Resources

places channel packing (from 13:29) among the other texture costs: VRAM, compression, sampling, draw calls and streaming. Beginner, free.

Film language (shots, editing, screen composition) applied to environments the player explores; examples from GTA Online DLC.

The talk Jared Sobotta links from his brick breakdown; watch it alongside the Tommy's Dam example above.

EMC3D - Game Art · YouTube

Jon Arellano of Santa Monica Studio builds kit pieces in Maya (from 02:26), then Jacob Norris, formerly of Naughty Dog, assembles them in Unreal Engine (from 10:43).

Class Creatives · YouTube

argues, as the title says, that documentation belongs in the game itself, in "gym", "zoo" and "museum" levels (YouTube: Gyms, Zoos, and Museums: Your documentation…). Beginner, free.

EMC3D - Game Art · YouTube

A long video (over an hour) on making modular kits; dip into the parts you need rather than watching it in one go.

Shows the shape of a modern foliage pipeline (kit, bark texture, engine, portfolio shot) as taught by Jared Sobotta.

Watch the "Dotted Edge Loops?" and "Using Triangles" chapters to see how a AAA environment team breaks loops on purpose.

A wireframe-level look at how a shipped open world combines modular pieces and intersecting geometry; see the "Crashing In Geometry" chapter.

eight one-word problems to check in any blockout. Beginner, free.

normal blending explained visually in Shader Graph. Intermediate, free.

a long free series on shaders for artists. Beginner to intermediate, free.

Burgess and Purkeypile on how Bethesda's kits evolved for an open world. Intermediate, free.

a short ZBrush trick for tileable sculpts. Beginner, free.

Epic's Brian Karis and Quixel's Galen Davis walk through Nanite using the Valley of the Ancient sample; watch it for what Nanite changes for environment artists.

Techniques studios such as Respawn and Naughty Dog use to establish level flow through blockmesh design, and how lighting helps players read a level.

Tim Simpson on planning a sheet around reuse; the start of a free four-part series. Beginner, free.

Tim Simpson's channel. He argues that junior portfolios too often lack tiling and trim work. Beginner, free.

planning trims from the blockout with colour overlays. Intermediate, free.

EMC3D - Game Art · YouTube

editor habits that save time when assembling scenes. Beginner, free.

How an open-world AAA team built, LODed and billboarded its vegetation; the LOD discussion is around the 40-minute mark.

A live session walking through real game art portfolios with a lead environment artist, a senior environment artist and an art director.

an introduction to the environment artist's side of the job (YouTube: Intro to Environment Art with Andres Rodriguez). Beginner, free.

A talk on making story scenes and level layout support each other; compare it with Carson's and Smith and Worch's older principles.

How Respawn prototyped Titanfall 2's campaign with rapid "action block" levels, using the "Into the Abyss" mission as a case study; useful for seeing rapid blockout prototyping applied to a whole campaign.

a short, simplified explanation of texel density. Beginner, free.

The texturing stage of a AAA production, presented by one of Naughty Dog's artists; watch it to see how stage 7 looks at studio scale.

A beginner's first ZBrush session; watch it before any project-specific sculpting tutorial.

polygonrunway · BlenderNation

Quick Blender demo of boolean cutting on a crate; watch at reduced speed.

A plain-language walkthrough without charts; a good first watch before reading the value ranges above.

A full-length remake of one small prop; useful to see the whole process at real speed, including the slower, routine steps.

a personal trim workflow. Beginner, free.

How a small team planned a bold, layered palette for a whole game; useful context before making your first colour script.

Epic's Unreal Engine 5 reveal demo, linked from Epic's own Lumen tech blog. Watch for soft bounce light in areas no light reaches directly.

The talk itself; watch it for concrete interior-design ideas you can apply when composing rooms the player walks through.

The video linked from the paper's project page; a quick way to see what captured splat scenes look like in motion.

A fast tour of camera problems in third-person games; useful for anyone building spaces a camera has to move through.

Shows how far packing can go, including the small cost to normal map quality; watch once the basic ORM layout is familiar.

Goes beyond a single detail map, using one texture sample to drive many detail textures; watch after the basics on this page.

Steve Lee, a level designer on Dishonored 2 and BioShock Infinite, on how gameplay, presentation and story work together, and the ideas that sit between disciplines. Intermediate, free.

Covers mesh preparation, cage adjustment and troubleshooting in one sitting; a good companion to the workflow list above.

Sobotta's beach cobble texture from start to finish in ZBrush and Substance Designer, originally recorded as a live demo.

follow-up episode on normals. Intermediate, free.

Shows Toolbag's skew painting fixing a skewed bake; watch after trying the geometry fixes in the skewing section.

Shows how DECALmachine packs decals into an atlas for export to a game engine; watch it to see the decal atlas idea in practice.

A quick, free route to an automatic quad base, as featured on BlenderNation.

Mike Lyndon · SideFX

a shorter UE5-era walkthrough. Beginner, free.

A timelapse of a full single-texture-set workflow; watch it after reading the crate example to see seams, straightening and packing in sequence.

