[UDK] Sci-Fi City [WIP]
polycounter lvl 12
*FINISHED*
Hi everyone,
I have finally finished this environment piece and i am pretty pleased at how it turned out. Thanks to everyone for their input, it helped a lot. I learned a few new things in UDK and have posted some in my tutorials page, for those interested, on my website (www.poligonz.com) I'm posting a few final images here but i have a lot more screenshots, wireframes, high poly renders, etc on my site so feel free to check it out. Now it's time to move on to something else.
FInal screens:
*OLD (WIP)*
Hi fellow polycounters,
After about 3 weeks of working on this personal project i decided to make a WIP thread here for some comments and critique.
So far i made a few static meshes (blocked out streets) and materials (normal maps and specular maps only) with some subtle cube reflections on them. So far im happy with the layout and how the center piece is coming out. Played around with terrain and kind of blocked out some materials and grass (ore to be done). One thing i cannot decide is the color scheme for the buildings. I included a crappy paint over for how im going to add detail to buildings to break up some of the repetitiveness. Here are a few screenshots and critique is welcome. Thanks!
WIP:
Pintover:
Hi everyone,
I have finally finished this environment piece and i am pretty pleased at how it turned out. Thanks to everyone for their input, it helped a lot. I learned a few new things in UDK and have posted some in my tutorials page, for those interested, on my website (www.poligonz.com) I'm posting a few final images here but i have a lot more screenshots, wireframes, high poly renders, etc on my site so feel free to check it out. Now it's time to move on to something else.
FInal screens:
*OLD (WIP)*
Hi fellow polycounters,
After about 3 weeks of working on this personal project i decided to make a WIP thread here for some comments and critique.
So far i made a few static meshes (blocked out streets) and materials (normal maps and specular maps only) with some subtle cube reflections on them. So far im happy with the layout and how the center piece is coming out. Played around with terrain and kind of blocked out some materials and grass (ore to be done). One thing i cannot decide is the color scheme for the buildings. I included a crappy paint over for how im going to add detail to buildings to break up some of the repetitiveness. Here are a few screenshots and critique is welcome. Thanks!
WIP:
Pintover:
Replies
I have to say, I love the normals and specs you have already, I think it would be worthwhile playing off the white look you have at the moment, maybe adding some blues. I've seen quite a few scenes similar to this using warm colours, so to really make yours pop from the crowd I think it would be cool to see one focusing on cooler colours.
Good luck and I'll certainly be following your progress!
Color wise, I could see it going a couple different ways; I like the white, so maybe white with splashes of graphic color that's very bright and vibrant - or it could even be brightly multicolored, with yellows, blues, whites, and reds all showing off the individuality of each home.
@Bek: grass is a placeholder for now, and you raise a valid point. But, i still wanted to bring in some "life" into it i guess. I'll play around with the grass some more.
@Enexus: i will post some high poly to low poly bake downs so you can see the detailes.
@Daft.eng: Thanks! Yea, i want to keep it as clean as posibble but still bring in detail trough a diffuse. Cool colors with maybe some red/orange lights? could be interesting.
@InvertedVantage: Thank you! Yea that was the feel i was going for. place where people live in the same building they work in, so it has that unwelcoming feel. I'm keeping the narrow piece of building white probably.
@Chillydog12345: Thank you!
Thanks for the feedback and i will be posting more shortly!
HP:
I started texturing and playing with some colors and materials and I updated a cube map. Im not sure how i feel about the orange so i might post a version with cool colors. I made wires hanging off of the buildings (placeholders for now) just to see how it looks, the plan is to make even more wires. Eventually i will make more props like crates, pieces that i can stick on buildings, background buildings etc.
Also, i ran into a problem. My emissive is not showing after lighting has been built. I set a static mesh to be emissive, made sure i have a map pluged into emissive in a material but its not working. I did it before and i am doing the same steps now but with no results. Any thoughts?
Tell me what you think. Thanks!
Here is another update:
-I cleaned up some textures, normal maps, and some seams. Finally got the emissive to work.
-I started removing all the orange colors except in a few places. Rearranged the building a little more to make the space feel larger.
