The Fall of Arcadia

Jim_Watson

Hey y'all! 

This is my first time posting a new topic, so I hope that you enjoy the content. 

The goal for this project was to create a "pretty corner" for a game environment pipeline. This includes creating a material pipeline that works well with both hero and modular props using material attributes, complex materials for lighting effects and particles, and a spline system for pipes and vines. I also wanted to learn more about the proper ways to light a scene to evoke the emotions that I wanted. 

I implemented a material system for modular props that allowed me to paint masks in Painter, create all of my base materials in Designer, and then comp them together in Unreal using 3 Material Attributes and a Material Function that made it look wet wherever I vertex painted. Then I added various decals to add more wear and grime. For Hero Objects, I fully painted them in Substance Painter, then used 2 Material Attributes in Unreal to overlay extra wear on top, then added decals. 

The original concept is from Mike Garn. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/41v5L I then pushed it to encapsulate the elements I wanted. 

Modeled in Maya, sculpted in Zbrush, base materials made in Substance Designer and Zbrush, masks and hero objects painted in Substance Painter, maps baked in Marmoset, shaded, placed and rendered in Unreal Engine 4. 

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rdaBE

Let me know what you think! 

JAKEALEXDUN

Its really really nice man! the only thing i could kinda say is its a little hard to tell what the focal point is, is it down the hall, the lamp, or the tv with the sun on it? this is easily fixed with dimming lights and such but hopefully this helped, i really like the rest
Actualy one other thing i can think of now that its very noisy pretty much everywhere, to me the most obvious place to have a resting place for your eyes is the bricks on the right, maybe you could change that to a flat smoothish concrete material? you could do this to the floor also if the wall isnt enough, but yeah always remember resting space for your eyes! 

Jim_Watson

After lots of critiques, I decided to rework some lighting and materials in The Fall of Arcadia. Thank you Jake for replying. I tried to make the focal point more clear, and clean up the floor a little bit. I hope you like the changes I made.

I also want to thank everyone who gave me advice throughout, and I want to give a big shout out to Nate Stephens for guiding me through the creation of this environment. Your class, Environment for Games, helped me out tremendously, and I cannot thank you enough. Your techniques showed me the proper way to construct an environment, and it was a pleasure to be in your class. I also want to thank Anton Napierala and Kyle Mulqueen for helping tweak Unreal to get the result I wanted. 

Original Lighting Setup, but tweaked to lighten up the scene. 


Second Lighting Setup. I wanted to try a new color profile, and work on my lighting skills for better transitions between colors. 


This is the progress breakdown of my scene. I break it down from the initial block out, to the final two lighting setups. 


This is the zoo file of the meshes that I used in the scene. I made 3 different straight brick corridors, each with varying LODs, depending on how close to the camera it is. I made 2 curved brick corridors for the curved part of the hallway. There are 3 different particle systems, one for ambient fog, smoke coming out of the grates, and water drips with a splash. I made two different pipe sets, one small, one large. Each pipe set has a curved version as well. On the mortar side walls, you can see the various decals I used throughout the scene. There are two grime decals used to help break up the modularity of the scene, 4 different warning signs (like "Danger, Beware of Getting Pinched," and a couple easter egg decals. There is a moss mesh with tesselation and a water mesh that you can paint out the parts you don't want through Vertex Painting, where you paint the opacity. Finally, there are 3 different "fake" volumetric lighting meshes.


Master Material Breakdown. I used 3 main materials per object, then using a packed Mask Map, painted in Substance Painter, to comp the materials to their given place. Then added more functionality to paint per vertex for each material. Then I made a "Make It Wet" Material Function to paint wetness onto the mesh, using vertex painting. Then I added the normal map on at the very end. 


Here is the Material Function used for the main materials. I added in Base Color variation, then an option to Desaturate it. I then added more control to the roughness and specular values by adding a Min and Max to Lerp between. 


Here is the main spline setup for creating the pipes throughout the scene. For the background pipes, I export them out of Unreal, combined them together in Maya, and reimported them into Unreal to make a better frame rate. 


For my holographic shader, I researched animated materials for the basic understanding of how to create animated UVs and vertex offset. I manipulated it immensely to create the effect I wanted for the computer screens. 


For the Caustic Light Function, I created a simple animated texture, three different sizes, three different speeds. 


Let me know what you think and what you think I could improve on! 

Martoon

Really great breakdown of your UE4 functions. Great Substance and Foliage work as well

Dood1

I like the juxtaposition of nature vs man. If its a game environment I feel like the player path is too cluttered

defragger

I think you could improve on using jpg instead of png!
Loading times of this thread are craptacular already!

Jim_Watson

@Martoon Thank you very much! I will be posting more images this weekend showing some more in-depth looks into my substances. 

@Dood1 Thank you for the kinds words. It is a game environment, so I will try to "unclutter" the ground more. 

@defragger I apologize for the long loading times. I will optimize the images and hopefully the thread's loading times aren't craptacular anymore!