Art Deco Streamliner Train

nathdevlin

Hi all,

Seems like I'm having a 1940's phase with my personal work. I'm currently working through the polish stage of this model, a streamliner steam engine. Balancing textures and sorting the materials out. I still need to produce the interior then a small scene to sit it in.

Any suggestions on how to get multiple vertex blends to play nice together in UDK would be awesome :poly142:

nathdevlin

Some of the mudbox/hi res work

nathdevlin

Wireframe and textures with a hint of an interior concept

Paul Pepera

This looks pretty cool, good job. Really like the art deco styling. I know you said this is a streamliner but I think adding a bit of those little bells, horns, valves, lights, pipes, etc. that populate the outside of more conventional steam locomotives could give this design that extra bit of character. However balancing such things to still keep that streamlined feel may be a challenge. Also perhaps add a bit more dirt and grunge around the wheels and exhausts, since steam locomotives are very dirty, like this streamliner

nathdevlin

Thanks for the suggestions Paul,

I've followed this train for 95% of the design. I'm tempted to push the art deco stylings a bit on the exterior so adding elements that are both functional and decorative may work such as more valves and gear. I was trying to keep the polycount sensible though the engine currently sits about 24,000 triangles.



More dirt and grunge is incoming. I'm having issues getting my blends to work together I need to experiment with the material more.

PS. Liking your work. Some fine vehicles for reference

Alberto Rdrgz

you need to make your details easier to see. The model right now suffers from a lack in Mid level detail. All i see is Large and small, but that's because you edges and shape are real tight. If you exaggerate your shapes in the HP, this will read a lot better.

nathdevlin

Hi Alberto,

That's a good point you're making. For this model I intentionally went with not over emphasising the real world details as is typically done for game art. I wanted to produce something that was closer to the size of details of the reference. I did exaggerate some details by about 50% this is still not a lot.

I don't think the lighting is doing the best job of showing the details in the previous images as most of the model is in shadow. I'll get new shots up soon. Here's an image of the low poly just wearing the normal map.

Samfisher84

what a beuty!

nathdevlin

Thanks Mr.Fisher84

I've had a few days off to catch up on life, gaming and comics. Work continues now on this model. I'm having material issues. If anyones interested on helping here's the thread. Thanks

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1601659

sltrOlsson

Very nice indeed! I would say that the indents/corroded metal on the side is a bit much to have in the lowpoly. It's quite heavy.

CookieBE

Nice, work!
Like I said before, can't wait to see the interior.

nathdevlin

Hi guys,

Don't worry CookieBE work starts in a couple of days. Still tweaking materials and adding some geometry to assist in the application of vertex colours.

Thanks sltrOlsson, I created with a 3rd person action game in mind. As the character walks along the side of the engine the panels are at shoulder level and are the area that is likely to be seen most by the player so I allocated the appropriate resources there. Also as it's geometry it LODs out quickly. I felt the normal map on it's own on a flat surface was not as visually appealing.

In my "need help" thread I've posted up a few versions of the diffuse section of my material. Here's the image for those that like this sort of stuff.

http://www.antodonnell.com/udk_materials_wip.jpg

nathdevlin

Any chance someone knows if new nodes can be created for UDK ?

What UDK could do with is a LERP node that allows triple blends and instead of an ALPHA slot to blend between them an A,B,C slot would be great, one for each map.

Could look like this:

Base texture

Texture 1
Texture 2
Texture 3
A = RED ( paints texture 1)
B = GREEN ( paints texture 2 )
C = BLUE ( paints texture 3 )

nathdevlin

I've only started the interior for the train I've been working on. Here's where tonight leaves it. I'm intending to texture the high-poly fully and bake the maps directly from that .... for fun of course. Designing as I go so changes are likely.

nathdevlin

I've managed to get some time in on this over the last two weekends. For a change I've went with modelling and texturing the high poly in Maya. I'll now bake it to a lower res mesh and continue texturing in PS. After that I'll need door frames, lights, bag racks and other interior assets to finish it off.

throttlekitty

Missed this the first time around, nice work!

cptSwing

boss.

DanConroy

Nicely done mate

nathdevlin

Here's an update on what I've been up to in my spare SPARE time. This is the low poly interior. Seats and additional assets to decorate the train are in production. For now except for some seam and lightmap issues it's all going well enough. Material tweaks are also likely.

