UE4 - The Wayback Institute.
- LATEST PROGRESS -
- LATEST PROGRESS -
Evening all!
So I have been working in the last few months to try and push myself outside of my comfort zone and try some different style scenes. I have always shied away from doing Sci-Fi stuff so to speak, so I decided I would delve into this and take the opportunity to learn UE4 at the same time.
At the time I was working on some gothic architecture, so I tried to push that theme into a Sci-Fi setting (not sure if that has been lost on the way..but at-least the arches echo those of a church's buttress)
I wanted to create a space that would house a device, loosely based on a similar concept to the website "The Way-back Machine" (http://archive.org/web/) an archive of the internet, that allows you to take a look back in time at how the internet looked years ago. This machine, housed in a museum of the future, would bring back relics of significance from the past into the present by opening a portal to the past, all whilst keeping the past in tact.
The awesomely talented Al Crutchley took my initial block-out and did a few awesome thumbnails with some of his own ideas in them.
From here I decided that after doing an extensive block-out, I would take one of the most unexplained areas and try and resolve it. In doing so I was able to create my master shaders and textures which I could hopefully propagate throughout the rest of the scene. I wanted to design each element, something that I don't have a fantastic amount of experience of doing.
Anyway, enough talking.. It's super WIP atm, mostly just bakes and some rough textures in areas.
Cheers for looking! Any C&C is, as ever appreciated. I will try and keep this updated as frequently as possible.
- LATEST PROGRESS -
Evening all!
So I have been working in the last few months to try and push myself outside of my comfort zone and try some different style scenes. I have always shied away from doing Sci-Fi stuff so to speak, so I decided I would delve into this and take the opportunity to learn UE4 at the same time.
At the time I was working on some gothic architecture, so I tried to push that theme into a Sci-Fi setting (not sure if that has been lost on the way..but at-least the arches echo those of a church's buttress)
I wanted to create a space that would house a device, loosely based on a similar concept to the website "The Way-back Machine" (http://archive.org/web/) an archive of the internet, that allows you to take a look back in time at how the internet looked years ago. This machine, housed in a museum of the future, would bring back relics of significance from the past into the present by opening a portal to the past, all whilst keeping the past in tact.
The awesomely talented Al Crutchley took my initial block-out and did a few awesome thumbnails with some of his own ideas in them.
From here I decided that after doing an extensive block-out, I would take one of the most unexplained areas and try and resolve it. In doing so I was able to create my master shaders and textures which I could hopefully propagate throughout the rest of the scene. I wanted to design each element, something that I don't have a fantastic amount of experience of doing.
Anyway, enough talking.. It's super WIP atm, mostly just bakes and some rough textures in areas.
Cheers for looking! Any C&C is, as ever appreciated. I will try and keep this updated as frequently as possible.
Replies
Another thing that could look cool and add some more depth and interest is having a sublte inset before where the glow on the floor is and variying the line width on the glow stips, maybe the diagonal edges are thinner and the straight ones stay that thick.
I like the angular parts from to the wall in the floor trim for sure.
I know it's wip I'd just try and add a tad more functionality into your details and panels and such and avoid a lot of those overused ones. Obviously looking nice ofc.
I think the plan going forward is to fix up some of the issues ive got in this walkway area, polish it to near final quality and then begin to develop the additional modular pieces based on this. I don't fancy doing the whole "backwards and forwards" of discovering I have made a mistake on 1 part and having to alter tonnes of modular sections to react to it.
It's all good fun though, It's great to be doing some Environment stuff at home again. I cant recommend my Greg Amato's tools more: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2062486 for easy exporting from max, especially if you're used to the Cryengine way of working.
@AlexCatMasterSupreme - Cheers for the feedback! Ill see what I can do, I really like the idea of varying the line width of the glows in particular, Ill see if I can implement that tonight. That same motif is used quite frequently in Halo, to great effect:
Thank you folks for the comments and feedback! Fingers crossed ill be able to keep up the pace now that E3 is out of the way
Scott.
A quick update, I have spent the last couple of weeks reworking some of the bakes and going through one by and one and doing a first pass on the textures/specular maps so that I can polish them off once I have made the rest of the scene. I have also been putting together all of the modular sets, pipes, cables, concrete panels etc, basically a solid foundation for the rest of the scene. Im abit more confident in the closeup fidelity, as before some of the areas (particularly the concrete panels) looked pretty ropey up close due to generally trying to map them in a backwards fashion that UE4 didn't really like.
