This is lookin pretty sweet fellas! Wish I had some constructive feedback but everything looks so damn fine!
I would probably say my least favorite thing is the ceiling texture/normal map. Its making the spec/reflection really noisy and it's just distracting to me. It also feels kind of weak/simple compared to some of the other textures. Simple isn't a bad thing either. It could just be my preference.
Otherwise, amazing job with literally everything else. I love it.
Hello there, thanks for all the feedback! Much appreciated! giving us a lot of inspiration and things to fix
As for textures most things hardly have anything but normals and some early color pass so far. So expect a lot more definition and masking of reflections soon. Very good point though, I plan to start some of that today finally and I know Helder is doing a pass too.
Much to do but little time to do it (the usual deal ) but Helder has done a great list for us so that should ensure the most impactful stuff gets done.
So yeah, deadline got postponed a week, which is awesome!
PhilK did a great job with the bg and the middle piece, I really love it.
I was working on this literally non stop since friday night, my eyes look like two tomatoes right now so a lot of tired-eye mistakes were made, specially in the lighting.
The following screens here were suposed to be the final ones, but since we have a new dead-line, we're gonna use it to fix some of probs.
There's many little fuckups, but the biggest one, was that we waited to make the diffuse maps till the last day. We were using 186 186 186 temp textures with only AO, which I still believe it was a great idea, we focused more on shape that way, problem is when I made the diffuse maps with dDo, the mean dropped to around 120 120 120 average on most textures, making the level really dark, I had to compensate with making the lighting and turning on more emiters, so I turned on glow emitting lightmass rays on most lights, but it's a horrible idea as it washed out all the nice gradients we had before.
I already talked with PhilK and we already have a great plan of action to address all the issues. For now, here's more WIPs then:
Among the great feedback from everyone, Bram had the idea of making the center piece stand out even more to help leading the eye, this is one of the ideas he had and I love it:
I really like the scene, but but the new images kinda look like a bad HDR photo.
Yeap, both lighting and post will get retouched considerably.
As for colors, I wanna try and pursue a more vivid look as well, like this the following Mirror's Edge screenshots.
I believe I almost nailed it with this screenshot in particular, but the background is still very noisy.
Holy craap guys! You have done an amazing job so far, love the vivid colours, and the lighting is fantastic! Would love to get any sort of insight to your process
Great job so far the piece is really coming together. One thing that really bothers me right now is there is alot of visual clutter.
there doesn't seem to be any flow to the floors, except for the round main showpiece area. my main issue with this is that it just seems like some of the assets seem plopped on top of the floor, maybe integrating them more into the flooring itself would be a nice way to maybe break up some of the clutter that is going on with the repeating patterns.
a good place to for some inspiration is the work done on Halo 4:
See how the trims are used to not only make surrounding assets feel built in but also break up the floor.
Same goes for some of the walls as it seems that they are just put into some of the areas just to fill them up without any real purpose.
this image stands out the most:
Cant wait to see more updates! keep up the great work!
Make those screenshots bigger, I wanna look closer at all the awesome work so far!
I agree with ae. that some of your assets seem "plopped" onto the flooring without any flow going between their placement. I'm sure with some minor tweaking this can look even better!!
I think many of you will be happy to hear that we both have decided to release the UDK level and package once we're done with it. I have learnt a great deal by just opening other levels, studying them and essentially reverse engineer them. I have learnt more by just studding the materials from Jordan Walkers bathhouse scene than I did from any other tutorial for example, so if there's at least one dude out there that can learn anything from what we did, than we're happy!
Ok, now, as for the scene, we decided to go back to the drawing board a little bit when it comes to lighting and presentation.
All textures are also being retouched, I will be removing much of the noise, and I will be reducing the AO in the diffuse and spec maps to around 10% of what I had. I'll also be doing better use of gloss maps and get a more metallic vibe out of the mats. (Call it next-gen if you will) trying to mimic as much of that famous PBR look as I possibly can out of UE3.
@TheRealFroman if you click the pictures on this post, it should open my flickr page where you can view higher res version of the pictures. (1920*1080)
I didn't wanna spam the forum with gigantic pics, so I just put the 1024* in here.
@ae. that's absolutely it man! that area didn't get much love as we were focusing on the center area and sides for the most part, but I'll work on it some more, thanks!
@BI0PREDAT0R@ILLMATICC@joshschmitt I plan on making a breakdown of the scene when we're done, and like I said you'll be free to download this later on and study it.
Thanks so much for your comments, very inspirational to hear feedback and positive posts as well!
So happy to hear you guys are releasing this as a package. I love going through other environments between projects to digest any neat tips/tricks. I appreciate you guys doing that!
This is looking great, I like the fusion of the bold colouring style from mirrors edge within an even more futuristic and sci-fi setting.
