Dieselpunk spaceship hangar

PLing

Think WW2 aircraft carriers in space. Well, this is my first big UDK environment ever and I'd love some pointers. The pics below shows what I got at the moment but it still feels a bit... uninteresting? The empty corner under the playform thingy is gonna be filled with maintenance stuff and shipping boxes and there will be wall lights on the walkways up there.

So, how do I make it more interesting? I'm thinking of replacing the wall panels with something else like huge fuel tanks or something cr<zy like that. Ideas?

Also any tips with setting up lighting are welcomed...

PLing

Okay I know it's been a while but I started texturing more stuff. The walls are temp textures still and the floor will be reworked.

Oh and how do I get a glow around the lights? Is it automatic when I make them self-illuminated in the texture or is there an entity? I tried using a huge single particle but it was clipping with the model.

AzzaMat

I find with lighting that I start with just a skylight while I'm building. Once I'm finished making everything I go into lighting detail mode in UDK and drop the skylight down to 0.02 or so (If its an exterior scene usually I just delete it and replace with a dominant directional). I then would put all my lights in where light would be being cast. Using a mixture of spotlights and standard lights. If the ceiling is too dark I bring up the skylights upper brightness a bit. Then once it looks nice in lighting detail mode I go back into normal mode to see how it looks with textures. Then tweak lighting levels and colour until I'm happy. If there is a central object in the scene then I usually put the dominant light in near that.
Glow is done in the emissive channel in the objects material. 1 being full bright self illuminated and anything past 1 being the brightness of the object. Then you can edit the bloom effects in the post processing options to increase the amount of glow to make it look pretty (but for god sake don't overdo it, too much bloom looks horrible).

Hope this helps =D

PLing

Thanks a lot, that was a very detailed! And I hate too much bloom too so no worries there.

danpaz3d

Yeah, looking good so far. Since this is a warehouse type thing for aircraft (hence, a lot of empty space) you'll need to work on the materials and lighting a lot.

For the lighting I suggest something like this with a bunch of huge drop-down lights.


For materials you'd need to look at how everything is used.
Example: oil spills, scratches from dragging, dents... combine that with the spec detail for the materials.

As for modelling, fairly straightforward. You'd have to do more models for the edges and corners of the warehouse, and less for the middle.

That's it!

Uninter

There's one tiny thing that's bothering me and it's mostly just a stylistic thing.

You've got wooden benches in there, and for dieselpunk I'd expect something more along the lines of...
http://www.modern50.com/files/gimgs/3088_tome-school-bleachers-steel-bench1.jpg
This or...
http://www.designboom.com/cms/images/ridhika09/xavier02.jpg

It just seems so out of place where everything else is made out of metal!

turb0n3rz

i like the idea for the drop down lights

i think that a very bright lighting setup will go really great with the vibrant purple that you have for railings, tiles, and overall hardware

great job modeling btw

SirCalalot

I think you'd do well to include some nice light shafts coming through some glass windows in the ceiling - much like @danpaz3d posted in the photo.
It should provide some interesting scenarios for lighting

Keep up the good work!

Sensorium

@turb0n3rz:
The purple color comes from the default checkerboard material which UDK applies to all objects when no specific material is applied by the user

PLing

Uninter wrote: »

There's one tiny thing that's bothering me and it's mostly just a stylistic thing.

You've got wooden benches in there, and for dieselpunk I'd expect something more along the lines of...
http://www.modern50.com/files/gimgs/3088_tome-school-bleachers-steel-bench1.jpg
This or...
http://www.designboom.com/cms/images/ridhika09/xavier02.jpg

It just seems so out of place where everything else is made out of metal!

I hear you, but I chose them because

a) I wanted to bring more of a WW2 atmosphere to it, like metal is more useful on spaceships and guns than on benches and

b) I think they bring warmness into the otherwise quite cold and hostile environment.

PLing

Weeny bit of progress!

PLing

By the way, why is my Max 2011 not saving the second UV channel? It did earlier (or I've forgotten to do something) but now every time I reset to the second channel nothing that I do there gets saved.

PLing

You can never have enough office stuff!

Blaisoid

floor panels seem kinda oversized, probably because those holes/bolts and seams are really big.

PLing

Which ones, the greenish ones in the hall or the ones in the crew area?

Blaisoid

greenish ones.

PLing

Well, they do have smaller bolts holding down what I think you're thinking as the bolts.

http://www.leet.cc/hangar_floors.png

But making the crew side floors smaller did help set some scale though so thanks for that.

PLing

Some fuel tanks and some complementary colour lighting, how exciting! Working on the launch door too, gonna be sweet.

PLing

Don't mind the seam, was just testing it but that's pretty close to what it will look like.

chrisradsby

Up the brightness bro + you need some contrast in there.

SirCalalot

Chris is right, if I blur my vision looking at your screenshots, the entire image blends into a fairly uniform medium frequency.
I should be able to pick up contrast and form, as well as generally equal amounts of bright areas and dark areas to lead the eye.

Granted, you're still building your scene at the moment, but it is something to take into account. Hope that helps!

PLing

I'll do that, cheers!

PLing

Taking a break from the env stuff and modeling the "space"craft itself.

PLing

benji

Sweet aircraft design
For me it brings to mind Mario games with its cute stylised aesthetic - but this kinda seems at odds with the rest of your environment - which might detract from its cohesiveness as a whole

PLing

You're right and I think I'm gonna rework the environment to be softer geometry wise. Didn't really have a clear idea of it when I was starting it out.

PLing

More progress, not completely happy with the engines.

SirCalalot

I'd love to see your progress, but the image isn't working

PLing

So it is, the host is down! I'll get some updated pics soon as I get home from work.

Edit: Here's the latest one, hoping the host would come back up soon.

PLing

Some new stuff

PLing

It's been a while but I've redesigned the landing gear (pics later) and been working on the autocannons!

SirCalalot

Keep it up!
I can't wait to see this textured.