How to make UDK not look like...UDK?
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So after using Cryengine for a bit it's come down to the time where I actually want to make something substantial out of all the modeling tutorials I've been through and actually make a game. Due to the lack of coding tutorials, various bugs, and the licensing problems on CryEngine I've come to the realization that UDK is the engine of the moment for me. Although I like the the UDK editor (especially the material editor) more than the Sandbox the way most UDK games look is a turn off for me. Namely, I almost always know if a game was made on UE3. It's the sort of plastic look and feel of it, the way the lighting and colors on UE3 games seem to be the same. I find that I'm really tired of this look, and it actively turns me off from playing UE3 based games. It instantly makes me think "crappy console port" at a deep level that I find disconcerting and don't want associated with my game.
The problem is, however, that I can't articulate the problem any more than just calling it the "look." I don't have the background in math or technical art that many of you do, so the first question I'm asking, I guess, is "what am I actually asking?" Maybe someone can help me define it in more technical terms. I'm assuming it has to do with the precomputed lighting defaults and the stock shaders that ship with the engine. Also, since most of the games I have issues with are console ports I'm assuming the console hardware has a lot to do with forcing game developers into that particular visual niche.
What I'd like to do is get UDK to look a bit more like Cryengine or idTech 5. Both of those engines feel a bit "sharper" to me because of the flatter looking material and color rendering (different tonemaps?) and different lighting. I find them more visually interesting and less tiring than the UE3 primary color barrage and plastic sheen on every material that I seem to get from a lot of titles.
The second question, then, would be: is there a way I can accomplish this, starting out, by tweaking a few parameters? Some blanket material, shader, or lighting setting that I can change? I'm learning the material system now and it's daunting (but amazing) so I'd like to be able to cut to the core of the problem at the get-go. The game I'm planning won't get near a console, so I'm free to use DX11 and more expensive materials if it will help me get my desired look.
The problem is, however, that I can't articulate the problem any more than just calling it the "look." I don't have the background in math or technical art that many of you do, so the first question I'm asking, I guess, is "what am I actually asking?" Maybe someone can help me define it in more technical terms. I'm assuming it has to do with the precomputed lighting defaults and the stock shaders that ship with the engine. Also, since most of the games I have issues with are console ports I'm assuming the console hardware has a lot to do with forcing game developers into that particular visual niche.
What I'd like to do is get UDK to look a bit more like Cryengine or idTech 5. Both of those engines feel a bit "sharper" to me because of the flatter looking material and color rendering (different tonemaps?) and different lighting. I find them more visually interesting and less tiring than the UE3 primary color barrage and plastic sheen on every material that I seem to get from a lot of titles.
The second question, then, would be: is there a way I can accomplish this, starting out, by tweaking a few parameters? Some blanket material, shader, or lighting setting that I can change? I'm learning the material system now and it's daunting (but amazing) so I'd like to be able to cut to the core of the problem at the get-go. The game I'm planning won't get near a console, so I'm free to use DX11 and more expensive materials if it will help me get my desired look.
Replies
.master shaders
.avoid the typical post effects, film grain, vignettes etc
.proper gi bakes - this is important probably should be at the top, (look into beast if you can afford it)
.dat gloss map
.tonemap and colormap dat shiz
but than there are a few ones that show obvious sings of being ue3 based like mass effect games.
mirrors edge didn't have the ue3 look to it at all also.
so it really comes down to a understanding of the engine.
UDK games always had that 'rough' look because that's what people made with it all the time. Yet Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, and plenty of other games uses UE and didn't look anything like it's 'name'.
Also, it would help as Chris and Passer said to learn some proper artwork flows, such as Post-Process tones, Bakes and Shaders.
Actually I was able to immediately tell that Max Effect and Borderlands were UE3 games. It might not be the visual cues, though, it might be the animation system or some other thing that tips me off all the time. It's just obvious to me for some reason. Mirror's edge, maybe not. I think it might be because they used Beast for GI in it that may have helped it.
I also asked this question over at the UDK forums - http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/933220-How-to-make-UDK-not-look-like-UDK?p=30828610&viewfull=1#post30828610 was an interesting response. I think it's mostly in the way the engine handles specular that's the turn off for me, so maybe it's worth it setting everything up with some decent cubemaps and glossmaps.
Also Chris mentions doing a "proper GI bake." Isn't that what lightmass is supposed to be doing?
Regarding specular, well that goes under shader part. If default model isn't good enough for your material you are able to make custom lighting models that might be better for that specific material type. Like cloth for example http://dmg3d.blogspot.com/2011/12/cloth.html
Anyway, here are 2 scenes I think don't have that UE look you're talking about, both come with downloadable files so you can see how they were done.
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/806760-Bathroom-Archviz-for-you-to-download-%28and-help-me%29
http://peterbritton.blogspot.com/2011/01/morgan-yon-concept.html
Nah just kidding.
Art direction matters hugely. It'd be cool if there were tools so art directors could modulate the spec/diffuse/emissive channelsof individual actors with a colour in the level editor. (like object-specific post processing) As it stands individual assets often get modelled like they're the only thing in the scene. Spec really makes normal maps pop out, so I'm guessing the material guys tend to really push the specular on everything they make so their hours of high poly/sculpting and baking show, even though it makes every single thing in the scene look like it's been clear coated.
