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[UE4] Cemetery At Sea (Concept by Graven Tung)

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Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
After doing a few speed environments for a client of mine I've picked up a lot of new techniques and also a lot more knowledge about working with UE4...

So I apologize for scrapping previous environments I swore to myself I'd do but after much consideration and concept digging I've found something I can see myself dedicating my time to.

I found this lovely concept by Graven Tung (Website here)  and will be building this within UE4.

I will be working somewhat modular in the aspect of stair ways, pillars, few platforms, rocks etc... but the few unique assets within this piece would be the central platform with the sword in it, few of the platforms extruding from the ground for some intricacy to break up repetition and possibly the ship in the background (don't quote me because there's a good chance I'll make the ship modular for better background population.

Stay tuned.

As for the previous work I've been working on recently please visit my Artstation if you're interested. (HERE)
It's 3 separate environments based on the Kowloon Walled City.





I really wanted to work with something more organic / Zbrush orientated as I've spent much time building geometry sitting on 45-90 degree angles which has gotten a little repetitive recently.

This is my initial block out and will be moving into detailing once all blocking out is properly done / viewed within UE4.

Kidd.

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  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    I had a few hours tonight to knock out some stuff... So I managed to put the keyparts into UE4 so far e.g. stairs / pillars / landscape blocking / etc...
    I spent the majority of tonight knocking out a gravel / patchy grass / grassy material for now... I'll be coming back to it to fix up later on in detail but for the time being will be a place holder.

    C&C Welcome.

    Screenie from UE4.


    Quick painter over for fun to see how things will fall into place later on.


    And the substance I pieced together tonight which is plugged into the floor with 3 graph instances blending between layers of grass visibility.

  • Kogoshi
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    Kogoshi polycounter lvl 2
    Looking good so far, excited to see how it turns out.  
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    @Kogoshi haha you and me both buddy! xD

    Made a move on the Stair Case atm... So I've decided to completely dissect it and go with modular building the steps for some variety within UE4. 
    This is an update on the sculpting process so far.

    I haven't gotten around to the smaller pieces but there will be 3-4 broken segments which I'll be placing in a bit of a randomized fashion on the stair case as well for break up. I'll have them in the next update once I've gotten around to sculpting them :)

    I also think the border around the decoration looks like it's going inwards but it's actually not haha... it's a separate subtool so it seems a little darker in the screenie.

    C&C Welcome.



    Kidd.
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    Been a very busy time for me recently with juggling between freelance / moving back to my home country etc... So haven't had much time to work on this... Probably still won't until late July but I'm doing all I can to get the legwork in when I get a moment to haha.

    So here's another update, I'm still sculpting the stair case, I've only got the platform design to sculpt out before I can call the high poly done on that side. Not much has changed since my last update on it so there's no update for that for the time being.
    What I have to show today is the largest cliff/rock segment to the level which I'll be using in modular around the base of the islands.

    C&C Very welcome, I plan on baking out the main curvature detail on the sculpt and then applying a rocky substance which will be mapped to WorldScale value so the rocky texture will apply all over the models without continuity issues and harsh cuts for better blending in future.


  • stilobique
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    stilobique polycounter lvl 12
    Nice sculpt, i'm stay here to learn :) .
  • Nomad - Nicolas Pirot
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    Nomad - Nicolas Pirot polycounter lvl 4
    It's looking promising so far, great work on the substance material too.
    Is it a procedural material by the way?
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    @stilobique
    Haha thank you, I'll definitely share what I learn along this journey (Y) stay posted!

    @Nomad - Nicolas Pirot
    Thank you :) it's procedural... I've actually broken it down into 3 different versions using material instances that I'm using to blend between atm (No Grass/PatchyGrass/FullGrass) for the terrain in UE4 as well.
  • macoll
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    macoll polycounter lvl 13
    Gorgeous concept indeed.
    I will follow your work, keep up !  ;)
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    Hey guys, so here's another update... nothing here isn't finalized. In fact my workflow is generally texturing a lot of it to about 20% and placed in engine before I go the other 80% into polishing... I prefer seeing the elements come together first to figure out whether things will work together before cleaning up haha. Although I'd say there isn't much worth critiquing on just yet since there's practically nothing in this level still... Please C&C if you see any vital problems thus far. Thanks!



  • Savannakhet
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    Savannakhet polycounter lvl 11
    Are you going to do the warship in the background?
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    @Savannakhet
    That's in the itinerary yeah haha but it'll be a final prop if anything. Depending how long this piece drags out and how noisy it becomes as I place all the elements in bit by bit I may end up simplifying the details since it's at a distance. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it though :)

    Right now I'm focusing on foliage & terrain. afterwards I'll be placing in major assets like the stairs kit/stone ledges/graves & stone platforms.

