THRONE ROOM - N_Ubis future Egypt - Malodomini

Malodomini

For my throne room I plan on doing a futuristic throne, which might be found on a spaceship. My idea is to make it in an Egyptian architectural style as if ancient Egyptian culture had continued on its previous tangent. I want to try to incorporate some aspects of brutalist architecture, as I feel that it bears some similarities to ancient Egyptian architecture. Namely in the solid, geometric concrete forms. Brutalism emphasizes function over form, so there are a lot of hard, rectangular surfaces echoing the structural elements of buildings. The innate textures of concrete are allowed to exist without polish or embellishment. For my research I was looking at a lot of mid-century Russian, 1980s British, as well as modern Egyptian architecture.

This throne would be inhabited by N_Ubis, a character I created a few years ago who is a sci-fi reinterpretation of Anubis.

I will be modelling this in Maya and Zbrush, texturing in Substance Designer and Photoshop, rendering in Unreal Engine 4.

Malodomini

Here are some images that I am using to influence my project:

Malodomini

Here is some early concept work for this project:

Malodomini

Some sketches:

Malodomini

Base Model:

Aerashi

Awesome idea! I'd be careful with the spines/ridges you've got on you profile view of the whole dog statue/robot - makes it feel more like the mounts in heroes of the storm than something Egyptian inspired.

Looking forward to seeing this progress!

Malodomini

Here is my first sample Marmoset render of one piece of my throne. Some texture work has been done and UVs are all laid out. I think I may yet add some runes in zbrush and further refine the texture work.

[img]0http://i.imgur.com/kJnQmCs.jpg?1[/img]

Malodomini

Spencer_Holmes

I like the Throne a lot!

_Kratos_

Got a Stargate feeling that is lovely!

Malodomini

Thanks for the comments Aerashi, Spencer and Kratos. I'm glad you like my throne idea!

Malodomini

Now I'm looking at my substance preview and I'm thinking, what if this was made of a metal/concrete kind of hybrid? I mean it is supposed to appear futuristic and kind of alien. I'm going to do some tests with that tonight.

Malodomini

The textures are coming along nicely. Here is a render done in Marmoset. I decided to use Theban runes instead of using Egyptian hieroglyphics exclusively, as I figured that if ancient Egyptian civilization had continued on its course, they would have developed a more complicated alphabet. Theban is often used by ceremonial magicians in conjunction with Egyptian hieroglyphs, so I figured it would be most appropriate. It gives the throne a more occult feel as well, which I am pleased with.

Jesse Walsh

Nice work and cool idea. I can't wait to see the rest of it.

Jayden.H

sexy, i love this kind of egyptian architecture.

Aerashi

Looking very cool! I like that you've thought out the history of >why< the alphabet would progress. Have you tried a yellow/gold emissive instead of the ice blue btw? Gold and pharaohs always goes together in my mind.

juoolz

I have to second Jayden.H The style is sexy...really looking forward to this one.

Malodomini

Thanks for the comments everyone! Here's the most recent asset I have created for my throne room. A smaller statue, of which many will flank either side of the throne. I thought I would make these a little more smooth, just to give some variety. While I know this deviates from the Brutalist/ancient Egyptian style hybrid I mentioned earlier, I felt I would need to break up some of the cold, harsh and rigid geometry to provide a little more visual interest. Here it is:

LunaZ

I like the direction. Looks really good. Reminds me a little bit of Stargate.

rribeiro

Hey dude, amazing work, I really enjoy the forms, the art direction picked and the textures as well. Please show us more.

Malodomini

Thanks you two. Glad you like. Here's some more:




I think this platform should work for elevating the throne and giving it a more imposing presence. I wanted to go with something that spoke to Egyptian sensibilities, without being an overt pyramid. I figured a triangular half pyramid would be more interesting. Still trying to keep with the brutalist forms, though I have found it's really difficult to keep visual interest with such simplistic forms, at least in a way that makes sense. I don't want my models to look like simple block models, but alas - brutalist architecture often does. The main struggle ahead, I think, lies in making believable columns. Ultimately I want there to be a space backdrop, seen through glass sandwiched between repeating columns. Hopefully I can do this without losing the "future Egyptian" flavour.

Malodomini

It would also be nice to include some sort of light sconces or stands. That might help break up the monotony of the main room as well (which I will post this weekend some time).

querly

This is coming along super good. Can't wait to see the final renders!