A practical walkthrough of placing and authoring decals in Unreal Engine 5; useful alongside the uses list above.

A beginner-friendly setup of a vertex paint blend material and Mesh Paint mode in UE5; do the "Try it yourself" brief afterwards.

Epic's own introduction to parameters and material instances; a good first step before building your own master.

John Moncrief of SideFX on proceduralism for game artists, no Houdini experience needed. Beginner, free.

How a sandbox game with many routes still helps players find targets and opportunities; a good counterpoint to linear examples.

Embedded in GarageFarm's guide as its Quad Draw example; good for learning a manual workflow in Maya.

A step-by-step setup of Nanite displacement; useful alongside the cobblestone example above.

Shows Blender's packing engine, including pinning islands and keeping stacked islands together.

Eric Wohllaib on generating, rendering and animating fields of individual grass blades on the GPU for Sucker Punch's open world.

Embedded in GarageFarm's guide as its RetopoFlow example; useful if you retopologise inside Blender.

Walks through choosing a target texel density and applying it in Blender; watch alongside the worked numbers above.

a level designer walks through the vertical test level that won him a job at Irrational Games, including Skylines faked with invisible moving platforms. Intermediate, free.

Scott Keating builds columns, bridges and stone stairs as procedural game assets. Intermediate, free.

Builds a triplanar shader from scratch in Shader Graph and explains the blend weights; the ideas carry over to any engine.

Part of Manning's series on a four-way height-blended material; the technique carries over directly to UE5.

Christopher 3D's Blender video on controlling hard-surface shading with the modifier and Set From Face. Beginner. Free.

Shared in the Polycount thread on this page as an explanation of the three levels; watch it for the middle, mid-frequency band.

Embedded in GarageFarm's retopology guide as its ZRemesher example; watch it alongside Maxon's ZRemesher reference.

technical rules (512 px/m, shared trim layouts) documented for a whole team. Intermediate, free.

Paweł Kostecki · ArtStation

Jared Sobotta · ArtStation

when surface detail moves from sculpting into Substance Designer. Intermediate, free.

an 8-part series; Part 5, Creating a Hero Prop, is taught by Dylan Abernethy. Intermediate, free.

a compact Dishonored post with module and texture sheets. Beginner, free.

hand sculpting and alphas combined for The Last of Us Part I rock materials. Intermediate, free.

Vytautas Katarzis · ArtStation

variants, vertex paint and breakup lines on a shipped Naughty Dog environment. Intermediate, free.

Molly Warner · ArtStation

a three-step rock workflow and brush list from a senior environment artist at 31st Union, with a linked video. Beginner, free.

Edgar A. Martinez · ArtStation

a Larian kit with its trim and tileable. Intermediate, free.

kitbashed props and kit assets from Asgard. Intermediate, free.

Edgar A. Martinez · ArtStation

wall modules and props from Dishonored 2. Intermediate, free.

Jared Sobotta · ArtStation

beauty shot and wireframes of a shipped level built by one artist. Intermediate, free.

seasonal LUTs applied to foliage atlases in a shipped game. Intermediate, free.

Michał Janiszewski · ArtStation

Dylan Abernethy · ArtStation

Jared Sobotta · ArtStation

short ZBrush sculpting tips from a Santa Monica Studio environment artist. Intermediate, free.

Luke Adwick · ArtStation

Davin Saputra · ArtStation

Matthias Develtere · ArtStation

Jared Sobotta · ArtStation

a Santa Monica Studio area taken from blockout to final. Intermediate, free.

Jon Arellano · ArtStation

Eric Blaida · ArtStation

Mario Fernández · ArtStation

a UE5 tutorial on edge strips. Intermediate, free.

the superstorm from Horizon Forbidden West, captured on PlayStation 5. All levels, free.

lighting and colour grading from a shipped AAA level. All levels, free.

a shipped-game smart material library with its folder structure and in-game results. Intermediate, free.

a shipped tomb wall material from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. All levels, free.

one level lit for two visits, by Insomniac's lead lighting artist. Intermediate, free.

a shipped sci-fi space built partly by kitbashing existing assets, with full team credits. Intermediate, free.

the original bevelled-trim talk. Intermediate, GDC Vault.

interior-design techniques applied to rooms people walk through. Intermediate; check GDC Vault for access.

how a AAA team combined artist LUTs with white balance. Advanced, free.

Sebastien Deguy (Allegorithmic), Rogelio Olguin and Bradford Smith (Naughty Dog) · GDC Vault

GPU-generated grass fields. Advanced, GDC Vault.

the classic talk. Intermediate; GDC Vault.

Greg Foertsch, Moby Francke, Gavin Goulden, Claire Hummel, Wyeth Johnson, Alison Kelly · GDC Vault (GDC 2019, Game Career Seminar)

sequences of space as a cinematic tool. Intermediate, free on YouTube.

Elan Ruskin (Insomniac Games) · GDC Vault (GDC 2019)

unique terrain texturing at 10 texels per centimetre. Advanced, free on GDC Vault.

