You could still bring in what you did in Maya as a whole into UDK, put a semi transparent bright coloured texture (green or blue) aplied to the mesh, and then use that as a guide.
Been looking for a new scene to tackle that wasn't too large of an undertaking. Absolutely love this concept, although I would personally change some things. I'm a little late to the party but I'm giving myself more than 4 weeks for this. (I work full time + overtime coming up pretty soon, not to mention my freelance work on the side. :shifty:) I'm still going to give it a go!
So here's my breakdown:
I'm so used to doing low poly stuff, that I wanted to make this with current gen specs in mind, yet also not get too carried away with huge texture sizes. I wanted to try out some 2x1 ratio textures to save on space.
So basically a 2048 cumulative texture of assets, 2x1024 Tileables, and a 1024 for the trims. (Less than 4096 for the whole scene). Hope that seems reasonable? I'm so used to making itty bitty 256s that the idea of that much texture space makes me shudder in both apprehension and excitement.
Thing I want to change/do next:
Figure out a cohesive visual language, such as Greek/Roman, Indian temple, Native American temple, etc. Gather some references and create a mood board. The statues in the concept and the designs on the door are very vague/out of focus, so I feel like I need to nail that down before I get too far ahead of myself.
I don't like the placement of the pillars. I would remove the square pillar flush against the wall (on the far right in the concept). I also want to switch the placement of the broken pillars that are alongside the path; I feel like the one on the left sort of kills the composition. Or maybe even get rid of the 2 entrance pillars and reuse those guardian statues there.
That vanishing tool youtube video is sensational, also, I am damn too tempted, I am going to learn from you guys while I do my version!! Also, Noob my ass haha, you guys are all damn pros, but hey, I can see what this Thread means! Anyone can join in and tag along!
Well it looks like you're not paying close enough attention to the scale.
Yeah, I'm having a problem determining the scale. I think I'll start reworking it tomorrow night. And look into the youtube video posted earlier for the vanishing point stuff see if maybe that helps some.
Yeah, I'm having a problem determining the scale. I think I'll start reworking it tomorrow night. And look into the youtube video posted earlier for the vanishing point stuff see if maybe that helps some.
Just make sure your units in engine are set up right, try things out and export it. I prefer to use 1, 0.75, .5, . 25 meter segments for all my walls and floors this way everything can be used modularlity in cryengine and can sometimes help in general. Just find a balance between what feels right to walk around and the concept.
I am still on my blockout, well, cause of stuff and be and Brandon Kern and competing, so I need to come up with a better idea for the scene than him:)
I am also late in the party, but I will catch up!!!
In my first post on this challenge:
I am showing measurements used using the vanity photoshop tool. Here I tried to simulate the units in Metres and I think its close enough if the statue is 2 metres tall.
Another thing I have realised, the pool and room is not square, but rectangular?
And a different colour variation. I want to make the environment as close as I can to the illustration, but as so many of you talented guys are giving this a go, I want to provide a variation
I could opt by using a fantasy/fictional/sci-fi culture or one on earth like someone mentioned earlier on this post... I however love the door and statues, I really wished I could get more concepts of this room. Anyone has the links of this artist? maybe he has done more art for this concept?
After this I am going to use simple blocks and import to UDK. Oh, and that colour blocking the different assets and type is fantastic. I will certainly give that a go and do a sketch over the concept to get a feel. I am most exited to make the statue and door assets, following by the branches on the far right.
just a quick update on the gate texture before I go to work, any crits guys? My eyes actually hurt from staring at it for so long.. I guess that means there's something wrong.
I'm hoping to have enough spare time to try this challenge. Here's a bit of blocking. Light build in UDK seems to take strangely long given it's just blocks and a small scene. The monk in UDK library - just a stand in for the sculpt target. Tom. www.tomofnz.com
Just testing out my texture pattern, and also wondering if the scale of my details might need to be bigger/chunkier. I'm going to rework the sculpt anyway because I don't like how some of the cracks look right now.
