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The Yawning Portal [UE4]

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DallanP polycounter lvl 8
Welcome!

The Yawning Portal is a fictional tavern in the castle quarters of waterdeep, set in the world of forgotten realms. This tavern is unique because it has a 40ft wide by 140ft deep well in the middle that leads into the underdark where vast riches await the hungry adventurers. Playing d&d and wanting to find concept images of this infamous bar, I could only illustrations of a conceptually bland tavern with a hole in the middle. So this is where I come in! I want to build a new tavern that plays off of the uniqueness of the Yawning Portal rather than just have a regular old tavern.

Also I want to make a modular enviroment for my next portfolio piece, and I wanted it to be fairly large so I could chug on it for awhile. I wanted to also be made mostly out of wood since I have done quite a bit of wood working before. That way constructing the building would take minimal research into types of wood joinery and such.

So I started by blocking it out in 3DS Max, then I took it into Unreal several times to check the proportions of the rooms and how the space felt to be in. After that I went ahead and did a quick lighting pass to see if the space held up in lighting. During that time also tried my hand at doing my first hand painted texture. I am still somewhat undecided if I should stick with a stylized enviroment or go with a realistic one. Anywho! Some images! I'll start off with a picture of my mood board.

What you seen when you first walk in. 3 tiers of seating centered around the well. Off to the left is the big fireplace, to the right is to rooms, and at the far back is the bar.

The firepit

The bar at the back. This is going to be a fairly long bar, with plenty of room to sit, and lots of room to order.

Looking up the stairs with the doors that lead to rooms in the background.

The view from the 2nd teir looking at the fireplace.

A view of the hallway with rooms.



Here is a picture of the flooring that I created. I would love any feedback on this since it is my first stylized texture. And suggestions or critiques would be greatly appreciated.




And so that's it for today folks! My next step will be creating an asset list for one of the bedrooms and creating all of those, that way I can start small and build up from there. Any suggestions or critiques would be fantastic! If my workflow is wrong or I need to revisit the space feel free to tell me so! We aren't here to kiss each-others asses.

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  • Bletzkarn
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    Bletzkarn polycounter lvl 6
    I like the process pics. Potential to be pretty awesome.
  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8

    Hey guys! Just finished up my first prop. I wanted to make a prop real quick so I could flesh out the style that the rest of the inn will be made. Renders done in Marmoset.

    I used a combination of 3ds max, zbrush, and Marvelous Designer to complete this. I textured it in substance painter.

    And as always c&c welcome.

  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    Made a couple more tile-able textures so that I can start building some modular assets that will use them. I still have some more to make so any crit is appreciated!

    I made these both in zbrush, and then took the renders into photoshop to paint them. I exported the normal just in zbrush and it seems to be working out pretty good so far. I might jump in xnormal to see what it spits out comparably.

    Stone floor texture.


    Wooden beam texture.
  • mvdrocco
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    mvdrocco vertex
    The bed looks nice! I like the folded blanket on top.
    If I may, the ingraved dragon's head looks too neat though. It doesn't feel like it has any interaction with the grain of the wood. No splinters, the paint is perfectly even...
    Nice work on the stone floor!
  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    Nice catch!

    Here is screen shot from substance painter. I added the inconsistency with the paint. I'll definitely noodle it some more to get it to look more like paint. Thanks!
  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    Finished  my first pass at the modular walls with the materials I made. Now I will be working on the rest of the assets to fill out the room.

  • fadingLight
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    This would like great in VR. Coming along nicely. Enviromental textures and lighting have never been my strong point.
  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    I have made quite a few more assets. It's been a great learning experience so far. just by making these I have gotten way better at my texturing and baking skills. I still have a few more assets to make to populate the room further, like a chest and a actual light source. I'll end up remaking the stone texture, I am not quite happy with it so far. I'll post a better picture of the chair and table here in a little bit.

  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    Here are a couple of my latest assets. I was able to make them pretty quickly! I have started another project with a few of my friends making a game so that will be taking some of time away from this project. But I will not abandon it completely!



