[UDK] Dwarf Throne Room

Metzger

Hey all,

Thought I would post my most recent project, as you are about to see. I've been on a Lord of The Rings kick lately.


EDIT: Deleted an Imgur account and realized all my work pics were attached to it. *FACEPALM*

Reference:



Found browsing Google. This is done by Moondoodles over at deviantart

I like the composition and lighting of the environment so I took it from there and wanted to make it more "regal" if you will. The environment will not be sticking 100% true to the reference. I will be making changes along the way.

Now let's get down to the nitty gritty.

The Work as it stands (UPDATE: May 3rd 2014):

Right now I have done a few texture revamps on assets. Here's some of them:

The Platform:



Turned the floor into a tiling floor texture:



I made the choice on feedback stating that I was going with too much blue in the textures. I noticed I should let UDK lighting take care of it and keep the textures more grey.

I then continued to create a modular wall set that can be used for corners and individual pieces:



With these guys I created 2 different maps and made a vertex painting material in UDK to break up the look of them in the scene.


And Finally a current shot of what it looks like in game. I added more scene lights to brighten up the scene. Keep in mind the lights have a blue colouring to them:









Next Plan of attack is rework the Pillars you see lining the walls, and then move onto finishing the walls.



Comments and Crit always welcomed!

Tobbo

Interesting project. I like how you are invested into the project by actually making the dwarven writing actually say something meaningful. However, is there a reason you're not baking these assets off of a high poly? It's making the lighting look really flat.

I think your floor tiles are scaled a bit too large as well.

Best of luck!

Metzger

Tobbo wrote: »

Interesting project. I like how you are invested into the project by actually making the dwarven writing actually say something meaningful. However, is there a reason you're not baking these assets off of a high poly? It's making the lighting look really flat.

I think your floor tiles are scaled a bit too large as well.

Best of luck!

Hey Tobbo,

I have been working from a high poly mesh that I then brought into Zbrush to detail out. I used xNormal to get my maps from there. Is there something I'm missing to make it pop?

Dimfist

Normals don't work well without a spec. I don't see any or its very flat. Also, maybe you used too much noise? You want details to be bigger so they will pop, especially in a game environment.

Metzger

Dimfist wrote: »

Normals don't work well without a spec. I don't see any or its very flat. Also, maybe you used too much noise? You want details to be bigger so they will pop, especially in a game environment.

There is just a bit to much noise on the spec maps. I'm spitting them out from dDO. I'll go back and alter them to help it pop.

Metzger

Right so to address the spec issues I fixed up the light maps and found that having one scene light (directional) with lightmass doing diffuse bounces does not help. I have brought in another scene light and you can see the detail more clearly.



Does anybody have any idea how to get lightmass/light bouncing to work properly? I wanted to use the one light source like you see in the reference.

Dimfist

There's never one light source. It's always bouncing around so you need to emulate that somehow for a realistic feel. Even in the corners where it seems no light is bouncing, there is still just a small amount. A skylight produces an ambient and a direct light source (not 100 percent sure how it works).

Metzger

No time like the present to update this thing eh?

I've created a few more assets and reworked a few old ones.

The Throne Platform:



Reworked Stone Tiles:



Updated lighting with wall placeholders:





And finally the base for Throne:



As always crits and comments welcomed I need to improve!

aajohnny

Honestly, I don't see the benefits of having the floor tiles as separate meshes... it looks like it could be done with just a tiling texture. It needs more color variation too. Also from what it looks in the concept, the ceiling is much higher. It's a pretty good start though.

Auldbenkenobi

I like the idea but I think you should invest more time in getting your spec maps working right. Everything still feels a bit flat and your materials aren't reading very well (Nothing looks like stone). I'd also be inclined to agree with aajohnny in that you could use more colour variation. The blue-ish hues can be achieved through a post process effect, which would allow you to experiment more with your textures.

As for lighting, I've found that creating separate fill lights is more effective than relying on lightmass. Im sure other people will have better suggestions but after working on my project, it's given me the best results thus far.

SaboR1996

could do with some wear and tear on the throne chair right there. Seems like it was just made, and judging by the environment, that doesn't seem the case

Metzger

Auldbenkenobi wrote: »

I like the idea but I think you should invest more time in getting your spec maps working right. Everything still feels a bit flat and your materials aren't reading very well (Nothing looks like stone). I'd also be inclined to agree with aajohnny in that you could use more colour variation. The blue-ish hues can be achieved through a post process effect, which would allow you to experiment more with your textures.

As for lighting, I've found that creating separate fill lights is more effective than relying on lightmass. Im sure other people will have better suggestions but after working on my project, it's given me the best results thus far.

Hey thanks Auldbenkenobi for the advice. I wanted to show you my current spec for the platform and the way its set up in UDK. Maybe you could suggest some pointers in making them pop a little more? I generated this guy in dDo

Metzger

A Specular Update:

Which of these two look more stone like? I went about hooking up the materials in two ways.

