UE4 Summer Project

SergeiMirminski

Hi people,

I have time over the summer so i've decided to start a project in UE4. The concept art is from an old Noob Challenge, by the artist Artyom Vlaskin.



Concept


Paint over


Block in


I think the block in is more accurate than it appears, i'm still new to UE4 so I need to change the FOV to 50 or so, and replace the camera with first person, or figure out how to make the player invisible...

Thanks for watching.

beefaroni

Hey, good luck!! There was someone who did this scene a few months ago (forget who). If you can find that thread you may find some useful info.

SergeiMirminski

Thanks, Beefaroni. I can't seem to find that post. But here's an update of better blockout and some placeholder assets. Getting the camera to look exactly like the reference is trickier than I expected.

jesterhead

"Monthly Noob Challenge 3"
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=113765

Might be this thread, good luck! really liking this one, will come back!

SergeiMirminski

Thanks Jester.

Here's another update, and another one later tonight, i'm sure. Started on drafts of textures and place-holder assets.

These textures are VERY early, only 10 minutes of work.

A spec map or some anistrophic filtering would be useful, as you cant see the floor texture at all right now .

SergeiMirminski

Last update of the night.

SergeiMirminski

Baked the low poly Boiler, Staircase, modular pipe parts, and worked on some textures.





The ground texture.

Ehsan Gamer

Keep It up

Rhoutermans

Looks good I think textures and lighting look a bit too yellow/brownish overall. Maybe throw in some cool colors in there as well. Good start, keep going!

lamar McHaney

Memories, on this one keep it going.

SergeiMirminski

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your feedback. I'll change the colors around a bit and post an update later today.

atomander

Really digging the style so far.

SergeiMirminski

I always post so late...Worked on the door, ceramic tile texture, textured the pipe parts, messed with the lighting, added some grunge detail to wood parts and sorted the slightly orange cinder block wall texture.




Ceramic Tile texture(unfinished)


Door Texture

Jonas Ronnegard

I'm really liking this, but the ceramic tiles normals feels too soft, especially for the cracks, I can kinda understand why you went with that, but it feels very off for the cracks, at least for me.

great work so far though.

SergeiMirminski

Thanks, Jonas. I'll post a revision of the normal in the next update.

marcobar

This is looking good, but I noticed one thing: the green door you have in the scene currently looks a bit squat. When you look at the scene overall, everything you have seems bang-on with the concept, but for some reason it feels short to me in the close-up.

SergeiMirminski

Thanks, Marcobar. I'll change the door, and yes the textures are not copying directly from the concept...I find them too cartoonish. If that's what you mean by the closeup. I'm not the best texture artist, but what I think will bring it closer is adding more gritty black lines to textures- you see throughout the concept.

marcobar

I only meant the size of the door - it just didn't look tall enough to me.

Since you mentioned the texture, though: it's hard to tell from the concept exactly where the door is supposed to leave, but maybe if you could see something hiding behind the darker panel it would help make it a touch more believable? Just something to consider.

SergeiMirminski

Hello. I tweaked the lighting, changed the diffuse and normal of the ceramic tile- still a bad texture, probably gonna start again from scratch...textured the boiler(or whatever that is) and textured the breaker/electrical box.

Part of the reason textures were somewhat 'warm' is partly because the ambient HDRI tex I used was very warm. So I 'fixed' that.

I also made the door slightly thinner, I could make it a little taller.

marcobar

The new door proportions look solid! I'm starting to see an almost Telltale's Walking Dead style emerging in the work - something about the textures and the overall colour palette. I think it works very well.

SergeiMirminski

I love telltale! That's a great compliment, thanks.

SergeiMirminski

Textured the crate and the shelving unit. Also changed the ceramic tile texture a bit. A little better, I think.

Danex.DC

SergeiMirminski wrote: »

Textured the crate and the shelving unit. Also changed the ceramic tile texture a bit. A little better, I think.

Nice work man!

SergeiMirminski

Thanks, Danex!

I realized after looking through the new materials in the default Unreal 4 library that my material building skills are too basic... I'm gonna focus on rehauling all the materials so they reflect more realistically. As of now, they aren't using any spec maps or gloss.

SergeiMirminski

Alright, check these textures. Tell me what you think. I also added the default ambient dust particle emitter.

Also, I noticed the lightmap or lighting in general flickers on some assets as you move around the scene, even in game view. Even after locking the LOD to 0. Anyone working in UE4, what could cause this?

SergeiMirminski

Made some boxes.

SergeiMirminski

Hey. Ran into a problem with flickering meshes. It seems like the engine tries to hide objects that are rendered behind several other ones. Anyone know how to prevent this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3gJtG8och8&feature=youtu.be

Pancakes

go hed wit you bad self

ID_Busy

Wow something that looks like The Walking Dead game series. This looks amazing!

SergeiMirminski

Hey all. Here's my progress so far. What do you think needs work? Thanks everyone for your feedback so far.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXrRI0aOMDY"]The Basement - YouTube[/ame]

http://i60.tinypic.com/30jrbyx.jpg

http://i62.tinypic.com/241nwyg.jpg

http://i62.tinypic.com/24obksy.jpg

http://i58.tinypic.com/2i1nok9.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/2rom8f7.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/8x338w.jpg

http://i57.tinypic.com/30a5oow.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/2u46dqf.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/11jyau9.jpg

Sinking

The floortiles are a bit glossy in my opinion. Makes them look metallic. The stylized look is interesting, but it looks a little low res on close-up. These red tiles actually look concave on the top depending on the lightin, but that may just be coincidence, since it'S only visible on the lowest screenshot.