Malodomini

Thanks Querly. Now if only I could render them in Unreal Engine with the same ease as in Marmoset Toolbag! Maybe it's just user error, but no two previews look the same. This is going to take some serious investigating.

Malodomini

I have now brought the models I have so far into Unreal. I had a few problems with lighting, namely that it is not terribly consistent and will display differently every time I run it. I also had a bunch of nasty black patches over a lot of my meshes, but increasing my lightmap resolution seemed to fix this for the most part. I also had to re-UV a few of my objects, as the light was getting stretched on some faces. So here's my first go at Unreal Engine 4!

Malodomini

Oops! Posted the same image twice! Here's the one that should have gone there.

Malodomini

Finally got my sky working! Instead of using the sky sphere native to UE4, I decided to just make a polygon cube in Maya, then brought in a cubemap space texture from spacescape (a free math-based star field generation app). I just used one of the files it came with for now, until I get a better understanding of all the variables. I just threw some BSP volumes in there as placeholders until I sculpt the columns, which will probably look like futuristic obelisks with a glowing strip vertically bisecting them. I will probably redo the texture on the floor panels below the semi-pyramid that the throne sits on, as it looks kind of bad at the moment. Anyway, here's some pictures!

Malodomini

Now I'm in a bit of a quandary. I feel like I'm achieving at least a rudimentary interpretation of brutalist architecture, but I keep wanting to add more detail for visual interest's sake. Unfortunately that so often just doesn't work with this style! I can't just throw in some filth and edge wear textures either, because I want it to be mostly clean looking. Time for some more image browsing! What I notice is that with the brutalist architecture that I find most interesting and inspiring has a certain simplicity and repetition to the forms, but is broken up by a slight irregularity at regular intervals (somewhat convoluted I know). My plan going forward is to include some aspect of this in the supports and columns for this room. Hopefully I can achieve this to a believable degree! Here's a good example of what I'm talking about:

Atokal

>.>
your sky is trippy, I love it.

I would consider pointing your primary light source towards all the awesome detail you put into your throne, its getting lost in the darkness.

and just a quick question I may have missed because I just skimmed over your pictures. Why is the throne room in space? >.>

Malodomini

Thanks for the comments Atokal. I agree, there needs to be some light spilling into the throne, thanks for pointing that out! As for why the throne room is in space, I was thinking about how there are a lot of fringe groups out there who believe that the pyramids were constructed by aliens, so I thought it would be interesting to make a sort of space-travelling god throne. I figured, if Anubis (or in this case N_Ubis) were framed as more of an alien space traveler, that would fit with some of the conspiracies surrounding this concept. Another idea I was tossing around was, what if the ancient Egyptians continued on their previous course, as opposed to suffering a huge collapse? What if they had become the dominant superpower on earth and continued into space, past the technological singularity, eventually becoming almost godlike? So this project is kind of a combination of these ideas.

Malodomini

Really, at some point these two ideas could converge. Perhaps civilization on earth had become so powerful at some point and some of our ancestors moved on to the stars. Then, after millions of years, maybe they would come back as hyper-evolved astral beings, while the humans left on earth sustained the rise and fall of multiple civilizations, always limited by the size of this planet and our inability to move on and work together. Just a few ideas I've been toying around with as to why this throne would be in space.

pour.quoi

I know I told you this in person already, but-DAAAAAAAAAMN

Malodomini

Thanks!

Malodomini

Here's another update with some columns, platform supports and slightly better lighting (though could use better fill light on the throne). Next step might be some light sconces near the middle area as well as better textures, including runes and another eye of Anubis (or N_Ubis, because that's so much cooler) on the floor meshes. I don't like the stone texture that is currently on the floor modules, so I may replace it with more of a marbled metal similar to the columns.

Malodomini

Here are a few more renders, with some textures replaced and a little better lighting:



And a wireframe of the throne and dog sculpture:

Malodomini

Now I'm looking at the throne's head and I realize I still need to light it a little better yet. A lot of the texture detail is getting lost in darkness. That will have to be a project for next week.

skyline5gtr

Very Stargate like

Malodomini

Haha! I've heard that a lot. I was slightly crestfallen at first, but have come to accept it. After all, there are no new ideas, according to Mark Twain. I'm going to have to check out Stargate now, in any case.

Malodomini

Here are some of my maps. I chose to exclude normal, emissive and metal map, as they are not very interesting. This is mostly because I did not create high poly models, all objects are either full metal or no metal and finally, the emissive maps just have a few small symbols on them. Any way, here they are.