    Just having fun with this as I'm going along if anything :)
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    Hey guys,

    So this is where I am with the ground foliage/lighting now... C&C Very Welcome.



    I'm attempting to build a tree bark substance but I'm failing miserably... does anyone know of a decent tutorial on concepts to build tree bark shapes? or does anyone happen to feel kind enough to share some techniques for me to get the first few steps in? essentially anything I'm building towards the tree bark direction is coming out like a stylized cracked rock surface. Tried and failed around 4/5 times on shape generation/experimentation phase.

    Until I hit something decent I may just move onto creating the trunk base/branches for the time being for silhouette blockout etc.

    But there's definitely urgency for advice on how to go about building a tree bark substance. Thanks!
  • amirabd2130
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    amirabd2130 polycounter lvl 7
    looking forward to see more
  • ThunderClouds
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    ThunderClouds polycounter lvl 9
    Such decent work, I can see you put lots of time and effort in that. Keep it up!
  • macoll
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    macoll polycounter lvl 13
    Cool ;)  What bothers me is not the height but just the 'width' of your grass, too much imo.
    Keep it up!


  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    @macoll
    Ah, you're right actually... Thanks for that, I hadn't noticed I flipped my grass billboard meshes... so the ones intended for smaller detail were being used for bigger detail instead haha... I've flipped them now... if you still think it's too thick then I'll go back and adjust the model/baked texture :)


  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    Here's another update for today.

    Managed to knock out some base tree trunks, the branches are currently instances in 3dsmax... so once I've gotten around to building some tree leaf alpha sheets I'll just attach them to the instanced branches for a quick re-import :)

    The sizes will be adjusted later on once the leaves are in for variation... any suggestions on how to go about building my leaf billboards/sheets is very much appreciated as well :)

    C&C Welcome.


  • macoll
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    macoll polycounter lvl 13
    For 19$ you have the coolest tutorial from A to Z, it covers all you have to know about leaf bilboard creation, trunk, path constraint for the bilboard at the end ....and cie....until chapter 18    http://3dmotive.com/series/creating-foliage-for-udk.html ....
    You paint the high poly branch with the paint tool in 3DSMax, then you make a HP leaf, you create the distribution by hand etc..then you bake all the thing AO, albedo, normal, color variation etc... etc....

    The new grass is neat and cool now imo
  • Nathan3D
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    Nathan3D polycounter lvl 7
    Looking good but the grass looks like it's colour is going light to dark from the bottom up it should be darker nearer the ground than the top. Also have you changed your normals on you grass sheets to point upwards they are a bit harsh as they meet the ground
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    @macoll
    Thanks for that! I'll definitely have a look into it :)

    @Adelphia
    Thanks for that observation... the normals I actually corrected with a hemisphere mesh... since my grass billboards aim outwards from each other.
    I just corrected them to aim upwards, results seem quite similar but possibly just a bit better.
    The light from bottom to top... it's actually affected by the Two-Sided Foliage model material... not quite sure how to get rid of it, I did some tweaking with the parametres I set for their colours but this is the best I could get from it... any better?

    Also, I'm moving countries in the next few days... I may fall off from posting for a month or so but here's a heads up, it's not that I gave up haha.

    C&C Very Welcome.

  • Nathan3D
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    Nathan3D polycounter lvl 7
    Yea that does look better :)  can still see a little bit of the light blue there I had a problem like this at one point I went into world settings and it was something like environment light there was a strong blue light for some reason so I turned it off and it looked good maybe have a look at that
    I had a thread about trees and such a little while ago you should check it out if you have the time might help you a little. 
  • Leinadien
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    Leinadien vertex
    I'm always in awe when I see people block out worlds like this, but I think the big clovers look out of place, they're much smaller in real life and are well camouflaged in the grass. That stair and those pillars are really inspiring though, reminds me of something that I'll have to start working on soon myself. Keep up the good work! :)
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    I really do regret to say that I've basically done no work on this since my previous update... mainly because I've been busy with work and everything.

    I finally found some time today to revisit a small part of this environment.
    Thankfully my reasons for not being able to do this isn't because I haven't been practicing my craft, I've been putting in endless hours of diligent trial and error working on a project and it's given me a massive boost in knowledge about Substance Designer since where I last left off.

    I've made a complete revisit on the gravel surface substance I posted early on, it was coming off very stylized and generally this entire environment was meant to look realistic instead.

    I'm calling this surface done for now but I'm very open to C&C to improve it, the moment I'm free again I'll gladly work on this environment further, hopefully soon.





    Thank you.
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