GDC · gdconf.com

automating terrain for The Witcher 3. Advanced, GDC Vault.

Andrew Hamilton and Ken Brown on using photogrammetry across a shipped AAA game. Intermediate, free.

Jeremy Moore of Ubisoft on terrain, including cliff geometry generated on top of the heightfield. Advanced. GDC Vault.

Guerrilla Games (Andrew Schneider) · SIGGRAPH 2015, Advances in Real-Time Rendering (Guerrilla Games site)

Matthew Davis (Subset Games) · GDC Vault (GDC 2019)

the full talk on fast, believable wind for millions of grass blades. Advanced, GDC Vault.

Druckmann and Straley on blending set pieces and story. Intermediate, GDC Vault.

BioWare's developer-facing telemetry. Advanced, GDC Vault.

Adrian Bentley (Sucker Punch Productions) · GDC Vault (GDC 2014)

survey figures on how developers use and view generative AI. All levels, free.

search for "postmortem" and filter by track (Visual Arts, Level Design). Mixed free and paid.

the session archive. Intermediate, some talks free.

talk page with the full slides from GDC 2017. Advanced, free.

the PlayStation 5 follow-up with flyable clouds. Advanced, free.

the case for precomputation at 60 Hz, with slides and notes. Advanced, free.

the follow-up talk. Intermediate, free on YouTube; also on GDC Vault.

Ari Silvennoinen · Activision Research

Chris Butcher (Bungie) · GDC Vault (GDC 2015)

David Shaver (Naughty Dog) and Robert Yang (NYU Game Center) · GDC Vault (GDC 2018)

GDC Vault (session page, seen in search results) · GDC Vault

GDC · gdconf.com

a lead TA on when to change workflows and when to leave them alone. Intermediate, free.

Paul Gresty · Adobe Community

Jane Ng of Campo Santo on "translating a bold 2D graphic style into an explorable 3D environment", with process principles, tools and advice for small art teams. Beginner to intermediate. GDC Vault.

François Alliot (Nerial) · GDC Vault (GDC 2017, Independent Games Summit)

Tyler Smith on designing a stone temple trim from architectural reference. Intermediate; level and price not stated on the course page.

The Gnomon Workshop · The Gnomon Workshop

Dylan Abernethy builds a modular scene up from a simple blockout. Intermediate, free.

CG Master Academy · CGMA

Stan Prokopenko's two- and three-value thumbnail exercise using master paintings. Beginner, free lesson page.

longer course covering height, maps, layering and SBSAR publishing. Beginner. Adobe Learn.

patterns and scattering from a well-known Designer teacher. Intermediate. Paid.

the studio describes its work as "specialized high quality environment art and asset creation, production, and resources". Intermediate, free.

a senior environment artist who teaches the hero-prop part of the Dekogon series. Intermediate. Free.

the series itself, linked from ArtStation Magazine. Intermediate.

three-part video series. Intermediate, free.

FlippedNormals marketplace listing · FlippedNormals

Unity Technologies · Unity Learn

the classic light and shadow zones explained for artists. Beginner, free lesson page.

tour of Houdini's game-art tools. Beginner, free; recorded in Houdini 16.5, so some details have changed.

about five hours on painting a sword and shield, taught by Tyson Murphy, a World of Warcraft character artist at Blizzard. Beginner. Paid.

40-minute official introduction ending with exposed parameters. Beginner. Adobe Learn.

a user-made playlist of environment courses on ArtStation Learning. Mixed levels. Free.

CGMA · cgmasteracademy.com

FastTrackTutorials · ArtStation

project planning, gathering and organising reference, and blocking out a scene in Maya and Unreal Engine; the first part of Dekogon's environment production series (ArtStation Magazine: 7 Environment Art Courses o…

Epic's hub of "tutorials, courses, demos, and more", created by Epic and the community. All levels.

building an entire environment from one trim sheet. Intermediate. Paid.

a four-year BFA and a two-year full-time Certificate in Digital Production for Entertainment with a Game Art emphasis, plus individual ten-week courses on campus or online, in Los Angeles. Full-time, paid (tuition).

CGMA · cgmasteracademy.com

from kit planning to UE5, aimed at beginners and intermediates. Paid.

"affordable online art classes from outstanding industry professionals", mainly digital art and painting. Fundamentals such as light and colour carry straight into 3D. All levels, paid; see vendor page.

$57 a month or $519 a year for "350+ Workshops" and "over 1,000 hours of video training" taught by film and game industry professionals. An example relevant to environment artists: Eddie Bennun&#39…

from an environment artist whose credits include Overwatch maps and Valorant. Intermediate. Paid.

a character-design book by a former Disney animator; read it for the tradition environment artists borrow from. Beginner to intermediate, paid book. Course listing:

a large general marketplace ("290K+ Courses"). Search by software and check reviews and the instructor's credits; prices: see vendor page. All levels, paid.

