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UDK - Windmill Garden WIP

mbullister
polycounter lvl 18
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mbullister polycounter lvl 18
I'm working on an environment piece based on the windmill area from Ico.

The scene is mostly blocked out and I've started working on sculpting for some of the more key areas-- what's in the scene right now is very early texture work, mostly AO over solid colors.

progressShot1.jpg

progressShot2.jpg

There are still a few pieces of stone which are using temporary or incorrect textures; once those are finished I need to model out and texture all the wood and metal (the mill itself, as well as the platform on the left), and then tackle the ground.

Once all that is done I want to add a lot of foliage-- I'd been thinking about thick ferns for ground cover, and climbing vines on the bricks.

I'll try to post more progress tomorrow. Until then, any feedback on this early stage would be much appreciated.

Replies

  • Alberto Rdrgz
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    Alberto Rdrgz polycounter lvl 9
    this is looking cool!
  • nathanbarrett
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    nathanbarrett polycounter lvl 6
    Before reading I thought "that reminds me of Ico". Massive respect for doing something from that game, what a classic.

    Looking good so far. The windmill is awesome!
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Nice, I'm really liking the style so far, the lighting and textures look great, and so does the water.
  • Eoq
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    Eoq polycounter lvl 8
    Really interesting : )
  • marq4porsche
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    marq4porsche polycounter lvl 9
    It's already looking really nice and atmospheric, I can't wait to see more.
  • Korrax
    This is well done, that atmosphere & lighting really help make this look realistic & add nice depth. Keep up the work paying attention to that grass. I think you should have some dead grass / dirt for around the rocks with the pond. Water looks great!
  • cw
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    cw polycounter lvl 17
    Really does read as Ico-ish - are you planning any funky post process?
  • SirCalalot
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    SirCalalot polycounter lvl 10
    Super Bloom is needed when you're done :D

    This is looking really solid - no crits so far!

    *Subscribed*
  • teaandcigarettes
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    teaandcigarettes polycounter lvl 12
    ICO ICO ICO
    Easily one of my favourite games. :poly142:

    I've been wanting to make an ico inspired environment myself, but never had the time to get around to doing that. I will be watching this one closely, this scene has a lot of potential :)
  • Computron
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    Computron polycounter lvl 7
    Tell me, are you sculpting any of your textures? can we see some of the assets youre making for the environment? are you using modularity?

    It would be interesting to see this scene with DX11 tesselation for all the bricks and some reflection in the little pond.

    For foliage, the new UDK has a cool pivot feature that makes foliage realistically wave in the wind.
    I'd imagine a floating fortress with a wind-mill would be pretty windy.

    check it out:
    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtiQGF2voXA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtiQGF2voXA[/ame]
  • mbullister
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    mbullister polycounter lvl 18
    Hey guys, sorry for the long absence-- I was helping a friend get a video project off the ground, and now that it's wrapped I'm going to get back and try and finish this as quickly as possible!

    Alberto, Nathan, Zac, Eoq, Marq & Tea: Thanks a lot! I'm sorry this disappeared for a long time, and I'll try to update frequently.

    Korrax: Will do! I'll try to get some ground textures and blending set up in the next update, even if they aren't final.

    Cw & SirCalalot: I really like the Ico/SotC blown out-fairy shader look, even though it tends to destroy some of the details-- I'll probably end up posting some beauty shots with the heavy post when it's done, and create a few without them for portfolio purposes.

    Computron:

    I'm sculpting almost everything-- my main goal with this project is to become faster and more comfortable with Zbrush.

    Here's a couple of sculpted bits: I'll put up some lowpoly peices later today.

    Pc_sculpts.jpg

    I'm working with sort of modular peices inside of Max, then combining them before I export to Unreal in order to minimize lightmap seams.

    Pc_modular.jpg

    Most of the walls are made from these parts here-- the grey meshes use a standard tiling texture with some relief built in, and the orange meshes tile vertically using a different texture. Everything is then just assembled using snaps, and I can quickly optimize out the brick cuts where I don't need the fancy silhouette or the vertex density for painting.

    I experimented a bit with tessellation, but it caused some nasty and really obvious splitting, particularly where the tiling bricks meet the corner caps. I'll mess with it a little more, and see if I can sync the heightmaps perfectly, or just mask out the displacement at those seams. I also considered using IBR for the pond, but unfortunately that doesn't work with translucent materials. I stuck with a normal scenecapturereflect actor instead.

    That foliage rotation stuff is really rad; I'll definitely add that in as soon as the foliage meshes are where I want them.
  • Blaisoid
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    Blaisoid polycounter lvl 7
    wow, this is really cool.
    the bottom segment of windmill looks sweet, with all those damaged bricks sticking out and a layer of stones below.
  • Computron
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    Computron polycounter lvl 7
    Don't keep us waiting! :) :thumbup:
  • KennyTies
    Wow, just wanted to say that couch is really awesome! How big is the chair though compared to the door it seems pretty big. Keep us updated and im excited to see how this turns out.
  • biofrost
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    biofrost polycounter lvl 12
    Looking really awesome so far, this is how I pictured the HD collection looking.

    @KennyTies In Ico those chairs were really big so it actually looks like the right scale.
  • KennyTies
    @Biofrost, thanks for clearing that up. Ive never actually played Ico so I wasnt sure. Still the chairs look really awesome!
  • -Joe-
    Lightings pretty spot on! Cant wait to see more,especially ICO tributes!
  • mbullister
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    mbullister polycounter lvl 18
    Blaisoid&Computron:
    Thanks! I'm going to try and have a big update done by the end of the weekend-- I want to get some ground textures in, get a bunch of foliage, and get at last partway through updating the main mill structure to use the new brick style.

    After that, I'll need to add or finish some debris pieces, finish the stairs and bridge mechanism on the left of the original images, and sculpt out the doorway statues (the weird, unlit green block) as well as incorporate other feedback I get.

    KennyTies:
    Thanks a lot! You're right about the couch-- It had been in its own file before I took that screenshot, and I'd been scaling it down to .8 in Unreal. I'd just forgotten to propagate the scaling back to Max.

    Here are the lowpolies at the appropriate scale:

    Pc_LowPoly01.jpg

    Biofrost:
    Thanks! I'd remembered the couches being really huge too, which is why I originally made them bigger; they're actually pretty close to normal sized compared to Yorda, though. I think they just seem bigger because Ico spends longer in them, and he's such a tiny dude.
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