Shots from UDK

maxivz

this is really impressive work! looking forward to more

IchII3D

Very nice work, looking forward to seeing more of this! Only crit I can think of would be to push your material definition a little more and contrast the gloss of your metal with your wood. But this could simply be down to the fact you don't really have a proper lighting setup at the moment. Gloss maps would really make those metals pop! It might also be down to you not having a cubemap?

Also, I noticed the crumples you made in the sheet metal down the side of the train exterior, they are a little... meh. If I ever need to make metal look crumpled quickly I normally use the crumpled paper textures from from CGTextures, being very subtle with the diffuse but mainly using them for height maps. Then just mask in and out the areas that work.

NOTE: Remember to remove the noise from the paper :P

http://cgtextures.com/texview.php?id=14648&PHPSESSID=e7entidtscngi4p6eocljrap17

nathdevlin

Thanks for the comments and feedback. The desk model in your portfolio was a piece of my reference pile lchll3d

I'm looking to create a clean, fairly new and maintained scene. Trickier than defaulting to grunge to add interest.
As for the gloss map could not agree more, at the moment I'm using a diffuse, spec and normal. With a fudged reflection mask created in the shader. It will be worth creating a specific gloss map. The 3 channels of the spec can be used to create the various masks / maps. Will have a play with it, create the chairs and re-update.

Thanks

IchII3D

Oh noes don't use that! BWAH! Nah seriously, the specular I made for that desk is epic fail and should have used custom normals before I baked my normals. Not to mention the diffuse is so dam noisy. Live and learn, wanted to make sure I passed on what I learned from it :P I really need to update my websites its three years old

nathdevlin

I was mainly using the diffuse , good example of conservative texturing ;p I'm wary of adding too much contrast into the diffuse and increasing repetition. I'm considering some subtle discolouration through the shader.

whw

Great work!

The grungey look of the exterior is a good contrast to the well maintained interior. I'd suggest knocking back the specular a tad on the exterior corrugated section - it seems to ping a bit too much giving it a plastic feel.

For the interior panels, specifically the lower 4, I'd recommend moving the UV shells about as that entire piece is noticably tiled due to the knots in the wood. Maybe make 2 or 3 variations of the asset but keep the same texture sheet?

megalmn2000

It's coming nice! I like it! Some critics:

- I agree with IchII3D, you'll need to push further the material definition. One problem I see now is your wood looks plastic (probably how you tweak the specular and the shader)

- I think I see some back spot on some mesh, is it normal?

nathdevlin

@ whw

Thanks, I'll give all the materials a final pass once the interior is finished and the train is in an environment to balance them in context.
As for the panels I'm aware they are repetitive ( a by-product of trying to be efficient ), once I get some variation in through the shader and I add in the seating you won't be able to see more than a few full panels at any one time clearly so the issue should not be noticeable.
Moving bits around is a good suggestion to get variation but it can likely create seams also. I wanted the interior done on one 2048 map as it is now and baked from a high poly.

@ megalmn2000 The black spots are issues with the light mapping. Not found out what yet. I'll look into it during the final polish phase. The materials will get refined at this point also. Hope to get them looking great, lighting will also help.

If folks have any ideas already I'm all ears, UV's have already been checked

nathdevlin

The old sketching equipment has been dragged out to progress work on this piece.

nathdevlin

The chair is now under way. Currently the hi poly is 90% complete with textures and materials in production. Finding Mudbox a joy to texture in.

nathdevlin

Here's the completed Hi res asset, fully textured. It's a mixed bag of elements textured in Mudbox and Maya. Render is from Maya, Mental Ray. Next up will be the baking to a low res mesh and moving to UDK to try out tessellation with it.

I'm also going to see if a final texture pass can be completed in Mudbox on the low res model.

mospheric

Really enjoying the design of that chair. Great work

Orangeknight

Wow That looks AWESOME! Can I ask how you got that pattern on the seat cover exactly please. Is it handpainted or did you have some source?

nathdevlin

Hi,

Thanks for the comments,

Orangeknight : I had used an element of a photo which I then used the cut out filter in Photoshop to simplify so I could hand paint over it and tile it. After that some overlays were applied to get the fabric texture back on to it. It was then applied to the mesh using the projection brush in Mudbox with the image as a stencil.

