[UDK] New Era Strip Club Environment

JustGarry

UPDATE 21/03/14

Porting this over to UE4, just starting importing the main building so far, workflow is so much better/faster I love it already! Quick comparison shot.


programs to take screenshots

UPDATE 12/01/14

small update to this scene, had to revisit my portfolio so decided to get much nicer high res shot of this scene using tiled shot in UDK, and also totally changed up the comp etc so get more objects into a single shot.



Hey everyone.

I have started a new project recently, as part of university, and am working on a near future city scene based on a concept by Robin Olausson.



The plan is to use this image as the basis for building a whole environment that a player can explore in UDK.

I started by making the main building from the concept - the strip club.

Wires



In UDK





After that I have concepted a number of other buildings that I think might fit into this area. The first completed one is the Liquor Store.

Wires



In UDK



One thing I am struggling with just now is trying to figure out how this will all be laid out and presented once the scene is finished, I have tried a number of ground plans, and they just don't seem right. Basically the buildings are coming along nicely, but not much else.

I would love some feedback, and help or advice if anyone has any ideas for where to take this scene.

And of course I would like crit on the work I have already done with these buildings, I really want this to be a cool portfolio piece.

Thanks in advance everyone and cheers for looking

JustGarry

Update here, still planning out how the scene might look, and have drawn up a ground plan.

This is still up in the air, but here it is anyway, I would appreciate any input anyone may have.



For context the 'homeless camp' is essentially just part of the car park, with tents, flaming dumpsters, grubby mattresses etc.

The Motel will be visible, but the player will be stopped from entering by a car barrier type thing at the Motel entrance.

Cheers.

Subtle 1rony

Looking good, I really like the concept and models so far. Are you using any type of modular workflow, or just making each building its own custom piece? Do you think you will have multiple textures or just a single texture for each building?

JustGarry

Hey there, thanks for the comments.

There are around 6 unique buildings, and the rest will be made modular, to fill in the gaps I guess.

However, yeah even the unique buildings do share some of the same components and textures, to save time.

MisterSande

looks nice! I think your colors could use some saturation/contrast. Also, the rain doesn't really fit atm, I think you are better off sticking to the concept (using fog/bokeh/depth of field).

JustGarry

Thanks for the tip, I was planning to do some renders with and without the rain (to see what looks better), reason it's on right now is that I don't have fog in yet . I have never used any particle effects before, so wanted to try out some different techniques.

Hopefully I can change the coloring within UDK's settings. I was planning to mess around with the world properties, for mid tones, highlights and shadows. If not then yeah I will take a look at my texturing and see if I can increase the contrast and colours.

JustGarry

After trying out my ground plan (above) in UDK, I realized that is was far too spread out and there was a lack of focal interest, with everything everywhere!

I have sketched a more linear but hopefully more focused ground plan.



This keeps the original image of the strip club as the focal point in the centre of the map at the bottom, the rest of the buildings can be looked at or ignored on the way down, there is also a slight decline, where the road will meet the dirt road at the bottom (like in the concept).

I threw some objects around in Maya to test it out.

JustGarry

Looking for crit/comments on my next building design, a Gun Store, before I texture it etc.

Subtle 1rony

I think it was a good idea to bring everything together and define a focal point. Comparing your concept to the screenshot of the model from street height, it still feels a bit too spread out. Looking at the concept of the strip club, the environment feels much more compact and up-close and personal, like structures are stacked higher and the streets are narrower rather than spread out.

Ootrick

I LOVE IT, I've always wanted to do a Sci-fi strip club with some sort of cyberpunk/bladerunner feel. Subbed, DON'T LET ME DOWN! lol

Ootrick

Whoops 2nd Post, silly Chrome.

JustGarry

@Subtle 1rony

Yeah I agree, should look much better bringing everything in, so I will definitely do that. Also I think that with the taller background buildings in it should help feel a little more confined aswell, and perhaps more things on the street.

@Ootrick

Thank you, hope I don't let you down!

JustGarry

Finished texturing the Gun Store, crit and comments welcome.

Subtle 1rony

Wow, cruising through the assets. Keep 'em coming, sir!

JustGarry

Been working on the scene quite a bit during the last couple of weeks, the scene must be finished by May 18th (Uni deadline) so been cracking on.

Overall improvements include working on the colours to make the scene a little darker and less blue, and the inclusion of the road and paths.



The next building I completed was the Hotel.



There is no rain at this section due to the overhead bride. I took a shot from further away to give it perspective.



The next building I worked on was the Diner.



Finally I started adding in the modular background buildings, there is only one set right now, to fill out some spaces, but there will be more variation in the end.

Brandon Kern

Subscribed, this is some inspirational stuff man. It's looking great so far as a whole.

nksilver5

love it, could it be possible to seesome texture sheet ?

I'm planning to do a scene this summer, might be useful to see your workflow, breakdown.
I'm guessing you pretty much use a lots of tiling textures and you make the uv of the blockout meshes on top of it, right ?

anyway, sub !

minorthreat

These are all really good, how do you go about texturing these?

JustGarry

Hey guys thanks for the kind words.

The texturing is done the old way and the buildings are textured separately, but they do share some of the same basic elements. The ground and paths etc are made in UDK, by layering tilable textures and playing with the values etc using the graph network.

Here is one of the texture's, the only one I have had the time to add to my portfolio just now, gives you guys an idea.



This is a 1024x1024 texture sheet. (There are one or two small elements added sfterwards that are added to other texture sheets if you see anything missing!)