"Free tutorials, courses, and guided pathways" by Unity. Beginner, free.

the four kinds of game affordance, with Uncharted metrics. Intermediate, free.

the GDC 2013 talk in writing, including the origin of the term. Intermediate, free.

Mateusz Piaskiewicz · Game Developer

Jared Sobotta and Anna Cicone · CGSociety

Joe Wilson · Marmoset

CD PROJEKT RED's environment artist on reuse and imperfect placement. Intermediate, free.

Epic Games · Unreal Engine tech blog

Epic Games · Unreal Engine tech blog

crack and damage alphas in a real tileable sculpt. Intermediate, free.

Simon Péloquin (guide); Arti Sergeev (editor) · 80 Level

Burgess five years later on fighting repetition. Intermediate, free.

Chase Long on shared kitbash libraries, trims and keeping detail readable. Intermediate, free.

the artist's view of receiving and shaping a blockout. Intermediate, free.

John Sweeney on colour scripting a game and building red and blue image systems. Intermediate, free.

why density matters and how to choose a target. Intermediate, free.

Cinevva · Cinevva

Gabe Betancourt of Naughty Dog on key lights, hue passes and keeping rigs small. Beginner to intermediate, free.

the rule against baking AO into colour, and its exception. Beginner, free.

Kirill Khafizov · 80 Level

Activision Blizzard (with Dion Rogers) · Activision Blizzard Newsroom

Jeremiah Estrellado · Massive Entertainment

Andrew Lund III · 80 Level

Epic Games · Unreal Engine blog

where a studio used scans and where it did not. Intermediate. Free.

ArtStation · ArtStation Magazine

Matthew Trevelyan Johns (interviewed by Kirill Tokarev) · 80 Level

Malte Resenberger-Loosmann · 80 Level

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Short, clear case for mixing workflows by camera distance. Beginner to intermediate. Free.

AlexG · World of Level Design

Christian "DrCurls" Suero · Riot Games

the announcement of Dekogon's three-part Environment Art Test series with Dylan Abernethy. Intermediate; course price not stated.

Joe Wilson · Marmoset

Dylan Abernethy's typewriter, from ZBrush and Maya to Substance Painter and Marmoset, with project files per chapter. Intermediate; price not stated in the article.

Nathan Reed · Nathan Reed's coding blog

80 Level · 80 Level

the classic comparison of normal blending methods, with images and costs. Advanced, free.

Jeff Russell · Marmoset

a clear, candid explanation of why FBX is hard to support, with benchmarks. Intermediate. Free.

an alternative set of settings with explanations. Intermediate, free.

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

the classic Blender-to-Unity rotation fix. Beginner, free.

slides and transcript of a level design workshop on lighting. Beginner, free.

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Arti Sergeev · 80 Level

Karen Moltenbrey · Computer Graphics World, Vol. 35, Issue 4

why studios add cues and what alternatives exist. Beginner, free.

Jay McDougall · Skillsearch

Matthias Patscheider · ArtStation blog

Sierra Mon · ArtStation Magazine

why levels should allow different routes even in linear games. Beginner, free.

Unity Technologies · Unity Blog

the open-source painter's first stable release. Beginner, free.

Christopher W. Totten · Game Developer

AlexG · World of Level Design

the theme-park roots of the idea, still very practical. Beginner, free.

the short essay where Norman separates the two terms. Beginner, free.

Andreas Lohse (interviewed by Arti Sergeev) · 80 Level

GarageFarm · GarageFarm blog

Jessica Canales (interviewed by Gloria Levine) · 80 Level

Yulong Huang (interviewed by Theodore McKenzie) · 80 Level

The Daily Dot · The Daily Dot

what the open-source material tool can do. Beginner, free.

short, clear physics with example scans of oil paintings. Beginner, free.

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

full capture-to-tile process with free and common tools. Intermediate. Free.

A production artist's bevel-shader bake workflow. Intermediate. Free.

a studio's own advice on résumés, links and interviews. Beginner, free.

ArtStation · ArtStation Magazine

Harry Gray · 80 Level

Lydia "PHRISK" Zanotti (Riot Games) · playvalorant.com

Allegorithmic · Adobe Substance 3D (Adobe Learn)

Joyce Jiao · The Rookies

Epic Games · Unreal Engine news

François Hurtubise (interviewed by Kirill Tokarev) · 80 Level

GIGAZINE · GIGAZINE

Arkance UK · Arkance Community

François Larrieu (interviewed by Ellie Harisova) · 80 Level

Margot Casiro (Ubisoft Montpellier) · 80 Level

ArtStation · ArtStation Magazine

Ryan Brucks's tool, its three capture modes and its use in Fortnite. Intermediate, free.

a World of Warcraft artist on hand-painted textures, values and colour. Beginner to intermediate. Free.

a summary of Brian Karis's SIGGRAPH 2021 material on how Nanite works. Advanced. Free.

UploadVR · UploadVR

Nathan Mackenzie (interviewed by Kirill Tokarev) · 80 Level

ArtStation · ArtStation Magazine

ArtStation (Jeremy Estrellado, Jacob Norris, Alex Beddows) · ArtStation Magazine

how the NoAI tag works and what ArtStation's terms say. Beginner, free.

