THRONE ROOM - Drka-Drka Team - Deus Praetorium

Censored_ID

Hi everybody!)

We are Drka-Drka team - Daniel Copytsko and Kirill Kravchenko from Heyworks Studio. And this is our take on the Throne Room contest.

Software used:
3ds Max
Zbrush
Photoshop
Substance Designer
Substance Painter
Quixel Suite
Marmoset Toolbag 2
Xnormal

Rendered with Unreal Engine 4.



We also tried to create some background story behind our environment so here it is:

The Great Alchemist’s Throne Room.
The magnificent hall which turned into the family vault and the monument of obsession.

The King’s passion in alchemy gradually became a blind obsession. His mind got poisoned by the master idea of philosophical stone, the only way to get the endless power through the eternity.

The stone creation requires colossal energy. The King comes to the idea that the most pure energy can be extracted at the moment when the living creature crosses the final frontier. Catalyzed by the love to this creature the one can get enough energy for the stone synthesis.

The King disposes to build a magnificent hall, which repeats the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. This hall is meant to be the workbench, the instrument, the extractor. The next step is to find life vessels with enough energy to complete the ritual...

The King makes his choice.

His mother and father are placed into Understanding and Wisdom sephirots. The wife gives her energy to Mercy, the daughter to Splendor and the son to Victory. Severity and Beauty sephirots are fed with the brother and the young niece lives. The grandson represents Foundation and the friend completes Kingdom.

However the extracted energy catalyzed by the brutality of sober-blooded sacrifice does not synthesys the stone but turns the King himself into the philosophical stone.

The kingdom is left without the King. The legend will live for centuries telling the story of the magnificent Throne Room turned into family vault.

Oh you, young souls of free insight!
Walk in with solemn silence.
Behold the frantic King of nevernight,
The prey of love and violence.

Breath in the vibe of pain and thirst,
Conceive the sorrow story.
Of those who were destroyed and cursed
In order to create one’s glory.

The dream of everlasting paradise,
The path of noble goals.
Became a sober-blooded sacrifice,
Of nine beloved souls.

The poisoned mind in search for reign,
Extracted misery in essence.
He blessed the kin for woe and pain
To get his constant presence.

Oh you, behold the Great Alchemist’s grave!
His kind, his love afore his throne.
The epitaph that none will lave:
“Solve et coagula” in stone.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO9k0XzvcMc[/ame]

Youtube video is a little bit laggy and I don't know why, so if you are a hardcore perfectionist please watch it on vimeo https://vimeo.com/123481921

Aerashi

The Tree of Life in Kabbalah?

Censored_ID

@Aerashi Exactly)

Here are some references and 1st blockout iteration)

Lilith

Looks promising, but I`m not sure that it`s good idea to put those big columns in front of the throne. They kinda block the view.
Anyways it`s a good start and I really love your references, so fancy!

Censored_ID

Those columns are not actually columns - they are flasks made of glass and filled with formalin) I'll post a brief BG story in a few days to clear what's going on here))

Censored_ID

Something like that) Booo creepy))

WarrenM

OK, you have my attention now.

Censored_ID

Hi guys) Our first update - the flask. It still doesn't have transparency because we are working on custom "foggy" formalin shader that flask will be filled with)

Some of the deco elements are quick sculpts in zbrush, and some were just generated in nDo from a grayscale stencils found in the internet. The texture base was created in ddo with few custom and built-in materials. The next step was substance painter to create additional cracks, scratches, leaks etc. to get more "handmade" look.

DorinD

Censored_ID wrote: »

Hi guys) Our first update - the flask. It still doesn't have transparency because we are working on custom "foggy" formalin shader that flask will be filled with)

Some of the deco elements are quick sculpts in zbrush, and some were just generated in nDo from a grayscale stencils found in the internet. The texture base was created in ddo with few custom and built-in materials. The next step was substance painter to create additional cracks, scratches, leaks etc. to get more "handmade" look.

looking awesome as always!
subscribe

Xoliul

I'm sure you could get the same kind of base out of Designer (or Painter), netting you some bonus points

Censored_ID

@DorinD Thanks mate))

@Xoliul I used substance painter a lot for this texture so i think bonus points are already mine *demonic laugh and lightning on BG*. Well, seriously, I'm a newbie at substance tools so I can't get good result... And I don't want to sacrifice the artistic quality just to get some extra points))

Censored_ID

So, here's a story as I promised)

There was a King (just King for now, still didn't find a cool name lol) that completely went out of his mind with the idea of creating a philosopher's stone. His desires grew huge and totally consumed him. He spent almost half of his life studying alchemist treatises in search of infinite health and wealth.
but there's one horrible thing about creating a philosopher's stone - a huuuuuge human sacrifice. But he found another way - sacrificing his own loved family. But not wasn't just a simple headshot multikill or smth))) He built his Throne room that from above looks exactly like the fundamental tree of life from kaballah. And there was a reason for that - every sephirot on the tree of life represents the manifestation of god (like wisdom, glory, mercy blablabla) so he decided to sacrifice his family as a manifestations of god. For example His mother for understanding, his father for wisdom etc. He put all of them into the flasks, and placed them according to the scheme of sephirots. They weren't just random people, he loved them, and he believed that his act of sacrificing family as god impersonations will give enough energy to create the stone. But... after finishing his sacrament he became the stone himself. Literally. He turned himself into a philosopher's stone. You'll see his crystallized red bones on the throne.

