Here is a quick update. Everything was blocked out in UE4, and imported into Maya so I could start creating assets. Im still getting used to this pipeline and moving back and forth between programs. Anywho, here is the Maya model so far.
Quick question on the well, is it me, or is it slightly... tilted?
Also, will be working on the well as I find that I'm not too confident yet with making the whole scene.
I'm seeing a lot of great work so far, though I partly wonder who's starting this challenge at a sort of "beginner level", and "professional level" (I'm pretty sure I'm starting at a "beginner level" of some sort, though maybe I'm feeling a tad bit... nervous?).
Here is a quick update. Everything was blocked out in UE4, and imported into Maya so I could start creating assets. Im still getting used to this pipeline and moving back and forth between programs. Anywho, here is the Maya model so far.
Oh wow I didn't know you could export your rough in from UE. Might have to try that with 3ds max. Would help a lot determining scale and how things fit.
Oh wow I didn't know you could export your rough in from UE. Might have to try that with 3ds max. Would help a lot determining scale and how things fit.
Silver Spade; I don't do environments. Ever. I also realized given my work schedule, I may not have time to do the environment fully to completion so I'm debating switching to the well.
Here's my blockout of the environment thus far. (I'd classify myself as a 'beginner'.)
I do appreciate the words of encouragement. Thank you.
This is what I have done so far. I'll have to look up stuff with regards to texturing, as I usually end up choking at that point.
Will find time to sculpt additional detail on each brick, as well as to further add detail to the "monks" (relatively new to ZBrush still).
@achillesian - sweet wood decal thing, and I will take note of that. @Artelios - looks nice so far, nice tree as well (though I wonder if the columns should have a high polycount, but then again, I'm not sure if this'll be modeled as though it were meant for a game).
Hey everybody, quick update here. Just wrapping up with the roofing. I wanted to use a modifier to get a little more control out of an array in 3ds Max and found this little plugin. I've found it very useful so far.
As many as you need. If its up close use more, further away use less. Modern hardware doesn't care much really. Don't go crazy of course but define the shape and call it a day.
Smoothed out the high for a more basic detail bake. Hopefully when I get round to the diffuse I will bring back that stylised feel.
Tested out some emissive maps too. Will get round to re-modelling for a better silhouette and proportions.
Paco great work on the statue, always wanted to get that sort of look, what brushes are you using?
So I've been really needing to dig my heels in and really start something stylized and hand painted. Never have just because of the sheer amount of time needed to do hand painted stuff. However, I saw the well and knew this was the perfect place to dive in!
I started blocking out in Maya and overall took about an hour. A little longer than I would have liked though this was due to the fact that I spent a bit more time making a nice blockout of the statue.
I have imported it into ZBrush and my original plan was just to just sculpt all of the stones onto the basic mesh. I know that it would probably be faster and more efficient to create a tiling texture of some sort or try and make modular pieces that fit together. With it being a single more special prop and having about a month to work on it, I thought maybe to give more time to making something that looks really good.
Just wondered what other peoples thoughts are? Should I stick to the plan or try something else such as making individual bricks or a tiling texture? I know its preference for part of it and efficiency for the other.
Also critique/notes for people: @achillesian - that is definitely the way to go for some really great looking props, piece by piece @PacoCasares - Really liking the statue sculpt you have going! I am assuming you are adding your own touch to it due to having some extra details not present in the concept? If so cool! Will be interested to see where you take it. I also really like your little WIP bubble!
You could have made, instead of that, just do 4-5 of those bricks, spend more time detailing them, and reuse them all over. If you rotate and mirror the duplicates, the gamer should not be able to spot the reuse of those bricks. (also with some color/spec/gloss variation in the texture)
Well noted, exactly what I did. Sculpted half a layer of bricks copied then added a bit more varied detail. Used x4 radial symmetry for the markings too.
I did start the whole scene a while ago on UDK, this month noob challenge could be an opportuniy to get back on it, and make it on UE4.
I was trying to get a bit of an unsual style for me, a mix between realistic and handpainted textures.
I am currently re working the textures for PBR (Done the ground, and the roof tiles, but not the whole wooden facade and the tree, for them I am currently using the diffuse texture that I multiply/power/etc to create some temporary specular/roughness map. Same for the glass and its mask, they are just temporary )
For the ground there will be a blend with some moss, I have it in the udk version, not yet in this scene. And finally some ivy that I have not imported yet. But I didn't really like its look in udk, I might do them again from scratch.