Borderlands too? I really doubt that, since they used nothing other then diffuse sets for their models, which ANY OTHER engine could do the same with, and anything shiny was mostly environmental like water.
Mirrors Edge just used a fancy 3rd part AO baker, nothing more, you can achieve the same effect with the current baker in UE, the only difference is it will take more time and you can't preview the final bake until it done baking.
Also, about the Spec and Cube, yeah every other engines uses the same setup as UE, there's nothing 'magical' or 'I can see that' there, all game engines use Phong because it's abstract and better represents a large variety of surface, especially skin for characters, if you want Blinn, you can easily make it yourself for different surface not to be restricted by Phong, and if you want blurry cubemaps, then use Blurry cubemaps maybe?
It's usually the artists fault for not understanding that a noisy Normal map alongside a flat Specular texture is what breaks your model, UE also SRGB's it's textures (EI: Darkens them to Gamma 2.2) but that could be easily disabled.
Also, bloom is used alot too for some reason, if though Epic was kind enough to give us a premade Post-Process which allows for HDR...
It also doesn't help that no one who uses the EU engine (other then Epic themselves) seems to understand physically correct materials, such as fresnel and etc, I think I can count on my one hand alone the number of games made in UDK which even put in a single ounce of effort to make their models look next-gen as opposed to "HEY, look I have normals maps on my model and very glossy specular too".
So yeah, with that rant, what you need to understand is that people aren't putting in the effort, period. If you do, your model will look fantastic.
Btw, Borderlands does use normal maps. And while they don't have spec or gloss maps, They do use a channel from other textures (the diffuse usually) for the spec.
While this is an example of a character, the point still applies. Though they don't always use normals for things such as terrain materials and smaller props.
Here is a GIF of Roland with the major steps. In order as they appear: Base(no texture), Diffuse, Color masks (the function that lets you change character colors in game), Normals, Specular.
Here is how the specular is applied in the parent material for all 4 of the characters. I'd imagine this is the parent for all other characters as well, though i haven't checked.
Also, if someone wants to let me know how to show the attachments full-size so i don't quite so much like a noob, it would be most appreciated ^^
Well, that and the pawn and vehicle mechanics, which felt very much inherited from the respective UTclasses (not that that's bad, just the movement and response has a very familiar feel to it)
Yeah the normal and mip handling is a big downside for the UDK.
Mirrors Edge I had no idea until reading this thread.
And as most said, most games just plug and play with UDK and dont try and change things that much. Mass Effect tried, it looks great, fantastic art direction, but still, its obvious it was made in Unreal.
lighting is key
Engines have their own fingerprint and it is really hard to work around this.
I'm glad I'm not the only one on this and it's not all in my head. Also I find it interesting that the only game that nobody suspects is Mirror's Edge, which may reveal the overall effect that using Lightmass has on everything. Maybe there's a lightmass setting or two that can be changed to make it run more like Beast.
Thinking about the specularity issue, I think games these days, and UDK especially have a problem transmitting the idea of roughness visually. I was playing Tomb Raider: Underworld today and while some of the art is really great all of the stone materials have that plastic look (I know TR:UW isn't a UDK game but still, same deal). Cryengine is better at coming across as realistic with its default settings. I think they just have a more neutral way of presenting things in general, maybe you could chalk it up to a European vs. American mindset. I'd be grateful if someone could give me some tips on how to better use the UDK materials system to convey stone as a large part of my game is going to be rocks and stones. Overall I'm looking to achieve a flatter look.
However, at this point I'm not sure I have time to make all of these changes and build all custom materials. I'm one guy working on this game so I might just have to suck it up and deal with not being happy with the default settings.
Maybe it's about lighting, but it could be that games super distinct art direction too that make it not seem like an Unreal game
I think the current method of static baked lightmaps using Lightmass and other tools tends to wash things out alot. I often find I have things looking good in the preview window before compiling, only to find my scene washed out and lacking proper lighting contrast when baked.
I'm starting to notice you have to go to pretty extreme technical lengths within the shaders and perimeters to 'fake' a look that is not completely dull and smudgy.
The foliage map is a great example. At the time that came out I was working on a high poly Zbrush sculpted boulder and couldn't help but feel let down with how it looked in game despite generating great maps. The Foliage map Boulders however looked great with crisp details and a nice 'shine' to them. When I opened up the material it was a very large shader network, and I was surprised just how much technical knowledge it took to make this boulder not suck. I changed there maps with mine and I instally got great results.
Here is to hoping UE4, with it's new rendering tech. Moves away from alot of these issues..
Beast and Turtle can actually be tuned and fiddled with quite a bit if you want to go digging through the guts. Stuff like bounce behavior can be altered fairly easily (usually bounce boost at least is exposed).
The biggest thing to think about is colour correction using curves or a ramp. Without it, it sorta looked like a UDK game.
http://www.slideshare.net/DICEStudio/henrikgdc09-compat#btnNext
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I always thought I could tell right away too. Just goes to show...
Although was Mass Effect with Lightmass or Beast? Maybe it's just the exaggeration of color bleeding in Mirror's Edge and Beast that made it look that different.