THRONE ROOM - Throne of the Torrent Goddess - Simple Entities
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Hello Polycount!
The Team
"Simple Entities"
Members:
Flaw
Derbyshire
Throne Synopsis
Concealed within The Goddess Falls a throne is etched from the sacred stones of a lost kingdom. Lir the Torrent Goddess was once said to bless this holy chamber. Her followers would gaze upon the striking image of the torrential waterfall which flowed powerfully around Her magnificent throne. A testament to Her power of the sea.
Primary Software:
Unreal 4
Marmoset
3DS Max
Zbrush
Xnormal
DDO
Photoshop
Substance Toolset
Final Submission!:
The Team
"Simple Entities"
Members:
Flaw
Derbyshire
Throne Synopsis
Concealed within The Goddess Falls a throne is etched from the sacred stones of a lost kingdom. Lir the Torrent Goddess was once said to bless this holy chamber. Her followers would gaze upon the striking image of the torrential waterfall which flowed powerfully around Her magnificent throne. A testament to Her power of the sea.
Primary Software:
Unreal 4
Marmoset
3DS Max
Zbrush
Xnormal
DDO
Photoshop
Substance Toolset
Final Submission!:
Replies
Here's a concept of our throne! A strong epic throne for a strong epic goddess. Also we've added an early concept to showcase how our idea evolved over the few days we spent working on it.
Looking forward to your thoughts!
As for the throne I like purple one more, blue one seem so complex that I couldn`t find throne itself at first
At the moment i like the colors you have chosen but i think that there are far too many cool colors in the scene. You are lacking a warm contrast. I think the throne room should have a far warmer color as to not blend in with the cold environment. I think it would look better since people would gather around the throne room for this goddess that they worship it makes sense that it would be a warmer light that people would be attracted towards. I think it would also help to guide the viewers eye to the main piece which is the throne. I think it should be like a radial gradient where its warm at the center (Throne room) and cold as it gets farther away from it (cold hard cave walls, earth spikes).
For the throne room i prefer the purple version for many different reasons.
1. The one in the concept art just reads as angry female Poseidon, and it does not feel right with its environment. You might find this maybe under the sea.
2. Angry female Poseidon is far too big, the whole stair case around her would make it so that the one in the concept would have to be 10x as larger to fit in the scene. I think you should rethink her origins and purpose, goddess of torrents is just another name for Poseidon, the purple one feels more of a goddess of peace where people would worship her in seclusion. The one with the trident seems like the god you would pray before going to war which does not fit in with the underground cave theme imho.
3. Just the fact that you are on a deadline and the Poseidon girl is almost a whole environment upon itself. I really think you should go with the purple one, it seems better balanced and compact, feels like it would fit in a lot better. I would love to see it with water pouring out of its hands.
I think the throne room would need some sort of base where the followers would have room to gather around her, it seems like there insent any more space other than the walkway.
The chandeliers i think will get in the way of seeing the throne room if you are walking up to it, unless you put them farther up, but then they would be out of view, i suggest to hang them from the sides as a solution. Though honestly i don't think they fit into the scene very well. i would rather have pockets of wild foliage that glow than chandeliers since everything is so natural within the cave and only the bridge and throne room are man made. The bridge is made of stone which is natural and the throne room is made of crystals which is natural as well but chandeliers are a very luxurious high fantasy item it feels out of place with their crazy man made curves, i think you should reserve that for the throne to add more visual complexity and draw the eye towards it.
I would love to see some sort of light shine through the water behind her and draw out a nice silhouette and affect the crystals as well, not too much but enough to bring out the holiness of the statue.
Please don't make it look all rundown and realistically eroded and what not, that's what everyone always does. Make it look grand, this scene borrows itself to do a lot with bright colors, make it count.
These are just some thoughts now, i will do my best to contribute more as you move forward.
We came up with a new quick concept where we made a dual staircase leading to the throne as opposed to the long winding path from before. The idea is that this will be cut from a large stone revealing the crystal underneath. This large crystal floor will be the area where the followers could have gazed up on the goddess.
I'm realizing that I sort of forgot to add very many natural crystals to this concept, so I'm positive that we'll be adding some formations around. Of course being sure not to diminish the throne. Which we will have a more detailed concept of that done very soon also.
We'll start blocking out and modeling this coming week! We're both excited for that and looking forward to sharing with everyone.
@Lilith
We took out some of the complexity and hope that this design will be a bit easier on the eyes. I hope you think these dual stairs are a cool idea as well!
@Holly Mellor
Problem solved! haha. Well, we did remove the big crystal, but as I was saying, I want to add some more formations around. I'll just be sure that they don't conflict with the statue.
