Skyrim: Riverwood Environment

DriveJunky95

Hey all,

So Skyrim (and Oblivion) have always fascinated me with their open-world level design and I've been wanting to practice what I can only assume to be some of the modeling and texturing techniques (modularity / tilable textures).

This will be my first time trying Vertex Painting and breaking into intermediate level shaders. I am excited to try them out

Any/all feedback is appreciated

**LATEST UPDATE:**




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Inn


Pier


Pier


Bridge


Bridge


Blacksmith

Zilk

The railing on the bridge could use some improvement. It looks a little to round and blobby.. The walk on the bridge would look awesome with a strong normal map as well. Try sculpting it


http://hqwallbase.com/images/big/broken_old_stone_bridge-1508504.jpg

This is gonna be great, try to shoe Bethesda how skyrim should have looked with great art

DriveJunky95

Minor update: worked out a bumpoffset/seam issue with a little extra texture overlap and slightly smaller UVs

Zilk: Thx for the feedback. Here's an update on the bridge.

Deathstick

Looks like you're on the right track, I'll be following this

Keep it up!

Chicken Dip

this is looking epic so far... Just a thought, why not run this in UE4? could get even greater results.

DriveJunky95

Glad to hear it! Hmmm, and not a bad idea Chicken Dip. It did cross my mind at one point. Haven't taken the time to learn PBR yet, but maybe it would be cool to recreate the environment in both engines and then do a comparison. Besides the Vertex Paint it would be an identical layout.

Cube Republic

Nice work. I feel the roof tiles on the walkway are too small

DriveJunky95

Thanks Cube I found a picture for reference based on your observation and you are right. I will change that!

nick10323

Looking good!

DriveJunky95

Hey all, got this project to a place where its got plenty of updates compared to the last image dump. Opted to go with ice/snow vertex paint instead of dirt/moss. I may include moss still, it depends how frigid I wanna make this environment.

Still need to re-UV the trim on the roof assets and apply the new wood texture. Same goes to the thatched roofs. I've got all the buildings except one, a more-rounded house that sits in the back. Once all of that is done I can move onto the landscape and start populating the scene with foliage/props.

House_3_Deck


Blacksmith


Woodcutter


Stone Bridge

noscope

This is looking great and you clearly love TES as much as i do! lol

I would say that although it looks good and could fit quite well into Skyrim, would it not be a great idea to push this much further in the textures. The geo could only really be improved by adding bevels on the edges of your wood planks to soften them up a little and the bridge could really do with sculpted parts to make the stone pop. The way I see it, if you plan to do a homage to skyrim you should try to create something on par with what you would expect to see in the next elder scrolls game rather than something that would fit well into the thing everyone has played, that will really wow people.

I really like that "woodcutter" shot with the underside of the roof, the waterwheel and such. With some nice warm lights under there contrasting the cold frigid enviro youll have yourself a certified wallpaper there my friend!

DriveJunky95

This is looking great and you clearly love TES as much as i do! lol

I would say that although it looks good and could fit quite well into Skyrim, would it not be a great idea to push this much further in the textures. The geo could only really be improved by adding bevels on the edges of your wood planks to soften them up a little and the bridge could really do with sculpted parts to make the stone pop. The way I see it, if you plan to do a homage to skyrim you should try to create something on par with what you would expect to see in the next elder scrolls game rather than something that would fit well into the thing everyone has played, that will really wow people.

I really like that "woodcutter" shot with the underside of the roof, the waterwheel and such. With some nice warm lights under there contrasting the cold frigid enviro youll have yourself a certified wallpaper there my friend!

Lol yep! Not all games can have you exploring for endless hours and cutting on sleep Thanks for that feedback, it really helps when I get thoughts on my work! While working on this I have been wondering about ways to break away from Skyrim's mold so I will try and push the textures. Are there any that could use the most improvement? As for the bevels I will change them!

