Mayan Temple from Raiders of the Lost Ark - WIP requesting feedback

zachstambaugh

Hey Guys,

Putting together the Mayan Temple from the beginning of Raider's of the Lost Ark. I fig'd it would be something fun to do (and something I'm super familiar with, having watched Raiders a million times). I'll be posting up WIP pictures.

As of right now I have some basic geom blocked in in UE4 and lit w/ primitive scene lights based off stills i have of the movie.

Chime in with feedback as I go along. I'd really like some honest critiques so I can make this as good as possible. Thanks!


3DS Max block-out workfile


UE4 Dart Hallway setup


Idol Chamber (camera angle from the movie)


Idol Chamber, this time w/ more fill light

Cheers!

zachstambaugh

I've created the Dais, Stone Seats, and the dart pressure-pad floor tiles. Here are some render comps of the Dais and seats:





and here are some shots of the UE4 setup. I took out the dramatic lighting so I could make sure everything is lining up and get a gauge of how the albedo looks. I'll be doing some adjustments to the color of the floor tiles. I also need to figure out how to adjust UE4's ambient occlusion and add some dramatic lighting back in so the reflectivity of the wet mud is more visible and.







As always, comments/critiques. Have a good night everyone!

-Zach

zachstambaugh

Apologies for the dark pictures- I checked in on my thread from my computer at work and realize that I must have cranked up the brightness on my monitors at home at some point b/c these pictures are horrendously under-lit and dark. I'll do a calibration today so that everything from here on out will be visible *shrug*

zachstambaugh

Worked on the idol yesterday. Here it is in a quick comp with a placeholder gold texture on it to see how it looks. Going to bake off some other hipolys tonight and post up the scene tomorrow evening. Cheers!

Hayden Zammit

...so is that idol reaching around, pulling its butt cheeks apart and giving birth to another little guy at the front?

Auldbenkenobi

That's what I was thinking ^

It's only just occurred to me that I've seen that film dozens of times but never paid any attention to what the idol actually is...

WesleyArthur

Haha awesome stuff, great choice of subject matter, it's a classic film.

If you're looking for reference you could always have a root around for some Assassin's Creed screenshots. They're rather keen on Mayan stuff, it might be worth having a look and seeing if there's something of use in there.

Love the idol's face!

Shrike

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qq7754ZZlE

brandv3d

Nice work man, everything looks awesome.

Ootrick

You realy need to stop texturing/modelling and focus on composition. lighting, mood ect. What story are you trying to tell? It's so fun to dive in and get all caught up in making pretty 3D objects. Take some time to block in your environment, attain a good composition and flow. Know and learn how to draw the eye and player within the composition of your props. You need to light the scene so you know where and what you need to pay attention to and detail.

I'm going to assume you're only using 3-4 lights for the whole scene? You should realy look into some lighting documentation and tutorials. Keep in mind - Your scene should look amazing BEFORE any detail models and textures are applied.

zachstambaugh

@ Hayden and Kenobi - yea, i didn't even realize that's what the idol was either until I started getting on prop forums and getting screenshots for reference. It's based on a larger aztec fertility idol, which is surprisingly even more detailed and creepy.

@ Wesley - thanks for the advice on reference - i've only played the first two and that was a while ago. I'll look some of it up!

@ Strike - lulz !!

@ Brandy - appreciate the compliment!

@ Ootrick - Yea, I'll be brushing up on the scene today. Right now my focus has been on figuring out the modularity of the scene and working on the key pieces of the scene that can serve as stand-alone portfolio pieces. Now that I've moved on to scene pieces (rocks/dart walls, etc) i'll be working on the lighting and composition.

On that note: it's going to pose a bit of a challenge to do that lighting since I'll be using the movie as inspiration, but each shot is lit separately to serve the needs of the camera angle. If anyone has any good reference shots lying around, feel free to post them. I'll be researching Tomb Raider, Uncharted, and Assassin's Creed tonight for ideas.

AshuraDX

Amazing work so far !
but I ....


thought you might want to fix that, If you havn't noticed it by yourself by now

zachstambaugh

Well played Ashura, you win this round...

zachstambaugh

Not much to report, messed around with the scene lighting and got a bit closet to the right direction. After looking at some examples from tomb raider/uncharted, i tried to darken the overall scene, with a bit of brown fill light. I have broken bits of light shining through, though they're blue so as to light the scene but not detract from the focal point (the idol). I'll probably scale back the color as i bring in other elements - also looking to apply a gel or some cut-out effect to prototype the light breaking through leaves. Everything else from today has been rock sculpting/retopo in 3ds max, so not much to show in terms of new assets.

Cheers!

pixelpatron

vs.



Loving this project, but your lighting needs a major overhaul. Go to the point where feedback is telling you you've gone too bright and need more dark areas. I can't even see what work you've done this is so dark.

zachstambaugh

pixelpatron wrote: »

vs.



Loving this project, but your lighting needs a major overhaul. Go to the point where feedback is telling you you've gone too bright and need more dark areas. I can't even see what work you've done this is so dark.

Sorry for the late update. It's been a hectic weekend during which i had no time to work on anything UE4 related.

@PixelPatron - Heeding your advice, i put in a crap-ton more lights. I honestly felt really uncomfortable overlapping lights on light on lights, but it looks like I'm moving in the right direction. Thanks for the advice! :thumbup:





Now I'll be jumping back over the working on the asset meshes until more feedback on the scene itself (notably the floors, they tile well but being a plane w/ a normal has them looking WAY too flat).

AshuraDX

Ever though of using a Parallax shader for the floor ? should help with the flatness
Good work on fixing that seam btw

Shrike

Maybe ditch the point light and use a directional light to get a harsh window like shadow, you could also help with some torches I dunno

in the movie they have very artificial lighting it is very strange, obviously they used many lights

pixelpatron

I really like the separate bricks on the wall pieces. I'd love to see something similar on the ground floor piece. Are you sculpting the floor?

zachstambaugh

Thanks man. I havent sculpted the floor as of yet- right now I've just made hard-edge versions of the tiles w/ bend and turbo smooth and baked that out for normals and a color map. I retopo'd and unwrapped it for better resolution and then set up a material using some lerps and tileable textures that I made. Here it is as we speak:



it's not the best or most accurate looking thing, but it's bearable enough that it gives me more of an idea of what the scene's going to look like. I'd like to go back and take more time offsetting some of the tiles.

Mentioning the separate bricks, I'm working on those right now turning them into the stone-carved dart traps:



I feel like I've hit that point where the block-in is giving me a good idea of where I'm going, so I'm taking my time making all of the assets portfolio-worthy and really pushing to get a great scene out of this.