LATEST UPDATE:
Put some more work into the floor texture. Still not 100% satisfied, but I'll come back to it later. Moving on for now:
ORIGINAL POST:
Hi Polycount,
I'm joining the bandwagon and making a summer environment.
I want to make a scene with some nice modular pieces, and a variety of textures and props to show off my skills. I've been rooting through heaps of concept images, and finally settled on this one from the concept shots CD Projekt Red has released from The Witcher 3.
This will also be an opportunity to get familiar with the new features in UE4. I've worked a lot with the UDK in the past, but I really need to get some next-gen experience under my belt. I may work up the scene in Marmoset or something just to start, then migrate when it's more complete.
I don't have much to show for now, just my concept sheet and breakdown. I'll take some time to block out the scene in the next few days. Here's the concept:
And here is my breakdown. A low-res version for the forum (
High-Res Version Here ):
The obvious way to do this seems to be dividing it into modular pieces, and then making/mixing up a few variations. The cloister shape makes this pretty easy, since it's already divided into neat architectural bays.
Anyways, there's a lot of work ahead of me with this one. Wish me luck!
Replies
I saw you mentioned a possible animated shader for the flags... dooo iiiit! Little ambient things like that really help bring a scene to life. Even if no one is going to be in your final project to see it "alive", it's good experience! (Also, a camera fly-through when you're done would be neat!)
@KrisLW It's actually an idea I got from Goat Simulator, of all places. When I saw it was just a UDK distro, I opened up some of the packages to see how they'd created all of the materials for the vegetation. They had a sort of animation effect all mapped out so that they would 'sway' in the breeze. I figure it could easily be adapted to a banner.
its good to see that kind of thing,
i'm not exactly the best environment artist. to be honest I have like 2% knowledge in the subject. and its cool top learn from other people.
And now for some progress! I've been taking my time blocking out the scene so that I don't end up making a detailed piece that doesn't fit where it's supposed to:
I wasn't able to work directly from a perspective match, so things took a bit longer than I expected. My guess is that the artist was working from a multi-point perspective, or ended up exaggerating a couple of proportions to improve the composition. In any case, it would be helpful to have a few extra sets of eyes on the image to spot any obvious mistakes I've made with the overall proportion.
And then some sculpting progress:
Had to do a few experiments with Retopo to get the detail where I needed it, so progress has been a bit slow. for now I want to go all around the mouldings with the thick mortar lines, and then weather all of the edges nice and consistently. I might try finishing off a few 'test segments' before I spend time going over the whole thing.
Your blockout looks pretty solid. Are you doing the full courtyard or just a cutout?
For those arches you can probly just sculpt a tiling texture instead of having to do a unique bake. Just a thought.
Then you can re-use it for other trims if you wanted to expand the scene.
I'll be doing the full courtyard, though I'll probably show off the 'concept side' the other in finished renders because it demonstrates the concept-to-environment abilities for my portfolio. The whole thing is mostly modular and symmetrical, so it shouldn't be too hard to fill up the spaces once I have all the pieces fleshed out.
@synergy11 my current plan is to make a couple of uniquely sculpted variations on the basic modular bay, and then randomly alternate them to fill up the space so that nothing repeats too jarringly. I'll definitely be making some generic trim and stone textures for other parts of the scene, though. I can't exactly devote this much time and attention to every single part of it.
Those decal planes can also be projected onto just about any surface with similar material, and can be used to create a super believable environment with a ton of variation. Pretty common workflow these days.
I spent some time fixing up the UV mapping of the low-poly model, and made sure everything lined up nicely (turns out the arches were a little off, which accounts for some of the artifacts in the bake). Much happier with the result now. Here it is with the Normals and AO:
Wow your project is looking really good. The bake went well right?
Its very interesting to read in your thread, because of the modularity youre trying to use.
So if i understand you right, you switched back from a "deystroyed" arch and created a cleaner one. This one you can use with vertex painting and/or other material changers, to reuse your "clean arch" as much as you can?
Cant wait to see more
With best regards, Joel
@Nintendo64 it wasn't really much of a 'switch' from destroyed to normal, there were only a couple of cracks on the model before. What I'll probably do is sketch some stone cracks/chips in ZBrush, and then bake them onto planes to that I can apply them as decals later on. Making a few different versions of the modular material might also be a good idea, though!
I'll also need to work up some end-cap pieces later on for the corners, along with a new bay segment for underneath the tracery window in the concept.
How much of the scene do you plan to build? You plan on building a diorama somewhat like what you posted with your blockout?
I'll be starting with the diorama, and then decide at that point if it will be better completely finished, or if the one side is enough for some fly-through video and nice portfolio shots. Hopefully it won't be too much of an effort to fill out the whole square with the modular pieces, though.
Update on the bays: I've been fairly slow through the last week (family vacation + job hunting stuff), but I managed to sculpt/bake the top of the bays to my satisfaction:
And a close-up:
I'm calling these base pieces done for now, unless somebody spots something garish that needs fixing! I think the next step will be making a few generic trim/edge pieces, and then I should have enough to start moving things into the engine instead of Marmoset.
Aside from all of the fiddling about with the new engine, I managed to sculpt and bake a tiling texture for the ground of the cloister. I'm not super happy with it, and think it looks too flat. As you can see from the screenshot, I raised a few tiles with geometry to break it up, but I still don't think it's enough. Maybe if I make a few decals for 'missing' tiles, it could enhance the sense of depth?
and here's an image of a little damage sculpt I whipped up to learn how to use Unreal decals. I'm fairly happy with the way it turned out, and it seems like I can work in a lot of detail to break up the tiling of the texture:
Finally, I also managed to sculpt and bake a stairway trim piece that I'm quite happy with. Here's a Marmoset screengrab:
did you use reference for them?
I like the tiles though.. they have a painted feel to them.
side note... In a few games I felt like they slightly adjusted the angle of some tiles instead of having all of them facing perfectly upwards.. maybe that would help too, it's just in the normal map anyways?
Interesting point about angling some of the tiles. That might help add some imperfections and make it more believable. Right now I have the normal doing most of the depth work, and then a few randomly placed tiles that are raised with geometry. I might look into angling some of the raised geo to add a bit of variety.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83186
It's probably best to start with a clean slate. It makes sense: if I'm going to all this effort to fix a material, then it's probably flawed to begin with!
And a couple of squashed decal textures for reference:
I'm getting a bit tired of working on this one single ground plane, so I'm going to move on to some other props and trimmings and then come back to it later with (hopefully) fresh eyes.