Mrs Weasley's Kitchen
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EDIT - Finished for project hand-in:
For easy reference, I've popped a screenshot of 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' below. There are changes to this screenshot that I made through creative judgement, so it's not going to be an exact replica.
Project Proposal
My Project Proposal can be downloaded from the link below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6949BIC9fNoZzVlaGp6cWwyRzQ/view?usp=sharing
Interim Progress Review
My progress review can be downloaded from the link below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6949BIC9fNoYVFTWDVLRU55cEU/view?usp=sharing
_______________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
Hi everyone! So for my final year project at Teesside University, I'm going to be doing a 3D environment of Mrs Weasley's Kitchen from Harry Potter. I'll be posting each step of the way, and hopefully be getting feedback from all you guys and also my tutors as I go along.
I'm aiming to do some high poly to low poly sculpts, trying out some PBR, realistic styles and rendering.
Pre-Production
A very very basic overview of my pre-production tasks
For easy reference, I've popped a screenshot of 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' below. There are changes to this screenshot that I made through creative judgement, so it's not going to be an exact replica.
Project Proposal
My Project Proposal can be downloaded from the link below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6949BIC9fNoZzVlaGp6cWwyRzQ/view?usp=sharing
Interim Progress Review
My progress review can be downloaded from the link below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6949BIC9fNoYVFTWDVLRU55cEU/view?usp=sharing
_______________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
Hi everyone! So for my final year project at Teesside University, I'm going to be doing a 3D environment of Mrs Weasley's Kitchen from Harry Potter. I'll be posting each step of the way, and hopefully be getting feedback from all you guys and also my tutors as I go along.
I'm aiming to do some high poly to low poly sculpts, trying out some PBR, realistic styles and rendering.
Pre-Production
A very very basic overview of my pre-production tasks
- Scene Breakdown
- Moodboards/concept art
- Initial Asset List
- Individual Asset references
- Floor plan
- Blockout
Replies
For this project, I will be using 3DS max to model the assets, and then Mudbox to create high poly sculpts. I will texture within Quixel, and export to Unreal Engine 4 to assemble the environment.
The main film I will be looking at for reference is 'Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets' as that is its first appearance, and is warm and friendly. Later appearances of the kitchen has a darker tone and mood as the series 'grows up' and darkens. I will also use LEGO Harry Potter years 1-4 as an example, as the kitchen features within this game.
Initial Mooboard
This initial moodboard was my starting point of my pre-production. A medium sized room, densely packed with smaller assets and a achieveable amount of detailed assets. I feel this is achievable in a 20 week project.
Scene Breakdown
Green = structural
Red = major asset
orange = medium asset
blue = small asset
To decide my project area more thoroughly, I attempted to draw up a very quick floor plan of the entire burrow, some large assets are labeled so the viewer can get their bearing and orientation. I came to this floorplan through looking through the kitchen section of the film repeatedly. The grey area signifies the refined project area I intend to create.
From this, and a few other pieces of reference I am able to produce an initial asset list (currently at 40 unique assets) and a floor plan, which I've included below.
Reference, reference, reference
Once I had my asset list up and running, I started doing more detailed reference work in to each individual asset. The majority are below, more to come!
Pipeline Testing
To check I was able to create the assets to the quality I would like, I decided to do a pipeline test on an unrelated asset.
Floor Plan Revision
After consulting with my supervisor, I revised my intended floor plan of the kitchen to match more accurately with the film. I think this will make it much more recognisable in the long term. I will use this floor plan to create my blockout from.
Blockout Begins!
Started my blockout, I'm combining all my assets within 3DS max, and importing it to UE4 as one .fbx to test for scale and sizes.
This looks promising.
Looking forward for more.
I'm looking forward to seeing more too.
A little bit more work later, I have a pretty much finished blockout. Looking about 60-70 assets in the scene, so plenty work to keep me busy here.
Production shall be starting in earnest next week so long as I've not missed anything in my pre-production.