-my next step is to finalize the layout, colors, and cleaning up what i have then on to the props like ladders, clothing lines, crates, hologram signs etc.
Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks!
P.S. Does anybody know of any dust blowing in the wind particle tutorials? I searched the web with no results.
While were on the subject- what do you plan on doing there? Maybe some parked vehicles?
It also might be a good idea to make some larger skybox buildings that add to your verticality.
Also a tad more variety in your modules would go a long way. Its starting to feel a tad cookie cutter.
Nice work so far man!
City is getting smaller and smaller...lol...i think ill just stick to the a city block or a small area with a point of interest (obelisk in this case).
I added one more section to break up the repetitiveness of the walls and been playing around with lighting. I'm making a bunch of props that will fill out some of that space in between buildings. Also i will be adding some neon signs and a shop or two.
Tell me how it looks so far, i'm hoping for some feedback. Maybe i'm missing something staring at it for so long.
Screenshots:
You've already put a lot of work here and it looks good it only needs just a little refinement. Add more city associated stuff like billboards, garbage bins, bus stops ect. People in future still have the same needs. Keep up the good work
Hopefully more people chime in on this. Critiques like this help a lot to me since this is the biggest personal project I've done so far. It's a huge learning experience for me and i hope other people get something out of this, too.
P.S. Rambooze, your fallout tribute looks phenomenal!
Changes:
-i removed "ground" ground and replaced it with asphalt/road ground.
-i started adding neon signs and a prop here and there (mostly placeholders)
-added a "building section which i used to create residential buildings feel. it might be too repetitive right now so ill add another section to break it up.
Plan moving forward:
-cleaning up textures, models, lighting, floating meshes, seams, etc.
-Adding a 4 small fountains and a tree (maybe) in the center
-adding more props (clothing lines, cars?, second set of street lamps, more neon signs, etc).
-more wires hanging
-a tunnel (maybe)
Eventually, ill post some high poly pieces, low poly UDK renders, etc.
So, any comments and critique is very welcome!
images:
wall 1:
wall 2:
Wall 3:
Wall 4:
Wall 5:
Wall 6:
Also, Personally I'd go punch up the lighting on the signs to accent the lighting and make it more dramatic.
Looks really good, very nice!
Could you tell us how many poly do you have for the last few pieces that you post?
I'm looking to bring a environment that I'm doing in Maya to UDK later, but I'm not sure about how many poly it must have for each static mesh, thank you!
@Ignacio_G: Thanks! My high poly workflow is pretty standard. I modeled everything in 3ds max max and did bakes in 3ds max, too. I do plan on using nDo2, and maybe dDo whn it comes out, but for not i'm sticking to old fashioned poly modeling. Also, as you can notice, i have a some floating geo in my high poly. I made a few small pieces that i can copy around my high poly to get some more detail. I hope that helps! Lighting is still in early stages, but, i agree pushing it more will add some contrast.
@Rageleet: Thanks! i will post some wires as soon as i get the chance. I made everything modular. I also pre plan alot like gatering reference (i was looking at Tokyo for neon signs for example), sketching (not so good at it...lol), whitebox in max, measuring, etc. What i'm learning from this so far is: start with few pieces that are modular like my first post. i built a "city" from 5 pieces and then started adding on to it to break up repetitiveness. Yea, this is a challenge but i'm taking my time with it.
@Guilherme_rambelli: Thanks, man! It is not done yet, i'd say i'm about half way done. Still a lot more to do. I try to keep all the big pieces under 5000 triangles. I think there's only one that's about 4000, the rest are 3000 and below. I think the last one is about 300 triangles. I'd say keep it low but try to have enough triangles so you can preserve your high poly bake.
@rabooze: Thanks a lot, man!
P.S. I think I asked this before, but does anyone know how to blur cube maps in UDK?
@ZombieWells: wow! Thanks for the paintover, it looks great. I'm in the process of texturing another pass on all models and this helps so much! Are you using a custom brush in photoshop for the rust part because it look great? I'll do this particular piece in a similar fashion and will post it this weekend.
I greatly appreciate everybodies input so far!