[UE4] Banjo Kazooie: Banjo's House
polycounter lvl 11
FINISHED! (FOR NOW!)
ORIGINAL POST
Hey everyone, here's a new project of mine. My first true delve into UE4, and I decided to recreate an area from my all time favourite game, Banjo Kazooie
I'm hoping to achieve a blend of cartoony and realism (Similar to Nut's & Bolts) and I've seen someone else on Polycount (Who's name escapes me) who did the same scene in UDK, so that's a huge spot inspiration to me right now!
To start off here's my blockout so far:
And here's ref taken directly from the game:
My intention is to add a lot more detail and little secret items and mementos from the various games in the serious to bring the space alive and really make it feel lived in, let me know what you think and any ideas you have!
ORIGINAL POST
Hey everyone, here's a new project of mine. My first true delve into UE4, and I decided to recreate an area from my all time favourite game, Banjo Kazooie
I'm hoping to achieve a blend of cartoony and realism (Similar to Nut's & Bolts) and I've seen someone else on Polycount (Who's name escapes me) who did the same scene in UDK, so that's a huge spot inspiration to me right now! To start off here's my blockout so far:
And here's ref taken directly from the game:
My intention is to add a lot more detail and little secret items and mementos from the various games in the serious to bring the space alive and really make it feel lived in, let me know what you think and any ideas you have!
Replies
This looks like a solid start though! Keep it up!
Keep it going I'll be following this!
@Deathstick - I've had the soundtracks on repeat all weekend, getting me fired up to work on it! :P
Let me know your ideas and suggestions!
And in engine:
Not sure why it's so purple though?
Here's the maps:
As usual, any ideas are awesome!
There you go!
Make sure your textures are setup correctly (make sure they are either sRGB or linear there is a tickbox/dropdown menu in the texture settings I think).
I think your albedo map (Base Color in UE4) is too bright for the object your doing, I would think it would be nearer black (but not completely)?
Not sure if that will help but keep going with it
on a side note check this:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fb9_KgCo0noxROKN4iT8ntTbx913e-t4Wc2nMRWPzNk/edit
(the physically based rendering encyclopedia compiled right here on polycount!)
If you want to optimize textures for something more practical for a game, put those 3 textures into one image with each one on their own channel, like R= Metal G= Roughness B = AO.
Yo Andy, cheers! It's too bright? Really? I'm sure most of the stuff I've read said your Albedo had to bright, without any lighting information...hmm... I'll definitely have a look through the encyclopaedia though and I'll check my import settings when I get home this evening, thanks for the link! Any suggestions as to where I should start with it, it's a bit like diving head first into a lake of information! :P
Okay, cool, I assumed plugging in the main channel would work like it did in UDK, I've always been told the white channel (which I'd associate with an AO or Roughness) was an Alpha channel. Is this different in UE4? Thanks for the help though!
(And looking at my maps, I might go ahead and make them look a bit neater. By the time I started texturing last night, it was already late at night and I'd been doing High Polying, Sculpting and Baking all day, so I guess laziness got to me a bit :P )
Any crits are welcome and suggestions for tiling textures are welcome. I can never decide which is more efficient, sculpting in ZB and baking from it there or using photo reference and just doing it in photoshop. I've seen both methods give awesome results and i'm not confident in either yet.
Here it is in the Environment (I'm not sure what to do with lighting since in game it's all very simple given the nature of the N64)
And in Marmo:
I don't know why my lightmaps always come out so weird. As far as I can tell I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, but I still get these weird super dark areas and stuff and it doesn't seem right. Res is at 512 so I dunno'.
Any feedback is awesome!
Plan from here is to finish up all key assets found in the original game, then once they're done and I'm happy with how they look I'll just fill it to the brim with miscellaneous junk. I think it'd be cool to squeeze as many Rareware mementos as possible, especially from all the Banjo games.
C&C is welcomed!
Tomorrow, I'll do the hearth for the fireplace and get some of those smaller assets done. I might re bake the kitchen cabinets too, I'm not sure what's going on there but something in the normal maps doesn't look right in UE4.
As usual, C&C is awesome!
I'd really love some C&C on this, I feel it going really well but Crits are vital to my improving!
Try disabling auto-exposure in UE4. Then you'll see how bright actually the light is. I find that feature often does more harm than good.
