UDK Arnor like Landscape

Sebvhe

Hello everyone !

This is my first post here

I just started a personnal project for my upcoming portfolio in order not to have only schoolwork.
So I decided to learn the UDK Landscape system and fill the map with assets and foliage. The map is inspired by Tolkien's description of Arnor, one of the northernmost kingdoms in Middle Earth and by some pictures from Scotland and New Zealand.
For now I've already done the landscape itself and 4 diffrerents rocks (both following Amir's awesome tutorials), some foliage and a brick wall.




The whole map from far away

The 4 Rocks models



But I'm running into some troubles espacially with lighting. It seems like the lighting doesn't work the same for the landscape than for the static meshes.

- The foliages which look good in unlit view get some randomly strange shadows. I don't think these are coming from the normals of the mesh but from the lighting.
- I also made a small transition mesh to blend between the grass and some walls. it almost looks seamless in unlit view but when in lit there is an obvious seam. Even worse, the color of the mesh (which picks the color from the landscape) became different than the one from the Landscape.



Maybe I should look into CustomLighting to get consistent shading between landscape and meshes.
I'm also using the UDK morning template for now, it may have something to do with my issues.


To do list :

- add some more rocks and foliages, bushes and small trees.
- add some ruins, maybe a castle or watchtower on top of a mountain.
- fill the map :poly124:
- maybe add some rain and wind with a cloudy sky.
- add a river and some ponds
- make the tiling textures dissapear in the distance
- The foliages fading in the distance gives some pixels artifacts, I'll try to get a more blurry transition.

Any feedback would be awesome !
Cheers

And sorry for bad English

Fnitrox

for that issue look at the polycount wiki, or the 3dmotive tutorial on foliage for UDK for changing the normals of your alpha planes... it should solve the shading seam on the grass.

The intersection with the other mesh wasn't even noticeable if you didn't point it out imho

anyway looking good so far, but a bit early for more crytics so keep it up

Makkon

It's a little easy to see the repetition in your rock models, you may consider making more variations or deforming and rotating them more as you use them. You can have a detail normal map for them so the deformation isn't so obvious on the texture. I appreciate the fact that you didn't make them glossy but actually matte!

You've got some good things going for you, man. I'm excited to see where you take it!

Sebvhe

Thanks for feedback, much appreciated


@Fnitrox :
I solved the shading and transition problem by deleting and reimporting the meshes, I might have checked something wrong in the import options the first time.

@Makkon :
As you said I need to do some more rocks. I already add one more rock and it really help to break the repetition but i'll create more, especially small ones.
As for the detail map, I already have one to add some noise when close to the rocks.

So I made another wall texture because I didn't liked the first one (I know it's not visible on the screens :poly124:). I added a mesh to be placed on the top of the wall. I will add a variation of that mesh to be tiled with the first one in order to create long modular walls.
I should add a more convincing destructed look on the mesh, it really lacks of small debris and destroyed bricks. Also the "wave" shape of the mesh is too visible.
I also added some more foliages.





I realize the ground looks a little "flat", there is not much color variations on it ... for now ...

Any opinion would be welcome

And sorry for bad English !