Rabant

The specular on the left looks a little better, maybe just a touch more on the dull side as it reads as its wet or plastic. The specular also has no color, most specular highlights have some color. If you look at the concept its a little on the greenish side.
As for the textures themselves. It's too much on the blue side. I know the concept shows that the stone is blue, but I would suggest that you make the stone more on the lighter blue to grey side and then create more of a blue hue with the lighting in the scene, that should darken up the textures with the lighting.
The textures as well, are just too busy and don't have much depth to them. Stone it self, when cut like it would for the enviro, has very little in the way of bold details, in general they are quite subtle. Take a look at this video, its a little long but its a great video on how to break down textures to a more simplistic approach. Its has a bit of a focus on more of a cartoony style (World of Warcraft inspired) but the fundamentals are there and it should help you make these textures pop. In general, I would turn down the general noise of the texture and focus more on highlights and shadows to help make them pop.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_GWVez_UHM"]Texturing Workshop with Jamin Shoulet Part 1 - YouTube[/ame]

CarlK3D

Yeah Rabant is spot on with the Spec and lighting. If you go with a complete white spec when the light comes across your objects (Stone) Its going to show almost pure white which over your diffuse might not be to noticeable but I find its the same practice when creating hand painted textures, shadows and highlights are almost never Black and White and these are your Manual spec maps.
Making your diffuse more to a grey and not a blue will give a far better mood. you'll be able to push the blue tone through your lighting (like Rabant said)

I'm not a big fan of that Texturing workshop since I think (even though he's a good artist using so many filtered effects don't give a personalized look which is key when hand painting. However Thats not to say its not beneficial, there are good techniques in there such as the use of Highlights and Shadows & layer setup.

I also think you should try to a traditional workflow:
- Sculpt your objects (Pillars, Rocks)
- Bake your High to Low for your AO, Normal
- create a diffuse using either polypaint, do it manually in Photoshop or use reference textures, For detail not just slap 1 texture on and call it done. build up your layers

Metzger

Once again thanks for all the suggestions! I went back and did a few minor changes, which do you prefer. A (the newer one with a light blue spec map) or B (the original)



EDIT: Please note that the lighting has a small blue hue to it!

Rabant

I agree with what CarkK3D is saying about work flow. It's the best way to reduce reworking any areas.
The new Spec looks better, however, the textures still look very flat. I know that you mentioned that you were doing some sculpting in Zbrush, can you show some of those sculpts? I think that you're normal map, might be a little too subtle, which would make the textures appear flat.
On the texture itself, the edges could use some subtle highlights. Right now, each flat sections looks like it has exactly the same light bouncing off of it. I know that lighting with a good Spec map will highlight the edges but you can do some of the work in the texture itself. Look at any flat surface in real life, it always has subtle variations in it.
I know the concept camera view is a little far out, but it goes a long way if you provide some wear and tear on the stones, beyond just the cracks. How did those cracks get there. At one point, this throne room was occupied, where did people walk? Where did people stand? Thinking this way will really help you add some more subtle detail to the textures which give them a lot more life.
You are making progress, so keep it up!

Metzger

Hey Rabant, I did sculpt this in Zbrush here's the sculpt.



Although I then took the bake from that sculpt and threw it into dDo ending up with a little bit of a different map (detail wise). Finding it was too flat I went on to continue doing texture re-works and then put the diffuse through crazy bump and worked from that.

Here's a split of the difference you see in the normal maps, what could be causing it to come out so flat?



I find that its quite detailed. I'm shocked its coming out so flat. Maybe you could see where I'm going wrong!

Cheers

Metzger

Another update on the platform. I did some more work on the normal map and spec map, let me know what you think!

Rabant

Yah, the new version is looking a lot better. I think a lot of the flatness was due to the Spec needing some work (I know that's a weak point for me as well) and the diffuse needing a bit more tweaking. It looks like it has more depth to the grooves now.

shabba

I would say that maybe the biggest thing right now is that you are creating really blue stone. But I believe the concept color that you are seeing is from the ambient light flooding the chamber. I'd lose alot of the blue, and tweak your light to start.

Also looking at the platform, you're missing a step, and carrying those thick lines through to the steps, when in fact you have the tile, then the steps at the same height, and offset joints so it breaks those lines. The top "step" is like a border edge which you are missing completely.

Cracks and noise are looking alot better.

Metzger

EDIT: Deleted an Imgur account and realized all my work pics were attached to it. *FACEPALM*

The Work as it stands (UPDATE: May 3rd 2014):

Right now I have done a few texture revamps on assets. Here's some of them:

The Platform:



Turned the floor into a tiling floor texture:



I made the choice on feedback stating that I was going with too much blue in the textures. I noticed I should let UDK lighting take care of it and keep the textures more grey.

I then continued to create a modular wall set that can be used for corners and individual pieces:



With these guys I created 2 different maps and made a vertex painting material in UDK to break up the look of them in the scene.


And Finally a current shot of what it looks like in game. I added more scene lights to brighten up the scene. Keep in mind the lights have a blue colouring to them:









Next Plan of attack is rework the Pillars you see lining the walls, and then move onto finishing the walls.