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[UE4] Lake Cabin Archviz

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bigodon polycounter lvl 8


So, i finished the project  :) 

My goals with this was:
- learn more about ue4
- learn new things
- improve my general skills and pipeline
- make a better project than my first one
- having fun!

I can easily say: i achieved this, i learn more things on unreal, i also discovered new things and way to do stuff, i improved my pipeline by making better assets and learn how to do things to make it looking good as possible on unreal, this lake cabin is much more prettier than my first project on playable apartment.

This archviz is not playable, I can't run this on my computer with a minimal decent framerate speed, This also is not the thing i would be very proud to talk about optimization, shader complexity is bad... awful bad to be honest here. I did many optimization i could, for make this usable as i can.

There are two videos of the archviz
1) the extended version, this is 13 minutes long! yeah... this going to be a little trip on my project where i tried to cover many details i was could.
2) the "short" version, this is 5 minutes long, i used the same camera cuts from extended, but a fewer less on this one

The EXTENDED movie: 1440p 60fps (2k maybe get processing by youtube right now, 1080p fugly pixelated is up)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wlgwzAWiL8

The SHORT movie: 1440p 60fps
~uploading now~

Screenshots: i took a few screenshots of the project, you can see all 30 screenshots on my artstation page









The project page on artstation: (not uploaded yet, going live soon as i finished the short version of video)
https://www.artstation.com/frazao

I hope you like it, i will prepare another post talking about some stuff i have done to create this scene and what market place things i used to save time if people get interested.



Replies

  • FreneticPonies
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    FreneticPonies polycounter lvl 3
  • nastobi123
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    nastobi123 polycounter lvl 8
    hey man, nice stuff. Can I possibly see the breakdown for the grasses and bushes ? Cheers !
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    Nice start.
    thanks mate!

    hey man, nice stuff. Can I possibly see the breakdown for the grasses and bushes ? Cheers !
    Hi, sorry for that long break i took
    i was been busy and also working on it.

    I will post more details soon i have to share here.
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    After a long break, i was busy working and on my free time i used to improve the archviz the best as i can.

    The OP map doesn't exist anymore because i have remake it from scratch redoing many of assets, including a propper shore for lake and new rocks to separate the landscape from the lake shore border.

    i have uploaded on my artstation some images of the props i have made, currently i have finished the meshes, painted all the textures, imported the stuff to UE4, it's time to redo the foliage and start create materials and placing things on my new landscape, this going take a while to do, but i hope have this thing finished in two weeks or so.

    the area is big, i have took one map from affordable landsacapes bundle and reesculpt the whole terrain. This makes me think will be impossible to bake the illumination on my machine, even on the lowest baking settings available. But still something i'm going to see when i start teaking the illumination a bit better

    i manage to get ~30fps as minimum on my machine by propper optimize my assets, using single polygon bilboards for very far distance tree pines do the job pretty well and looks good enough, still having problem with the fake fog, but also managed to make it hit way less than on my previous attempt and i'm using a more simple material with less instructions. I also reviewed the lod of many assets and did some better meshes on lake shore to save performance of placing billions of little rocks

    you can check the progress of props on my artstation page: https://www.artstation.com/frazao
    there are over 200 unique props i did or optimized, but i recently upload just a few some.

    i'm using some, i think it's 8 or 10 props from my last archviz to save me some time

    but, check out!












  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    I don't have the cabin built on ue4 yet, but for having a rough idea what i'm talking about, here is a screenshot from my c4d viewport with some assets and the cabin.

    front view:


    perspective top view:


    back perspective:


    going start pack things together on this week just after i create the materials and redo the foliage on the new area.

    as you can see, two floors with a balcony
    there is a pit fire, a bench on tree

    the roof is made with big four windows and get a better light propagation and cool view when we are inside, there are a fireplace on the 2nd floor with a chimney, this chimney will have a nice ray march material smoke similar to the ones we see on the division, and the pitfire will be able to turn on and off.

    there are plenty of cool things to do, i hope the results are great when i start packing it and i will keep this topic updated.
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    Ok, i have news
    the dock is almost finished

    here is the current result without light baked, i still need to add two more props on boat and the dock ramp stairs
    then i will can move to the cabin.








  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    not my voxels, using someone smokey to fuel my chimney
    but damn... i loved this


    Gyfcat link: https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/AdvancedEmptyDorado
  • Bletzkarn
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    Bletzkarn polycounter lvl 6
    damn you're good man.

    where are you getting your foliage assets from if you don't mind me asking?
  • FreneticPonies
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    FreneticPonies polycounter lvl 3
    The water material is missing light extinction/faloff. Nice job otherwise!
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    Bletzkarn said:
    damn you're good man.

    where are you getting your foliage assets from if you don't mind me asking?