The wood (ceiling) is too reflective, and I'm not sure anyone would build a basement ceiling like this. There would be pipes and cables running below the house floor, maybe some insulation.

The streaks on the walls would best be solved with decals. So you can have a clean texture base and put variation on it through use of decals. The scale of the floor looks too large in comparison to the door and other assets. The handles of the stairs are too low (even though the model is nice). AO ist very strong on the large floortiles.

Regarding metals - I have the same problem in Unreal 4, and I think it's just the way the engine works. I noticed a similar effect on screenspace reflections. It gradually increases resolution, but depending on your gfx card it can take between a splitsecond and a second until the material looks like it should; it reminds me a lot of how unbiased rendering works.

The thing that bothers me about your scene is that there is no center of interest. It's just a basement and not especially a very well researched one. You should draw a few concepts and look around for similar scenery to get inspired by things that could make it interesting. I was in a basement once where a guy was building a boat. He knew he would never be able to get it out of there, but he still wanted to build a boat in his freetime. Stuff like that is cool. Look for a story in your environment!

SergeiMirminski

Thanks Sinking, that's all very useful feedback. I admit, I haven't researched basements too well- just trying to stay as true to the concept as possible. I'll get to work on figuring out a focal point and your other points.

SergeiMirminski

Alright. I'm gonna put a Vintage Honda motorcycle in the open area, being worked on with rags and other tools lying around. I'll probably add a garage door to the long wall.

Sinking

Yes, that is a good idea. There are a few things that instantly come to mind:

- to get the bike down there, he/she might have laid out planks across the stairs in order to create a makeshift ramp (to get the bike down there safely)

- you can already plan the bike covered with rags, so you don't have to model every detail (just the stuff that sticks out)

- you can hint at a bigger story. For example - does the guy live down there (he could have a ragged bed in one corner). Is this a zombie situation like someone suggested earlier, or is it a normal world? Depending on it, there would be personal artefacts and travelbags, etc lying around. Or pictures of the family/past.

- Or maybe he's planning some great escape and there is a plan on the wall, connected with markers, pictures and red tape. Maybe some other stuff is lying around for his plan to come true.

Hard3D

SergeiMirminski wrote: »

Alright, check these textures. Tell me what you think. I also added the default ambient dust particle emitter.

Also, I noticed the lightmap or lighting in general flickers on some assets as you move around the scene, even in game view. Even after locking the LOD to 0. Anyone working in UE4, what could cause this?

It's looks cool!

SergeiMirminski

Sinking: That's all great stuff. I'll start on the moto. I'm gonna try and finish this for a contest on the 13th! So...i'm gonna lose some sleep.

Hard3d: Thanks, man!

SergeiMirminski

Here's how far I got on the Honda cb450. I'll finish it tomorrow.

http://i58.tinypic.com/4fzu4m.jpg
http://i58.tinypic.com/kc17r6.jpg
http://i58.tinypic.com/24qq0ya.jpg

SergeiMirminski

More or less finished with the bike. Now onto setting up the scene.(forgot to turn on alpha for the spokes in marmoset)




http://i58.tinypic.com/30di1ea.jpg

Alphavader

Really love youre progress and quite nice - that you finish everything so fast.
Like the barks on the stairs
Overall you want to check your scaling. The floor tiles looking so big comparing to the bike.

Keep it up

marcobar

I agree with the point about the scaling - it was less noticeable without the bike, but it seems a bit off now.

I also feel like some of the surfaces are too glossy. The planks on the stairs, for instance, they're catching a lot of light for a dull, worn-down block of wood.

narticus

Looking great man. Are you using PBR based materials? For example, which material slots are you using for the bike?

SergeiMirminski

Thanks all.

Yes, Unreal 4 is PBR-based now. I havent sorted the chrome material yet for the bike. Just looks opaque right now. Ill get those tiles and glossy mats sorted in the next update.

narticus

Yea I'm creating a UE4 scene right now myself. But wondering what you're using for your materials. On the floors and walls, are you just using Albedo, Spec, and Normal?

SergeiMirminski

I opened up a UE4 scene with the default static objects and materials included and just studied what cool materials were already included and based new ones on those. For instance, there is a concrete tile mat that was already there that I based mine on. For most non-metallic or greatly reflective materials, however, its simply plug in Diffuse, Spec, Norm and Gloss with no complicated node construction.

SergeiMirminski

Back to work.

Made a tool chest, a canvas thing, and a metal garage door thing.

Hard3D

Cool, bro! You're fast and cool! Love it.

roosterMAP

i think you are really suffering from how flat the floor and ceiling are. Maybe vary the elevation a bit.

narticus

Any tips on creating that wrinkled canvas sheet?

SergeiMirminski

@Hard3D Thanks, bro!

@roosterMap Your'e right. I tried using tessellation on the floor but it just seemed too performance heavy, and the result wasn't great. Ill try projecting the texture height onto a static mesh in max.

@narticus I love using 'MarvelousDesigner' for any type of cloth simulation. You can even add a mesh like, for example, my bike and drape a cloth over it.

narticus

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to check that out. How many polys is your game cloth?

SergeiMirminski

4k I think. But for something that size you could probably get it down to 2k and still look alright.