[UE4][WIP] Wizard's Room

Wabbaboy

Hi there, first time making a thread here.
If anybody wants to follow the progress in any other place feel free to check my Twitter and Tumblr:
https://twitter.com/Wabbaboy
http://wabbaboy.tumblr.com/

So, I'm a 3D artist living in Europe, I don't have professional experience but I worked in a couple of quite long student projects using UE4 that ended up being quite playable. Since I finished those projects I haven't seem to catch much attention from indie and Triple A devs and I've been rejected left and right so I decided to make something really good (by my standards) before keep trying.

I like fantasy-medieval settings a lot and I feel comfortable modelling and texturing for them so I decided to make something based on that, the idea is to make a wizard room with the usual: a bunch of books on a big library, rare items that wizards get through their travels, magic elements here and there to make things interesting, an alchemy lab, a comfy place to relax. That kind of thing all in the same room, which will be pretty big.

The artstyle will be as realistic as I'm able to get it, but I'd like to have bright colors here and there. I'm using Zbrush, Painter, Designer, Photoshop and 3Ds Max.
I don't have the best of computers and since this is in UE4 I need to have in mind optimisation, by the end of the project I hope to have it at 60fps stables at 1080, but it's not the biggest of my concerns as long as it looks good.

This is my main reference, I did not created this piece of concept art, it's from a game called Wonderbook: Book of Spells and it's just what I want to achieve in term of setting and scale



I also watched the Harry Potter movies and collected references along the way.



So far I've been working without sticking strictly to a concept art because I feel more motivated every time I stumble across a new fantasy piece of art that I'd like to model, so yeah I've been modelling whatever felt fun to model to me at that time if that makes any sense.

So far this is what I've got. It's in pretty early stage, I created this project about 3 months ago but I've only made significant progress through January which is when I modelled most of the props.



I'm pretty happy with the scale so far but some props might be too big, I'm willing to change any element of it as I develop this further and get feedback along the way.

Also I programmed a bit of interaction with the environment. I made a poor man's Amnesia/SOMA-like gameplay which basically lets me pick stuff that's simulating physics and interact with simple stuff like doors and furniture. I did it because I got a bit tired of modelling stuff and from time to time I like to program simple stuff to give myself a change in pacing, it's been quite refreshing so far.

These are a couple of models I made for this project that I'm proud so far, critiques are welcome of course.

This is an armchair with a cushion stool, took me about 3 days to create, one of them just tweaking small stuff.

model

And this is a piece of armor that took me about a week, I finished it yesterday but I'm planning on changing what's underneath it, which at the moment is the UE4 third-person Mannequin.

model
I haven't had much success putting this piece in any 3D viewer but if you want to check the neat renders there are some in my artstation page http://https//www.artstation.com/artwork/xw0ER

That's it for now, hope you like it and feel free to critique. I hope to come back with progress at least once every week.

FreneticPonies

The normal map, and texel density in general, feel like they're scaled too large compared to the model on the chair. It makes it look like a toy instead of an actual piece of furniture.

Nathan3D

good start, are you sticking with that brick material? i dont think it fits with what your trying to achieve and doesnt fit in with the references you posted.
I think that your knight could do with a few more polys, the pauldrons are very low poly and you can see big straight lines with only 6 edges it looks like? 
good start though

Wabbaboy

FreneticPonies said:

The normal map, and texel density in general, feel like they're scaled too large compared to the model on the chair. It makes it look like a toy instead of an actual piece of furniture.

I don't really get it. You mean that it looks tiny inside that room or that its texture looks odd for some reason? If you meant the environment, maybe is the perspective of the shot or could be that I haven't got the scale right, I'm constantly changing it and I feel like I should let it rest for a while and come back to it in a few days.
Either way I'm sure it'll be fixed as I add more props and whatnot to the environment.

