Cathedralem Caerulea Cristae (Bluejay’s Cathedral) is an ongoing Cathedral I’ve been modeling, texturing, lighting, and setting up in Unreal Engine 5, as my Semester Project for my final semester at VCU.
The only objects in this scene that I did not model and texture were the rock models used to make the cave outside the cathedral, which were provided by PolyOne Studio through Sketchfab. “Free Pack – Rocks Stylized” (https://skfb.ly/pvDxJ) by PolyOne Studio is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Itch.io Page: https://m0th-aigg.itch.io/cathedralem-caerulae
Programs
· Maya 2025 · Substance Painter · Substance Designer · Unreal Engine 5 ·
Research & Concept
I honed in on French and Spanish gothic cathedrals as the main inspiration for the style of the cathedral, and specifically Christopher J. Wilson’s book The Gothic Cathedral, along with Alexander Speltz’s Styles of Ornament.
The props and decorative features however, were referenced by stained glass & lampshades produced by Tiffany Studios, and the reliquary of Mary Magdalene, specifically the skull relic.
Base Models & UV Maps
My main goal with modeling was to have as many interchangeable pieces as possible. I made a basic wall building block that I could duplicate and build out the main hall of the cathedral in, and when I was planning out the rest of the props and details, I would space everything out relative to that wall building block, so I could duplicate that basic block, place it, and in a couple cases- like the windowless sections in the mini domes, I would adjust slightly. That way, once I did my UV map for the first wall section, I wouldn’t have to redo them again, unless I needed to re-scale it.
I did the same approach with my columns, where the main edits would be the height of the column, but I could move around the top and bottom details wherever I needed to.
Materials
I made all the textures in the scene (excluding the rocks in the cave) with Substance Designer & Substance Painter.
For the stained glass, I drew out the designs for all of the glass and exported two versions, one with color and one black & white version into Substance Painter. Afterwards, I layered the base color onto my glass mesh, and added my basic glass texture with a height mask and another layer to make it all smooth. To get the bevel effect, I used the black and white version of my texture and set that as the mask for a height layer, and then applied a bevel effect to that B&W mask to get that consistent slope & distance from the metal, and used a levels layer to adjust how sharp the edges of glass would be. To make the metal connecting all the glass, I set up a simple metal material, before applying that B&W texture as a mask, and applying an inverse filter to that, so it would only affect the areas without glass.
Stained Glass – May 2025
For the cathedral structure, aside from the spider & web motifs, my main focus was building out the walls around these stained glass windows. These windows fulfill the same purpose as the Stations of the Cross in a standard cathedral, to prompt the viewer to walk around the entire cathedral and to document the life of a character. In the context of this cathedral, this life begins when Bluejay meets her patron and will end with Lolth’s inevitable betrayal.
For the light coming into the church and projecting the image of the window inside, I set that up inside of Unreal Engine itself, with light functions that I would connect the color map, which would project the image and allow it to interact with the environment. Each window needed three lights, with a red, blue, and green light
This is an ongoing project, and I’m continuing to update and refine the lighting, which will get updated periodically.
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