[UE4] [WIP] The old factory

siver

Hi,

Currently I'm working  on an environment scene.
The scene is an old factary with a blast furnace.
Lighting in the scene is dynamic and GI enabled.
I used Houdini in Unreal Engine 4 for cables and pipe.

The goal of the project is to improve and learn new things.
Such as making high poly models faster and learn more about Substance Designer.

Any feedback is welcome.

Here is some of the reference for the scene.



Wip shot

FreneticPonies

Oooh nice start

siver

Here are some materials I made for the project.
Rendered in Marmoset.
Vertex paint will be used to blend between bricks and plaster.

Bricks


Plaster and Concrete for the floor.

kohg

this should be interesting...

siver

Here is the progress of this week. After I made a few materials in Substance Designer. I started making high poly of meshes .
Then began to texture some of the models.

Vertex material for the wall.


Houdini assets I have made and going to use for the project.
This assets places cables quickly around the scene. Cables around the Furnace are done with this.


Second asset is for pipes. (The models you see on the pipe are placeholders)

CybranM

The spline tools look great
Looking forward to seeing where this goes

Dreyzie

Yeah it's looking really nice. I especially love the splines.

siver

For the scene I want Stone Debris. I didn't know where to start and then decided to simulate destruction in Houdini to have a base model for my stone debris.
Any feedback is welcome.

The simulation in Houdini. This will be the base model to sculpt on.



Texturing the stone debris in substance painter. (still working on this and I have a few artifacts in normal bake)

Wireframe. Is this optimize enough for a game? (polys: 3679 Tris: 7486)  

Screenshot in Unreal Engine 4.

RustySpannerz

Wow, this looks amazing so far! Great shot compositions and I like how soft everything feels. 

Jarran

This is looking great. My only crit is that your big mechanical centrepiece doesn't look quite as interesting as in your reference. It's missing some of the crazy haphazard cables atm, I feel like giving that another pass would really add a lot!

siver

@Jarran Thanks for the feedback. I have added more cables to the model.
Here is the model in UE 4 with more cables and some more detials added.



Also I started making high poly and unwrapping.
The photo below shows what textures I'm going to use.


Currently I'm starting with the texturing. Using Substance Painter.

wirrexx

Follow.com. Nice one, got a new follower on this! 

siver

Here are some shots of the furnace that I textured. 
Also this week my Houdini license is expired so I not able to continue working with the Houdini plugin for UE4.
I maybe want to add foliage but I'm not sure.

Any feedback is welcome.

FreneticPonies

Oooh, that big centerpiece furnace looks awesome!

Nars

Looks good, quick question tho, can you transform the Houdini asset into a static mesh after you place it around? Like possible with a spline for ex.

siver

@Nars Yes, you can go from Houdini asset to a static mesh. Example: you can use a Houdini asset to place cables and then you can baked it to an actor. This model will automaticlly be added to the content browser.  
Here is a photo of the options you have in Unreal Engine 4 to bake Houdini assets.

TheLittleJay

I think your beauty shot would look better if that yellow railing on the far right wasn't there, or at least covered with shadows. It draws my eye away from all the cool stuff you've got in your scene. And I think a little bit more foliage would help, right now it's just a single patch of green. Perhaps having some growing through cracks in the middle/foreground would balance things out a little. 

Other than that this is looking really good, can't wait to see more. 

siver

@TheLittleJay Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the yellow railing draws some attention. And for the foilage I will look in to it to improve it more.

Here is another update on the project. The scene is now more modular. On the photo you see the modular meshes of the scene.

Photo of the scene (foliage has been removed, adding foliage will be the next thing to do)

FreneticPonies

Looking good, but I didn't like how that paint is coming off the brick, so I looked up a reference.

Paulod

How are you lighting this scene? Tried something similar in UE4 and found it very difficult using a traditional lighting set-up. Interiors with large windows always feel tough to me.

siver

@Paulod The main light for the scene is a directional light and it is set on movable. Also for this project I'm trying out global illumination.
So the scene has realtime global illumination (which is awsome, take a look at this video if you are interessed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGO7VNcq6uE  ). Also change some values in the directional light (such as Shadow bias).
The scene has also a spotlight aiming on my centerpiece and 2 smaller lights to get the dark areas out of the scene.