I think since the addition of the holographic globe, the awesome round structure above it might benefit with being tied in with this idea a little more perhaps? I did a quick noodle during my lunchbreak today (moved the structure back to align more with the base and positioned the globe a little more central - added fx etc) I really hope you don't mind, it's just a suggestion and it may have the negative effect of taking the focus a little away from the great view you have there in the background, but just some food for thought
@Trevelyan that's some great feedback, indeed the planet will workout much better like that. That paintover also reminded me to add a slight blue bean in the shape of a cone encompassing the planet, great idea man, will deffo do that, cheers!
Hey guys, you're more than welcome, glad to have sparked a few more ideas and happy to return the favour for Helder's ace critique on my thread
If it helps at all, I googled 'prometheus hologram' to find some pictures of the blue planet image, you might find some extra reference in there too - can't wait to see more of this scene, loving it so far!
cool, thanks for the tip! I'll check that out. Found some cool planet generators that I can use for the backdrop planet bases.. MAYBE I'll find a good way to kind of "hologramize" something using that too :P
This is looking beautiful! And Trevelyan's paintover definitely helps the composition. Really looking forward to picking apart the UDK scene, thanks in advance for making it available
Some healthy material studies at some unhealthy hours. lol
I wanna try and push for the moisture and dense look without it being too much, right now it is too much but man it's really hard to control without it looking weird, I want PBR!
I did a pass on all textures, brought them up to a 186 ~ 200 mean, chromes are around 140 ~ 150 mean, i would go bellow that but without a cubemap it starts to soak the lighting with how black it is so you have to make compromises.
I'm also currently doing a pass on all specs and gloss maps, added a lot of contrasty and detail to the gloss, and a bit more noise to the spec. I also added the AO to the spec and remove the AO from the difuse, in fact i removed most noise and detail from the difuse maps, i want the slight noise to come from the gloss. (Good example is that floor tile on the bottom left with chrome, rubber and plastic material.)
feel free to tear me a new one
EDIT: Holy shit I just realized something, how on earth have I not noticed this before? Those freaking reflector planes are completely ignoring surface gloss maps, they seem to just reflect linearly depending on the view angle!?
Notice how the spec highlights from lights look nice and have gloss differences, whereas the reflector planes highlights are just a linear reflection. Any UDK guru out there knows how to fix this?
really cant wait to see this thing myself, im still no good at working with image based reflections, find i always get shadowing issues with them when it comes to static meshes.
Hey guys great work on the environment very inspirational, quick question
how did you guys create that background landscape is it just a hand painted mesh ?, looks great, i was wondering if there was a trick slash tip you guys had to get that effect great work guys and good luck
Fantastic work guys! Very inspiring, really.
Love the style, colours and the lighting . Awesome that you're sharing this !
You did an amazing job and I would be glad you shared your lighting process.
Guess we're calling it done now. I'll try and put together that breakdown asap and I'll then need to clean the package and release it for anyone who wants to fly around the scene.
Thanks Mapcore, Polycount, Jordan Walker for releasing his scene and allowing me to properly learn UDK, Quixel team for making nDo2 and dDo tools, and everyone who helped us with feedback! You helped it get much better!
And of course, PhilipK for kicking so much ass, it was an honor to do scene with him, this guy breathes talent!
Replies
I would probably say my least favorite thing is the ceiling texture/normal map. Its making the spec/reflection really noisy and it's just distracting to me. It also feels kind of weak/simple compared to some of the other textures. Simple isn't a bad thing either. It could just be my preference.
Otherwise, amazing job with literally everything else. I love it.
edit: Grammar and rephrasing.
As for textures most things hardly have anything but normals and some early color pass so far. So expect a lot more definition and masking of reflections soon. Very good point though, I plan to start some of that today finally and I know Helder is doing a pass too.
Much to do but little time to do it (the usual deal
PhilK did a great job with the bg and the middle piece, I really love it.
I was working on this literally non stop since friday night, my eyes look like two tomatoes right now so a lot of tired-eye mistakes were made, specially in the lighting.
The following screens here were suposed to be the final ones, but since we have a new dead-line, we're gonna use it to fix some of probs.
There's many little fuckups, but the biggest one, was that we waited to make the diffuse maps till the last day. We were using 186 186 186 temp textures with only AO, which I still believe it was a great idea, we focused more on shape that way, problem is when I made the diffuse maps with dDo, the mean dropped to around 120 120 120 average on most textures, making the level really dark, I had to compensate with making the lighting and turning on more emiters, so I turned on glow emitting lightmass rays on most lights, but it's a horrible idea as it washed out all the nice gradients we had before.
I already talked with PhilK and we already have a great plan of action to address all the issues. For now, here's more WIPs then:
UC_Compo_HP_PhilK_shot1 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_Compo_HP_PhilK_shot2 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_Compo_HP_PhilK_shot3 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_Compo_HP_PhilK_shot4 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_Compo_HP_PhilK_shot5 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_Compo_HP_PhilK_shot6 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_Compo_HP_PhilK_shot7 by HelderP, on Flickr
Yeap, both lighting and post will get retouched considerably.
