Arellano — God of War Ragnarök, Odin's Study. Post. Kits, materials and a few larger props, "Taking the area from blockout to final", with lighting and visual development credited to colleagues (ArtStation: God Of War Ragnarok - Odin's Study). Illustrates blockout, set dressing and art passes.

Hogwarts Legacy, posts by two artists. EMC3D's Hogwarts Legacy video cites no artists, but the artists' own posts fill the gap:

• Luke Adwick — London street intro. Post. Joined the Studio Gobo team "late in production" and owned the opening London street: he modelled its buildings (except Big Ben) and terrain, created and reused materials, set-dressed and polished it, then worked on open-world set dressing and optimisation (ArtStation: Hogwarts Legacy). 80 Level ran an in-engine look at the same street (80 Level: An In-Engine Look at Hogwarts Legacy's…). Illustrates set dressing and art passes, tileable materials.
• Molly Warner — Castle Ruins, Lower Hogsfield. Post. As an environment artist at Certain Affinity she built an open-world castle ruin "where the player can explore, solve several puzzles, and fight enemies", by set dressing, kitbashing castle pieces, painting and sculpting terrain, placing foliage, decals and splines, and working with design and narrative. She credits the Avalanche environment art team for the assets (ArtStation: Hogwarts Legacy - Castle Ruins). A clear case of a world builder assembling places from another team's kit. Illustrates kitbashing, set dressing and art passes, terrain and landscapes.

#Hard surface, UVs, sculpting and portfolios

• Matthias Develtere — design and modelling of a mech. Post. A 380-page PDF on designing and modeling a hard-surface robot in 3ds Max, including rejected design options and his mistakes (ArtStation: Breakdown - design - modelling of a mech). Intermediate. Paid (ArtStation Marketplace). See hard-surface modeling.
• Dylan Abernethy — Better Understanding UV Layout Techniques for Games. Post. Free series for beginner and mid-level artists on stacking, working outside 0–1, mirroring, multiple UV sets, trims and tiling textures (ArtStation: Better Understanding UV Layout Techniques for…). See UV mapping.
• Dannie Carlone — Tricks.Tips.Process. Post. Quick ZBrush mini-tutorials from a Senior Staff Environment Artist at Santa Monica Studio; "Everyone works differently" (ArtStation: Tricks.Tips.Process). Free. See digital sculpting.
• Jared Sobotta — How to Make a Stunning Portfolio. Post. Links his CGSociety article, written with Anna Cicone, with tips for aspiring environment artists on getting a portfolio noticed (ArtStation: CGSociety Interview "How to Make a Stunning…). Free. See portfolio advice from industry professionals.

#Further reading and watching

• See also essential talks and videos, postmortems worth reading and learning platforms and courses.