Latest Update:
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Hello!
Here, I'm going to be making a throne room of a king of the kingdom in the desert. It's architecture will have features of Old Egyptian Culture combined with old germanic, nordic and slavic cultures. Basicly, a culture of desert barbarians. Reference sheet and some concepts coming soon.
My goals, for this, are:
- Teaching myself overall 3D Environment Art workflow (modeling, sculpting, material creation, lighting, level design, etc.)
- Building up my portfolio.
Software that I'm using:
- Blender 3D (Base meshes, lowpoly meshes, uv mapping)
- zBrush (Sculpting)
- Photoshop CS6 (Texturing)
- xNormal (Map generating)
- Crazybump (Map generating)
- Unreal Engine 4 (Scene composition, rendering)
- And respectively, Substance Designer and Painter (materials)
Good luck to everyone and have fun!
Tomislav
Replies
I did some research (mostly on the google images) on the architecture that I needed. Got some reference sheets here so you can get the basic visual idea of what the throne room's gonna be like.
I'm going to be making a blueprint of the throne room on paper for it is the most convenient for me, and it's the fastest. Shortly after that (tommorrow) I'm gonna make a "3D sketch" (that's how I call it), which is basicly a blockout, with basic shapes in 3D. So expect another update tommorrow.
Good luck everyone, and as always, have fun!
Just making a quick update to the thread with a blockout WIP. Going to make sure that I deliver a finsihed BSP blockout tommorrow.
A basic level blockout is finished. Here you see a basic shape of the room, no props (or the throne) yet. I made this to see if the shape (blueprint) itself works, and by that I mean proportions. I've also put some materials that came with the engine to test out the reflections and see how they reflect the environment. Basicly I wanted to see if they look good. All those materials are placeholders and the color palette is nowhere near this.
I hope you like it so far.
In the next two days you can expect an update #3. I will make all (mostly all) base mesh props (including the throne) and I will compose them withing the engine to make an advanced blockout to see how it will approximately look.
Good luck everyone, and as always, have fun!
Good direction your going in.
I want to ask you, if you have any sort of interesting backstory or general interesting story that your planning on telling with this artwork?
What condition are you preparing to present this room in, like new or ruined?
Btw, you have a lot of power to play around with the lighting in this project, I am looking forward to what your able to do, and I will not go easy on you. Tough love.:thumbup:
I haven't tought much of the backstory. It's just a throne room of a wealthy barbarian king in the desert, that is at peak of it's power, so it will be new.
And for me, the lighting is one of the main components of this scene, to make it look epic, sort to speak.
Tough love is the best love.
Cheers.
I'm posting this for the sake of being active on this thread and to show you the throne design/blockout/basemesh. I hope you like it. Apart from added thrones, I've also changed the pillar layout, so it has some functionality and it looks cooler.
Tommorrow I will finish the rest of the basemeshes and put the in the scene and will post it of course.
Good luck everyone, and have fun!
I've finished a basemesh blockout. I have changed a layout of the room a bit to compensate for the pillars. I think it fits in pretty well. Mades some braziers and torches but I didn't put fire on for my computer can't handle that many particles. It can barely handel High quality of UE4, but I digres.
Now I'm gonna be looking into materials themself. First, I'm gonna make floor materials. Planning some yellow and red collor floors (red marble? and white sandstone blocks/tiles) and that's where Substance Designer and Painter come in.
I'm targeting to deliver an update until the end of the week.
I hope you like this so far.
PS. I am aware of some lighting errors on the torches. It is probably because of that I haven't made a lightmap outside the engine. Gonna fix it later.
Good luck to everyone and have fun!
so I can see some normals arn't smoothed :P
kinda boring with the wide open space in the middle, maybe have something their? use your imagination!
neat modeling just want to see a little more of a story, its nice but its not interesting... you know? needs to tell the viewer a story.
Like... if you had a pit in the center where people would fight to the death for the kings amusement, or perhaps this would be part of a place where the king would listen to debates from the people so it would be like a court or something... it just needs more.
Good work so far though, I hope that you think hard and turn this into something super amazing awesome!
sorry if I come off to strong, just wanted to share what was bugging me becuase I want to see this awesomer.
:poly136:
Thank you very much for commenting.
If he's wealthy and in the desert, water would be an opulent display of wealth too!
Nice suggestion. Thank you.
I've also did some desgins of the arena on paper (in school) so I will see what I can do.
I hadn't yet started on a main modeling, I've just did quick basemeshes and droped them in the blockout level just to get the basic sense of how it's going to look like.