As for colors, I wanna try and pursue a more vivid look as well, like this the following Mirror's Edge screenshots.
I believe I almost nailed it with this screenshot in particular, but the background is still very noisy.
Great job so far the piece is really coming together. One thing that really bothers me right now is there is alot of visual clutter.
there doesn't seem to be any flow to the floors, except for the round main showpiece area. my main issue with this is that it just seems like some of the assets seem plopped on top of the floor, maybe integrating them more into the flooring itself would be a nice way to maybe break up some of the clutter that is going on with the repeating patterns.
a good place to for some inspiration is the work done on Halo 4:
See how the trims are used to not only make surrounding assets feel built in but also break up the floor.
Same goes for some of the walls as it seems that they are just put into some of the areas just to fill them up without any real purpose.
this image stands out the most:
Cant wait to see more updates! keep up the great work!
I agree with ae. that some of your assets seem "plopped" onto the flooring without any flow going between their placement. I'm sure with some minor tweaking this can look even better!!
Ok, now, as for the scene, we decided to go back to the drawing board a little bit when it comes to lighting and presentation.
All textures are also being retouched, I will be removing much of the noise, and I will be reducing the AO in the diffuse and spec maps to around 10% of what I had. I'll also be doing better use of gloss maps and get a more metallic vibe out of the mats. (Call it next-gen if you will) trying to mimic as much of that famous PBR look as I possibly can out of UE3.
@TheRealFroman if you click the pictures on this post, it should open my flickr page where you can view higher res version of the pictures. (1920*1080)
I didn't wanna spam the forum with gigantic pics, so I just put the 1024* in here.
@ae. that's absolutely it man! that area didn't get much love as we were focusing on the center area and sides for the most part, but I'll work on it some more, thanks!
@BI0PREDAT0R @ILLMATICC @joshschmitt I plan on making a breakdown of the scene when we're done, and like I said you'll be free to download this later on and study it.
Thanks so much for your comments, very inspirational to hear feedback and positive posts as well!
I think since the addition of the holographic globe, the awesome round structure above it might benefit with being tied in with this idea a little more perhaps? I did a quick noodle during my lunchbreak today (moved the structure back to align more with the base and positioned the globe a little more central - added fx etc) I really hope you don't mind, it's just a suggestion and it may have the negative effect of taking the focus a little away from the great view you have there in the background, but just some food for thought
Looking forward to seeing more!
I like the fact of moving the top part back a bit so it's centered above that planet. I'm working on that now
Thank you for the feedback!
If it helps at all, I googled 'prometheus hologram' to find some pictures of the blue planet image, you might find some extra reference in there too - can't wait to see more of this scene, loving it so far!
Some healthy material studies at some unhealthy hours. lol
I wanna try and push for the moisture and dense look without it being too much, right now it is too much but man it's really hard to control without it looking weird, I want PBR!
I did a pass on all textures, brought them up to a 186 ~ 200 mean, chromes are around 140 ~ 150 mean, i would go bellow that but without a cubemap it starts to soak the lighting with how black it is so you have to make compromises.
I'm also currently doing a pass on all specs and gloss maps, added a lot of contrasty and detail to the gloss, and a bit more noise to the spec. I also added the AO to the spec and remove the AO from the difuse, in fact i removed most noise and detail from the difuse maps, i want the slight noise to come from the gloss. (Good example is that floor tile on the bottom left with chrome, rubber and plastic material.)
feel free to tear me a new one
EDIT: Holy shit I just realized something, how on earth have I not noticed this before? Those freaking reflector planes are completely ignoring surface gloss maps, they seem to just reflect linearly depending on the view angle!?
Notice how the spec highlights from lights look nice and have gloss differences, whereas the reflector planes highlights are just a linear reflection. Any UDK guru out there knows how to fix this?
Also your light functions look dope.
how did you guys create that background landscape is it just a hand painted mesh ?, looks great, i was wondering if there was a trick slash tip you guys had to get that effect
Love the style, colours and the lighting . Awesome that you're sharing this !
You did an amazing job and I would be glad you shared your lighting process.
Thanks Mapcore, Polycount, Jordan Walker for releasing his scene and allowing me to properly learn UDK, Quixel team for making nDo2 and dDo tools, and everyone who helped us with feedback! You helped it get much better!
And of course, PhilipK for kicking so much ass, it was an honor to do scene with him, this guy breathes talent!
UC_HP_PhilK_shot1 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_HP_PhilK_shot2 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_HP_PhilK_shot3 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_HP_PhilK_shot4 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_HP_PhilK_shot5 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_HP_PhilK_shot6 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_HP_PhilK_shot7 by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_HP_PhilK_extra_background by HelderP, on Flickr
UC_HP_PhilK_extra_materials by HelderP, on Flickr
p.s.- thank you for releasing the package, very kind of you guys!
Thanks for releasing the packages too.