Adelphia said:

good start, are you sticking with that brick material? i dont think it fits with what your trying to achieve and doesnt fit in with the references you posted.
I think that your knight could do with a few more polys, the pauldrons are very low poly and you can see big straight lines with only 6 edges it looks like? 
good start though

Thanks. No, I'm not planing on sticking to those bricks, that was barely my first try at designer and I'm not very happy with it, you'd probably say the same about the floor if you were able to see it from that shot. So yeah I'm still trying to get the grip on designer.
You are right about the Knight and I'm planning on getting back to it with a bit more of perspective because I'm not happy with its pose, helmet size and detail on the skirt, which I'd like to add wrinkles eventually.

Wabbaboy

Small update, I've been working on a gramophone (I think it's called) and reworked an old prop which is a telescope. 4.6k and 4.9k of triangles respectively.

I'm a bit concerned that all my yellow-wish metal is looking samey because of the preset I'm using in Substance. I always change the generators and add stuff here and there but to me it still feels like it's the exact same type of metal in all the props I'm texturing. I also feel like it's a positive thing in a way because it makes for a more consistent artstyle but I'm not so sure.

I've been also working on some structural stuff and big elements but those are not worth showing yet. Once those are done, the room will look a lot less empty. I also animated the gramophone and programmed a bit of interaction, it doesn't show in this video but it plays a song and all.
http://streamable.com/jsw0l

KrisLW

I can see the armchair thing, but I'm not sure how to describe it. It almost seems like it's too rough? The texture kind of reminds me of orange peel rather than what I assume would be older, worn leather. (I wouldn't expect those old wizardy types to be buying new furniture )

I think that your gold/brass/gilded materials are fine. If it's supposed to all be made out of the same material, then it's expected it's going to look similar - but I think that you have enough variation in there that they look like they were made by different people/at different times/with different processes/etc.

The big thing that looks like it needs work to me - and it may come with time and filling up the scene - is the atmosphere. Or lack there of. The candle lighting at the top is far too white, in my opinion, and a bit too bright. The candles could just as easily be replaced with lightbulbs and that lighting would still fit. The atmosphere so far seems very manufactured.

Random idea: I love the telescope, what if the stars carved into the wood were inlaid with gems? Could be an interesting way to add subtle bits of color.
Edit: Also, since you mentioned simple programming, I would also suggest making the candles flicker and vary in brightness and intensity. (If you haven't already thought of that.)

Wabbaboy

KrisLW said:

[...]

The thing with the armchair might be the last interaction I made over the normal map, which might be applied over the wrong places.

Thanks for the feedback and yeah, I know the room just looks soulless but so far I've only used BSP (big blocks) to make the structure and just doesn't feel "natural" (by natural I mean actually well constructed artificially if that makes any sense). It feels alien because it still doesn't make sense, it even feels alien considering there is fantasy here and there. The environment it's a big draft at the moment and I'm changing it as every new group of props is introduced in the scene. I might make the ceiling more boring since I'm more interested in people noticing the elements that are at ground level.

I like a lot your idea with the telescope but at the moment I can't think of an easy non-super tedious way to do it. But I'd really like to try it, I might come up with something later.

And yeah the candles have a bit of programming regarding that already. The fire particle has a small area of glow that changes intensity and the candles themselves are not just static in the air, they go up and down at random ranges which makes the light attached to them move.

Wabbaboy

So I've been working on some more small props as well as structuring a bit more the environment.

These are some props I made:

This is a wooden sculpture of an owl.
(is this very atrocious for an unwrap? It worked well enough for me)

model

This is an astronomic clock that exists in Prague, I'm using it as window. The real one shows the position of the sun and the moon relatively to earth and also points at zodiac signs depending on the day and month of the year. I think it also shows the hour through a 24 hours clock but I haven't seen it in the working. Anyway it doesn't matter in this project because it doesn't move.

This is an armillary sphere, it's another astronomic item that spins as months passes by. In my project it just spins if you touch it. 

And these are barrel and crates, that always come in handy to fill up space.



The room itself is still looking very empty, looks like this:



That in the back is an area with separated spaces that will have crates, barrel, storage for food and alchemy things. In the central space there will be a small garden and I'd like to model a kind of tall tree and some weird plants and mushrooms. I took the idea from the wizard's tower from Skyrim.
Hopefully through the next weeks this room would look something more like this:



The goal being avoiding empty space and empty surfaces. Overall making it look like the room of a very busy and messy wizard that makes all this experiments and researches at once but never finishes fully any of them.