The source can be found here https://s3.amazonaws.com/imgspark.com/images/l/2a43de28edc60c8b3bd3f44212bda90e.jpg

There were lighting issues which needed to be removed. This pattern had appeared often on art deco furniture and design sites when I googled it. I thought it fit nicely with the overall design of the train and interior. There are many other really nice patterns out there but they were not as suitable.

ZacD

I can't wait to see everything put together, I don't have any critiques yet, I really dig all the designs so far. You might been to push the brass material to make it look more metallic, but I'd still like to see it together before you start working about it.

nathdevlin

Thanks ZacD, the final material pass will happen in UDK. As you said it'll all be balanced when it's together. For now the hi poly chair models materials are standard Blinns in Maya with normal, spec, diffuse and gloss maps to use as a starting point.

The final low poly should be sorted this week.

LuCh!

Awesome work, the interior already has a nice mood going on,
can't wait to see it filled up!

danpaz3d

Wow, very nice. Great work so far. That chair is looking clean.
Couple of questions, do you plan on making the final product looking new or aged?
Also, what's with the top gold thing on the corner of the chair? It just seems a bit random. Unless there's a reason for it?
Keep it up!

m1neh

Wicked work, I am assuming that gold thing on the top of the chair, is supposed to be similar to the handholds you get on the chairs near the aisles on trains... looks great!

nathdevlin

Hi all,

danpaz3d: Thanks. The entire project is supposed to be set in the 1950's the train was built in the 1940s and is still in use providing a 1st class service. Therefore I'm aiming for worn and aged a little but maintained. m1neh got it in one the gold handhold is what you're referring too. They are more common in modern trains on the ends facing the aisle but I added it to this design so it is ahead of it's time a bit.

I do intend to add more wear in another Mudbox pass on the low poly when the baking process is complete. Almost there Having issues deriving a decent displacement map.

nathdevlin

As mentioned in the WAYWO thread I've decided to wrap this asset up for now and present it. The train will still be used in an upcoming environment produced throughout 2013 so it may get a little more polish in the future. The main things being some additional noise and grunge in the textures. Starting out the intention was to keep the train clean and maintained as per reference and not to over do the grunge/noise. I feel the front could have done with a little more wear in hindsight and some additional geometry details. Overall I'm happy with the results and have learned a bit so on to the next challenge

More images can be found here as not to spam the thread.

http://www.antodonnell.com/art_deco_train.html

nathdevlin

PS this was the first time I've used a fully dynamic light set up in UDK. Not perfect but it was good to mess with.

nathdevlin

Forgot to post up the tessellated version of the chair I was messing with. Not the best asset to show off tessellation but good to learn with.

roosterMAP

looks great! i love how you fit the interior into the cart without it looking too claustrophobic.

However, many of ur textures seem to only be using a simple detail patter for material def, and a layering of ur baked maps. For example, the seat cushion textures could use some fade, light wear and tear... that sort of thing.

serriffe

Mann -- I gotta do something like this in Unreal, awesome work

leslievdb

really loveing those chair designs and execution.
the only thing that would have been nice is that the outside of the train reflected some of the chiqueness from te inside in terms of colors. Maybe to reflect the brown interior it would have been cool to see some coper on the outside .

anyway nice work overall

nathdevlin

Thanks for the comments and crits,

roosterMAP: You're right the textures are lacking in dirt/grime but this was intentional from the outset. Like the image linked below I wanted to have a very clean and maintained look. I am tempted to revisit the textures and do a pass in Mudbox to add some variance in areas where dirt would build up around seams between elements. The seats had subtle fading of the leather on the ends which can be amplified.

http://lenstalk.com/albums/album20/mg_9017_Soller_train_interior.jpg

seriffe: This is my 2nd attempt at trying to get some decent shots out of UDK, Still a long way to go to get exactly what I want. Still walking before running,

Ravenslayer: For the exterior I kept close to the actual train it's based off, only the doors and window trims ended up being bronze/copper and redesigned. The interior was fully designed after the exterior was completed. Next time I'll design both elements together

gauss

raymond loewy would be proud. great follow through!

nathdevlin

Thanks Gauss, he produced some great designs. This project really benefited from research.

As per the comments I've added a layer of grunge to the textures of the interior. Here's a before/after. I still did not go too far with it but it's enough of a change to add more visual interest to the image.