[WIP] Sci-Fi Cave Environment
polycounter lvl 12
Figured I should probably get some other side project going and actually finish it this time. So in an effort to do so here is my cleverly named "Sci-Fi Cave"
Its a cave thing.. with a circular light thing.. and some power things.. with rocks, railings, and things. Working out the details as I go along from whatever I can find randomly on the internet that inspires me. Most likely the circular thing will be a giant machine that does something important.:poly124:
Right now I am in the white-box phase with just simple colors and first pass shapes. I'll have more on what the story is when I get further into it but hopefully this should start shaping up nicely in the next few weeks.
Any feedback, critiques, or whatever good or bad is welcome! Hit me!! Thanks!
Its a cave thing.. with a circular light thing.. and some power things.. with rocks, railings, and things. Working out the details as I go along from whatever I can find randomly on the internet that inspires me. Most likely the circular thing will be a giant machine that does something important.:poly124:
Right now I am in the white-box phase with just simple colors and first pass shapes. I'll have more on what the story is when I get further into it but hopefully this should start shaping up nicely in the next few weeks.
Any feedback, critiques, or whatever good or bad is welcome! Hit me!! Thanks!
Replies
That or some sort of warp gate, but that seems too stargatey
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@prolow :..) I miss you man! thanks!
@luge The lighting will be tweaked like crazy as I move forward with it as well as everything else. So I'll keep that in mind. I already started by dialing back the big light a bit, and other minor things.
@shrogg The warp gate Idea is definitely one that keeps coming up and it is a really cool one! However, I keep straying towards the machine approach and today I thought maybe it could be a machine that controls the cave atmosphere and keeps the miners from suffocating from "emissive green lung" or something.
I do really like the off-world research station idea though! So maybe they found this weather device and some power source that could hold the secrets to a whole new era of technology! Boom! :poly122:
So here's the start of that idea.
The 4 cylinders at the top of the main circle will probably be pumping something somewhere where as the middle will be almost as if dyson built it with a ton of "suction" .. maybe... or probably just be more like eureka and spin, claiming that it has the same power. :poly142:
Thanks again! Keep tossing the kisses and punches at me!
Keep up a good work!
Also, I agree with seir, Those rocks.
Thanks for the feedback! Seir, I totally agree with the stalagmites. Those will be the icing on the rock kit. Right now I have a Pointy Rock cluster, cliff rock, and a spire rock that I am using in the kit. I am working on adding the stalagmite rocks and lastly the runoff rock pile that will be the way that all of the rocks fit together and show a little bit more of a natural look.
Hoping to make some super progress this week! :poly124:
Thanks for the feedback! Truly appreciated!!
The rocks close to the machine look sweet, I think the other one's further away could do with some more size variation in the details. Looks like a lot of them are the same sized blocks pretty much. I think the scene would benefit from a couple of areas with just some bigger flatter rock areas.
Looking forward to see more from this, I've been having some similar ideas I'd like to try for an environment but never got around doing it.. as usual
i would love to know how you do your walls and rocks, these look great!
Here is a rock update, they are ready for a polish pass. I'll get the individual rock pics up soon, but right now its a cliff Rock, rubble rock, and a pointy rock that make up the entire rock kit. I'll toy around with stalagmites soon as well but right now I kinda wanna get rolling on the machine and the other props.
PhilipK: I took your advice on the cliff rock and focused on the over-repetitive spots on the mesh. I might still add a flatter rock because It does seem like its a bit too much in some areas or I may just scale up the rock and see how it looks as well. Thanks!
Serriffe: Oddly enough you aren't the first person to mention that one already. (: That would be pretty sweet, however I don't know how I would execute that well while still keeping focus on the eye. Cool Idea though!
Keep the feedback rollin! Thanks again!
@luge Yea I am messing with the water a bit still. Debating a few things here and there but for the most part cave still-water usually is 100% reflective almost like glass. But I do agree it is missing some pop. I was thinking maybe it won't be still water and actually be flowing from the machine as a coolant. But idk Water is tough. Thanks!
Basically I have setup the rocks to be able to make almost any type of shape/foundation that I would need for the cave. I am missing stalagmites, but at this moment these are doing pretty well. I've set it up for easy adjustments through unreal and so that it has a tiling diffuse/detail normal mixed with an epic normal map and an epic color/highlight texture. This way I can have the detail I want without having super huge texture maps. Lastly, these textures are still WIP, they need a final detail pass, but here ya go :poly121:
Hope this helps (:
Oh! One last thing. I do have a time-lapse video of how I sculpted the final shapes for the cliff rock. If anyone is interested in that let me know and I'll throw it up on the tubes.
@Passerby: I don't use 50% Gray, but I use a 20-30% gray more towards white so that I can still paint highlights in the image. Then when it is multiplied the highlights are just the 100% diffuse color coming through the texture rather than what you would normally think with photoshop overlayed hightlights. Hope that helps.
Lastly, I have the video that you guys requested. Its a time-lapse of the finishing sculpt of the cliff rock. I explain what my process is in the beginning of the vid. I hope its at least a little helpful (:
Thanks again for all of the comments so far and keep em coming!
.... oh and the funky angle in the first pic is because I have the whole scene rotated to match the angle of which it is in the level to allow me to model on the axis without having funky transforms.
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The top pump is 2704 tris
The bottom is 1978 tris
Damn cylindrical shapes!
Thoughts? Thanks!
Excited to see where this goes.
Thanks, Much Appreciated!
@GabrielP Thanks!
looking forward for more!
Basically you can Make your second UV set have different seams. Or even a camera projection works as long as your not baking lighting to it. Then in UDK set up your shader to use either vert painting or a mask along the seam edge and set it up to have the tiling texture be the same except use the 2nd uvSet. That will completely eliminate the seam all together.
If that didn't make sense I can whip up a few images to demonstrate what I am talking about.
Thanks! Glad you like the music as well (:
So we start off with the UV seams. I just did a quick planar projection on the whole mesh in my second UV set to quickly eliminate the top seams. You can go through and spend some serious time on making the seams go away without stretching in all areas, but I just went the simple route instead.
Next, we setup a simple shader, lerping with a vertex color between the 1st and 2nd UV sets. This is saying that it is going to use the same diffuse, but read off of the 2nd UV set anywhere I paint.
And lastly, we go ahead and paint right over the seams. Simple and neat.
If you want to do the normals as well, I recommend blending in a flat normal with as little specular as possible. It will almost completely remove the seam and should be almost undetectable. Also, remember to set your light-map to read the 1st UV set instead of the second one so that you can have funky UV's without unreal having a fit. :poly124:
Hope that helps!
very helpful video as well