Working on some trim today and also reworked the interior in udk (will post when I get more of a change from last time). Was really back and forth with the types of trim I needed for the scene. Ended up going really simple because I'm pretty sure the scene will suffer with this much small detail and won't contrast well with the design. Also these are going to be tiled every where so simple I think was a better choice.
I'm still going at this thing. Feels like I'm in over my head!
Managed to get a lot more into the scene. Added the ceiling tiles, doors, stairs, pillars, and trims. Still have to create a few more high poly relief's and also the floors/walls. Going to be reusing my low polys to the point of exhaustion. Every mesh has just a basic AO with color and normals as well as a general material with a cube map and high spec/gloss so don't pay much attention to that. Its just so I can gauge alot of the scene without having to look at white.
To save a crazy amount of time I'm going to be using detail normal maps on a few things. Zbrush is eating away at a lot of my time and I didn't schedule enough for it. The trim and guard rails are zbrushed. I made 3 variations of the guard rail posts so I can break up the visual along some of the long stretches.
Again, comments and critiques are very welcome. I'll do my best if you guys have any questions =D
this is absolutely amazing. I love it so far, going to keep following and see how this unravels. Would love to see some more in-depth visuals to your workflow on the high res pieces.
loving that relief. Everything is looking really good. I was wondering what kind of level of wear and tear are you going to add. Any reference you have for that?
So far, the style and shapes are dead on Gears style.
DUDE! rocking it man! Really liking these bakes! lets seem some MATERIALS and textures now!! Got any plans for how to deal with the emptiness of the space? or just focusing on the modular structures right now?
luge - Thankyou! I will definitely go in depth later off after the project is done (time constraints) but if you have any specific questions to as which specific part of the model I don't mind showing wires or going over a brief visual example of how I achieved some shapes.
David-J - Been really struggling to imagine what the scene will really look like in the end and if I'm going to be adding some serious damage or wear and tear. Right now there is general wear and tear on the trims and guard rails but I've been struggling quite a bit with the workflow of cracks. Definitely room for improvement and hopefully I'll get to a point of rendering out some z brush shots to show you guys and get some feedback but I gotta keep on schedule if I want to finish this before GDC.
danjohncox - Thanks Dan! X Normal all the way! I'll post up some texture flats and get some materials running along for the next update for sure. No plans as of yet for the emptiness unfortunately. Like you said, really focusing on modular structures and making sure I high poly model smart so I can reuse a lot of the texture/low poly. Would be great to get some ideas for the space though just in case I get some time in the end =D
MeshModeler - The cracks are destroying my life right now! Definitely struggling in that department but I have to move on to keep on schedule. I will be posting a render of it in zbrush in the next update so I can get some specific critiques and hopefully get me moving in the right direction.
My workflow from max to zbrush for cracks:
-Bring in subdivided mesh into zbrush but making sure I have it equally subdivided for details
-Store a morph target and create a new layer for cracks
-Using various alphas I start laying down cracks from certain areas of the model. In this case I was trying to run the cracks from the bolts that are dug into the sides of the posts
-Take the morph brush and start morphing out the cracks that are unnecessary or don't lead back to a bolt
-Using Orbs brush I dig into the Alphas starting from the bolts and take pressure off leading away to try and get the affect of the crack starting from an impacted area.
-I also create a general crevice under the bolt to try again get the affect like it was pierced in and through the stone
Generally that's how I went about the crack and for sure I can improve of my placing. Next update I get a decent render out of zbrush for critique. I must move on though to finish this before GDC. Thankyou though for noticing that and there's always room for improvement =D
Since your under rediculous constraints and you have allot of work here maybe you should go for the clean polished approach first as it's much faster to achieve get your colour tones and textures to where you want them to be and then add all the extra zbrush detail later on in the pipeline because at the very least you'll have a map with a clean layout to show.
You've got an incredible amount of awesome detail but as Paul said your going to have to balance that somehow so it doesn't look like just noise.
Adding even more detail in zbrush could defeat the look because it sounds like your trying to rush that in for GDC which could be the make or break, so maybe think about achieving step 1 first a nice map with nice textures good layout and everything you want in it finished!
Then go over and add your zbrush pass later.
It's looking really good so far definitely has that european artistic edge to it.
I'm gonna agree with Melonman. Your zbrush stuff isn't coming together all they wonderfully, and is instead detracting from your other elements. Maybe focus on materials and what you've got. Might even give you more time for floors and props so the place doesn't feel too empty. a full scene is a powerful thing, even zbrush demonstration aside
Rhoutermans - Yea Spline modelling is great! Started fully using it on this project and it sped and cleaned up a lot of my workflow. Thanks!
Melonman - Yea going to actually start going that route so I can finish this project on time. Thanks for the advice and comments.
danjohncox - Yea for sure as I said to Melon, definitely going to finish up the scene and worry about the zbrush phase afterwards.
Update!
I was mocking up some floors and testing out how the curve pieces will look. Baked it out and was testing how to be modular with a tile set like this. Got some really cool results and going to try a few more out tomorrow to give the floor some love. Also saw a curved ceiling section in one of my books and gave that a whirl. Used path deform for that and tweaked a lot of the settings to try and get the best results.
Worked on the lighting again and changed up the stairs so they snap properly to where I want.
Hey man, superb as usual, some questions now, hope you dont mind ...the floor is a large plane or every square is a module? If is a large plane how did you put the round shape ? It is on top or did u cut the floor and put the round shape there in max ? Some tips and trick maybe ? Thanks.