Cheers.
With the advices that I've gotten I have tweaked the blockout a bit.
First of all, in Update #2.2 I have forgot to change the basic pillar with basemesh pillars(silly me), so here I changed them. For the sake of the size of the pillars I had to slightly change the layout of the pillars themself, but nothing to significant, and it still looks good to me.
Second thing I did is I used the spase in the middle.
In the first set you see a small (pseudo)arena for the honor fights (gonna write some story about that, and also about the whole project so bare with me). I have another design for the arena that is a circular shape. Gonna look on the overall design of the project and see if it fits in.
But, I also made a pool version, so I can get the idea how it would look with it. The red color should be blood (don't know if I got the right shade of red). I was also thinking about putting wine in the pool (with it's purple color), since barbarian king likes wine, and he is super rich.
That's all for now. During the weekend I'm gonna do some work on the blood marble and sandstone material. I will need to make them manualy (with sculpting) since I can not find any good marble or sandstone tiles for that fact. I will finaly get to use Substance Designer and Painter. Expect the next update (with materials) on sunday, maybe monday.
Good luck to everyone, and have fun!
I'm posting this mostly for keeping this thread active, but it's not for nothing. I have chosen a pool version of the room because of the blood which looks cool.
I've tweaked the position of the same, and removed any roughness on the blood material so it had "full" reflectivity.
Another thing is I'm planning on delivering a post-by-post story which means that with each update I will write a short piece of the story conected with this project since I like writing fantasy stories.
And the last thing is, I've had small problems making floor materials (sandstone and blood marble) but just now I've resolved them, so expect a floor material update tommorrow, if everything goes well of course.
Cheers!
Cheers!
I've made a redesign of the pool, that I now call The Sanguine Pool. It's now in a shape of the octagon. I think it suits this room much more than the last one.
Another big thing I added is the banners, banners of the king and the kingdom.
And now, here comes the story:
-The Fathers Legacy
The desert, old ones call it the Scorching Sea, but, among the common folk it is known as the Hell's Sands. Therein lies the kingdom, carved with blood and steel, so mighty, so strong, it has the Hell for itself. As far the sands are stretched, king Darvorias rules with his might. Their chant: "For the honor, for the blood, for the King." roots the fear in all its enemies. Darvorias' father is one who created such a huge kingdom, called The Golden Kingdom. With uncontested might world hasn't seen before, Andorias managed to take all the lands that stood before him and took it under his rule. Today, Darvorias, son of Andorias, son of Andor, sits upon his Golden Realm, ruling with no fear of others taking his throne. "For honor, for blood, FOR THE KING", the realm echoes with this chant every day, every night. There is no equal for his might. He will conquer them all.
-The Pool of Conquered
Infamous Sanguine Pool, located in the room where king himself roams. The pool is a strong symbol. Symbol of power, might and brutality of the king. Legend says, that the Pool was once a floor ornament, but one day, king Andorias, father of Darvorias, beheaded his brother that dared to defy him. "This will be a lesson to everyone who stand befor me. Everyone shall bow befor his king. And if one does not do his bidding, his blood will flow through royal halls and will lie within this pool. Let this be reminder to you who is your KING!" And from thereon, king Darvorias continued the tradition and executed his son and secon wife for they betrayed him. Their heads still lie on the bottom of the pool. "My father was gentle, I am not him. I am your nightmare.", he smiled while he was about to behead his wife. Sanguine Pool and it's legend will always be told and will root fear in everyone's minds.
That's it now, I hope you like the pool and the banners even though they are just quick basemeshe and will be complete later. And also I hope you like the story, more to come.
Cheers!.
Today I have finished first "final" assets for the project (even they are also subjected to change later down the line). Basicly, I've made 2 materials, sandstone tiles and crimson marble. I have used several tricks within Photoshop to achieve this result. I think it's pretty decent for now.
Another small thing I've changed is the reflectance of the blood. It's now much less reflective, which is much more "bloody".
And now, it's story time:
- Blood Stone
In the king's halls there is a marble many call Crimson Marble, but, king Darvorias likes to refere to it as Blood Stone. It is considered more precious than gold or silver, or gold and silver together. There are many stones like these, marbles with a color of blood, but this one, Blood Stone has soemthing that makes it so valuable. The legend says that marble contains dragon's blood. Dragon's blood engraved into the marble. It is extremely rare. The only place you can find that Crimson Marble is in the king's halls themselves. It is said, they originate from the nearby mountain called The Hell's Peak, where king Andorias, father of Darvorias, found them and took them for himself. Common folk also say that whoever holds the stones will meet the dragon itself and will be devoured by him[dragon]. King Darvorias holds these stones really dear to him and considers them the ultime symbol of power and might over others in his realm and beyond. These Blood Stones, Crimson Marbles, are everything but ordinary.