Soldier63

I really love the atmosphere of your work!
I have one really stupid question, i know, but where do you get these really good looking textures, just downloaded it at cgtextures.com or have you created it by yourself? I'm also wondering if big game studies use their own texture libaries or create all by theirselfs

Thanks for you answer in advance, and keep that work up!

DriveJunky95

I really love the atmosphere of your work!
I have one really stupid question, i know, but where do you get these really good looking textures, just downloaded it at cgtextures.com or have you created it by yourself? I'm also wondering if big game studies use their own texture libaries or create all by theirselfs

Thanks for you answer in advance, and keep that work up!

It's frowned upon to use a straight photograph, so depending on a studio's workflow you'll edit photos or model textures in programs like ZBRush with/without photo overlays. There are lots of texture sites, just have to find them.

DriveJunky95

Some updates of the environment.

Firewood_Log_Props


Blacksmith


Misc_Shot_01


Inn


Pier


Aerial_Shot_01


Aerial_Shot_02

nastobi123

Mindblown !!! This is amazing man !

DriveJunky95

Mindblown !!! This is amazing man !

Thanks dude!

Lilith

It really looks like TES!
great job so far, I want to see the it finished.
subscribed!

DriveJunky95

It really looks like TES!
great job so far, I want to see the it finished.
subscribed!

Good to hear it! Holidays are winding down so there will be more updates on the way.

JennaJenga

why use udk to make a skyrim environment? why not just the skyrim dev kit?

Add3r

JennaJenga wrote: »

why use udk to make a skyrim environment? why not just the skyrim dev kit?

Because it is dated, and does not have the nice conveniences that UE4 does like the clean user friendly UI, streamlined workflow options like direct export to UE4 from like Maya and other plugins and such. Also production engines normally only carry the functionality of getting the environment built, and usually carry very unpolished tools. Polished public engines like Cry and UE4 are just much easier to use, and usually much faster. Also, production tools are normally incomplete or outdated to the point they are no longer functioning as they are built for use in house software editions.

Just some reasons a polished engine like UE4 would be a better choice for purely an env art project such as this.

noscope

Hay dude loving the updates and sorry for long reply. I think the main area of improvement are the textures that contain bricks and rocks. They could do with sculpting so you can bake the maps to play with tesselation or paralax occlusion that would really help these textures to pop. Also... throw this over to ue4 if possible!

DriveJunky95

Hay dude loving the updates and sorry for long reply. I think the main area of improvement are the textures that contain bricks and rocks. They could do with sculpting so you can bake the maps to play with tesselation or paralax occlusion that would really help these textures to pop. Also... throw this over to ue4 if possible!

Sounds good man! Good eye btw, those textures had the least amount of work done to them !!

DriveJunky95

Hey all, has been a long while since my last post, sorry for that. Here are the images of my progress. If anything catches your eye be it good or bad I'd be happy to hear it.


Door textured


Ferns, cart and barrels


Riverwood Signs. These are the original textures except for the blacksmith.


Blacksmith table and Tanning rack

DriveJunky95

Played with the lighting/atmosphere and shader network to achieve this today. I've had my fill of real snow so I'm swapping the snow/ice vertex paint for the dirt/moss :poly142: Crits welcome!

praetor187

This is looking like its straight out of the game its so awesome, I think the tanning rack texture needs some sharpening but other than that its right on track. Are you going to try to bring it over to UE4 or will it remain in UDK either way man this is beast!

locater16

The overhanging edge of the roofs appear to have UV errors, as does the foreground spot where the stairs come down to the ground. The road texture seems to have a different texel density than the wood textures.

It's coming along though, keep it up!

DriveJunky95

This is looking like its straight out of the game its so awesome, I think the tanning rack texture needs some sharpening but other than that its right on track. Are you going to try to bring it over to UE4 or will it remain in UDK either way man this is beast!

