Deus Ex Office

Bronko

Hello everyone

A while ago I started working on a udk scene based on this Deus Ex Concept art:




This is my first (udk) environment, which hopefully will become a nice addition to my portfolio.
I am now finishing this project and so far I have really learned a lot from working on this environment : ]

This is where I am at now:











Any feedback to further improve my environment would be greatly appreciated

mats effect

I am liking the look of this. I think its a little dark at the moment though perhaps more light coming of the large screen and the smaller screens around the room.

I like the floor texture but it might be cool if you could get it to reflect whats on the screen etc like it does in the concept.

nice work so far

serriffe

I think it's going at the right direction- just a couple more clutter objects, more monitors and the vintage chair - you are good to go.

s33th

There are a number of reasons why the concept works so well that could improve your 3d scene.

The feel of the concept piece is a very cluttered small office. There are a lot of really high tech screens and computers everywhere which is in direct contrast to the more human elements - the piles of paper and books, the leather chair. Then the elements that make it feel like this person lives at their desk - more clutter and everything within easy reach, and what I'm assuming is a high tech coffee maker next to the tower on the desk.

The color palette is primarily warm tones in the foreground with splashes of that cooler color from the screen dashed around. But that cooler color is relatively desaturated and dominant on the right side of the piece. The lighting in the concept is also fairly high contrast with pools of shadows around the edges of the scene and lots of surfaces of varying reflectivity - like the reflection of that large screen on the floor of the office, compared to the less reflective desk and then the totally flat books. There's also a large low intensity lightsource on the right wall behind the couch that balances out the composition.

The dimensions of the room you have so far are a lot larger than in the concept. This combined with less clutter makes the room feel empty and lifeless. Certain elements also clash with the scene in the original concept - the duplicated plant, generic office chair, the green text on the screen along the left wall, the generic duplicated cabinets and bookshelves filling out the wall space.

My first step would be to match the look and feel of the concept exactly and then any deviations from the concept would be to build up more of the story and personality of the room's inhabitant - but that would only come after hitting the concept.

Best of luck.

Boozebeard

Looks pretty good but I think s33th really nailed it. It's that level of analysis that really brings a concept to life!

I think one thing that the concept is actually lacking is a sense of purpose. I'm assuming its something medical due to the xrays but I think the medical theme could be pushed a bit more maybe? A lab coat crumpled over the arm of a chair. X ray sheets strewn over desks? Maybe a bit more of that kind of thing would help. I dunno, I'm no expert at all, just my thoughts.

VESIUS

I love the openness of it, and it's no where near as messy as the concept which is also good. Very nice job indeed.

Bronko

Thanks for all the comments, I've been looking too long at this scene myself to see how i could further improve this

@mats effect
The floor currently does reflect the screen using a ImageReflectionSceneCapture plane but it is really blurry. I'll try to fix this.

@s33th
Thanks for the great feedback!
To be honest I didn't want to 100% follow this concept.
I didn't really like the green/yellow colors from the concept so I chose to use some warmer tones, but I should take some more time for the lighting I think.

About the dimensions of the room, I first created a mockup room with about the same dimensions/proportions as the concept. When testing the level I felt it was hard to walk around and the room was too small.
During the mockup phase I also installed Deus Ex and found that in the original game they made the room a bit more open aswell.

Screenshot from the office in the original game:


But I'll try your suggestions, maybe I should forget about the playability of the level and be more focused on the graphical part since it will be a portfolio piece.

@Boozebeard
You're right, it is kinda hard to tell what the office is for at the moment.
I'm going to add a microscope, scatter around some x-ray sheets and perhaps add some glasses and stuff.

Bronko

Currently I'm working on resizing the office and adjusting the scene with the feedback I received.

I was trying to improve the reflections from the large screen in the back of the room.
So far I found two ways to reflect the screen onto the floor, this is what I have right now:

image 1 : Using ImageReflectionSceneCapture (not realtime)


image 2 : Using SceneCaptureReflectActor (realtime)


My problem is that I want to get the sharp/clear reflections from image 2, but I only want to reflect the large screen like in image 1.
Does anyone know if this is possible and how I can do this?

I have been trying a lot of things but nothing works so far. Image 1 is very close to what I want to achieve, I only want to get it a bit sharper.
I guess if I could tell the floor material (the one from image 2) to only reflect emissive objects I would get the result I'm looking for aswell.

Any help on this would be really appreciated

DWalker

The screen on the floor seems more like a projected texture than a reflected one. You should be able to project the same texture you are drawing on the screen.

smokechok

wow!!

Bronko

Hello everyone,

I worked through the feedback you guys gave me and I think I can almost call this one finished:











Next up on my list are improving the lighting and the screen reflection on the floor.

@DWalker
I'm quite new to udk, can't really find a way to do that thus far.

If anyone could give me advice on how to get better reflections using ImageReflectionSceneCapture (see my above post), I would really appreciate it

teaandcigarettes

Looks cool, but I think it's way too grungy. If I recall correctly, the textures in Deus Ex offices, were very clean and almost flat. They had some subtle dirt going on, but overall they were looking almost pristine. The grime and dirt were done mainly in spec and gloss, which added detail to the scene, but never made things overwhelming.

After all, these offices are in use and likely they are cleaned every day. In the original pic, the office is messy and chaotic, but in a way that fits a hi-tech workplace. The mess is reflected mainly by the placement of the items, rather than surface detail.

I would say, try to look up some info on creating physically based materials. Although UDK doesn't really support PBR and IBL, just following the principles of these system should make this scene look a lot more natural and focused.

Bronko

teaandcigarettes wrote: »

Looks cool, but I think it's way too grungy. If I recall correctly, the textures in Deus Ex offices, were very clean and almost flat. They had some subtle dirt going on, but overall they were looking almost pristine. The grime and dirt were done mainly in spec and gloss, which added detail to the scene, but never made things overwhelming.

After all, these offices are in use and likely they are cleaned every day. In the original pic, the office is messy and chaotic, but in a way that fits a hi-tech workplace. The mess is reflected mainly by the placement of the items, rather than surface detail.

I would say, try to look up some info on creating physically based materials. Although UDK doesn't really support PBR and IBL, just following the principles of these system should make this scene look a lot more natural and focused.

Thanks for your comment.
Just to make this clear first, I'm certainly not trying to copy the style from the Deus Ex game. I did play the game and checked out the office to get a closer look.
I just wanted to use the concept of the office and create it in my own style.

So I chose to go for a more darker theme with a less 'clean' feel.
But next to that I agree with it probably being a bit too grungy, I'll try to give it a bit more cleaner look to see if it makes the scene look better.
Else I think I might stick with this more grungy setting

Bronko

Finally got sharper reflections and I added some textures for the monitor.
Also made the scene a bit brighter and adjusted the lighting a little:







Compared to this my previous screens really seem way too dark/grungy.
So thanks again for the feedback ^^

I think I'm going to call this done now.
If there is anything I should really change before adding it to my portfolio, please let me now

RaPtoR_v9600

when i scrolled down i was thinking this is deus-ex shoot taken for concept
and then i realize that its you work in udk,

Grat work bud, and congrats