City 17 Apartment/Stairwell - UE4
polycounter lvl 10
'Edit - Download the scene in UE4 here!'
Hey all!
Not posted up a new thread in ages.. Been super busy with work and not really had a great deal of time to work on anything really. However, over the past few months I've been coming back to this one particular scene, which is a re-creation of a small section of HL2 in UE4.
I've chosen one of the apartment stairwells to re-make, primarily just because I wanted to try making a small environment getting out of my usual sci-fi comfort zone, and I want to attempt to make a scene entirely using Substance Designer and Painter. I'm also going to expand this scene into an exterior too as that will be good fun! I'm not giving myself any time limit on this scene, I just want to have fun with it in my spare time.
So far, I've only used Photoshop for a few little decals on the paint cans and fizzy drink cans. Everything here so far has been textured in Designer so far. However, I've started to use Painter and I'm thinking of switching my material library over to Painter to start getting some more unique detail in there!
Anyway, here's my plan for what's left:
Edit - Latest and final screenshots!
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/city-17-stairwell-and-attic-scene-ue4
And a couple of shots showing how big this scene turned out to be in the end!
Hey all!
Not posted up a new thread in ages.. Been super busy with work and not really had a great deal of time to work on anything really. However, over the past few months I've been coming back to this one particular scene, which is a re-creation of a small section of HL2 in UE4.
I've chosen one of the apartment stairwells to re-make, primarily just because I wanted to try making a small environment getting out of my usual sci-fi comfort zone, and I want to attempt to make a scene entirely using Substance Designer and Painter. I'm also going to expand this scene into an exterior too as that will be good fun! I'm not giving myself any time limit on this scene, I just want to have fun with it in my spare time.
So far, I've only used Photoshop for a few little decals on the paint cans and fizzy drink cans. Everything here so far has been textured in Designer so far. However, I've started to use Painter and I'm thinking of switching my material library over to Painter to start getting some more unique detail in there!
Anyway, here's my plan for what's left:
- Block-out exterior. I have started on the Attic section, but I want to expand on this and create an exterior including a City 17 vista and streets down below. Lots to do for this!
- So far I've only been blocking out materials and only really started on creating props. I want to add a little more unique detail such as plaster decals, paint decals and just generally break up the surfaces a bit more.
- Make loads more props for the interior! Cardboard boxes, carpets, rugs, more junk such as takeaways boxes, trash, newspapers etc.
- More HL2-specific stuff. I've got the basics in and next I want to re-create some Combine posters and eventually, get more Combine machinery in this scene.
Edit - Latest and final screenshots!
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/city-17-stairwell-and-attic-scene-ue4
And a couple of shots showing how big this scene turned out to be in the end!
Replies
So does everything else on your portfolio!
Though I did see an update in the WAYWO thread
One thing I noticed is your ambient occlusion seems like it might be baked in or turned up a notch too high, especially noticeable in things like the wood plank floors and the red crate prop in image 3. I get the same feeling with the wooden trim around the doors aswell, as in it looks like it was passed through a sharpen/contrast filter just slightly too high so now the edges have a more black/white vibrancy than normal.
Of course, these comments could be due to the technical differences in how almost all of Hl2's textures were diffuse photo-based with some subtle normals, versus going about creating them today in substance designer.
Unfortunately it seems that my Dropbox account generated too much traffic and it has been temporarily blocked! I've changed the links to Imgur for now, so they should be working again! Check the original post again.
@MatthewO - Yeah I am using a sharpen post process. However, it is a little too intense at the moment so I'm going to reduce it slightly to reduce some of the over-sharpening going on on some edges.
@Deathstick - I think these issues stem from the post processing. I've turned it down a little now!
Anyone want to make some Combine NPCs for me? :P
Here's tonight's update. Had an hour or so this evening so knocked up a quick procedural poster Substance in Designer. This allows me to input a basic map and it procedurally rips it up etc. Nothing too fancy but does the job!
Also.. Some shots from HL2 for memory's sake
I think the walls feel slightly disconnected from the floor though. Add some dust/light grime in the corners and maybe add some scuffs and marks on the wall and give it a gradient closer to the floor. It will definitely help connect the two.
I also think that you should make the combine posters more like paper. The damage is just random now. Or if you're not feeling the poster idea push it further to spray on stencil. It's just sorta gamy right now.
Keep it up!
love your textures and lighting :thumbup:
@Ged - Yeah those materials are looking a bit flat! That was one of the first materials and I want to go back to it, it's a little messy. I'm just blocking out all the materials at the moment, I still want to go back and add in more vertex paint variations as well as unique damage decals such as where the plaster meets the floor etc, revealing below layers.
@Outtoplay - I will do a proper breakdown soon, but I basically have one generic material with a bunch of wear/scratch settings which I use for all my materials and I just tweak the gloss/roughness etc, then I have a wear/dirt node I plug in to get dirt on my materials. It's not exact and doesn't always work exactly how I want but it does a decent enough job to make texturing one of the quickest parts of my SD pipeline. I want to use Painter more though; my next goal is to get my generic materials into Painter.
@Stimpy77 - Yeah I definitely want to make it look a little more dilapidated. Don't want to take it too far as this place is still lived in, but definitely want more damage/wear.
@Strolsson - Awesome feedback, thanks for taking the time to write that up. Agreed on all points! I did want to bed the walls in a bit more with decals/vert paint. Also the Combine poster definitely needs work; it's quite basic at the moment and I rushed it. I think I only spent half an hour knocking up a quick generic poster material. I really want to have thinner paper in those rips, and then fade out to the underlying material. Shouldn't be too hard!
So tonight I made this roof tile material in Substance. Modelled in Max quickly, but textured from scratch in Designer. This was a fun material to make and I got a couple of generic materials out of it; terracotta ceramic, and a mossy material.
I think there's so really great potential here to build this out, from a graphical demo, adding some new parts every time, then adding some NPC's, experiment with some some simple gameplay mechanics ... perhaps some hide and seek form of guerrilla combat with the combine could do great. Less fast paced, perhaps focusing more on stealth and exploring the intimate details of the environment, so you can really enjoy and get immersed in the amazing atmosphere and graphical overhaul of this location. Put it on Greenlight and I'd certainly pay for it
Haven't posted here in a while as I have been very busy working on this scene when I get chance. Been moving house and other stuff, but that's all out the way now so I have a bit of time to finish this up.
I've mainly been working on a small exterior area for outside the windows just to give the scene a bit more parallax as you walk up the stairs, as well as lots more props and dressing stuff. I purposely didn't want to go overkill with props as I wanted to keep this fairly simple and as reminiscent of HL2 as possible. I've taken some liberties in areas, but in general it's pretty faithful to the original layout.
The attic is a little more vibrant and less drab than the original HL2; I felt it would perhaps look a little boring if I did a direct 1:1 update of the original. Plus I had to change the direction of the stairs for the building to actually make any sense with my new added windows to the stairwell! Don't hurt me
Just so you know, I do plan to release this scene online for people to play around with. I'm not going to release it just yet, as I would really like to get it working with Oculus Rift before I do.. So you can run around with virtual reality. Not entirely sure if its going to work, but I'll give it a good go!
Thanks for all the kind words and feedback everyone.
Here's a few final shots:
And a couple of shots showing how big this scene turned out to be in the end!