    Here are some candles for the bedroom which will be the primary light source in the room. I was pretty happy to get away from making another asset with wood for a little bit. Here it is in UE4, I got to use SSS for the first time in UE4 so that was fun to learn.


    This is a quick screen-grab from the corner of the room. It's really filling out fast!


    And as always, C&C welcome. :D
  • FreneticPonies
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    FreneticPonies polycounter lvl 3
    I'm blind! But yeah, turn down the exposure a little. Or, a lot really. EG (Note, the candle flames shouldn't be white either! Candles don't look white when you look at them right? Well same goal here)


  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    Holy cow that looks a lot better. Thanks! I'll need to track down some more reference to study for sure. I'll play around with the candles more to get a better look. If anyone has any good lighting tutorials for Unreal or in general let me know!


  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    The room is really starting to come together now. I made a few paintings, and books. Just adding those in and populating the room with it a little bit has made it look leagues better.

    I am still struggling with the lighting a little bit, so that will most likely be the next problem to tackle. Just the way I have it set up right now feels pretty jank, and I want to learn how to do it properly. Right now I have all the point light's intensity set at 200 and the camera's exposure pretty low as well.  When I had the lights intensity higher and the camera's exposure to match it, the candles were just too blown out. (As see in the the above posts) Onward to tutorial land!
  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    The next cool asset I made is the infamous bag of holding. I did this just in two days, I am getting substantially quicker that's for sure. Here it is rendered in Marmoset 2. 

    I would love any critique about anything. Thanks!



    Here is the concept art for it from the Dungeon Masters Guide.


    Wireframe:

  • FreneticPonies
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    FreneticPonies polycounter lvl 3
    Wow... that' is an insanely great looking bag. I want to pull it out in the next Zelda game as like, the ultimate bag upgrade. To be honest it's, too detailed for the scene. The texel density and sheer detail clash with the very chair its on.

    You can see how the chair's texture is a bit blurry and painterly. Whereas the bag is incredibly sharp. But hey I love the bag itself, bravo  :o
  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    @FreneticPonies
    Haha Thanks! I will definitely keep that in mind going forward when setting up renders for my objects. The chair texture looks fine in the context of the scene but this up close with the bag on it... Yep.

    I had my friend who is a level designer over and he wanted to take a pass at populating a scene himself. He had a few notes and suggestions for me so I'll be working on those for the next few days. Gotta make a rug, few decals, possibly a wizard's hat!




    If you have any suggestions or critiques, I would much appreciate them!  Thanks!
  • shabba
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    shabba polycounter lvl 15
    Wait, what happened to the first entrance shot? You could change up that layout of the bar, and really push a wicked feel and composition into that entrance shot. 

    Not sure why you opted for a single room. Hope you get back to the original intent. Go back to greyblocking out that entrance bar shot and make a bad ass comp
  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    @shabba
    Since this is my first full enviroment that I have done, I realized I should have started a little smaller. So I moved onto doing one of the side rooms for the bar for now. Just to learn and really get into the process of making props. I have learned and improved a great deal from making this small room. I do want to finish this room for now and make it actually worth putting into my portfolio. (Not that the bar is high right now) I am also considering abandoning this project for now since I have joined another passion project that I want to focus my time and energy into. This next project is cyber punk and that really excites me right now, I am still figuring out what styles I really enjoy making and what I want to really focus on.

    Thanks for the comment, I really appreciate it! 
  • kingofcomidy
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    hey this is amazing. i am getting ready to kick off Waterdeep dragon heist and dungeon of the mad mage for some new players. it would be really cool if i could have your 3d model displayed on a screen when they are in the tavern. do you mind sharing your work?
  • JamesBrisnehan
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    JamesBrisnehan polycounter
    Really liking the textures and models, but I feel like the lighting needs a little something. Right now it is all just very yellow. I think a complementary color in the lighting would be nice. Maybe a window could let in some blue skylight, or increase the falloff of the candles and bump up the influence of the wand/other magical glow-y props. Or even simply a cooler colored fill light. The color palette is just needs a little more 'oomph' in my opinion.
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