Such a good idea for a scene and I'm obsessed with the reference breakdowns of each asset. Great process!
Supervisor has approved it all, so this next week I shall be cracking out the walls and floors (everything structural) and a first pass on lighting.
Got a little behind with other modules this week, so a smaller update for you all this week. Got the floor material started, and basic lighting set up.
and a better look at that material.
Not too sure where the thicker black lines are coming from, will have to look in to it, its really bothering me. I'll add some dusty/dirty decals in the coming week, and get the rest of the structure sorted.
Your floor tiles:
There's a lot of medium sized frequency shapes on them, giving them a pretty flat and dull look. While this can work out fine, consider that the Weasleys have a very assymetrical house full of uncanny curvature and architectural irregularities (get some of that into your walls too!) Maybe worth trying something where the tiles look less even (some protruding a little, some inset into the floor, some cracked, etc.)
As you point out yourself, those black lines are very distracting and bothering. Maybe better to replace them with a bit thicker mortar/clay look. If you look at these, you'll also see how you might want to increase the smoothness values on them.
http://prntscr.com/51mx6y
Also, do not underestimate how much sexier this scene will look if you show a hint of the outside world. Might not be a bad idea to schedule in time to learn Speed Tree and to look into how to create really nice foliage (or better yet, sculpt a tree! Trees are hard to get right, and having a self made tree on your folio will show employers etc. that you're capable of more than just props and furniture)
Keep at it! It's gun' be good!
As for the outside areas, at first I'm going to try and replicate what they do at the Warner Brother's studio (which I'm visiting next week woooooo). As the set is inside, but still includes windows, they had to give that 'outside' feel, and I think they've done this through lightboxes, and a semi-transparent sticker. I can replicate this with emissive maps and some masking I think.
http://tinyurl.com/lfffhu9
@Holly Mellor - Thanks very much!
Not strictly an update, but I'm still kinda buzzing from the trip, it was FAB. I went down to London (5 hours in a car woo) to go round the Warner Brothers Harry Potter studio tour, as this features The Burrow kitchen.
I asked a few people, and emailed ahead, but unfortunately I wasn't allowed behind the barrier for certain reference images I could have done with. Bit disappointing, but oh well ey - rules is rules
Details
I got over 100 images of the kitchen, including some good texture sources to start with, close up details, and some clearer images on how the kitchen fits together.
External Area
I also got to see how they replicated the outside, while the set was indoors. The had a curved board, with an image of fields behind the set, lit in specific places where the windows are. The windows themselves seem to be slightly frosted. I can replicate this effect easily in Unreal 4.
Annnnd here's me taking pictures c: Like a proper tourist
Loved the kitchen. Don't know if you noticed the skewed windows in the burrow or the floor tiles in the kitchen are actually tiled themselves.
A few minor assets
Heres a few minor assets thats in my scene, cutlery and a chopping board c: More to come! These small scale assets also served as further pipeline tests, helping me determine how long smaller assets should take me to produce. These smaller assets take approximately an hour to complete. These assets also allowed me to become even more comfortable in the software Quixel and how PBR works, as well as importing them in to UE4.
I have however found a easy way to remove lighting information from a photo for my own custom materials, doesn't work for everything, but for most things its a good start. If you duplicate your photo image, and desaturate that - invert it and set that layer to overlay.
I did a small paper including the theory of PBR and how it works, which helped an awful lot when it came to figuring it out in practice.
The paper is predominantly concerning realism within environments, but theres a good chunk on PBR if you go further down. You can download it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6949BIC9fNoYUM0OWwtNkpWX0U/view?usp=sharing
@ nastobi123 - thank you very much
I'm using Quixel, though I keep meaning to have a dabble in Substance - it looks really fun.
@ Bill_Fougasse Thanks
Thats right, I have some walls.
