Street Corner UDK
polycounter lvl 5
Hi
I've recently finished a project, modelling a street corner. It's based on Google map reference from Chicago.
I'd appreciate any feedback, especially my texturing (when I get to that stage later on).
I've recently finished a project, modelling a street corner. It's based on Google map reference from Chicago.
I'd appreciate any feedback, especially my texturing (when I get to that stage later on).
Replies
I'll be taking it into UDK eventually so I'm trying to keep everything to powers of 2 and an 8X8 grid.
I don't know what you plan to use this scene for, but when you make the road you might want to look into vertex painting and also make those pieces modular (in smaller chunks than now). You could have just a few pieces and still achieve a maximum of variation with a vertex paint material for the road. They need some more resolution for that, but it usually pays off.
the windows are actually integrated into the walls as I wanted them to have a modelled recess. I based the different wall sections as separate modular pieces. In retrospect, while this did give variety it did cause me to have to build a lot more different walls - base wall with one window, base wall with 2 windows etc.
Not sure if it was the best method, but I wanted that recessed window look. The pieces generally have the pivot at their lower left point like you said and are built off an 8X8 grid
The brief for this project didn't include the road so it's just there as a border really, I must try out vertex painting...
Some of the textures, like the brick are tiled horizontally, whereas some of the more individual pieces like the standard window and the curved corner on the building will have some Ambient Occlusion baked in prior to full texturing.
I know the recessed window problem all too well. However, you'd be surprised with what you can get away there. A good idea for the window material is to use a bump offset node on it to give the actual room behind it some (fake) depth.
If you were modeling all these pieces however, why didn't you bevel the edges of the buildings? Perhaps you can soften them on the normal maps. These sharp corners are not a huge problem, but in terms of realism it looks nicer with a slight bevel. And UDK basically never game me problems when I added a little more geometry. I tend to work much lower res than the engine can actually handle.
Another tip regarding shading. It may seem odd, and I'm not entirely sure this is true, but rotating UV maps and textures may improve your shading, e.g. on the road pieces. Do you see how the corner one seems to have a different orientation than the other pieces? (It could just be the texture, I'd have to see the seams in stronger lighting) That is because the normal maps (and lightmaps) seem to be read from a certain direction. So if all pieces are about the same size and rotated the same way the shading on them will look better.
I subbed to your thread, maybe you can do the same for mine, as I intend to build modular parts and a sort of "hovercar hangar"to be showcased in UDK. We might throw some ideas around each other's head.
(to make it easier for you to find it: here is my thread. Would love to have you around:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=129833)
Yes I tried that bump offset thing with the windows before , it's a cool technique.
There's an example of it on the last image here:
http://markwilliamsartist.carbonmade.com/projects/4593259
For this project I wanted the windows to be reflecting sky, I'll get to that in a little bit.
I think you're right about the bevels. I could have thrown a few more in there on the corner.
I'm not sure what you mean about rotating UVs and textures to improve shading...
I'll be sure to head over to your thread and check out what you're doing there too.
and here's a shader on the windows with a basic reflection vector node.
Sorry, I meant the lightmap Uvs. It looks like the corner piece of the road receives light from a different direction.
Update looks good and yeah, the lightmap errors are minute and could even be registered as damage or wear. I only see them now on the second images central building- Left of the second floor (small windows), there is a bit of strange shading.
I also always get these strange errors with self-shadowing. Like what you get in the doorway. Where the shadow from an object above is just clipping through the meshes below. I wonder ifit would work to "exclude" certain objects from receiving shadows, but I'd like to know a proper solution to this issue myself.
I really dig how you let the buildings follow the flow of the street and not just place everything on a flat grid! Even though there may be errors at the moment, I'd suggest showing the detail lightmap and shaded versions of the scene, as they are preferable to the diffuse for ample reasons. You will get better feedback, just look at the guy with this "Joker's Lair" thread and the kind of quality feedback he got ^^
I think weird shadows in udk are usually one of 2 things - the mesh isn't welded together, or there 's not enough resolution in the light maps.
The flow of the buildings is largely based on the reference, there's somewhere in Chicago that has this same corner profile, a lot of the rest I made up,
I'll check out that joker's lair thread...
Once the windows have a cubemap on them the scene will look already very convincing. I don't quite understand the windows in the first floor on the right building. Do they have bars going through them, or what are those lines?
Here's a wireframe in the meantime
The only small thing I'm noticing is a lack of the low end. Your lighting is soft, hazy, bloomy, and hitting mainly the top half of the range. Maybe you have a few too many bounces in your bake, maybe your indirect scale is up too high, maybe your environment color is a little bright?
I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more contrast in the image. Your main corner that sits in the foreground should have some rich color and values compared to the buildings that distance themselves toward the background. Doing this will add more depth to the image and should give the illusion of a bigger space.
Minor stuff, keep up the good work!
Love,
-Jon
I have to admit the lighting and atmosphere is the default UDK 'morning light' set up. I ran out of time when it came to lighting the scene. But it's something I'd like to experiment a bit more with, definitely...