@cesar
We spoke earlier and as usual I appreciate the critique. We are planning to incorporate some of your criticism once we start the environment in 3D. We decided to stick with the throwing pose, however, I decided that we won't make her look quite as 'manly' when we model her. I don't want her to look too 'warish' or villainous. So, we'll work on making her look like a 'goddess' but still a tough and powerful one. We also incorporated that sitting area you brought up. Thanks again, we'll talk later.
Now the purple one appeals, though in a tweaked form. Cesar makes some good points, to which I'll add a bit of fluff
If the crystals have been there since before the statue was created, it could be cool to have gold chains linking the statues arms to a couple of the crystal forms. If she's to be a "strong epic goddess" I'd lean more towards a dynamic pose for the statue, not the mellow, thoughtful version you have in the purple concept. In fact, maybe the gold chains I mentioned are connected to her hands, almost like she's holding the reins of the world, represented by the crystals.
Heh, that's all I've got atm, like I said, fluff, but hey it's not even 8 o'clock yet
@cesar
We are in agreement that the staircases may have felt to Disney for this cave with their gold banisters and crystal stairs so we have already made some changes to the design to fit the rest of the environment better. Also regarding your early comment about needing a warmer color contrast, we are looking to add fires/torches to add the warmth.
@hewitt96
Your feedback has reinforced the changes we needed to make to the staircase and so we have reduced the manufactured look and made the stairs blend with the surrounding environment. We are also going to work the crystals in so that they also have a better fit and clash less.
@Aerashi
It definitely was not what we were going for but once we saw it we realized we did have to rework the stairs in a way so that it appeared more... dignified. We are planning to keep the throne positioned in front of the statue though so we'll have too keep this in mind as we go forward.
Since we're still on the same page regarding the rest of the throne room cave we are going to start blocking out the scene.
We will be posting our updated concepts for the throne area as well as the throne itself a little later today when we both have the free time to polish them up to satisfaction!
We appreciate you guys taking the time to look over our stuff so far and leave feedback.
Here are some new ideas we had based off of everyone's feedback.
We've gotten rid of the fancy stairs and added a more ridged staircase made from the natural cave rock formations. On one concept we've even gone so far as to replace the smooth crystal floor with a small layer of water which would travel down the long path to the throne.
The actual throne itself is still being developed. In the concepts below it's all crystal. We plan to integrate more rock into it so it fits better with the scene. That close up on the throne will be up very soon.
I'm happy to post up the work on our blockout. We're making some adjustments to the original idea and are trying warmer lights inside the cave. We'll be experimenting with that throughout the process. Also we're using the stone step idea from the concept above this post. Not sure if we'll implement the water all the way down the path yet, but we'll try some ideas out. We'll have some more updates soon, as well our latest idea for the throne. We've gone with a more traditional stone seat. We're pretty happy with it so we plan to stick with the idea.
@cesar
I'm two steps ahead of you this time! We're moving along now so you can expect to see some good things coming. Also, we really disliked the crystal throne and decided hide it away forever. The new idea is simpler and meshes better with the overall environment.
We may introduce some gold elements later but for now this is how it currently stands.
Whoa! Thanks a ton for doing this paint over! It's really pushing us in a better direction. We'll be sure to focus a lot on composition as well as lighting. We're really diggin' the warm lighting coming in from the left. We plan to give that a go when we start doing some lighting builds. Thanks again man! Really helpful.
Here's a wet rock piece that I will use on the new throne design. It's late right now and I'm tired; I'll be sure to post more images and updates at a better hour.
Here is the throne model with it's updated design! This render is out of Marmoset. I've got the throne in Unreal and I'm tweaking some materials for it.
I'll be posting up the shot of it in the scene soon.
Still early on lighting and materials. I'll tweak them as we go along.
Also, keep in mind the stone is getting some water on it so it's going to be a bit wet. Thus the shiney. I'll tweak that as I go as well.
Here is my latest work in progress shot. This is my progress on the stone staircase leading up to the throne. I need to do a bit more detail work on it and then get it baked.
We also have the statue nearing completion so expect an update with that image soon!
Hair sculpt is nearly finished for the statue, got a few more things to work on such as the jewelry pieces and the trident before I jump into texturing.
I looked into creating procedural foliage using Substance Designer and found some pretty useful starting tutorials for beginners to the program and I found it pretty easy to pick up, plenty of options are available to experiment with for different approaches which is just fantastic.
So here is an ivy leaf I created within Substance Designer for our level:
And the final result:
Here is our final submission:
Hello Polycount!
The Team
"Simple Entities"
Members:
Flaw
Derbyshire
Throne Synopsis
Concealed within The Goddess Falls a throne is etched from the sacred stones of a lost kingdom. Lir the Torrent Goddess was once said to bless this holy chamber. Her followers would gaze upon the striking image of the torrential waterfall which flowed powerfully around Her magnificent throne. A testament to Her power of the sea.
Primary Software:
Unreal 4
Marmoset
3DS Max
Zbrush
Xnormal
DDO
Photoshop
Substance Toolset