UE4 - Study Room

Flaw

Hello everyone,

Man, it's been some time since I posted anything here. So, I decided I needed to post up my new WIP.

This is a 19th century study, the idea is that it belongs to a diamond thief. He's drinking after his latest heist just basking in his good fortune.
My ideas are to obviously add some diamonds and jewelry around. Also, I want to add some fancy treasures around that make it look a bit more well, like a diamond thief's study might look.

There are still a few place holders like the boxes over the fireplace I have yet to replace with some picture frames. Also, the ceiling is still place holder. There's no logs or tools for the fireplace yet. But, all of that is coming soon.

I still have quite a bit to add to this environment, so please have a look and let the critiques roll in. I look forward to reading them. Thanks!





[IMG]http://www.polycount.com/forum/[11:18:27 PM] Phil Derbyshire: https://i.imgur.com/lndx8Xz.jpg[/IMG]

Hayden Zammit

Maybe someone with a bit more experience could chime in, but I think that chair is way too high poly. The cushion has heaps of bevels that you don't need, and overall, the chair just looks like its got a lot of wasted edges.

locater16

Hayden Zammit wrote: »

Maybe someone with a bit more experience could chime in, but I think that chair is way too high poly. The cushion has heaps of bevels that you don't need, and overall, the chair just looks like its got a lot of wasted edges.

Depends entirely on the game, and the target hardware. The chair would be fine and dandy for a PS4/XNE/PC game, not so much for mobile stuff.

The individual assets, at least the chair and phonograph, look quite nice. The chair in fact does a rather solid, if a bit too angular, job of the exact same style of chair my grandfather had and my brother now has. Having lived with it for years I'd say it's quite reminiscent.

The room however leaves something to be desired. The wallpaper feels very uniform and tiled, the lighting will I hope be entirely rebuilt, and if you're going to put that many polys into the chair (which can again be fine) then spend some more on things like the newspapers as well, which don't fit into the same resolution of asset quality.

Spoon

Hayden Zammit wrote: »

Maybe someone with a bit more experience could chime in, but I think that chair is way too high poly. The cushion has heaps of bevels that you don't need, and overall, the chair just looks like its got a lot of wasted edges.

I agree. Just because it CAN run on a PS4 game, doesnt mean that it is a good idea to waste half the polygon budget on nothing, in my opinion

The assets themselves looks very nice. I think better lighting could hugely improve this set

Holland

Since this is an interior you can usually throw a few more polygons around, so i wouldn't worry. What i would worry about though is the arm silhouette. The extra edge loops around the edge of the cushion should be used to add a few more sides on the arm. You should always think more about the overall silhouette of your low poly. You could quite easily have a single chamfer around the cushion edge and make the arms a lot rounder. Looking great overall though

Snader

That chesterfield is far too boxy/sharp. Chesterfields are bulbous leathery things. I also don't get why your lowpoly isn't following the pattern more, such as this:



Or the inverse, with the recesses/buttons being the center of the diamonds. Either way you'll get something that follows the pattern of the materials more.

And what I think most people here saying 'too many polies' mean is this: you're wasting them. Even if this would work fine on a console, the bevels you've got are not doing much and would be better spend rounding out the large shapes.

In general, you're wasting a lot of polygons and loops. Look at the bottom/side of the chair. What is essentially a flat wooden board, has got 8x4 loops. The armrests are also 4 loops deep, despite not having any curve along that axis. You've got two completely useless loops at the bottom of the recordplayer's thin stick, and several in the crank handle/shaft. I don't quite see why the hearth needs 7k tris either unless you've modeled all of the bas-relief florals (which I don't think you did).

Oh and your nails and buttons are too small. They need to be about 150%~ 200% of the current size.

Flaw

Thanks for taking a look at my work everyone.

It looks like I have a bit more work to do on my chair then! I appreciate all of the critique on it. I'll jump right in and make a second pass on the low poly. I feel like it's going to come out a lot better with all of the good comments.

(Snader)
That's a similar wireframe I had when i set up the high poly. Now that you mention it, I'm not sure why I went flat geometry when I did the low poly. I'll add that into the updated model. Thanks.

Flaw

Alright, I've been busy with a few projects but I've finally made the updates to the chair.

I greatly lowered the poly count and fixed some of the other issues that were pointed out. I was feeling good so I worked on the model quite a bit, I also wanted to try out Marmoset 2 since I finally picked it up.

Suba

I'm not an environment guy but I think it is looking really cool man.

Poinball

Yeah nice job for the chair !

locater16

Flaw wrote: »

Alright, I've been busy with a few projects but I've finally made the updates to the chair.

I greatly lowered the poly count and fixed some of the other issues that were pointed out. I was feeling good so I worked on the model quite a bit, I also wanted to try out Marmoset 2 since I finally picked it up.

Eugh... the improvement to the back is noticeable, but now it's obviously angular. I've got colleagues that will spend 40k polygons on a single character, and then have dozens of characters as such running around the screen at the same time on the new consoles, you can spend a bit to make the armrests look round.