Also here is my texture tiling
Are we to recreate this as exactly as possible or is it a suggestion? For example those engaged columns along the wall. Just having one in the center of each wall looks wrong to me. Can I put more in? Does the wall need to be flat or can it have recessed arches (or even just geometric inlays/extrusions?) in between the columns or anything else to improve its visual appeal? How about trim pieces on the pedastals supporting the close columns? It's pretty boxy from a level design standpoint.
tkfxity:
Get a wacom, its sooo worth it. Doing zbrushing and texture painting is a blessing.
there is also cheap alternatives as the bamboo, if you are interested. Getting a cintiq is way too expensive, so I recomend a intuos, you can buy very cheap second hand. I got Intuos 3 since 2004 and I have never looked back. As for the textures, it really depends if you grabbing textures of the internet or painting them your self
Mango:
The exercise is to make an environment that fits most closely to the image. I would say that after you make something very similar, you can provide an alternative version or an extension of the environment. Only saying this because in the game industry, usually the game director would ask the concept artist to make something, and if he likes that, then you do the environment, and then ask him for alterations or changes. This is what I think, but I can be wrong.
Forum chewed my post I think -- but anyway, this is my blocking stage for this interesting challenge. Tom. www.tomofnz.com
How funny is that, I was thinking about that same monk statue from the City Citadel mobile demo. Its good to see however that its a better idea to model your own haha.
Yeah I know those refiels are so so... couldn't really find reference I was happy with.
I think if you keep filling up the space around the snakes with details it will look alot better than so-so!
One piece of advice though - Make the round 'door' stone a separate model, ans sculpt it as a sub object. At the moment it doesn't sit flush or indented with the trim and looks like part of the wall around it. Try not to go too hard on the edge wear either, or you may loose too much definition in your corners!
Also guys i'm having some issues with scaling, whenever i export something from max the scale is ruined, Ive set my units but nothing seems to fix, any cryengine people know anything
damn, why didn't I find out earlier about these challanges, this is awesome! I'm in!
I'm really bad at finishing stuff so I hope these challanges help!
btw, I think it's great it's all in one thread, that way everyone gets viewed!
Now for some comments, I'm seeing some great stuff already, nice blockouts and I like that there's also a hand painted one!
@Tomm: I suggest a little bit more contrast, especially in the seams between the bricks, more like in the concept art!
@m4dcow: nice tile sculp! i would add some smaller, less deep scratches on the sides off the tiles to show wear, but you could just put that in the diff and spec, bc it aren't deep cracks like the ones you sculpted, I suggest you try it out on one tile and see how it works best
@MrOneTwo: try to keep more hard edges, you round them all off and quite deep, it looks more interesting (to me) if not every edge is flattened/rounded of by wear, it will also make it look less blobby!
and then the link to Orb at the end off this post is good for you, he's a master at stone sculpting!
add a little noise/stone texture to your sculpt in a new layer to make it feel more like stone when you're done with the big details! you can make an alpha for that out off a photograph off real stone, if you don't know already, CGTextures is the place to go!
@biofrost: great tiles! you've really gone crazy on the water wear!
for a game enviro I think it might be a little to much small detail for a ground texture but for this challanges I guess it doesn't matter so mcuh!
I think if you keep filling up the space around the snakes with details it will look alot better than so-so!
One piece of advice though - Make the round 'door' stone a separate model, ans sculpt it as a sub object. At the moment it doesn't sit flush or indented with the trim and looks like part of the wall around it. Try not to go too hard on the edge wear either, or you may loose too much definition in your corners!
Yeah I thought about filling space around snakes but It took me almost half a day to sculpt this door ;p I just felt tired of it. Will work on those though. I belive they have potential. The doors are separate subtool so I will be able to do something about it. Thank for your advice.
JeremiahJensen- I don't know about CryEngine but for UDK you need to set up Max to use "Generic Units" (not "Meters" like you have now) to get a 1:1 mapping. Might be the same for CryEngine.
damn, why didn't I find out earlier about these challanges, this is awesome! I'm in!
I'm really bad at finishing stuff so I hope these challanges help!
btw, I think it's great it's all in one thread, that way everyone gets viewed!
Now for some comments, I'm seeing some great stuff already, nice blockouts and I like that there's also a hand painted one!
@Tomm: I suggest a little bit more contrast, especially in the seams between the bricks, more like in the concept art!
