Futuristic Chinatown
polycounter lvl 4
Hi everyone, I wanted to show a new environment I've been working on for a while. The theme is futuristic Chinatown where I'm doing a blend of modern and sci fi elements, so it feels rooted in modern times that's advancing into the future. I got a lot of inspiration from games like Remember Me where it takes place some decades into the future.
Here's some reference:
I was originally working in UDK, and I have made other environments in UDK but I decided to try rendering out an environment with the new Marmoset Toolbag and see what I can do with it.
Here is the layout of the scene:
\WIP of the building, just testing things out:
and a few assets:
Futuristic wall WIP
Trying out PBR
I'll be working more on the layout and the lighting next, and of course crit/feedback is always appreciated. Thanks!
Here's some reference:
I was originally working in UDK, and I have made other environments in UDK but I decided to try rendering out an environment with the new Marmoset Toolbag and see what I can do with it.
Here is the layout of the scene:
\WIP of the building, just testing things out:
and a few assets:
Futuristic wall WIP
Trying out PBR
I'll be working more on the layout and the lighting next, and of course crit/feedback is always appreciated. Thanks!
Replies
Remember to keep vertical detail in mind. All the best futuristic Chinatown's (Blade Runner, Metropolis, A.I etc...) all seem to have just as much going on overhead as there is at street level. Fly-over's, signage, traffic lanes and all that jazz..
Anyways. All the best with it dude. I look forward to your progress!
Could I get some insight into your bricks? Were they sculpted? Thanks for any help!
awesome stuff:poly124:
@leleuxart: okay, I will try and fine-tune the material more.
@LANKUS MAXIMUS: I'll keep that in mind as I work on the layout more.
@Jeffrotull: thanks though I can't take full credit. I looked around for street lights that looked futuristic or unique and tried to mash things together.
@SaferDan: yeah, the bricks were sculpted in Zbrush then textured in Photoshop. Nothing particularly fancy but here's the sculpt:
Also here's another shot of the building. Still quite a bit of work to do on the sci fi stuff:
Thanks again everyone for the encouragement and feedback.
Can't wait to see this finished
Following to see how it will turn out
Edit : agree with LANKUS MAXIMUS I would love to see a tutorial covering how you made those brick, they look great!
You should whip up a simple tutorial pic when you finish the project. Really is a nice wall
To those who mentioned the bricks, thanks but I have to say, there's nothing special about the way I made them.. I've made tileable textures in Zbrush before using the method Holland mentioned, make a few unique pieces then rotate them around and reuse them. This time I wanted to experiment and see if putting in the extra effort to uniquely sculpt every brick would make a difference and arguably maybe not when it comes to having to sculpt this many pieces but oh well, it didn't take much time to sculpt each one and sculpting is just plain fun!
I spent just a few minutes on each brick, and you can see that some bricks I did very little work on. One thing I've noticed is if you make every brick really detailed, and you have a ton of bricks, what you may end up with in the end is a really noisy texture. As far as the sculpt goes, the treatment is primarly just trim dynamic to break away the edges and then adding some small surface imperfections. After that it's just extracting the normal map from Zbrush then using photo manipulation to make the finished textures.
@aferalva6: Yeah I could have grabbed a photo of a brick wall then turned that into a texture but making your own textures is way more fun and good practice (if you have the time for it)
@dvisionvoid: What did you want to see specifically?
@ostwid: Sure, here's the building wireframe and yeah I was pretty generous with the polys in some areas, and I could probably cut back and optimize more. :poly132:
and this is an update to where I'm currently at with the scene:
I went with a rainy night scene, but I think I'll render out both a night and day scene. Lighting needs more fine-tuning and not so sure about the composition and focal point. I'd especially appreciate some help/suggestions with that.
super quick paint over, I think it'd be awesome to have a butcher shop on the left. You could use that to draw the eye to that spot with the warm colors and a neon sign of some sort. Other than that just some more silhouettes, boarded up broken windows, a car and an awesome futuristic bike (dirty it up to match) and your there! Good luck.
@pixelpatron: That's awesome! Thanks for the paintover, I'm going to rework the layout and composition a bit more and I'll try and incorporate your ideas in.
@Mr Smo: Thanks and yeah, it's all in Marmoset. I wish I could make it in UE4 though..
Thanks
Also not sure if you would incorporate bamboo framing into ur scene, but it gives a bit of old touch to it. One thing i love to see when I go back to hk
In addition the the previous paintover, perhaps the lights could continue down the alley way?
Something I dislike is that sci-fi metal section that you show on the first page.
It looks like a very generic sci-fi bash that dosnt make any sense. Its kinda usual making made-up geometry, but these are not believable , would you build your panels like that if you were a specialist doing your job ? ; )
If you took one outstanding feature, like the left part, and made the rest a lot simpler, it would be a lot more reasonable.
Personally I thought the scifi wall closest on the left looked as though it could become a futuristic system of shutters, perhaps opening from the center up and down, there's a bit which looks like a handle. Something that gives it more of reason to be that shape would make more sense, at the moment it looks like a wall which has had shape and interest added to it simply for interest's sake...
Keep it up!
@Iciban and Walrus: yeah I'll try to add more lights and signs. I just need to be careful of not making the scene too overwhemling.
@Kobalt Kiwii: There are some obvious challenges with rendering an environment using Marmoset Toolbag, particularly with the limitations of tools and features you get compared to game engines like UDK. Certain things like making special shaders, vertex painting, or fog can't be done and will have to be "faked", but I think it's worth it with how good things look
Also Kobalt Kiwii and Shrike, thanks for your comment and duly noted. I'm going to rethink and redo the sci fi designs. I also want to push the sci fi aspects of the scene more, so here's a small update of where I'm thinking of going.
@Gannon: thanks and it was just a couple minutes on each brick and a little bit more time on a few of the more detailed ones so maybe 10-15 hours? I don't think sculpting that many bricks made much of an impact in quality, so I probably spent more time than I really should have.
@Kobalt Kiwii: thanks and yeah I hope this update will make it look more like a hologram.
However I feel like a lot more could be done to take it that one/two steps further.
Number one, Foreground props!
Trash piles, a Dumpster, a bit more signange, fire hydrant, grungy looking cardboard boxes.
A couple more things like that would really help fill in the negative space in the foreground.
I'd love to see more lanterns draping the front area as well, some nit picks would be to push your spec further on all the metal elements, and i'm not sure if the blue glass stuff on the balcony is working for me, I'd make it a bit more desaturated.
otherwise, well done!
Lighting could use a few bigger light sources, such as street lights or something like that. Right now most of the lighting comes from tiny light sources which is always a big no-no when doing night scenes.
@killazzz, Minos, Iciban: awesome, thanks for the suggestions and feedback guys! All really great points.
@razz: thanks, you may not like the direction I ended up going with though... I got some feedback from other people, and I decided to tone down the glow and made the scene a little bit desaturated. It seems previously it was just too bright and too saturated for a cold rainy scene.
So this is not a huge update, I was just making some subtle tweaks to the lighting and materials. I'll think of some more assets to make but in the meantime, here's a few more shots.