I will hopefully be able to do a nice big update this weekend with the feedback I have received over the last couple of weeks included.
Cheers!
love the idea, love the wip.
Concept looks great. Looking forward to seeing more models. Miss CRYENGINE yet? :poly124:
@KErnersvillan (Josh) - Thank you dude! Im loving UE4 so far, really great set of tools that compliment doing this large scale stuff perfectly.
@Deohbeoh - thank you! Well if you scroll down I've got some updates
@Leleuxart - Ahaha your Avatar never ceases to make me smile..thank you man! Erm, well I still use Cryengine at work all of the time of course, they're both really powerful engines with alot of great features. I think the good thing is that in learning both I have realized that alot of the functions at the core of most games engines share the same techniques, I haven't found it a massive leap to adjust to a different work flow because at their core the skills are more of less the same!
- Updates!
So I have actually began to construct the environment now, creating modular pieces as I go. There walls and ceiling are more or less "there" minus texture polish, but the center of the room and the exhibit are very WIP, (the Liberty Head is actually from Turbosquid so..that will change!)
Anyway, less talky, more pictures:
What are you going to do for the final lighting? Are we seeing it more or less right now, or will you adjust closer to your concept?
Out of pure curiosity too, who's head are you going to put in the middle?
@Stockwell - Cheers dude! I have pushed the lighting even more over the weekend, hopefully its slightly more atmospheric than before. Going forward I am going to push more atmospherics effects into the scene (fog..dust..dripping water..smoke..the works) once I learn the system. I decided to go for the Statue of Liberty after all, simply because the head is so recognisable, and the silhouette is so strong, even when it's digitized/distorted.
@Oxygencube - Thank you dude! I promise ill do a full breakdown of the scene when I'm done with it, everything is fairly low poly, but there a few bugs here and there, and some optimizations to be made first (ie..let me hide all of my mistakes..!)
@Beeferoni - Hey Beeferoni, they are both fantastic engines! I can't really comment on the pros and cons of each, but I really enjoy using them both. They both exercise very similar art skills, but the technical side is slightly different, which I have found to be a great learning experience. (I actually travelled to a local university to sit a class with them to try and catch up!) Hopefully at the end of the project I can go through and break down the project and maybe even reflect on the process.
@Kenny Ties - Thank you so much dude! I promise, ill post some flats as soon as they're "done", they're unfinished in places so they could definitely some TLC before I start posting flats.
Updates!
So I have spent the weekend working on both blocking out the base, and working on the focal point of the scene. I sculpted the Statue of Liberty's head, and then explored the idea of converting the head into Point-Cloud data. After baking the sculpt out, I created a shader to blend the 'clean' statue head, with another shader that gave the look of a point cloud. This uses a Camera Depth node in Ue4, so the closer to the exhibit you get, the less obstructed it is, the further away..the less obstructed it appears.
Anyway, enough typing..
Keep it up. Can't wait to see more!
I would suggest looking at the head again, the face is more full with the nose more angular and tipped downward: http://imagecache.allposters.com/images/pic/PTGPOD/281537-FB~Head-Shot-of-Statue-of-Liberty-Posters.jpg
I know there's one in Crysis 2, but that seems a bit of too.
Something like this i guess
I don't know if it's the lighting or the perspective but her forehead and eyes look like they need to be pushed back in to the head a bit (especially by the right eye, just the bit beneath where the hair pokes out). Also I think the eyes need to be made about 10-15% smaller.
Other than that you are killing it man
If you broke up the repetition with a break in the pillars leading to a doorway or some other kinda detail (or space) it could add more visual interest. Right now it's just kinda like three pieces copied over and over.
I agree with the uniformity that was mentioned before, I know what your focal point is but it just seems so strong overall.
It's coming along good overall but I think you need to work on more interesting and cohesive design for it. I really feel like most of the details are kinda generic.
Like I said it's great in everything but design I feel personally.
Like ClusterOne said the effect on the head looks a tad noisy but i suppose this does look better when in engine doing its thing.
Good job so far!
You have done a great job with the general composition of the shot. Personally I like the repetition as it lends to the authenticity of the piece as a whole, grounds it and points the eye at the centre piece.
You don't really want to add too much more detail in the background as it would distract the eye too much imho, and I think you have a nice balance. I like the fact that it seems like what could be an endless room with exhibits every so often.
Cool shit, man.
Dig the lighting and material work. Be nice to have a bit more accent color with the lighting.