How to create a video game world using Blender and Photoshop

August 26, 2026 - 11:46

Cyril Yong Zhou recently shared his full workflow for creating stylized, interactive environments, breaking down how he combines Blender and Photoshop to build worlds that feel alive and game-ready. His approach is not about hyper-realism but about strong art direction and smart use of tools.

Zhou starts with blockouts in Blender, focusing on composition and scale before any fine detail. He emphasizes that the silhouette of the environment matters more than textures at this stage. Once the layout feels right, he moves into modeling with a modular mindset, creating pieces that can be reused across the scene. This keeps the workload manageable and helps maintain visual consistency.

For textures, Zhou relies heavily on Photoshop, but not for hand-painting every pixel. He uses photo bashing and custom brushes to build albedo maps, then generates normal and roughness maps through Blender's baking tools. The key, he says, is to keep the texture sets small and efficient, so they work well in real-time engines without killing performance.

Lighting is where the mood comes in. Zhou uses Blender's Eevee for quick previews, but final lighting is often done inside the game engine itself. He advises setting up a simple sun and sky system first, then adding local lights to guide the player's eye. Color grading in Photoshop, applied to the final screenshots, helps unify the scene, but he warns against overdoing it.

The whole process, Zhou notes, is iterative. He constantly jumps between Blender, Photoshop, and the engine, testing how the world feels to move through. His final tip: do not chase realism. Stylized worlds need a clear rule set for shapes, colors, and lighting, and sticking to those rules is what makes them believable.