I also started playing with blueprint to assign animations and start at random frame, for the red papers hanging on the tree and the window: http://gfycat.com/IndelibleVeneratedAlbacoretuna#
I am also rotating all of them randomly.
About the lighting, I have been playing with all the light settings, and I have real trouble getting softer shadows. If someone could help me for that ?
I had some email exchange with Wang Rui to know the meanings about the different Chinese writings in the scene, I really did not want to write stuff that might make no sense to a Chinese person looking at the scene. Wang Rui was really nice and gave some nice explanations !
Maybe it will help/interest you:
I'm happy that you would like to do the 3D environment of my concept degin.:) and i of course agree with your ask. Remember adding the my website or marking about what the concept design come from.:)
about the sign on wall is a old Chinese word,條 means stream-like or very soft smooth. i added this sign for visualizing the feel of this scene to readers, who can understand this place easily and directly.
About the word which written on the board around the door actually is 院茵澗, which means the mysterious fog raising up when stream flows.
Anyway this is a place where full of the mysterious spirit.
The other red sign are:
妙 佳
书 句
鸿 风
戏 行
秋 晓
江 苑
水 花
This is traditional Chinese poem, written by Wang Anshi, an minister in Song dynasty, who was degraded and exiled due to the corruption of government. And this poem he did when he was entertaining his guests in 安江芙蓉楼,a restaurant. It expresses his mood which had disappointed to current government and indulged in the entertainment.
So that I used this poem to suggest that this place which is in the picture is full of sad and disappointed. Do you recognize this kind of feel in this picture? hehe:)
Ground is one mesh and the stairs are another mesh. They both use tileable texture though.
For stairs, for such simple scene, making modular stairs i think would be just in my way + it would actually do be more bad then good, since i'd have to make 2 meshes at the very least (straight + corner).
In some other case, i might make it modular, but since i'm really only gonna use it once, i think it was better this way.
Similar with ground itself, i used just one mesh with tilable texture, and use it it rather to vary height of that ground a bit, so that it's not all compeltly flat.
I'll use some more texture blending + decals probably to make it a bit more intersting.
For some other cases, like pillars and roofs, i'll probably go for modular approach though.
4 units, where i took 96units as regular human height (well, that's ueg4, but i think it's the same as udk).
Default player height in UE4 is 192cm. Unreal units are now in centimeters, so 4 units inside of Unreal is equal to 4 cm. Default characters are 192 units, so 192 cm, which is approx. 6 feet tall.
I've always wanted to done one of these challenges, but haven't had the chance. The concept really speaks to me. I am in the Quixel beta and the new tools are amazing, so I'm looking forward to using this as a chance to get to know the newer toolset. Avoiding using dDo as much as possible, except for layer management and batch baking. Here's a taste of a quick material I set up in, about an hour in total. Being able to mix Megascan information with my own tileable library is a real plus.
Default player height in UE4 is 192cm. Unreal units are now in centimeters, so 4 units inside of Unreal is equal to 4 cm. Default characters are 192 units, so 192 cm, which is approx. 6 feet tall.
I've always wanted to done one of these challenges, but haven't had the chance. The concept really speaks to me. I am in the Quixel beta and the new tools are amazing, so I'm looking forward to using this as a chance to get to know the newer toolset. Avoiding using dDo as much as possible, except for layer management and batch baking. Here's a taste of a quick material I set up in, about an hour in total. Being able to mix Megascan information with my own tileable library is a real plus.
Cheers for the info on UE4!
That is a very very nice decoration... was it NDo2? or sculpted or somehow displaced?
Update for today on the well. Spent some time taking a step back and figuring out how approach the bricks for the well. Decided to go with having all of the bricks be individual and then I will go in and add detail. I know it isn't as fast as have modular pieces and such but since I just want to make it look as interesting as possible I'd rather everything be unique.
Also was too much of a perfectionist and spent too long on trying to make the top rock look good as well as the statue. Hopefully I will get to work on this a little more tonight and can pick up the pace.
@MooseCommander: that looks pretty awesome! I've messed around somewhat with Ndo and Ddo and can't wait till the new package comes out. Also, thanks a ton for the UE4 units help as I was having a problem figuring out how to setup my Maya for UE4. @Zocky: I think that the floor and stairs are pretty great so far! However they feel a bit too wet? Almost like I would squish right through the stones.
Since im currently working on the Stargate SG1 scene on UE4, and I want to participate in this one, I will just be doing the well prop instead of this whole scene. Here is what I have so far.
Also it seems like the concept's perspective is a little off. If we go by how the concept looks then the well is actually an oval, not a circle.
