Bunker Biology
polycounter lvl 7
I've more or less stopped reading or posting anything on polycount for several weeks and naturally came more and more the feeling of really missing it a lot. So not sure why I paused in the first place...
To work further and more focused towards a portfolio I decided to start a new enviroment. And to be honest, this decision came only after I created, what will probably be a center piece of said enviroment and what can be seen below.
The idea behind the enviroment is be one or two lone scientist in a cramped, bunker like enviroment, functioning both as work and living space, working on biological research.
Here is what I have so far.
The right side is without much external lights to show more of the self glow of the plants.
I fell lighting is one of my weakest fields so my goal is to improve on it with this project. And this leads me to the question:
How do you present/light single assets withing UE4 to present it well?
Specifically asking about the thing in the picture above:
- Should I maybe remove the screen, as it distracts from the actual focus of the organic within the machine?
- If I keep the screen, what are good ways to create shaders for computer screens beside using a simple emissive color and low roughness?
The next necessary step will be of course a blockout of the whole enviroment. I will post my progress here and I ask you for comments and critique to improve myself. Thank you.
To work further and more focused towards a portfolio I decided to start a new enviroment. And to be honest, this decision came only after I created, what will probably be a center piece of said enviroment and what can be seen below.
The idea behind the enviroment is be one or two lone scientist in a cramped, bunker like enviroment, functioning both as work and living space, working on biological research.
Here is what I have so far.
The right side is without much external lights to show more of the self glow of the plants.
I fell lighting is one of my weakest fields so my goal is to improve on it with this project. And this leads me to the question:
How do you present/light single assets withing UE4 to present it well?
Specifically asking about the thing in the picture above:
- Should I maybe remove the screen, as it distracts from the actual focus of the organic within the machine?
- If I keep the screen, what are good ways to create shaders for computer screens beside using a simple emissive color and low roughness?
The next necessary step will be of course a blockout of the whole enviroment. I will post my progress here and I ask you for comments and critique to improve myself. Thank you.
Replies
So here is my blockout from the scene, I hope the two shots show where I want to go with this. Green is scientific equipment, yellow is storage equipment.
View from main entrance:
View into the lab:
And since I do have something finished, here is a floor texture I made today:).
Orange as main color is still subject to change as I fear it might give the enviroment a too warm feel at the end.
To bring more detail on the wall panels, I plan on using decals and overlaying individual meshes that are exactly the size of the wall panels in the texture.
ScottMichaelH
Thank you!
After the doors are done I think I'll look into racks, storage crates etc. to get the room more filled fast.
This is the first asset I completely textured with Substance Painter. I had the tool for a while but never really got into it until now.
Also the lab door leading into the laboratory with the soon to come plants and experiments is modeled but texture is still WIP.
I hope I'm done with all the structural stuff soon, as I am eager to make smaller props and details.
As always, C&C much apreciated.
JoshuaG
I'm glad you like it so far.
The Material editor is still a lot of black magic to me but I feel that I miss so many opportunities by not knowing what to with it, and that means I will fight my way trough and learn it.
This is the material graph:
And this the outcome:
It is a bit more fluent and of course looping in the original.
Any help on how to improve visuals or performance of this are much much appreciated!
The Lighting is still placeholder and the wet glass material on the left machine is only for testing purpose for now.
Is it supposed to be the lab wing of a larger bunker, story wise? Not like 'story-wise,' you may know what I mean.
Might be cool if the top of the tiles got kinda fogged as it seems like a humid room. Also, the dark metal of the containment vessels and the white tiles seem too far apart in terms of value, it makes it seem like they're from different scenes.
You could lighten the vessels, or add darker elements on the walls and darken the tile a little. Just my suggestions, hope they help you even if you go with something different. :thumbup:
The bunker is very small and meant to be living space and workplace for two people. The layout is kind of L-shaped with the longer room with the desks and the bed as seen above and the smaller square room being though the blue door seen in my last post with the mushrooms.
Getting the tiles fogged is a good idea and sice I want to learn more how to use the Material Editor also a good learning opportunity.
The big difference in values is a point I haven't though of yet, thanks for pointing it out. I think I will darken the tiles and try to have the plants itself getting the highest values.