Or not, you don't have to listen to me! Still looking forward to the rest of the scene. :thumbup:

Derbyshire

Hey Leo it's coming along nicely! It looks like you've added more grunge to the wallpaper since the last time you showed me, definitively adds to the atmosphere of the room.

Also I just noticed this but the rear of the arm rest does looks like its missing an edge loop or two as the edge looks fairly straight, locater16 is right about it could look a little more rounded in that area. Other than that it is a remarkable improvement over the original!

jacksteel

Looking really nice man. Love the phonograph and all your presentation!

Flaw

Big thanks to everyone for looking at my work and giving me your comments. It's really been driving me to make the scene look even better. So thanks again all!

(locater16)
You're right, I'll add some polys to that arm and round it out. Thanks!

(Phil)
Thanks man! I have some other ideas for the walls as well. I've been planning on doing some wood trim maybe on the lower half of the wall.

Flaw

Chair update:

I added some additional polys to the arm rest to round it out.

Flaw

A couple of updates here:

I added a bit of lighting, this uncovered some issues that I need to fix. I'm not going to mess with it too much yet. Not until I get the windows and the outside looking the way I want them. I'm thinking of possibly doing a snow storm, or just some light snow particles. I for sure want to do ice on the windows later.


I went back to working on the fireplace after the chair was finished up. I made a log holder with some logs. I know that I could reduce the poly count on this as well, I'll probably do that a bit.


Well, I have a lot more to do with this. I hope I have more time this week to keep the updates coming. Thanks guys!

Flaw

Hello again guys,

I've been taking some time to practice, and have also been tied up doing various work and tests. At any rate, I decided it was time to start finishing this environment.
However, when I came back to it after several months I realized that I've gained some new skill since I first started this environment.

So, I'm recreating some of the things that I feel were wrong or just not properly created.

Here is an update on the wall.
I hope I have some time to fix/finish this environment up.

beefaroni

Looking good so far!! My only crit is that you really should set it at night.

This is a 19th century study, the idea is that it belongs to a diamond thief. He's drinking after his latest heist just basking in his good fortune.

Ya, definitely at night! You can get some really nice candle light going combined with the fireplace. Maybe some stars visible through the window.

Good luck.

GrungyStudios

This looks great. I agree with @beefaroni, a night environment would really suit this scenee nicely

Ged

Good scene. The lighting is rather flat, seems a shame when ue4 is so good at doing dramatic lighting. yeah maybe a night scene would be more appropriate.

Deathstick

You could still keep it daylight outside and make it look dramatic as well. For example, have the shades pulled down more, put window blinds over it, and have god rays come through the blinds highlighting dust particles, leaving a high contrast long dynamic shadow from the blinds coming into the room. Sort of like, hey this guy is trying to relax and read a book but the damn sun is so bright that its shining on the pages making it hard to read, so the guy is trying his darnest to block out the sun, an old problem whose contemporary medium is sun glare on monitors. That, or he has a hangover/is a vampire

Half-smoked cigars if you're supposed person that lived there is a smoker would create some subtle stains or a more smokey environment, same thing with the fireplace. Basically, it could do with some sort of volumetric lighting and higher contrast in shadows/lighting.

Think film noir or theater lighting. Bioshock infinite, left4dead2, etc. if you're looking for inspiration on how to create dramaticly lit environments when it's still bright outside. Usually it has to do with long contrasting shadows. Never do 12:00pm lighting, it's boring as hell.

Mr Significant

Your textured wood is sexy. As hell. Can you post some basic wood textures that you used? Are they clean? Maybe links to them? I would love to see them.

But Its miising something, maybe its too bright in there? Maybe its need atmosphericall lightning, subtle lightning. You should try that. Only from candles, and firekeep.

Subbed.

Flaw

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the ideas. I'm in agreement that the lighting was off before. I'm going to be cracking down on the lighting pretty soon trying to get it correct. I think I'll go with a night/snowy scene and try to do some lighting like you see in Thief. It's pretty dramatic with lots of dust/smoke. Also plenty of warm and cool lights blending.

@Deathstick
Definitely going to go for the smokey hangover thing. That seems very fitting. Thanks for all the good advice!

@Mr Significant
Thank you! Some of it is Zbrush and Photoshop. The rest I mixed and composted some of the wood images I found here: http://www.freestockimages.org/2010/09/13/free-stock-images-part-32-old-wood-textures/

Yesterday I did a floor texture. I also removed the old walls on the map and placed the new ones. I deleted all of the lighting and dropped in a couple lights.
I'm not going all out on lighting yet because I'm making some new better windows. Once those are up I'll try and get a better lit scene.
I think I want to place the windows opposite the fire place and have the bluish atmosphere lighting meet in the middle with the warm fireplace lighting. Or something like that. Should make more sense once I add the windows.

Flaw

Baked the window a minute ago. Planning to add some ice around it. I plan to do the glass as emissive.