Got this pm, I thought I could copy my answer here, if someone else is interested.
May I ask how you modularised the stairs? Did you do L shaped pieces or just do 2 halves?
It is not a modular mesh per se, since I was not going to use those stairs anywhere else I made them in one static mesh. But I could have made them modular without problem, by just splitting the geometry.
Here is how I reused the texture and geometry:
So basically I did once the corner and 3 different range of steps (I thought that with only 2 we might have been able to spot the reuse of texture), that is placed here and there.
Note that I had trouble when I made the prop first for udk. Fore reasons that I still do not understand at 100%, the normals looked wrong for some of the corners that were rotated 90% from the original geometry (Maybe becose of tangents or binormals ? The error was even more visible with baked lights.. Maybe problem with baked specular ?) .. I don't know if this kind of errors are still present in UE4.
I ended up solving the issue by having all the stairs aligned in the texture sheet (Same goes for the uv2 for the lightmaps.)
Here is what I have been able to get done so far. The more I work on it the more I am not sure if I should have modeled flat section of the well to bake out as textures and apply to the low poly, of if building 1/2 of it and baking that like I am doing is the way to go.
Pennywise: I'm really enjoying your brick work! I'm assuming the bricks are separate? If so, if you find that your current method isn't working you can copy them over to a flat plane and bake the texture down there.
Hey all,
Never really posted in the forums before..
First time doing anything like this, so bare with me. Currently blocked out the general shapes, gonna take it to zbrush.
Hey all,
Never really posted in the forums before..
First time doing anything like this, so bare with me. Currently blocked out the general shapes, gonna take it to zbrush.
/QUOTE]
Just started some texture work. Going to get some tesselation on the ground to make it pop a little. PBR is just awesome, and it makes pulling off certain effects so much easier.
Replies
might work on detailing the bricks, adding pebbles, and come back to this guy with fresh eyes for next
Also, will be working on the well as I find that I'm not too confident yet with making the whole scene.
I'm seeing a lot of great work so far, though I partly wonder who's starting this challenge at a sort of "beginner level", and "professional level" (I'm pretty sure I'm starting at a "beginner level" of some sort, though maybe I'm feeling a tad bit... nervous?).
Oh wow I didn't know you could export your rough in from UE. Might have to try that with 3ds max. Would help a lot determining scale and how things fit.
Yeah please expand on this!
To those that want to blockout in UDK for simpler and more accurate sizes:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=86576
Here's my blockout of the environment thus far. (I'd classify myself as a 'beginner'.)
piece by piece dog, blocking everything out is for godless atheist scientists, i've got GOD on my side
This is what I have done so far. I'll have to look up stuff with regards to texturing, as I usually end up choking at that point.
Will find time to sculpt additional detail on each brick, as well as to further add detail to the "monks" (relatively new to ZBrush still).
@achillesian - sweet wood decal thing, and I will take note of that.
@Artelios - looks nice so far, nice tree as well (though I wonder if the columns should have a high polycount, but then again, I'm not sure if this'll be modeled as though it were meant for a game).
http://www.mcgreed.dk/misc.asp
Tested out some emissive maps too.
Will get round to re-modelling for a better silhouette and proportions.
Paco great work on the statue, always wanted to get that sort of look, what brushes are you using?
I started blocking out in Maya and overall took about an hour. A little longer than I would have liked though this was due to the fact that I spent a bit more time making a nice blockout of the statue.
I have imported it into ZBrush and my original plan was just to just sculpt all of the stones onto the basic mesh. I know that it would probably be faster and more efficient to create a tiling texture of some sort or try and make modular pieces that fit together. With it being a single more special prop and having about a month to work on it, I thought maybe to give more time to making something that looks really good.
Just wondered what other peoples thoughts are? Should I stick to the plan or try something else such as making individual bricks or a tiling texture? I know its preference for part of it and efficiency for the other.
Also critique/notes for people:
@achillesian - that is definitely the way to go for some really great looking props, piece by piece
@PacoCasares - Really liking the statue sculpt you have going! I am assuming you are adding your own touch to it due to having some extra details not present in the concept? If so cool! Will be interested to see where you take it. I also really like your little WIP bubble!
I don't think this concept will actually take much sculpting - probably a lot of the normals I'm going to need I can just paint in 3D-Coat.
never actually considered using polygroups this way, nice one
I was trying to get a bit of an unsual style for me, a mix between realistic and handpainted textures.