80 Level · 80 Level

UDN, whiteout and RNM compared on triplanar projections, with costs on desktop and mobile. Advanced, free.

naming and folder advice, plus how structure affects version control. Beginner, free.

frame budgets, mobile thermal headroom and finding the bottleneck. Intermediate, free.

Bela Beier · Digital Production

What the two best-known boolean add-ons do. Beginner. Free article; paid add-ons.

80 Level (featuring Jared Sobotta) · 80 Level

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

what the free brush-based tool does and how it differs from Unity's. Beginner, free.

Game Developer staff · Game Developer

how polarised light removes speculars at capture. Intermediate, free.

AlexG · World of Level Design

Stefan Groenewoud (Bend Studio) · ArtStation blog

ArtStation Magazine · ArtStation Magazine (sponsored)

Ellie Harisova · 80 Level

Epic's own explanation of the move to Fab and the Megascans licence change. Beginner. Free.

Automaton · Automaton West

Lagarde's survey of wet surfaces in games. Intermediate, free.

Thumbsticks · Thumbsticks

why Borderlands 2 added an FOV slider, and viewing distance versus motion sickness. Beginner, free.

Kirill Tokarev · 80 Level

Jen S Abbott · ArtStation blog

Sebastian Schulz on going from a game art course to Crytek and Remedy. Beginner, free.

why alpha-tested foliage fades out at a distance and how to keep it. Intermediate, free.

Christopher Harper · Tom's Hardware

three shader techniques with code, costs and the mipmap fix. Advanced, free.

NVIDIA · NVIDIA GeForce News

planning a scene around a hierarchy of assets. Beginner to intermediate, free.

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Digital Production · Digital Production

Alitt Khaliq (Unity) · Unity Blog

GarageFarm.NET · GarageFarm.NET blog

How the bevel shader works, its settings and its limitations. Intermediate. Free article; Toolbag is paid.

Adobe · Adobe Blog

Autodesk · Autodesk Support

Autodesk · Autodesk Support

Cat Bussell · TechRadar

80 Level · 80 Level

Amiqus's Stig Strand on honesty, gaps, credits and synchronised profiles. Beginner, free.

why baking is painful and how Nanite changes, but does not remove, the pipeline. Intermediate. Free.

Epic's graphics engineers explain why they moved away from baked lighting. Intermediate. Free.

GameFromScratch · GameFromScratch

Game Developer (talk by Etienne Carrier, Ubisoft) · Game Developer

Josh Klint · Game Developer

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Ohle Mathiebe on support loops, bevels and baking for AAA weapons. Intermediate, free.

GamesRadar staff · GamesRadar

starting values for Unreal. Beginner, free.

the case for dynamic GI from its engineers. Intermediate, free.

Inverse · Inverse

the triangle rule and other terrain-shaping principles. Beginner, free.

a game art recruiter on questions, honesty and attitude. Beginner, free.

overview of Ishmael Hoover's tutorial, with separate value and colour chapters. Beginner. Paid tutorial.

a vendor's own account of why generated topology is hard. Intermediate, free.

a breakdown that combines neon emissives with rect lights. Intermediate, free.

roof tiles and lava, step by step. Intermediate. Free.

a short, readable article on how greebles create scale. Beginner, free.

see where decals fit in a real frame. Advanced, free.

ArtStation · ArtStation Magazine

a readable roundup of impostor techniques and tools. Intermediate, free.

a node-by-node breakdown of WorldAlignedTexture, local versus world space and normals. Intermediate, free.

80 Level · 80 Level

a report on Lemarchand's GDC 2010 postmortem, including the train level. Beginner, free.

Theodore McKenzie · 80 Level

Kirk Hamilton · Kotaku

the clearest step-by-step explanation of the maths, with pictures. Intermediate, free.

an art director on writing and sharing a style guide. Beginner, free.

ArtStation · ArtStation Magazine

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Creative Bloq · Creative Bloq

Carl Jarrett and Andy Blackmore · Speedhunters

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

a short video walkthrough of a free tool. Beginner, free.

GameFromScratch · gamefromscratch.com

Amber Rutherford · 80 Level

Halo skybox artist Mukul Soman on layers, cards and slow movement. Intermediate, free.

the best large dataset on sound–shape matching, with careful caveats. Advanced, free.

Yi Dao · GameGeeker

Ben Zeigler on memreport and tracking down memory use. Advanced, free.

Arti Sergeev · 80 Level

Andrea Sancio (The Chinese Room) · Paradox Interactive

a game developer's walkthrough of the algorithm, variable-density placement and uses in games. Intermediate, free.

Zak Killian · Tom's Hardware

MP1st · MP1st

Andrew Lauritzen and Ola Olsson on replacing cascades, caching limits and shadow proxies, with timings. Advanced, free.

Ben Keeling · ArtStation blog

a course covering leaks, cracks, edge damage and POM decals from Designer, Painter and ZBrush to UE5. Intermediate, paid.