Thanks man That is a good question and you're not the first to ask. I've been reluctant to bring everything over due to skepticism in the benefits PBR would really bring to the textures specifically in this environment. Maybe I am wrong and can be convinced otherwise, but from the demos I have seen PBR seems to really benefit polished and hard surfaces i.e. metals via metallic and roughness.

All are hard surface metals, plastics, stone and polished wood.

I think there's a current lack of custom lighting for foliage and such as well? UDK is pretty well equipped for that. Again, maybe I am wrong. :poly132:

There is a great spline and splinemesh blueprint for creating roads/paths in UE4 which would help solve the lighting error locater16 mentioned.

This would be a great discussion - side tangent and all! Will probably post this question in another thread as well.

The overhanging edge of the roofs appear to have UV errors, as does the foreground spot where the stairs come down to the ground. The road texture seems to have a different texel density than the wood textures.

It's coming along though, keep it up!

Thanks for the crit!

locater16

I would say UE4 looks great and is a huge improvement in most ways over UDK, especially in lighting. But hey work in whatever you feel like, as long as the results look good.

DriveJunky95

Found this. The global illumination is much softer (more accurate) in the UE4 image which is what I needed to see. It would really help light the rest of the environment... material definition alone wouldn't have been enough. Think I may make the switch.

http://www.moddb.com/games/hanako-soul-of-the-samurai/images/night-streets-comparison-udk-vs-ue4

DriveJunky95

Curved building 90% complete. All the buildings are modeled now so I can touch up the thatched roof texture + add the alpha to the trim.

Kaine123

I think You could float some alpha planes on top of those roof seams in order to hid them.

DriveJunky95

I think You could float some alpha planes on top of those roof seams in order to hid them.

Very good. I am guessing it's where the two roof sections connect/intersect? It's nice to have another set of eyes point things like that out... will have to keep this technique in mind for future work.

DriveJunky95

Here it is, the switch to UE4 has been made! It's right where it was in UDK - so from now on it'll be progress inside the new engine. Can't say I'm not happy that I avoided a year's (or at least a minimum of 2 payments) worth of subscription fees either haha

Lord Waffles

Where are tuh texture sheet breakdowns?!

Awesome job though, looks like it's straight out of the game.

DriveJunky95

Lord Waffles wrote: »

Where are tuh texture sheet breakdowns?!

Awesome job though, looks like it's straight out of the game.

Haha thanks man! If I'd known people would be interested in them I would have posted some sooner! Will be sure to do that.

In the meantime I did some lighting and shader tweaks. Reduced the contrast of the entire scene quite a bit so the engine did more of the lighting this time. It flattened things out some. Also completed the dirt road texture and the splinemesh. Crits welcome!

DriveJunky95

Latest screenies - been focused on texturing the last assets for inside the Blacksmith.

Props left for completion:
-Wattle Fence texture
-Gear Box texture
-Iron Pot texture
-Thatched Roof Trim texture and mesh adjustments

From there it will be landscape assets and foliage and onto completion. Feedback always welcome!

DriveJunky95

Hey all, wanted to share my latest progress on this project. With the exception of the landscape it's pretty close to complete. Have learned tons about modular assets and shared/tiling textures and hope to bring it to future work. As always let me know what you guys think!

Ged

its definitely improving, can you get some background mountain geometry in? even if its not particularly well textured and quite fogged it will just give more mood to the scene and make it feel more like skyrim

DriveJunky95

Ged wrote: »

its definitely improving, can you get some background mountain geometry in? even if its not particularly well textured and quite fogged it will just give more mood to the scene and make it feel more like skyrim

Most def.

Kaine123

World machine could be of help with that.

DriveJunky95

Kaine123 wrote: »

World machine could be of help with that.

Thanks dude Have heard of this program before, never used it though. Looks like a great tool to block in a horizon.

DriveJunky95

Hey all, here's a couple landscape textures and a foliage update this time. Spent the weekend pressing plants/blades from my backyard then did some tweaking in photoshop. Was a blast and REALLY happy with the turnout. Crits always welcome!

Ged

nice work!