At this point the brick wall is comprised of rows of sets of 4 bricks. In the polish stage I intend to change this to a plane. If I don't get chance to do so, I'll make a single, and 2 bricks additional to break up the wall, as everything is too aligned and would make for a very unstable wall.
So before I started doing some serious sculpting work, I decided to test the Mudbox pipeline vs Ndo. Testing on a basic asset, I experimented with both high and low poly workflow to determine that for low poly assets, Ndo can be used to high quality, but for high poly large assets, mudbox is the way to go.
Few assets
Few assets in now, close ups to follow
Popped in a roof, and started a initial lighting pass. I also put bloom on the windows to fake an outside. I'm hoping to change this later, but due to time restrictions I'll have to leave it as is for now.
I also intend to polish the table top, as the wear of paint off the wood isn't how it would work in real life. Its also very dull and plastic-y and needs material work to improve it.
http://previewcf.turbosquid.com/Preview/2014/05/27__02_06_46/Wood_Ceiling_1_01.jpg3a0ee912-ce14-47c5-8611-8bdea6c62b69Large.jpg
I will also address the corner of the room that the camera is facing towards. When have you ever seen two windows next to each other like that in a building before? It just doesn't feel right, and would look better if maybe one of those windows was moved across to another part of the wall, probably to the left in order to create a light balance.
And finally, the draws to the left. Something about them just doesn't feel real, and, like the ceiling, they don't match the rest of the scene's color palette. I like how they're presented, with one slid open and others open and closed to certain degrees, but almost any alternative would be far better suited.
Overall, I like the concept of what you are trying to do, and there is definitely a theme here. Some of the items in this scene just don't fit the theme, though. I hope you use this criticism to improve your work.
Ceiling - so that's just a cube with no material attached so I could get some initial lighting bakes completed. If you look at my blockout you can see some of the intended detail that I will include.
The two windows - so I'm recreating Mrs Weasleys kitchen accurate to The Chamber of secrets. If you go look at the reference images earlier in the blog you can see those two windows side by side. In further films it actually has 3 in a row.
The drawers - I'm not sure what youre looking at for this particular feedback, as I dont have drawers in my scene.
I do agree about the colour pallet not /quite/ matching up, which I will address soon
@ Falihappy - correct
Hi all. I've done a major asset, the cabinet that will hold odds and sods like plates and cups.
I've also developed a modular plate system, whereby using parameters I can use instanced materials to change the patterns, colour and roughness of each plate easily.
Have some plates you lovely lot. These are my modular plates, where I can swap out the pattern super easy and change their colour super easy.
just as a quick note - I am aware that the gloss is ramped way too high, but I'm going to fix that after my final, or near final, lighting pass.
The variation of the plates is cool though, not sure how you made the modular plate system thing but it seems to have worked well
As for the plates, its just a boat load of parameters and alpha instances
Had quite a productive day today, filling up parts of the scene with plates and other odds and sods. More plates, some mugs, that kinda thing. One half of the scene is looking much more established than the other, so I'm going to have to focus on that empty half now.
The plan is to contiune with the clutter assets tomorrow, then crack out from more major ones on the week days.
For the mugs, I'm using the same system I did for the plates, which I'll also do on the bowls tomorrow.
Few Asset renders
@KustomZero - I'm hesitant to start fixing material issues until I get a better lighting pass in there, but the high gloss is certainly a major issue in this scene currently.
The more assets you create the more difficult/painful it'll be to adjust all the textures.
Normally, what you see in the authoring application should reflect what you'll get in UE4, if it's not the case I'd advice you to check the workflow / make sure the textures are imported correctly (sRGB/linear thing for example).
Added a few more assets to start filling in that empty half.
How much of your texturing/material work is straight from Quixel/Ddo and how much of it is from reference/editing?
This may just be a first pass, but I'd recommend adding more color variation in the albedo, some of them are looking a little flat.
@ReneFisher Thanks
But for things like my plates, I just made the material straight in Unreal Engine, with some extra bits I made in Photoshop