@m4dcow: nice tile sculp! i would add some smaller, less deep scratches on the sides off the tiles to show wear, but you could just put that in the diff and spec, bc it aren't deep cracks like the ones you sculpted, I suggest you try it out on one tile and see how it works best
@MrOneTwo: try to keep more hard edges, you round them all off and quite deep, it looks more interesting (to me) if not every edge is flattened/rounded of by wear, it will also make it look less blobby!
and then the link to Orb at the end off this post is good for you, he's a master at stone sculpting!
add a little noise/stone texture to your sculpt in a new layer to make it feel more like stone when you're done with the big details! you can make an alpha for that out off a photograph off real stone, if you don't know already, CGTextures is the place to go!
@biofrost: great tiles! you've really gone crazy on the water wear!
for a game enviro I think it might be a little to much small detail for a ground texture but for this challanges I guess it doesn't matter so mcuh!
uberphoenix : So I asked I few people that know better UDK , and aparantly I screwed up badly , those cant exported becuuse cooked packeges , wich is weird considering most of the meshes can be exported , I really feel bad for gaving miss information I do have an obj. of the ironguard is there a way I can post the file or send it to you.
Again sorry.
Ah no worries , if you could upload it to mediafire or something like that, that'd be great! much appreciated
Hello guys, i'm just new to modeling scenes like this, but I try my best to finish it) Here something what I started to do few days ago and right now i'm working on column.
Mentaly drained, learning 3dsmax and trying to replicate something its mind draining, specially when I could this in a heartbeat in maya. Its becoming more and more tempting to switch. But I got to remain strong as id like to be fluent on both 3d programs
Going to bed. My progress So far. The blockout is rather empty. But I am sure that tomorrow I'll have it done in no time.
I have learned a lot of good things today, so happy.
Woah, just read the whole way through this thread, seeing some pretty nice work so far! Tempted to join in myself, if not this month then next for sure.
@ JeremiahJensen I had all kinds of headaches with the same export problem in Maya. It did exactly the same to me, and to be perfectly honest I can't remember how I fixed it. The documentation contradicts itself to, so that didn't help.
I will write what it says in the CryEngine cookbook for 3Ds max set up anyway, so you can see if it's the same.
1. Along the top menu bar of 3ds locate customise. Click it and select Unit Setup.
2. In unit setup, change the display Unit scale to Metric Meters.
3. Click System Unit Setup.
4. From here change your system unit scale to 1 unit = 1.0 centimeters.
finally got started on this, feeling a bit behind at the moment but I'm sure I'll catch up eventually :P
Started working on the blockout earlier today, took about an hour in modo. I'm hopefully going to be able to finish the basic blockout tonight so I can start planning my texture sheets.
Heres the wall where the root grows out from. Whats the best thing to do? Should I save my textures as targas, tiifs, or png in order to import them into UDK?
So far on this challenge I've really only started on all my prep work. I've laid out the environment in 3DS Max and I'm pretty happy with the scale of everything. The concept doesn't have accurate (or consistent) perspective in a lot of areas but I think I came close. Also I did a color layout of all the texture areas. Did some asset concepts to get a better idea of how they look and how I will build them. For all the sculptural details I looked into Asian style low-relief sculpture, and I'm liking the way it's coming together!
Hi everyone. I've only just joined up, but thought I would have a go at this challenge, as one of mates had showed it me. Done some prep work yesterday, and blocked out today with a touch of texturing of the poolside tiles.
Yeah I know those refiels are so so... couldn't really find reference I was happy with.
Your sculpt base is awesome! I think using the hPolish, Planar, and Clay Tubes brushes (with square or harder edge alphas) to give you those stone feeling details, right now its feeling really mushy and its probably throwing your view of it off. right now it feels as if you are sculpting with the standard brush only. Dont be afraid! These challenges are here to push you, push yourself! Break free, and experiment. If it makes you feel better, save each major attempt separately. Take your base you have now, save it as the "BASE_whatver" file and then sculpt and experiment, and save it as another tool name. Its the best way to get of those habits and become more comfortable working with the different brush types.
hey guys, This thread is really nice, you all rocks dude, as my first lesson I made a break down but as you can see at the end, I think I won't make it to the end. so what do you say guys, some help over here! Am totally confused! really helpful posts, thanks you all. \m/
I have spent a huge time to upload the image to my site and at last I attached the file, sorry, I'll fix it.