Thats all for now. I hope you like this story piece (if you are wondering why am I doing the storywriting is because I love it, I love writing short fantasy stories).
Next thing I'm plannig to make are the walls, including the window frames (with windows) and doors. I consider this to be maybe the hardest part of the project. Do not expect any new updates until maybe Saturday or Sunday. If I succeed and make them before, you will be first to know.
Cheers!
I'm making this update to keep this thread active and to show something little that I've changed and added.
First, I added two basemeshes: a platform where the brazier stands to make the environment around there more vibrant and busy. And I think I have managed to achieve that effect, and I also added fences (or however you wanna call them) on the sides with the sam goal as the platform. And, to me, it also turned out pretty good.
I did a pretty minor change on the blood marble, I removed a little bit of reflectance so the reflections do npt look so intursive.
I have been experimenting with "modular" walls (that aren't that modular since I made 9 instances of the walls) and I figured it would be to complicated to implement in the environment itself scalewise going back-and-forth form Blender to UE4, and it would be really tricki with the texture alignemnt. So I figured that I will use already existing BSPs since they are really easy to work with. And texturing them is a piece of cake since you can make the textures on them look like the one loop with planar alignment of textures.
To negate the "flatness" of the walls, I will separately model the wall ornamnets which will be fairly easy to achieve.
I also thought to make a wall material but I didn't have time since I got some school work to do. But I will do my best to do ii and deliver it tommorrow.
What I plan to do is, except the wall material, windowframe design, stairs design and doors design.
PS. No story this time, maybe next time.
Cheers!
Just a quick update to the thread with the showcase of the windows and door designs. I've been experimenting with the wall material. And I'm going to continue experimenting tommorrow, and probably deliver on the stairs and a torch re-design. Wall ornament designs will have to wait until I finish the wall material.
That's it for today. I hope you like the designs.
P.S. I took a little break on saturday to clear my mind a bit.
Cheers!
I've made a redesign for the torch for it didn't really fit the architecture style that I'm going for. This new design reflects more greatly to the targeted style. I hope you like it.
I have been doing some experimentation for the walls today, but I still haven' figured out how am I going to handle the walls. Gonna keep you updated about that.
On another note, I have been drawing some wall ornament and stairs desgins that will be finished tommorrow so you can expect a new update. This week I will probably finalize my blockout for all the objects and I will start working on the final objects themselves starting with the main thorne then followed by small thrones.
Here's a showcase picture of the whole scene looking towards the throne. This is what I got so far.
That's all for now. Would like some comments to see what do you think about this.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Those bigass banners are super cool!
Cheers!
Cheers!
Today I haven't done as much as I hoped I will do. I was working on a graduation work for which I will use this very project, since my topic for the work is "Process of Creating a 3D Scene".
Only thing, for this project, I have done today was a staircas at the enterance of the room. And here it is.
In my opinion, this stair design reflects well the overall style of the throne room.
Now, on another note, I have made a lot of sketches and designs of the objects on paper. I was thinking about putting them here too. What do you all think, should I scan the onto my computer and post them here? I don't know if they have any value right now.
And I hope you like the stair design.
Cheers!
1: pokemon ball emblem on the banners? >.>
2: want to see more textures!
I like the work that your doing and some stuff does not make sense for me right now ( I have kinds skimmed over your updates and looked at what you added) but I have faith that it will come together and be interesting when the time comes.
I hope you enjoy the scene population, you got a good amount of stuff to work with so I hope you'll find it fun.
Anyway, yeah awesome dude can't wait to see you work come together.
I was also thinking that the banner symbol looked like a pokeball, but I better anything than nothing. Now, I was thinking about changing it before since it doesn't reflect the overall style of the room. So it won't be there for long.
And about the textures, I won't have any textures until I finish basemesh designs of all objects in the scene. Then, I'm gonna start texturing objects one by one.
Thank you for commenting.
Cheers!
I have finished all the stairs. So, now there are only two more things that I got to do until I can start developing final objects. I have also changed then symbol that I call "Symbol of the King". As @Atokal said, old symbol looked like a pokeball. This one has a more rough shape unlike the "pokeball's" circular shape. New one fits much better the style of the room. Hope you like it.