    Thanks
    all foliage are from marketplace/megascans, except the distant coniffers on high mountain. These ones i created by myself the textures for bilboards
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    The water material is missing light extinction/faloff. Nice job otherwise!
    Thanks Frenetic, i will take a look on this today for sure
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    This is easily one of most hard prop to bring it for UE4, jesus...

    it was difficult to bring this prop to the EU4, but in the end everything worked out I had to split the mesh into 5 parts, in fact it was 6. But there is an entire part that I did not decide to use. The part of the interlaced basket was the most complicated





    also, there are few new props on the dock area
    the paddles are already on the map and placed, there are 8 of them



    and this is how look like the second floor roof window from the cabin
    still speaking about the cabin, i have to see another color for textures, maybe white painted wood or that color, but a bit more darker... still under consideration

    i also have to find out how to avoid the leafs from particles go inside the cabin.

    Gyfcat link: https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/FaithfulLiveGrayfox



    and another ss from the back of cabin

  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    almost finish the cabin, i decided bring a bit more assets from my last archviz
    i need to do just a few things on its interior before move to the second part of the cabin

    here are some ss from outside area right now









    So, when finish everything i will build the light and see the first results

    this cloud thing on distant pines is something i have to tweak or remove, the performance get hit so hard and the scene is currently pretty heavy and the results doesn't look like exactly something i wanted

    edit: i just noticed there is an overlaping mesh on my basket sofa
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    finished placing the last part of cabin
    now i will try to fix little things, improve performance

    then start working and building the lighting (already did a small test)





    if everything goes right as expect, i will clone the map and make it dawn like 5AM
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    before build the light i need to fix some things
    and i need your help here, let me demo what is happening for you better understand and see if you have a fix for this

    please take a look on this gyfcat:
    https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/MenacingGlamorousBluemorphobutterfly


    - the static mesh of panels doesn't have build in lods
    - i haven't make any lods for this, because this is already low poly
    - i tried to use ue4 auto lod, but didn't work... this flickering still happening
    - i tried to remove all lods and the flickering also happen
    - the project anti aliasing is temporal aa and set to cinematic
    - this strange flickering happens some where on screen size ~0.3 but after pass this range, it looks like ~0.4
    - i tried to use a single mesh with textures on that panels, but didn't work well. The gaps just "close" with this screen distance

    i'm running out of ideas, any one know how to fix this?

    Also, until i can find a way to get rid of this flickering. I'm playing with two things: neofur and give a darker mask on the floor

    neofur on optimized shader doesn't kill the performance and make my carpet way better than it can look, the other version gives a big impact on performance for a very little gain.





    and the dark mask variation on the floor:
    i did this on my substance painter file, since there i have a bit more control on what is going on over the textures



    and yeah, there will be fire:
    i just don't know how to animate the emissive burned bark, i think is something with panner nodes (have to research how to do)

  • ilari
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    ilari polycounter lvl 3
    I really like this scene, the fog especially is a brilliant touch. The fog transition from water to land looks a little sharp though, maybe try placing some fog cards on the water like so?


    The flickering that's happening with the blinds looks to be a moire artifact. Take a look at this: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/121845/moire-problems.html

    I'd try solving it by switching to a single textured plane like you did for LOD1, then making custom mipmaps for the texture to ensure the blinds don't fade away completely at a distance: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/323747/how-to-import-custom-mip-maps.html
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    ilari said:
    I really like this scene, the fog especially is a brilliant touch. The fog transition from water to land looks a little sharp though, maybe try placing some fog cards on the water like so?


    The flickering that's happening with the blinds looks to be a moire artifact. Take a look at this: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/121845/moire-problems.html

    I'd try solving it by switching to a single textured plane like you did for LOD1, then making custom mipmaps for the texture to ensure the blinds don't fade away completely at a distance: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/323747/how-to-import-custom-mip-maps.html
    awesome! thanks for the references and for the tip, i will look it out and see what i can do for fix this moire problem

    about the reference, i will try to put some raymarch fog cards on to lake distant shorelines and see how this will work
    currently i'm trying to make the fog going down from the top of mountain to the botom, without getting the particles concentrate too much and makes a "bloat fog balls"

    some times works, some times doesn't, i liked the reference on the girl is sitting
    this is most close from what i'm trying to achieve :)
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8


    So, i finished the project 
    :) 

    Like i said on OP. my goals with this was:
    - learn more about ue4
    - learn new things
    - improve my general skills and pipeline
    - make a better project than my first one
    - having fun!