Yeah I thought about filling space around snakes but It took me almost half a day to sculpt this door ;p I just felt tired of it. Will work on those though. I belive they have potential. The doors are separate subtool so I will be able to do something about it. Thank for your advice.
Cheers man!,I had a go at using the generic units and still failed, But for some reason Cm Works just fine.
This is the setup that is working for me just in case anyone else starting out runs into similar issues
Wow truly impressive You guys work fast!
Here´s my progress up to now.. seeing as i skipped the part with the meticulous measuring and just slapped everything into the scene I´ll probably have to redo tha layout. Also, i havent touched UDK so far (though i´m hoping i might still get to that), so there is just a really fast unity frankenstein, complete with funky lightmaps. Huzzah!
Everything is advancing oh so quick, some awesome work there guys.
Anyway it may seem not too much has changed since my last post but there has been significant and important changes:
- Sculpted out some tiles for the 'pond' border, and then slapped on a quick DM on it to get something in the engine and tested.
- I then realised that my scene was not very friendly towards a modular approach, so I have spent some time re-designing the level layout so that all my modular pieces can snap in place.
- Re-did the mesh blockouts and added more of the main meshes, so now everything is in the scene and it's mostly a case of working on it in maya/photoshop and just updating the scene to see the changes [at least for now]
So far I have placed down all the floor tiles as meshes so that, if I have some time to, I can look into vertex painting for all the dirt.
Comments and crits always welcome
ps. I realise the floor texture is awful, that is just placeholder for the moment.
@m4dcow: nice tile sculp! i would add some smaller, less deep scratches on the sides off the tiles to show wear, but you could just put that in the diff and spec, bc it aren't deep cracks like the ones you sculpted, I suggest you try it out on one tile and see how it works best
Thanks LuCh!, I do need some medium detail in those sculpts, when I go back to the tile sculpt I'll try to keep that in mind.
In the meantime, here is a pillar. I split the main column into 3 repeating parts, which are rotated to avoid repetiton and used the base on the bottom and top of the column. My thinking is that I can sculpt the 2 broken sections and whatever little pieces of rubble and fit them all onto the same map.
Well since I failed miserably in last months challenge thanks to a 6000 word essay and some other unforseen commitments- I'm back. So far I have done a quick plan on how I might go about making the level, a block out in maya and 2 modular floors in Zbrush.
Quick plan...
Blockout. I also imported this into UDK to make sure it looked good from the characters perspective.
First thing I have done in Zbrush for a while. Actually quite happy with it. Exported Normal and Ambient Occlusion map successfully too . For added texture for the floor I'll overlay another texture over my exported normal map.
Replies
So here's my breakdown:
I'm so used to doing low poly stuff, that I wanted to make this with current gen specs in mind, yet also not get too carried away with huge texture sizes. I wanted to try out some 2x1 ratio textures to save on space.
So basically a 2048 cumulative texture of assets, 2x1024 Tileables, and a 1024 for the trims. (Less than 4096 for the whole scene). Hope that seems reasonable? I'm so used to making itty bitty 256s that the idea of that much texture space makes me shudder in both apprehension and excitement.
Thing I want to change/do next:
Figure out a cohesive visual language, such as Greek/Roman, Indian temple, Native American temple, etc. Gather some references and create a mood board. The statues in the concept and the designs on the door are very vague/out of focus, so I feel like I need to nail that down before I get too far ahead of myself.
I don't like the placement of the pillars. I would remove the square pillar flush against the wall (on the far right in the concept). I also want to switch the placement of the broken pillars that are alongside the path; I feel like the one on the left sort of kills the composition. Or maybe even get rid of the 2 entrance pillars and reuse those guardian statues there.
Also @ Paco... I don't understand what you're saying?
Well it looks like you're not paying close enough attention to the scale.
Just make sure your units in engine are set up right, try things out and export it. I prefer to use 1, 0.75, .5, . 25 meter segments for all my walls and floors this way everything can be used modularlity in cryengine and can sometimes help in general. Just find a balance between what feels right to walk around and the concept.