Hitmarker · Hitmarker

Jenni Lada · Siliconera

GameSpot · GameSpot

80 Level · 80 Level

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

links to ten classic magazine postmortems. All levels, free.

a summary of Bill Rockenbeck's GDC 2021 talk on gameplay wind. Intermediate, free.

mittens (mittentacular) · GameDev.net blogs

Omri Petitte · PC Gamer

a summary of a talk on metrics in design, with Mass Effect, Halo and Gears of War examples. Intermediate, free.

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

an animator on scaling props for the camera. Beginner, free.

Andrew Evans · GTPlanet

TheSixthAxis · TheSixthAxis

Alberto Petronio · BlenderNation

Brendan Lowry · Windows Central

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

ArtStation's upload steps and size limits. Beginner, free.

a High Moon Studios environment artist on training, specialising and his job search. Beginner, free.

PocketGamer.biz (Mobile Games University) · PocketGamer.biz

a student project that builds and UVs geodecal strips step by step. Beginner, free.

John Hughes · iRacing.com

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Epic Games · Unreal Engine blog

the classic argument for small, repeated tests. Beginner, free.

a step-by-step macro setup. Beginner, free.

the standardisation effort and who is behind it. Beginner, free.

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Game Informer · Game Informer

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Game World Observer · Game World Observer

80 Level · 80 Level

Room 8 Studio's talent sourcing director on CVs and ArtStation profiles. Beginner, free.

how the term drifted, and the case for dissonance as a device. Advanced, free.

Radiance Fields · radiancefields.com

Andy Gavin · All Things Andy Gavin

a step-by-step bake using the bevel shader instead of support loops, with its limits. Intermediate, free.

Jordan Cain · Marmoset

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

80 Level · 80 Level

Amber Rutherford · 80 Level

Arjun Krishna Lal · GamingBolt

the classic explanation of fake-depth decals and their limits. Advanced, free.

inside Microsoft's Halo 3 usability lab. Beginner, free.

a thoughtful defence of Fallout 4's skeletons. Beginner, free.

TechRadar · TechRadar

the clearest explanation of why precision runs out, with diagrams and a simulation of reversed Z. Advanced, free.

All3DP · All3DP

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

GameMaker · gamemaker.io

Daniel Sims · TechSpot

a short history and plain explanation of both. Beginner, free.

Phil Tibitoski · Game Developer

balance and flow maps built from kill data, with notes on how much data they need. Intermediate, free.

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Kirill Tokarev · 80 Level

what PIX can capture on DirectX 12 and Xbox. Advanced, free.

Ryan Salazar · Broadcast Beat

a Pixar colour script artist on tableaux, colour progressions and tent-pole images. Intermediate, free.

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

GameFromScratch · GameFromScratch

a lead character artist on how Cloud grew from 900 to 220,000 polygons. Beginner, free.

Tripo · Tripo blog

SkyeBrowse · SkyeBrowse

Susan Weinschenk · The Team W blog

Tom Leonard (Looking Glass Studios) · Game Developer

a short, practical guide to both sides of critique. Beginner, free.

features and licence terms of the 2.0 release. Beginner, free.

how Quixel built a controlled, automated scanning pipeline. Intermediate, free.

80 Level · 80 Level

Brian Lesiangi · ArtStation blog

Gravity Sketch · gravitysketch.com

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

StraySpark · StraySpark Studios

how Ubisoft's procedural tech art team delivered Houdini tools inside its editor. Intermediate, free.

includes talks on Call of Duty: Black Ops II and The Order: 1886. Advanced, free.

TechRaptor · TechRaptor

what changed for Sketchfab users. Beginner, free.

which CC licences apply and how to credit. Beginner, free.

Yoshiyuki Watanabe · ModDB (repost)

the GDC 2013 talk by lead writer Walt Williams, embedded with a summary. Intermediate, free.

Aras Pranckevičius · aras-p.info

Glenda Taylor, Bob Vila and Tom Scalisi · Bob Vila

Simon Priest · GameWatcher

Toksvig maps, LEAN and CLEAN mapping compared, with images. Advanced, free.

the 2011 GDC Bootcamp talk list with interviews with technical artists from Volition, CCP, Insomniac, Valve and BioWare Austin. All levels, free.

Gabor Szauer · Meta Horizon OS Developers Blog

a short case study of players rejecting a forced effect. Beginner, free.

Esther Inglis-Arkell · Gizmodo

Innersloth · innersloth.com

a detailed report of the GDC talk with locations, kit and numbers. Beginner, free.

Features and the Blender bridge. Beginner. Free.

a critical look at the Journey art book and Matthew Nava's emotive use of colour. Beginner, free.

Feed Me Design · feedme.design

Video Games Chronicle · VGC

Hangar 13 / 2K · mafia.2k.com

Robert Yang on a common level design hiring test. Beginner. Free.