Here's how I do it.
1) Create PostProcessVolume in the scene.
2) In Auto Exposure tab, set both Min and Max Brightness to 1.0
3) In Post Process Volume tab, make it Unbound.
This is quite cumbersome, but I don't know of any simpler way to turn this off.
I actually discovered that it was one of the fog volumes causing the massive amounts of glare and played with that until it was at a level I was happy with, thanks for the info though, I'll keep that saved for my next project!
Like I said, I'm yet to feel truly finished with this but I'm very pleased with this milestone!
Good job!
I'm not quite 100% sold on the lighting yet though. While I appreciate the homeliness of the warm orange color of the light source, maybe you can tone it down or blend in some more natural or cool colored lights to either complement or contrast with it? It might be great if there was a spot or two where the colors of the models' texture maps were able to breathe through a bit more.
Maybe a couple more light sources to give off some subtle soft shadows to help ground everything a bit more could help too, or even go all out-this-is-a-homely fireplace with the ole' dust particle/god ray peeping out from the window blinds treatment. It's just a bit too uniform/unlit looking in its current stage.
That's my 2 cents anyhow. I'm really diggin' the character of the scene and how you're placing the clutter. Keep it up
The only thing that's bothering me is the weird bend in the ceiling boards at the far end of the room. A cheap solution would be to just stick a timber or two up there to make it look like two discrete sections, unless you already have something else planned for the ceiling.
(1) I would either make some extra bricks that match the brick patterns on the Fireplace/Kitchen to help them pop out, or just rebuild the models themselves with raised surfaces, they are way to flat.
(2) The ceiling's wood texture is bending to much along it's corners and their is some bad seams on it's 4 corners to.
(3) Personally I would like your fishbowl to use a water material or something to indicate it's not "empty".
Include "Gloop the Fish" as another nod to the original(s)?
(4) Fireplace could use some "Fire" particles and actual fire. The logs are hot, but their isn't any fire.
(5) Your curtains are to uniform and neat looking. Add some creases, very light dirt, darker color, make them thicker, etc...
Also the current Curtain design wouldn't allow it to be closed or opened much more. If you do intend to go with this, I would add some tassels.
Your bed is a bit to neat IMO for a goofy bear and bird.
(6) The lamp's light aiming at the ceiling is way to harsh and distracting.
(7) You forgot Kazooie's bed. The three-pronged bag holder.
(8 ) If your doing just a single still-shot of this for your porfolio. At-least change the position of the clock's pendulum to give the picture some life.
That also includes anything else you can think of for the scene. Give them a still-shot animation.
(9) I don't know how crazy one can get with easter eggs before a picture becomes to "crowded". But I would add the N64 Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie cartridges along with your N64 game console on the shelf. With 2 controllers for each of them.
[ame]
I'm the guy that did the UDK scene that TigerGD linked to above.
I saw this spotlighted on Kotaku and came by to say how nice it looks
I won't offer much in the way of advice, as I have my own vision of the scene and I'd hate to force that upon you!
One thing that I will say generally is that the final shots don't really have a focus for the eye to be drawn towards.
The lamp in particular is catching my attention most, purely because it is the brightest thing in the scene.
Perhaps finding a focal point in the fireplace or the stove would help draw the eye to a more central part of the images.
Keep up the awesome work dude!
Yeah, your scene was a huge inspiration to mine and I borrowed a lot of ideas from yours while making it.
Thanks! Yeah that's good feedback, the reason I was finishing it up was because of a job application I wanted to apply to before it was taken down (Which I have now applied for) so I fully intend to go back this and rework things, add stuff fix part etc. so any and all criticism is really valuable right now and is not going to waste, by any means!
I'm actually noting a lot of it down for future reference so thanks again!
seams on the fire place. The bricks in general looks very flat. I would do it in zbrush and retopo it. Same with the bricks behind the cooker.
The wood on the ceiling looks odd where it bends. You won't find any planks of wood that can bend like that! Also seams where it meets the bend either side.
The drawers are cloned, It's more obvious because the drawers on both are opened the same amount.
The lamp light looks odd. Its like there is a spot light pointed directly up. Also looks like the lamp is slightly hovering?
I would fix those things up
Maybe the roof could be different from the ground, maybe good old wooden beams ?
Keep up !