I'm gonna hazard a guess and say that the 16 tiles around the base of the pillars is a separate mesh from the general square tiles mesh which has unique mapping to get the round shape in there.
Yeah man you know what as Kel-Shaded said and looking over your work you might not even need that Zbrush pass looking at it, if you lock the lighting this could be just straight noice you know what I mean.
I know your going for gears but even gears leaves the damage pass in some areas I think you could really do something really awesome here by leaving out adding too much damage and go clean with this a few locations in gears 3 would be the hotel (in the campaign mode and the multiplayer mostly), the vaults in RAAM's shadow etc.
These locations where a breath of fresh air to see because it provided a really nice contrast and I think that is exactly what you could achieve here with this little to no damage just beatiful work from toe to head for real.
Looking really good man add some props etc and this will really show.
I have never actually played a Gears game, but all of this artwork is seriously impressive! I love the high poly work and the presentation of everything.
Replies
Working on some trim today and also reworked the interior in udk (will post when I get more of a change from last time). Was really back and forth with the types of trim I needed for the scene. Ended up going really simple because I'm pretty sure the scene will suffer with this much small detail and won't contrast well with the design. Also these are going to be tiled every where so simple I think was a better choice.
Comments and Critiques welcome!
But it makes me want to try it out!
I'm still going at this thing. Feels like I'm in over my head!
Managed to get a lot more into the scene. Added the ceiling tiles, doors, stairs, pillars, and trims. Still have to create a few more high poly relief's and also the floors/walls. Going to be reusing my low polys to the point of exhaustion. Every mesh has just a basic AO with color and normals as well as a general material with a cube map and high spec/gloss so don't pay much attention to that. Its just so I can gauge alot of the scene without having to look at white.
To save a crazy amount of time I'm going to be using detail normal maps on a few things. Zbrush is eating away at a lot of my time and I didn't schedule enough for it. The trim and guard rails are zbrushed. I made 3 variations of the guard rail posts so I can break up the visual along some of the long stretches.
Again, comments and critiques are very welcome. I'll do my best if you guys have any questions =D
So far, the style and shapes are dead on Gears style.
What was your workflow for the cracks? did you use take your subdivided mesh into zbrush?
David-J - Been really struggling to imagine what the scene will really look like in the end and if I'm going to be adding some serious damage or wear and tear. Right now there is general wear and tear on the trims and guard rails but I've been struggling quite a bit with the workflow of cracks. Definitely room for improvement and hopefully I'll get to a point of rendering out some z brush shots to show you guys and get some feedback but I gotta keep on schedule if I want to finish this before GDC.
danjohncox - Thanks Dan! X Normal all the way! I'll post up some texture flats and get some materials running along for the next update for sure. No plans as of yet for the emptiness unfortunately. Like you said, really focusing on modular structures and making sure I high poly model smart so I can reuse a lot of the texture/low poly. Would be great to get some ideas for the space though just in case I get some time in the end =D
MeshModeler - The cracks are destroying my life right now! Definitely struggling in that department but I have to move on to keep on schedule. I will be posting a render of it in zbrush in the next update so I can get some specific critiques and hopefully get me moving in the right direction.
My workflow from max to zbrush for cracks:
-Bring in subdivided mesh into zbrush but making sure I have it equally subdivided for details
-Store a morph target and create a new layer for cracks
-Using various alphas I start laying down cracks from certain areas of the model. In this case I was trying to run the cracks from the bolts that are dug into the sides of the posts
-Take the morph brush and start morphing out the cracks that are unnecessary or don't lead back to a bolt
-Using Orbs brush I dig into the Alphas starting from the bolts and take pressure off leading away to try and get the affect of the crack starting from an impacted area.
-I also create a general crevice under the bolt to try again get the affect like it was pierced in and through the stone
Generally that's how I went about the crack and for sure I can improve of my placing. Next update I get a decent render out of zbrush for critique. I must move on though to finish this before GDC. Thankyou though for noticing that and there's always room for improvement =D
You've got an incredible amount of awesome detail but as Paul said your going to have to balance that somehow so it doesn't look like just noise.
Adding even more detail in zbrush could defeat the look because it sounds like your trying to rush that in for GDC which could be the make or break, so maybe think about achieving step 1 first a nice map with nice textures good layout and everything you want in it finished!
Then go over and add your zbrush pass later.
It's looking really good so far definitely has that european artistic edge to it.
Keep it up.
Rhoutermans - Yea Spline modelling is great! Started fully using it on this project and it sped and cleaned up a lot of my workflow. Thanks!
Melonman - Yea going to actually start going that route so I can finish this project on time. Thanks for the advice and comments.
danjohncox - Yea for sure as I said to Melon, definitely going to finish up the scene and worry about the zbrush phase afterwards.
Update!
I was mocking up some floors and testing out how the curve pieces will look. Baked it out and was testing how to be modular with a tile set like this. Got some really cool results and going to try a few more out tomorrow to give the floor some love. Also saw a curved ceiling section in one of my books and gave that a whirl. Used path deform for that and tweaked a lot of the settings to try and get the best results.
Worked on the lighting again and changed up the stairs so they snap properly to where I want.
Correct me if I'm wrong OP
I know your going for gears but even gears leaves the damage pass in some areas I think you could really do something really awesome here by leaving out adding too much damage and go clean with this a few locations in gears 3 would be the hotel (in the campaign mode and the multiplayer mostly), the vaults in RAAM's shadow etc.
These locations where a breath of fresh air to see because it provided a really nice contrast and I think that is exactly what you could achieve here with this little to no damage just beatiful work from toe to head for real.
Looking really good man add some props etc and this will really show.
Looking fantastic.