PlayStation.Blog · PlayStation.Blog

a defence of the concept and a critique of the term, with familiar examples. Beginner, free.

project settings that cut shader permutations. Advanced, free.

a concise summary of Nanite Foliage and other 5.7 changes. Intermediate, free.

an artist's LOD-to-impostor pipeline for a scanned forest, with triangle counts. Intermediate, free.

fxguide · fxguide

Arti Sergeev · 80 Level

World of Level Design (AlexG) · World of Level Design

benui · Unreal Garden

free e-book covering white-boxing and ProBuilder. Beginner, free.

Video Games Chronicle · Video Games Chronicle

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

what stochastic texturing does, its cost and which textures it suits. Intermediate, free.

shader complexity and quad overdraw explained with foliage and particle examples. Intermediate, free.

Epic Games · Epic Games news

Epic Games · Unreal Engine blog

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

Digital Production · Digital Production

GameFromScratch · GameFromScratch

Aernout van de Velde · Wccftech

a portfolio scene built almost entirely from repeated assets. Beginner, free.

summary and link to Valve's Dota 2 character art guide. Beginner, free.

Game Developer · Game Developer

Game Developer · Game Developer

a standard example of the format. Beginner, free.

80 Level · 80 Level

a short definition, the Pixar origin and a four-step process. Beginner, free.

film examples from 1917, Get Out and Captain Fantastic. Beginner, free.

Todd Blankenship · No Film School

Adobe · Behance Help

Rogelio Delgado's case for fewer, shorter, paid tests. All levels, free.

Digital Production · Digital Production

practical notes on Modeling Mode, dynamic meshes and modular pieces. Beginner, free.

a practical walkthrough of ORM export and import. Beginner, free.

an older but broad list of downloadable editors (2012, updated 2014). Beginner, free.

structure and examples from a games job board. Beginner, free.

a games recruiter on CV length, layout and what to include. Beginner, free.

Jim Thacker · CG Channel

80 Level · 80 Level

Brian Karis · SIGGRAPH 2021, Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games

runtime layering to vary tiled environment materials. Advanced, free.

Brian Karis · SIGGRAPH 2013 course: Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice

saturation, value and team colours designed for readability. Advanced, free.

how a shipped game kept environments calm so players and objectives read first. Intermediate, free.

a field study of white boxing and the designer–artist handoff at two studios. Intermediate, free (open access).

Unity Technologies (expert guide by Sébastien Lagarde) · Unity-Technologies/DeLightingTool on GitHub

Michael Toksvig · NVIDIA technical brief

Short introduction to NURBS versus polygons. Beginner. Free.

live versus cooked layers inside Unreal on Xbox One. Advanced, free.

how a AAA terrain stores and picks dozens of layers. Advanced, free.

Guerrilla's slides on hitting 30 fps with hundreds of lights. Advanced, free.

a short, illustrated handout on the circle–square–triangle convention, with honest caveats. Beginner, free PDF.

a shipped probe-based GI system with time of day, including memory and bake times. Advanced, free.

Anders Drachen and Alessandro Canossa · Proceedings of the 13th International MindTrek Conference (ACM)

four pages; read it to see exactly what was tested. Advanced, free PDF.

research on combining simulation with artist control. Advanced, free.

how a production game engine evaluates the limit surface on the GPU. Advanced, free.

a short paper with the linear-time algorithm, easy to implement. Intermediate, free.

lecture slides on the maths behind subdivision, including extraordinary vertices. Advanced, free.

a counterpoint to fixed rules — curvature preference changes with fashion. Advanced, free PDF.

the talk behind hashed alpha in today's engines. Advanced, free.

Randy Pagulayan, Keith Steury, Bill Fulton and Ramon Romero · Funology 2 (Springer, Human–Computer Interaction Series)

Ulf Hagen's interview study of how studios communicate a design vision to the whole team. Advanced; journal access may be paid (an earlier version is free in the DiGRA library).

the research behind modern real-time skies. Advanced, free.

the paper behind Instant Meshes. Advanced, free.

a classic course handout deriving the rules from B-splines. Advanced, free.

the project page with paper, code and data. Advanced, free.

the SIGGRAPH 2014 talk that made the case for photometric units in a AAA engine. Advanced, free.

a real seven-step character LOD chain and frame statistics. Intermediate, free.

the 2006 paper that set the standard approach, with diagrams of the ray march and LOD. Advanced, free.

the clearest published example of a game's visual rules and the reasons behind them. Intermediate, free.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward M. Hubbard · Journal of Consciousness Studies

a printable reference from SideFX's USD basics tutorial. Beginner, free.

Xijie Yang, Linning Xu, Lihan Jiang, Dahua Lin, Bo Dai · SIGGRAPH Conference Papers 2025 (arXiv)

subtitled "A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games"; the 5th edition was published by A K Peters/CRC Press on 18 April 2024 (ISBN 9781032607009), following the 4th edition (Taylor & Francis, …

Amazon Web Services · AWS Documentation

A K Peters/CRC Press, 1,198 pages, ISBN 978-1138627000, by Tomas Akenine-Möller, Eric Haines, Naty Hoffman, Angelo Pesce, Michał Iwanicki and Sébastien Hillaire. The book's website offers two chapters and two appe…

subtitled "Classic to Cutting Edge Art Techniques for Winning Game Design"; Watson-Guptill, 2012, 240 pages, ISBN 9780823098477. A bridge between classical drawing and game design, useful background for comp…

the book-length version of his architectural approach. Intermediate, paid book.