And you'll see his family in those flasks with formaline too. I hope it will be creepy enough))

Lawrence Preston

I'm digging the plot, and seems like a pretty unique mixture of sci-fi and fantasy. Really interested in what this is going to look like. Currently, I can't see the image for your sculpt

Censored_ID

@Lawrence Preston Thanks)

Working on tileable textures and shaders)
Grayscale maps like AO, Roughness etc., are separate for now, I'll put them into one texture piece per channel later)

Censored_ID

HI guys! Small update)

Sculpt of an old alchemy symbol in zbrush, then base texture in ddo and finished in substance painter. I've also made some normal maps in substance designer using built in generators and some custom textures and stencils.

Kirill is working on a King's family corpses now.. Yeah, dead bodies)) Update soon.

DorinD

amazing texture work !

Censored_ID

@DorinD thanks)

Spencer_Holmes

Beautiful!

Censored_ID

@Spencer_Holmes Thanks))

Small up. New tiles and and a huge chandelier (without fire particles for now)

Row'

Wow, it looks really good !

Censored_ID

@Row' Thanks mate)

Hi guys) Really need your help here. I'm new to UE4 and I have some troubles with dynamic light and shadows. The problem is - shadow distance and quality. I need nice detailed shadows from my directional light on much bigger distance. I've tried playing with cascade shadows properties but no result - I still need to be clooose to the object to see nice shadows... Then I tried distant field shadows. It gave me good distance draw, but not detailed enough even on the highest resolution of DF. So maybe there is any cheat or smth to make my shadows nice and detailed as on the 1st screenshot? Any config editing or console commands? Btw I've also tried console command like r.shadowresolution\quality\fade etc., and it did nothing...( There is no such problem with pointlights - details and draw distance is fine)

PolyDjent

Well, u shouldn't use dynamic light in UE4. While dynamic lighiting sucks, baked one is the real stength of the engine. Imho u should try baking shadows and use stationary lights where u need the shadows to be bast dynamically for moving objects. Hope that helps.
And this is what can be done with baked shadows and tweaked .ini's. https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?28163-ArchViz-Lighting

Censored_ID

@Maydream3d Thanks for help bro) But I've already solved the problem just by editing BaseScalability.ini file in config folder) Now I have awesome shadows for a huuuge distance)

Censored_ID

Update)
1) Some deco elements using substance
2) Floor details
3) vertex paint shader (w\o mask for now, just testing)

tobeeffle

Nice job

Censored_ID

@tobeeffle Thanks:poly121:

Spoon

This is really really sexy! :O

Censored_ID

@Spoon Thanks)

Vertex paint and decals layers on\off)

RedSquare

Amazing guys! Looks pretty nice, interesting idea and I have no doubt that final result will be awesome. Good luck! :thumbup:
and subscribe of course

IIxDEATHxII

wow man, this is so sick.. love everything about your designs. i kinda feel depressed cause your work looks better than mine.

Minos

Nice job, coming along nicely

Censored_ID

Thanks a lot guys ^_^

DorinD

ВОУ ! збс , ваще клёво вышло )

Censored_ID

@DorinD Спасиб, бро))

Just a small teaser))

noscope

the image isnt showing for me. =(

Censored_ID

@noscope wow, sry) some troubles with photohosting, I guess( Let's try photobucket))



I'll reupload all the screenshots later, for safety)

domonickb

Really looks great you guys. I keep checking to see your progress!

Cool concept!

CrunchieNut

Some lovely sharp assets here, nice one Nice material definition, interested to see where the lady goes!

Censored_ID

Thanks guys)) The lady goes into the flask with formalin.

Khadyko

Poor lady - so young, so beautiful. I thought that all of those "formalin guys" will be older)))

Nice design and colors looks pretty rich. It will be nice to see all scene to get an idea of overall space, proportions.

Censored_ID

@Khadyko Thanks bro))

Yay, update here)

Some architecture sculpted and textured, the Throne and statues, and some shader and postprocessing setup))

15 by censored_id, on Flickr

16 by censored_id, on Flickr

noscope

this got real good real fast! well done. Excited to see this finished now

Censored_ID

@noscope Thanks mate)

I've uploaded all the previous progress on Flickr because of some hosting issues, so if you can't see some of the images in a thread you can find them here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/130632707@N05/

Orb

very clean work dude, love the materials.
If you allow a small feedback, I would say it feels weird that the middle woman statue is scaled up, next to the small woman statues, I would maybe try a composition that works with 3 woman statues having the same size, maybe an angel on the middle, or any idea to make her above the others for your triangle compo, but something that doesnt involve scaling her. The other option is to scale the side womans . You can also try to keep the scale, but make the center one more unique, so it doenst feel like the same model re-posed and scale. Maybe she has big wings behind her (more "boss statue"), or different gold trims, or a blindfold etc.

Also are they going to have sculpted hair? No hair on them is weird imo. Other than that they look good!

Censored_ID

@Orb Thanks for feedback) And yeah, you're absolutely right - they look like just reposed single model. But it's just for now. I really want to use that difference in scale becasue the idea is that she controls the smaller two ladies like marionettes. She alredy has some stuff behind her back, but not the wings (you'll see in the next update^^). And that smaller statues now have horns (the left one) and halo (the right one). That's like a sort of a higher substance\matter or something godlike that controls angels and demons or good and evil.

Orb

alrighty then

Censored_ID

Horns, halo, eyeband, godrays and hair for the statues)) Made a subsurface material, looks much better now..)

Working on king's family corpses. No hair for now)

17 by censored_id, on Flickr


18 by censored_id, on Flickr

domonickb

looks amazing guys!

Khadyko

Like this throne room - white, clean, but pretty brutal with those corpses!

Maybe it wiil be better to see more contrast between walls and vitrage windows.

Censored_ID

Thanks guys)))

There will be more depth and contrast in the whole scene after post-processing tweaks)

Censored_ID

Working on the philosopher's stones crystals and particles)

19 by censored_id, on Flickr