[UDK] Dragon's Nest environment
polycounter lvl 8
Hi Polycount! I just started a new environment this week. Inspired by the Taktsang monastery in Bhutan, I'm going to do a slightly different take and put mine at a much higher altitude.
Some personal goals of mine:
1) Experiment with a non-conventional, non-modular UDK workflow. Unique geo using mostly tiling textures.
2) Focus on level flow, player path and vistas.
3) Learn Cascade! Blowing ice crystals, swirling snow, smoke from cookfires, etc.
4) Get more familiar with the skeletal meshes, so my rope bridge can sway in the wind.
Not too much to look at yet, but I've got the major areas blocked in with proxy geometry. I'm not happy with the layout of the buildings yet, the player path through them could be much better. It's way too linear and I want to incorporate some more verticality. The idea so far is that you start the level in a cave, walk along a cliff side, through the buildings, along a rickety rope bridge, and up to a shrine.
Some personal goals of mine:
1) Experiment with a non-conventional, non-modular UDK workflow. Unique geo using mostly tiling textures.
2) Focus on level flow, player path and vistas.
3) Learn Cascade! Blowing ice crystals, swirling snow, smoke from cookfires, etc.
4) Get more familiar with the skeletal meshes, so my rope bridge can sway in the wind.
Not too much to look at yet, but I've got the major areas blocked in with proxy geometry. I'm not happy with the layout of the buildings yet, the player path through them could be much better. It's way too linear and I want to incorporate some more verticality. The idea so far is that you start the level in a cave, walk along a cliff side, through the buildings, along a rickety rope bridge, and up to a shrine.
Replies
I recently learned how much of a difference particles and subtle animation can make on an environment. They make it feel much more alive.
What are you planning to do for the background vista?
Looking forward to your progress!
http://www.markojaksic.com/articles/ragnarokexporter.html
So Marko, if you read these forums, thanks!
Now that this one is done, it should be relatively quick to knock out the rest of the buildings.
Here's the main reference photo I've been using:
Next up, some material work for a vertex painting and grunge to break up some of the tiling. I'm also probably going to do a pass on the building layouts and level flow, plus a texture/material test for the mountains and rocks.
Demokk - Thanks! The background and vista are going to be mountain peaks poking up through a thick cloud layer.
Fenyce - Thanks!
linkov, Auldbenkenobi, thanks! Here's a wire of one of the pieces and the main texture page I'm using for most of the detailed pieces:
I'm going to jump back to the buildings. The sides just look too flat and boring, especially when you're walking between the buildings. I was originally going to use displacement, but after some R&D there's too many rendering problems to make it look good. Time for some tried and true modeling to solve the problem instead.
along with the great textures, a little more geo would push this into the next level and sell the structure that much more.
Dot 0,0,1 (or normalmap) with 0,0,1 transformed to world space.
refriedspinach - I'm working on pulling out some geo on the brick walls so that they don't look so flat and lifeless. The window modules will get some work as well.
coots7 - I can show some stuff in a bit, I'm still tweaking and tuning. The snow blend is a slight variation of what Santewi mentioned, which is kind of a standard little trick by now. However, instead of using the world z-up vector, I use a WindDirectionAndSpeed and mask out the speed. That way I can put a Wind Direction Actor in the world and get control over the direction that my snow cover happens.
That's a really neat idea! Going to have to play with that one.
I'm working on a similarly styled scene at the moment, do you have any more reference images you can link me to?
fearian - I had luck searching for "Taktsang", "Bhutan monastery", and just in general Bhutanese/Mongolian/Buddhist art and architecture.
I've been quietly working away on this piece and will be ready to show off quite a bit more soon. I just hit a road block though and I'm looking for some suggestions.
I just implemented my sun with a parhelion, or sun dog, effect. Before I polish it anymore and blend it in with the new sky shader I'm making, should I keep it or axe it? My concern is that it's such a relatively rare phenomenon that it might just look goofy. It doesn't act like a normal lens flare, because it isn't. It's basically a rainbow caused by ice crystals. So, when the sun occludes, the outer rings stay.
I found a good reference on YouTube to see how they react to cameras as well:
http://youtu.be/vwCeQkF_fW0
Thoughts?
Personally, I'd axe it, only because its pretty rare. Didn't even know it existed until now, so when I saw the first picture without reading text I thought you might be trying to do some kind of different effect with the sun. Thats just my opinion, but yeah.
Everything else is looking stellar, can't wait to see what you got going on!
I'd keep the flare if I where you.
It shows that you have researched your subject and might prove to be an interesting conversation starter.
Whenever you post the final piece to your site I'd add that info into the write up.
Has there been any progress on the bridge yet?
Cheers
I'm pretty happy so far. There's a few additions I want to make to the temple, namely more ornate geo between the posts and the main beams. Also it looks kind of weird that the statue is sitting right on rock, so I'll build some wooden decking and some wooden steps leading up to it.
Higuy - Thanks for the compliments!
NomadSoul - Thanks! I kept the lens flare elements in the scene, but de-activated, so I can always show it if needed
https://vimeo.com/84629950
Since the video, I've re-worked the rock/snow shader a bunch to make it cheaper as well as create a variant to let me blend in some gravel/dirt. Before I was using decals and I just didn't like the solution. I'm currently working on fixing up the rest of the rocks and pathways around the buildings. In between, I've been digging into Cascade to prototype my snow.
On the to-do list - Some asset cleanup, finish dressing out the scene, transfer my skybox and vista objects from the old UE3 scene, polish the lighting, add some blowing snow, smoke from cookfires, and some post processing polish.
I've been polishing over the past couple of days. Better lighting, material tweaks, vista work, prayer flags added. Getting close to finished!
Don't know if you wanna take it in that direction, but I would suggest some vert-painted or decal stains on the large brick surfaces to break them up a little. You know, some water stains, bird poop etc
Nomad - Do you mean on the bricks the statue is on or the building sides?
Here's a link to the Vimeo page for this. Lots of vertex deformation and material work. I also dove into Cascade for the first time for the snow, and plan on doing a lot more particle work on my next enviro.
https://vimeo.com/93279284
Certain areas of interest could be a little garden where they get the food from or a couple of washing lines and wash house. To be honest, I'm just spit balling ideas here.