And the updated strip club screenshot for comparison.

alexk

Here are the major things that stuck out to me:

You have some area's where it looks like you have alot of edge loops that doesn't seem to do much. An example is the awning. Another example is the brick wall. I think you're trying to have some exposed brick, but it looks like it could use a bit of cleanup with the edges. Same issue with your door and the vertical edges, same with the steps under the door.

Your current texture sheet is cut up a bit small. For example, upper right hand corner, your concrete texture occupies a 512 corner, but you've also divided that by 4, so essentially your concrete texture is a 256 square. Which is too low of a resolution for a wall texture. At the least it should of been a 512. The low resolution is apparent in all your screenshots, especially on wall or other large surfaces. I know that you've tried to create variations and may feel that only 1 square for a concrete will be too boring, but there are ways to add variation using decals or even vertex blending. You've also done this for the other textures that would of benefited from a full 512 tiling square. Nowadays, it's okay to use a 1024 tiling texture, and it's for your portfolio anyways so it's not that big of a deal. Don't be afraid to dedicate a 1024 to one single prop as long as you really get in and add details and do it well.

There are 2 big concerns with your texture sheet. 1) The majority of your textures are plain and could of been one tiling texture instead of being divided up in hopes to add a small variation to it. Even your door could have been a generic tiling texture because it has no unique details to it aside from the graffiti which could of been on a separate decal alpha sheet. Which leads to the second issue. 2) Barely any unique details on your textures, which makes you rely primarily on geometry to create it. Don't get me wrong, you can get pretty far with that alone, but it's the details that gives life to the objects. For example, the barrel is a solid yellow texture with 2 lines in the middle and some rust. Maybe could of had a worn out logo, or a few labels, or some leak stains from the top?

Small nitpick: The neon sign on the roof could of been baked onto an alpha sheet and ran through UDK as an emmisive (or maybe additive). I say this because it looks like it's heavy on the triangle side but the pro's is that it looks better at harsher angles.. so I'm kind of 50/50 on this. Maybe some of it could have been an alpha and some could be modeled.

JustGarry

@alexk

Thanks for your feedback, these are some areas I definitely want to work on aswell. Especially learning about vertex painting, and the use of alpha maps. This is the first time I have attempted a scene like this and I am still learning all the time.

I am aware there are a few issues with the strip club which I hope to return to, this was the first building I finished and as such, the subsequent buildings are much better optimized and I have since learned some of the tools in UDK (still really need to learn about vertex painting!).

I still have the original texture files, so might try and up the res and see how it runs in motion, but since this is a project for university, it has to be pretty well optimized and will be playable in the end.

Thanks again for your crit, always good to have stuff to work on and improve

JustGarry

Oh yeah and totally agree about the barrel, definitely needs something more interesting, this was made near the start aswell

JustGarry

Small(ish) update, finished another building, for the top of the street. I think now I will need one more unique building, and 1 more type of modular building, then move onto the rest of the assets (mostly props etc).



I had received some feedback that there was not enough variation in the building textures, so decided to create this Saloon out of brick instead of concrete. I tried to capture an American style to the building (Although I'm from Scotland so had to rely on images etc).

I am trying to be more transparent now aswell so have attached wires and texture flats.





I have taken alexk's advice and upped the texture resolution for this piece, making the brickwork it's own 1024 texture, and adding the rest of the model onto another map. I think this works out well as for these bricks a smaller area would have been extremely blurry etc.

Any feedback is welcome! Cheers.

nathanbarrett

Your textures are amazing. My only crit is that the concrete looks a bit too uniform. For instance, you'd expect the concrete to be a bit more worn and stained towards the bottom of the building

JustGarry

@nathanbarrett

Cheers for the crit, I will definitely improve the contrast in the 'dirty' areas of the concrete etc.

JustGarry

Been a while since the last update but been busy finishing up this scene for the uni hand in date.

I have finished the scene for now, but will no doubt come back to it after a break of some other work that I want to tackle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmULuZzg6UY&feature=youtu.be

Let me know what you guys think

Cheers

Edit: Someone might need to help me embed a youtube video, until then i guess you can copy paste the link.

Ark

Id tone down the size of the rain droplets, it makes you scene look miniature.

JustGarry

@Ark

Yeah i'll try that cheers, it's an easy tweak in the rain material.

Ignacio_G

Ever since playing Bioshock Infinite i've been a big fan of their wet looking materials when it's raining. If it's raining that hard maybe look in to doing some of that. I'd also expect some areas that have streams of water pouring from those slanted roofs.

Also, I see the rain splash but the road doesn't look very wet. It may just be me, but I think I'd tone down the noise of the concrete road to aid in having a weter sleeker road with cool reflections. I'd love to see some of the neon signage reflect on the road as well.

JustGarry

@Ignacio_G

That's something I always planned on adding at some point, as well as some pools of collected water, and the reflected neon would look awesome, just never had the time to implement it. I really would need to find some decent tutorials on how do this in UDK though, it must be possible as the Samaritan demo showed the same thing looking really good.

Subtle 1rony

Looking good man, can tell you put a lot into it. Bioshock-esque wet textures would be really cool. As for puddles, maybe you could try the vertex paint technique, or perhaps decals

JustGarry

Decals might work, I never considered using those.

Then all I would need to do is learn proper reflections, perhaps using cube maps or something similar.

Thanks for the advice

JustGarry

Small update to this scene, had to revisit my portfolio so decided to get much nicer high res shot of this scene using tiled shot in UDK, and also totally changed up the comp etc so get more objects into a single shot.

JustGarry

Porting this over to UE4, just starting importing the main building so far, workflow is so much better/faster I love it already! Quick comparison shot.


programs to take screenshots

Subtle 1rony

Awesome, that shot from January looks great!