Next week, I will have couple of tests to handle so I might not work so much at that time, so I'm gonna do as mucha as I can this weekend. And another plus is that I have no school on friday so I have 3 free days to work on this project.
Cheers!
so one thing I noticed about your banners again is that something seems off. Have you tried to add boarders on any of 'em. they look barren and CG right now with how perfect they are, its never to early to mess around with a quick pass of wear and tear. I know you said your going to do more textures later but it should be done in the diffuse/Albido now rather than later... the only thing your doing is not showing how awesome you are. :P
I like the information you have in the stairs, but the things in the front of the steps, the block things are kinda confusing my eye a little so be careful with those.
Crazy thought....
what if you had some huge chained crazy awesome floating thing in the middle >.>
It seems like you could go with a more fantasy approach to it and you would score more in originality. Just something I am throwing out their thou.
I messed around with google for like five minutes and found this, it might be something neat to add as a trim piece for the design and give it some more appeal.
About the middle part. Yesterday, after I was finished with the stairs, I was thinking about adding a some kind of chandelier to break the empty space in the middle.
Cheers!
I am finished with the "detailed" blockout. I've made all the objects that I intended to and I populated the space as much as I tought was appropriate. Since the last update (update #4) I added a chandalier and some wall ornament designs which break the blandness of the walls. And I also changed the banner. I changed the symboly by removing the cyan color which didn't do the thing that I expected it to do, so now it looks lot more "unifrom" in color contrast, and I also changed the background which gives it a little bit more variety withing the color contrast bounds.
I have also fiddled with lighting, I changed the color of the light so it mimics the light color of fire. I haven't put them on the chandaliers for they created some strange shadow artifacts, which I will resolve later.
This is it for now. I hope you like what I did. And, of course, comment and critique as much as you can. I need to know if I'm doing anything wrong.
With this, I have finished second phase that was a blockout. Now I'm gonna start production on every object within the scene, which involves, proper modeling, sculpting and metrial work, starting with the throne itself.
Cheers!
I apologise for my 3 week abscence, I've had a lot of problems with my computer, mostly crashing when doing production on meshes (e.g. sculpting and Substance Desginer), but I've finaly managed to finish my first object in the scene.
Here's the wireframe of the same object.
Now, I'm kinda worried I won't be able to finish this in time since I've got only a month left. So, I'm gonna try my best to do everything as fast and as efficient as possible.
I expect to make much better objects in the future since I've learned a lot, especialy in Substance Desginer.
Meanwhile, feel free to critique and comment my first finishe object for the scene.
Cheers!
I have finished couple more objects of the scene. I have been dabbling in Substance Designer and I have managed to mostly isolate the performance problem so it should, and it is going much more smoothly now, but not as smooth as I would like. The important thing is I am able to quickly finish the objects.
Nothing much else to say other than this is just to give you the update ont the room, and of course to hear your critiques, they would be helpful and appreciated.
That's all for now, you can expect a new update in the next few days as I finish more objects.
Cheers!
Slowly, but surely, all the objects are being made. I am about halfway from finishing all the objects of the scene. And after compositing all the finished objects, I'm gonna take my time and properly adjust the lighting and maybe add some VFX e.g. fire, smoke...
As always, I would be glad to hear from you, what do you think. I want your critique so I can be better in the future.
That's all for now. You can expect another update near the end of the weak, probably friday or saturday.
Cheers!
Hello, there. This is mostly a lighting update. I have dabbled into lighting settings and reflections of the scene. Of course, the lighting is still not final, but it is really close to a finished product. I've made a new doors mesh which lets light through for a nice effect of light shafts, but I haven't done the matrials due to my sickness, it should be done soon.
Now, aside from lighting, I have also changed a layout of some objects in the scene. Major change is removal of the pool in the middle which would steal the spotlight from the throne itself.
That's all for now, of course, critiques would be appreciated.
Cheers!
I am coming closer and closer to finishing my project.
In this update I have added a lot of things: first of all, I added a finished material to the side doors, second of all, I fully finished a production of windows and an enterance doors and third of all, I added some new lighting changes and added fire effects on the braziers.
The lighting is pretty much done, there mighty be slight changes here and there, but it's pretty much the finial lighting.
I have also made a decision not to add lighting origins and fire particles to the torches for esthetical and technical reasons.
That's it for now, expect another update soon where I will showcase finished stairs, and maybe a finished minor throne.
For the main throne I am thinking of taking 3 days to make it due to it's high importance, and after I finish with all the objects, I'm gonna remake all the materials and also add a wall and sceiling material.
I hope you like this.
Cheers!