The Specimen - UDK environment
polycounter lvl 17
Hey, so since I've been doing mostly character stuff at work these days, and don't want to get too rusty with my environment skills, I started this scene a few months back, been working on it and on and off since then.
Kinda hard to find the time and sometimes motivation (hi there Skyrim!) to work on it, but I've decided to try and make a push to get it almost complete during my Xmas/NYE week off.
So the inspiration for this comes from all over the place, I'll see if anyone recognizes where the global room shape comes from (it's too geeky to openly admit to).
It's a large containment & study chamber for a mysterious, dangerous specimen (the details of which are to be determined, my girlfriend wants me to make a giant guinea pig, but I'm not sure if I should listen to her...)
The design is a bit random-ish, but I hope it's coherent enough, really need to work more on the lighting and some of the shaders (specular values are very chaotic at the moment), and also add lots of small text / warning logos / etc.
Some screenshots of where I'm at so far :
I'm going for a fairly clean texture approach, with a lot of modularity in the textures. At the moment it's pretty much just a few 1024x1024 trim collection textures, that I throw around my modeling, seeing what I can create with them, then I'll add some more specific assets with their own textures (like the central observation tube, the fans, some small machines, etc.)
I'm also using a lot of vertex normal tweaking to add some modeling volume to my textures, without having to add too much extra polygons and without messing up the model shading, I'll try to post some examples cause I feel not many people are doing this yet, and I find it pretty cool.
I'll try to post some more screenshots later, especially some of the specific hi-poly pieces, but for now there are more in progress shots viewable on this Dropbox gallery :
https://www.dropbox.com/gallery/16912263/2/My%20Work/The%20Specimen?h=fd31af
All comments and crits are welcome!
Kinda hard to find the time and sometimes motivation (hi there Skyrim!) to work on it, but I've decided to try and make a push to get it almost complete during my Xmas/NYE week off.
So the inspiration for this comes from all over the place, I'll see if anyone recognizes where the global room shape comes from (it's too geeky to openly admit to).
It's a large containment & study chamber for a mysterious, dangerous specimen (the details of which are to be determined, my girlfriend wants me to make a giant guinea pig, but I'm not sure if I should listen to her...)
The design is a bit random-ish, but I hope it's coherent enough, really need to work more on the lighting and some of the shaders (specular values are very chaotic at the moment), and also add lots of small text / warning logos / etc.
Some screenshots of where I'm at so far :
I'm going for a fairly clean texture approach, with a lot of modularity in the textures. At the moment it's pretty much just a few 1024x1024 trim collection textures, that I throw around my modeling, seeing what I can create with them, then I'll add some more specific assets with their own textures (like the central observation tube, the fans, some small machines, etc.)
I'm also using a lot of vertex normal tweaking to add some modeling volume to my textures, without having to add too much extra polygons and without messing up the model shading, I'll try to post some examples cause I feel not many people are doing this yet, and I find it pretty cool.
I'll try to post some more screenshots later, especially some of the specific hi-poly pieces, but for now there are more in progress shots viewable on this Dropbox gallery :
https://www.dropbox.com/gallery/16912263/2/My%20Work/The%20Specimen?h=fd31af
All comments and crits are welcome!
Replies
walls could use more of kewl science stuff on them. you know, something that will make people wanna explore the whole room and "figure out" the technology in it.
i mean looking at the pic and thinking, "oh so this pipe goes there and then is plugged into that cylinder" etc.
Perhaps it would also help to add more movable parts. And maybe some assymetry.
Looking awesome, the path that ends in a circular path in the middle reminds me of a scene from xmen where cerebo is used.
KartoonHead, hah yeah, hadn't thought of the Half-life start room, it is similar, isn't there reference to some specimen at the start as well? I'll definitely be adding some extra props around to give it more life.
Blaisoid, yeah I plan on adding some moving objects, there'll be fans for a start, and if I have the time I'd like to do a small scene-wide cut-scene, the central piece is built so that it can slide done into the floor to "secure" the specimen tube.
I'll also try to find some ways to break up the symmetry.
rebb, wouldn't be possible without your vertex normal plugin! (OK I'm exaggerating a bit, but still, it'd be much slower going.)
Pola & Alberto Rdrgz, here are some texture flats, these are the main ones I'm using for now (the two top ones mostly), they aren't really done yet, still some work to do on the detailing, and the specular maps (not shown here) are really rough.
I'll try to get some wireframe screenshots that look like something later.
all the assets have a nice border around them to help pop out the forms, but i feel your lighting is selling the scene short atm ... Not sure if this is temp? Or will you focus on a more dramatic feeling, focusing on the "The Specimen"
I like your clean textures, but they could use alot more color variation. If you turn the saturation to 100% in PS there are no color values present at all.
Translating the color over to the specular could help boost the overall style and look a little less procedural. Again not sure if the textures are temp and needing a final pass
Looking forward to more updates