I am still on my blockout, well, cause of stuff and be and Brandon Kern and competing, so I need to come up with a better idea for the scene than him:)
In my first post on this challenge:
I am showing measurements used using the vanity photoshop tool. Here I tried to simulate the units in Metres and I think its close enough if the statue is 2 metres tall.
Another thing I have realised, the pool and room is not square, but rectangular?
And a different colour variation. I want to make the environment as close as I can to the illustration, but as so many of you talented guys are giving this a go, I want to provide a variation
I could opt by using a fantasy/fictional/sci-fi culture or one on earth like someone mentioned earlier on this post... I however love the door and statues, I really wished I could get more concepts of this room. Anyone has the links of this artist? maybe he has done more art for this concept?
After this I am going to use simple blocks and import to UDK. Oh, and that colour blocking the different assets and type is fantastic. I will certainly give that a go and do a sketch over the concept to get a feel. I am most exited to make the statue and door assets, following by the branches on the far right.
I'm hoping to have enough spare time to try this challenge. Here's a bit of blocking. Light build in UDK seems to take strangely long given it's just blocks and a small scene. The monk in UDK library - just a stand in for the sculpt target. Tom.
www.tomofnz.com
Forum chewed my post I think -- but anyway, this is my blocking stage for this interesting challenge. Tom. www.tomofnz.com
Imported my scene into UDK
Sculpted another pillar
Made the base mesh for my center piece and center floor piece
I'm too tired to remember the rest =P
Here is my sculpted pillar
And here is a WIP crude blockout
Time for bed!
Also here is my texture tiling
Are we to recreate this as exactly as possible or is it a suggestion? For example those engaged columns along the wall. Just having one in the center of each wall looks wrong to me. Can I put more in? Does the wall need to be flat or can it have recessed arches (or even just geometric inlays/extrusions?) in between the columns or anything else to improve its visual appeal? How about trim pieces on the pedastals supporting the close columns? It's pretty boxy from a level design standpoint.
Get a wacom, its sooo worth it. Doing zbrushing and texture painting is a blessing.
there is also cheap alternatives as the bamboo, if you are interested. Getting a cintiq is way too expensive, so I recomend a intuos, you can buy very cheap second hand. I got Intuos 3 since 2004 and I have never looked back. As for the textures, it really depends if you grabbing textures of the internet or painting them your self
Mango:
The exercise is to make an environment that fits most closely to the image. I would say that after you make something very similar, you can provide an alternative version or an extension of the environment. Only saying this because in the game industry, usually the game director would ask the concept artist to make something, and if he likes that, then you do the environment, and then ask him for alterations or changes. This is what I think, but I can be wrong.
How funny is that, I was thinking about that same monk statue from the City Citadel mobile demo. Its good to see however that its a better idea to model your own haha.
Yeah I know those refiels are so so... couldn't really find reference I was happy with.
And here is Unity screenshot:
Heh, glad it was helpful!
will need to try and catch up!
First enviro so any feedback would be appreciated
also Alex i watched the cryengine tutorials , Lifesaver
That light intensity map is amazing. I am going to keep that in my mental book. Thanks a million for that amazing tip!
I think if you keep filling up the space around the snakes with details it will look alot better than so-so!
One piece of advice though - Make the round 'door' stone a separate model, ans sculpt it as a sub object. At the moment it doesn't sit flush or indented with the trim and looks like part of the wall around it. Try not to go too hard on the edge wear either, or you may loose too much definition in your corners!
I'm really bad at finishing stuff so I hope these challanges help!
btw, I think it's great it's all in one thread, that way everyone gets viewed!
Now for some comments, I'm seeing some great stuff already, nice blockouts and I like that there's also a hand painted one!
@Tomm: I suggest a little bit more contrast, especially in the seams between the bricks, more like in the concept art!