A K Peters/CRC Press, 2019, ISBN 9780815361367. Described by its publisher as "one of the first books to integrate architectural and spatial design theory with the field of level design", covering spatial la…

the standard painter's book on light and colour, tested against observation. Intermediate, paid book.

Basic Books, 2013, 368 pages, ISBN 9780465050659. Norman brought "affordance" into design and later argued that the perceivable part should be called a signifier. Core reading for affordance and signifier. B…

fourth edition, 2015, 447 pages, ISBN 9781118745083. An architecture book on form and space; read it for ideas about massing, openings and circulation that carry over to blockouts and kit design. Beginner to intermedi…

Tracy Fullerton · Taylor & Francis Group (Open Library catalogue record, ISBN 9781138098770)

Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2010, 222 pages, ISBN 9780740797712. Written for painters, but it covers the same relationships of light and colour that you balance in a lit scene. Read it alongside light and shadow, colou…

A K Peters/CRC Press, 2019, 652 pages, ISBN 9781138632059. Organised, as its subtitle says, around design "lenses"; useful when you need to argue why a space or prop serves the player. Beginner, paid.

The M.I.T. Press, ISBN 9780262620017. Lynch's 1960 study concluded that people build mental maps from five elements: paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. The foundation under most writing on wayfinding. B…

Dark Horse Books with Naughty Dog, 24 June 2020, 200 full-colour pages, hardcover, listed at $49.99, ISBN 9781506713762; original art with creator commentary. Compare its paintings with the material breakdowns by Naug…

the collected colour scripts of Pixar's features, the best way to see many full strips. All levels, paid.

Khronos Group · Khronos Group (GitHub)

short, practical notes on baked AO versus SSAO. Beginner, free.

the transparency modes and their trade-offs in one place. Beginner, free.

Epic Games · Unreal Engine 5.8 Documentation

Blender Foundation · Blender 3.5 Manual

edges, loops, rings and poles with illustrations. Beginner, free.

the naming rules for custom collision. Beginner, free.

Remove Degenerates and the other mesh import options. Intermediate, free.

many small examples of items placed to guide and explain. Beginner, free.

Godot Engine contributors · Godot documentation (GitHub)

what the GPL means for the work you make in Blender. Beginner, free.

the theory behind why cage quality matters. Advanced, free.

the Degenerate, Intersections and non-manifold checks. Beginner, free.

Unity Technologies · High Definition Render Pipeline manual 17.0

Unity Technologies · Unity Manual (6000.2)

Epic Games · Unreal Engine Documentation

Epic Games · Unreal Engine documentation

Unity Technologies · Unity Manual (6000.2)

Autodesk · Maya 2026 Help

Unity Technologies · High Definition Render Pipeline manual 17.0

Unity Technologies · Unity Manual 2018.2

Epic Games · Unreal Engine Documentation

Digital Extremes · Warframe Steam Workshop guide

every problem Maya's Cleanup can find and fix. Intermediate, free.

what changed in Blender's FBX, glTF, OBJ and USD support. Intermediate. Free.

how Lumen handles occlusion and material AO. Intermediate, free.

Epic Games · Unreal Engine Documentation

a clear comparison of multiresolution, voxel remeshing and dynamic topology that applies to any tool. Beginner, free.

Epic Games · Unreal Engine documentation

Unity Technologies · Unity 6.6 Manual

Blender Foundation · Blender Manual (2.93)

Blender Foundation · Blender Manual (2.93)

Epic Games · Unreal Engine documentation

how loops and creases control sharpness under subdivision. Beginner, free.

how Unreal reduces meshes for LODs. Beginner, free.

SideFX · SideFX

Epic Games · Unreal Engine Documentation

Godot Engine contributors · Godot Engine documentation (source on GitHub)

Adobe · Substance 3D Bakers documentation

cascade count, split distances and soft shadow settings in URP. Beginner, free.

Epic Games · Unreal Engine Documentation

Godot Engine contributors · Godot Engine documentation (source on GitHub)

the AI Powered and B2M single-photo modes. Beginner. Free.

Marmoset · Marmoset Toolbag documentation

Blender Foundation · Blender Manual (3.6)

Godot Engine contributors · Godot Engine documentation (source on GitHub)

a short, official walkthrough of the greybox-then-iterate loop. Beginner, free.

wall thickness rules and leak settings for Lumen. Intermediate, free.

how Unreal combines distant objects to save draws. Intermediate, free.

Epic Games · Unreal Engine documentation

MACHIN3 · machin3.io

per-frame draw call targets for Quest 2 and Quest 3. Beginner, free.

the technical explanation of front and back faces and winding order. Intermediate, free.