    I can easily say: i achieved this, i learn more things on unreal, i also discovered new things and way to do stuff, i improved my pipeline by making better assets and learn how to do things to make it looking good as possible on unreal, this lake cabin is much more prettier than my first project on playable apartment.

    I have been in trouble last week to build the light, I tried a bit more quality and this took a lot of time. The worst part of this was lose almost 5 days building the light because my dumb neighbor did a stupid move to drink and drive. So... what is happened? he was drunk, took his car, went out of garage and hit the light pole, this immediately caused it to lack light energy. lol

    And before that i lose another 3 days or so because i was 
    impatient and start using pc for working on another things, so the result you maybe know: the editor crashed ... anyway, i used a previous light baked i have done for the project and i think this is more than enough and bring some ok results for what i wanted on the project.

    The changes so far:
    - i have replaced the whole world grass for a much better one, with better LOD and better billboards
    - i have "replanted" the grass by using 3 different sizes, 3 different density sizes, and manually put this on the cabin area 
    - i have added some new props on cabin
    - i have used planar reflections to improve the lake reflections a bit more, it's not the very best water i have done but good enough for now
    - i have made a simple fog card, to bring more dense atmosphere going down from sky to pines, this is just a gradient noise texture i have done on PS for fake this effect

    This archviz is not playable, I can't run this on my computer with a minimal decent framerate speed, This also is not the thing i would be very proud to talk about optimization, shader complexity is bad... awful bad to be honest here. I did many optimization i could, for make this usable as i can.

    There are two videos of the archviz
    1) the extended version, this is 13 minutes long! yeah... this going to be a little trip on my project where i tried to cover many details i was could.
    2) the "short" version, this is 5 minutes long, i used the same camera cuts from extended, but a fewer less on this one

    The EXTENDED movie: 1440p 60fps (2k maybe get processing by youtube right now, 1080p fugly pixelated is up)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wlgwzAWiL8

    The SHORT movie: 1440p 60fps
    ~uploading now~

    Screenshots: i took a few screenshots of the project, you can see all 30 screenshots on my artstation page










    The project page on artstation: (not uploaded yet, going live soon as i finished the short version of video)
    https://www.artstation.com/frazao

    I hope you like it, i will prepare another post talking about some stuff i have done to create this scene and what market place things i used to save time if people get interested.
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    and here is the SHORT version of the movie
    this is 5 minutes long and has less camera cuts than the extended version, but share the same camera cuts... so, nothing "new" here, just not that long than the other.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRxKqPxjBrc&feature=youtu.be

  • Enalrem
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    Enalrem polycounter lvl 8
    This is really relaxing! I really get that "woods and lake" feeling from your video. I feel though that your props/building is missing some bevels, the edges from wooden beams still feel too hard. I get the feeling less in your close up shots, but at the beginning when we see the roof it did bother me. 
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    Enalrem said:
    This is really relaxing! I really get that "woods and lake" feeling from your video. I feel though that your props/building is missing some bevels, the edges from wooden beams still feel too hard. I get the feeling less in your close up shots, but at the beginning when we see the roof it did bother me. 
    thanks sir! this makes me happy to know you getting the feeling i was trying to do
    about the bevels, i can agree in many levels, this is something i have to learn stop doing hard edges, or at least normalize then

    and that camera cuts i agree, the foliage gets too close and has a camera clipping on a bark
    but yeah things to get fix for my next project, i will remember :)
  • ilari
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    ilari polycounter lvl 3
    Nice job! The video has a good atmosphere.

    As a five minute touch up you could try a HDRI skybox to really sell the outdoor shots. https://hdrihaven.com/ is a good resource.
  • bigodon
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    bigodon polycounter lvl 8
    ilari said:
    Nice job! The video has a good atmosphere.

    As a five minute touch up you could try a HDRI skybox to really sell the outdoor shots. https://hdrihaven.com/ is a good resource.
    outstanding tip! thanks, i didn't knew about this site
    bookmarking it here

    i surely will take a look, now i'm trying to convert the map to 4-5AM with a very blue sky mood version, currently this one is 9-10AM
    maybe there is a nice cloudy bluesky hdri box that allows me try doing something

    and thanks for the feedback :)
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