@m4dcow: nice tile sculp! i would add some smaller, less deep scratches on the sides off the tiles to show wear, but you could just put that in the diff and spec, bc it aren't deep cracks like the ones you sculpted, I suggest you try it out on one tile and see how it works best
@MrOneTwo: try to keep more hard edges, you round them all off and quite deep, it looks more interesting (to me) if not every edge is flattened/rounded of by wear, it will also make it look less blobby!
and then the link to Orb at the end off this post is good for you, he's a master at stone sculpting!
add a little noise/stone texture to your sculpt in a new layer to make it feel more like stone when you're done with the big details! you can make an alpha for that out off a photograph off real stone, if you don't know already, CGTextures is the place to go!
@biofrost: great tiles! you've really gone crazy on the water wear!
for a game enviro I think it might be a little to much small detail for a ground texture but for this challanges I guess it doesn't matter so mcuh!
and for everyone, take a look at this work by Orb for inspiration and techniques:
http://orbart.free.fr/index.php?Gallery=105
PS: thanks for all the break-ups of the concept art, safes me some time! ^^
Yeah I thought about filling space around snakes but It took me almost half a day to sculpt this door ;p I just felt tired of it. Will work on those though. I belive they have potential. The doors are separate subtool so I will be able to do something about it. Thank for your advice.
Duuuude thanks. I recently thought to myself that there was this great art dump I could use as a ref... what could it possibly be? ... Thanks!
Ah no worries
Going to bed. My progress So far. The blockout is rather empty. But I am sure that tomorrow I'll have it done in no time.
I have learned a lot of good things today, so happy.
@ JeremiahJensen I had all kinds of headaches with the same export problem in Maya. It did exactly the same to me, and to be perfectly honest I can't remember how I fixed it. The documentation contradicts itself to, so that didn't help.
I will write what it says in the CryEngine cookbook for 3Ds max set up anyway, so you can see if it's the same.
1. Along the top menu bar of 3ds locate customise. Click it and select Unit Setup.
2. In unit setup, change the display Unit scale to Metric Meters.
3. Click System Unit Setup.
4. From here change your system unit scale to 1 unit = 1.0 centimeters.
5. Click OK go back into your 3DS Scene.
Hope that solves it for you!
Started working on the blockout earlier today, took about an hour in modo. I'm hopefully going to be able to finish the basic blockout tonight so I can start planning my texture sheets.
Any feedback would be appreciated
Your sculpt base is awesome! I think using the hPolish, Planar, and Clay Tubes brushes (with square or harder edge alphas) to give you those stone feeling details, right now its feeling really mushy and its probably throwing your view of it off. right now it feels as if you are sculpting with the standard brush only. Dont be afraid! These challenges are here to push you, push yourself! Break free, and experiment. If it makes you feel better, save each major attempt separately. Take your base you have now, save it as the "BASE_whatver" file and then sculpt and experiment, and save it as another tool name. Its the best way to get of those habits and become more comfortable working with the different brush types.
I have spent a huge time to upload the image to my site and at last I attached the file, sorry, I'll fix it.
Cheers man!,I had a go at using the generic units and still failed, But for some reason Cm Works just fine.
This is the setup that is working for me just in case anyone else starting out runs into similar issues
Here´s my progress up to now.. seeing as i skipped the part with the meticulous measuring and just slapped everything into the scene I´ll probably have to redo tha layout. Also, i havent touched UDK so far (though i´m hoping i might still get to that), so there is just a really fast unity frankenstein, complete with funky lightmaps. Huzzah!
Anyway it may seem not too much has changed since my last post but there has been significant and important changes:
- Sculpted out some tiles for the 'pond' border, and then slapped on a quick DM on it to get something in the engine and tested.
- I then realised that my scene was not very friendly towards a modular approach, so I have spent some time re-designing the level layout so that all my modular pieces can snap in place.
- Re-did the mesh blockouts and added more of the main meshes, so now everything is in the scene and it's mostly a case of working on it in maya/photoshop and just updating the scene to see the changes [at least for now]
So far I have placed down all the floor tiles as meshes so that, if I have some time to, I can look into vertex painting for all the dirt.
Comments and crits always welcome
ps. I realise the floor texture is awful, that is just placeholder for the moment.
Quick plan...
Blockout. I also imported this into UDK to make sure it looked good from the characters perspective.
First thing I have done in Zbrush for a while. Actually quite happy with it. Exported Normal and Ambient Occlusion map successfully too
What do you guys think?