@FreneticPonies Thanks! That effect could indeed be done better. I now tried adding a grunge map to the heightlerp. Still working on it.
Here is a photo of height map that is used in the Heightlerp.


Here is also a quick update on the foliage that will be added in the scene. (The vertex paint of the walls need to redone)

eekhammer

This looks amazing! Do you have any resources/links to how to make that spline system? The function I'm after is that it adds a new mesh when you change direction of the pipes. Is it made in Houdini or just a UE4 blueprint?

Jack M.

Really digging this so far. I think your centerpiece and focal point is fantastic, but I think your foliage is too dark and has too much contrast at the moment.

I'm excited to see where you run with this. Good luck

siver

@eekhammer Thanks! The spline systems are made in Houdini. The pipe is based on this video ( )  You can start the video at 4min to see how it is made. Note: if you want to open it in Unreal Engine, you will need a license for the Houdini Engine or you can try the free trial. (My license is expired so for now there will be no Houdini assets in the scene) 
What you are looking for you can probaly be done with Houdini. Maybe based on the alignment of points/lines of the spline different models will be added? (I don't know exectly what you want but you can do a lot with Houdini) I hope this helps you.

@Jack M.  Thanks for the feedback   I will make the changes in the foilage.

eekhammer

Thank you for your reply! Gonna try and use this in a game project in school. Another guy in our team is pretty nifty with Houdini, so I'll look through it with him. 

Keep pushing, this piece will be epic!

JuhaKeranen

@siver Looking damn great! Can't wait to see more.

shabba

Nice work so far

- what are the bell shaped blocks on either side of the image? Can they be made to feel more believable/detailed? Or possible reshaped or removed?
-I'd look into the dirt mask/reveals that you have on the blue metal and grey pipes below them as well. The uppwer part wrapped in wires looks really successful, but the other rust/edge wear details in the scene dont really hold up against it.
- post your grass texture, feels super chunky and fake, not really sure you would get something like this, post your ref you are trying to replicate with the grass feel.
- The thickness of that grate right in the center of the image could maybe be halfed in thickness to be more appealing? 
- Whats the light source? Or what structural elements are occluding light? Based on the rays from the windows, i'd expect more directionality of the shadows, and heavier shadows on the left side, however I feel like maybe there are conflicting light sources here?
- With the moss sneaking into the center of the foreground, you'd expect alot of moisture, but all the materials feel flat and lack spec/rough to sell that moist/nature reclaiming feel. 
- Maybe the pipes should be all blue? What does that feel like?
- with those debris chunks being so close to the camera in the foreground, I'd put more love/attention/detail into them, and have some higher frequency debris as well, along with maybe a decal to sell even higher frequency debris details.

Keep going!

siver

@eekhammer Thanks and good luck with your game project.

@JuhaKeranen Thanks

@shabba Thank you very much for the all this feedback. Those bell shaped blocks are gates. Here is a reference picture.
Maybe I can remove one of them.

Here is also the grass texture ( I followed this tutorial to make them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4j5tzAIflU ). I made some changes in the material too in this update.

For the rest of the feedback I will defently look in to it. 

But unfortunately I'm forced to put the project on hold for some time. 

Here are some shots of scene how it looks right now.

ZacD

The design of the "bell" gates are fine, the issue with them is for how prominent they are in the scene, they need to look higher quality. The bevel looks too large and the texture work looks like generic procedural rust applied to the entire model. Also it doesn't look like the gates align with the trench. 

siver

Hello Everyone,

Here is a new update on the scene
It has been some time since I post the progress of the piece. I found some time to work a bit on it and here is the result.
Thanks a lot to everyone who has given me feedback.

I reworked the lighting in the scene from scrach, changed the texture of the pipes, reworked moss on forground so it feels less flat and some other smaller changes. There is still some other feedback that I can apply on the scene and hopefully I find some time for it.

ajr2764

Really digging this, nice work with lighting.