I am currently re working the textures for PBR (Done the ground, and the roof tiles, but not the whole wooden facade and the tree, for them I am currently using the diffuse texture that I multiply/power/etc to create some temporary specular/roughness map. Same for the glass and its mask, they are just temporary )
For the ground there will be a blend with some moss, I have it in the udk version, not yet in this scene. And finally some ivy that I have not imported yet. But I didn't really like its look in udk, I might do them again from scratch.
I also started playing with blueprint to assign animations and start at random frame, for the red papers hanging on the tree and the window:
http://gfycat.com/IndelibleVeneratedAlbacoretuna#
I am also rotating all of them randomly.
About the lighting, I have been playing with all the light settings, and I have real trouble getting softer shadows. If someone could help me for that ?
I had some email exchange with Wang Rui to know the meanings about the different Chinese writings in the scene, I really did not want to write stuff that might make no sense to a Chinese person looking at the scene. Wang Rui was really nice and gave some nice explanations !
Maybe it will help/interest you:
I hope some people will be interested.
Cheers !
A little progress here:
Lot's of work is still needed on these textures though....
Is this in modular pieces or just 1 huge mesh?
@Zockey - Nice texture work.
For stairs, for such simple scene, making modular stairs i think would be just in my way + it would actually do be more bad then good, since i'd have to make 2 meshes at the very least (straight + corner).
In some other case, i might make it modular, but since i'm really only gonna use it once, i think it was better this way.
Similar with ground itself, i used just one mesh with tilable texture, and use it it rather to vary height of that ground a bit, so that it's not all compeltly flat.
I'll use some more texture blending + decals probably to make it a bit more intersting.
For some other cases, like pillars and roofs, i'll probably go for modular approach though.
Oh, and tnx!
by four units, do you mean in height?
i.e. 12 units overall whilst 16 units is a foot.
Default player height in UE4 is 192cm. Unreal units are now in centimeters, so 4 units inside of Unreal is equal to 4 cm. Default characters are 192 units, so 192 cm, which is approx. 6 feet tall.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/ContentStandards/index.html
I've always wanted to done one of these challenges, but haven't had the chance. The concept really speaks to me. I am in the Quixel beta and the new tools are amazing, so I'm looking forward to using this as a chance to get to know the newer toolset. Avoiding using dDo as much as possible, except for layer management and batch baking. Here's a taste of a quick material I set up in, about an hour in total. Being able to mix Megascan information with my own tileable library is a real plus.
Cheers for the info on UE4!
That is a very very nice decoration... was it NDo2? or sculpted or somehow displaced?
Oh, tnx a lot man, guess will have to work more on scale...
And nice work there!
Also was too much of a perfectionist and spent too long on trying to make the top rock look good as well as the statue. Hopefully I will get to work on this a little more tonight and can pick up the pace.
@MooseCommander: that looks pretty awesome! I've messed around somewhat with Ndo and Ddo and can't wait till the new package comes out. Also, thanks a ton for the UE4 units help as I was having a problem figuring out how to setup my Maya for UE4.
@Zocky: I think that the floor and stairs are pretty great so far! However they feel a bit too wet? Almost like I would squish right through the stones.
Also it seems like the concept's perspective is a little off. If we go by how the concept looks then the well is actually an oval, not a circle.
It is not a modular mesh per se, since I was not going to use those stairs anywhere else I made them in one static mesh. But I could have made them modular without problem, by just splitting the geometry.
Here is how I reused the texture and geometry:
So basically I did once the corner and 3 different range of steps (I thought that with only 2 we might have been able to spot the reuse of texture), that is placed here and there.
Note that I had trouble when I made the prop first for udk. Fore reasons that I still do not understand at 100%, the normals looked wrong for some of the corners that were rotated 90% from the original geometry (Maybe becose of tangents or binormals ? The error was even more visible with baked lights.. Maybe problem with baked specular ?) .. I don't know if this kind of errors are still present in UE4.
I ended up solving the issue by having all the stairs aligned in the texture sheet (Same goes for the uv2 for the lightmaps.)
Like this:
I came across this while gathering reference for this project. check it!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tanaka_juuyoh/sets/72157605568359952
All done inside of Photoshop - no sculpting at all. About 30 minutes all-in-all thanks to nDo.
Never really posted in the forums before..
First time doing anything like this, so bare with me. Currently blocked out the general shapes, gonna take it to zbrush.
I haven't decided yet if I want to keep the doors open or close them for simplicity's sake.
Serious question; is this how you folks do it ? (not using any game engine yet, I know.)