Anyway, I'll still make a few more small props. Probably a set of food, a set of alchemy, a set of plants and a set of fabric/flags. Then I'll move to polish the bigger stuff.

Nathan3D

Liking the clock good work it's coming together

jacjac

The space is looking really cool so far! Everything looks consistent
Loving that clock as well. Can't wait to see more of the props 

Wabbaboy

Kind of big update.
I decided to make a small short puzzle game with the content I'm creating in this project. But I'll spare you the details here at polycount, you can check my tumblr which link is in the first post for more info (not that there is a lot to know right now).

This week I've been modelling something quite big, not from scratch tho. I found something I sculpted a couple of years ago to practise anatomy and I transposed it and detailed it again with the small hints of anatomy that were left.
I think that in the end I didn't nail the anatomy as accurate as I'm able to but I didn't want to spend the whole week with it and unless is very very jarring I think it'll stay as it is.

So this is Atlas holding the Earth from Zbrush.

And from Painter.


And this is a small gif I made of the scene for my socials.


Also today I've been working in painting frames to cover my walls because it's about time already.


In-game they are doing their work nicely enough.


I'm looking forward to make some flags, cloths and whatnot for the walls now and also change my basic structure props as well as the ones covering corners.

Wabbaboy

Still not dead, but after the last update I got a job (sadly not in the videogame industry) and I've been quite busy with that but it's a small freelance thing and will be over soon.
Still I got a small update on the project, been working on few small props and a bit of in-engine stuff.

This is the tutorial area, until the player doesn't complete a puzzle the door won't open. I'm still not happy about my wall texture and I'm not sure about the lighting either.



For this puzzle I modelled a sphere with buttons and I wanted to give it an Egyptian approach, also since you'll see it from very close I worked with 2 4k textures.



Moving on I've been decorating my cupboard/library area and changed lights in it.



If you can notice I also added bump + refraction to my glass. This makes it look more realistic but also hides the fact that my reflections are of very low resolution. The clock is also new.



And last I've been working on a secret room that will contain satanic secrets and occult stuff.



This room will have a different mood, I want to make it more kind of unsettling/darker, I want to give the impression that you are not supposed to be there but so far I've barely worked on it.



That'll be all for now, I hope that the next update wont take me a month (though with Persona 5 coming out that's unlikely).

Wabbaboy

Well crap, it's been over a month since the last post, too many good games came out recently.
But I got some decent amount of progress to show nonetheless.

This is how the scene is looking right now.



Lately I've been fiddling with god rays, small windows and a blending system for the walls, which at the moment is provisional (I already changed my brick texture but I still think that I'll redo it at least one more time).
Also the meshes making the structure on the back are provisional as well.

The biggest asset that has been added is this tree:



It's part of a very small garden which will contain ingredients needed to complete a puzzle. I'm not so sure about the color scheme I followed for the mushrooms but, like with a lot of assets, I like to let it rest after it's done to watch it with some perspective later.



There is an angry fat Mandrake there which is an important piece in a puzzle, here is in more detail.



It has a simple screaming animation if you pick it up but I'm not a very good animator so it's not worth showing it yet.

I've been also setting up the mood in this secret room in preparation for summoning evil beings:



I still want to add some decorations on the walls and a lot of pots and experiment objects on the tables. I'm still looking into references for that but I'll probably model some organs and other creepy-looking elements to put on jars.

I also modelled a big door for the tutorial corridor:




There is not really a reason for the pattern to be vines and roses, I just sketched it up and looked appealing to me.

And finally I've been doing some tweaks for the general illumination and reflections. Also added some small props here and there to add variety.



Other than that I've been also working on optimisation and file-size reduction since I hope the scene to be playable by a normal-decent computer.

My major concern now is to make the walls look as good as possible, after that I will probably work on a big desk and the rest of the meshes I need.
I think I'm close to finish this project, if nothing goes wrong I could finish and publish it this summer.

That will be all for this post, thanks for stopping by.

nastobi123

wow wow, this is really cool man !