THRONE ROOM - Kublai Khan - SeveredSon & JonSells

SeveredSon

Our Throne Room entry is going to be inspired by Kublai Khan's throne room from the Marco Polo series.

We will be using Maya, Zbrush, Photoshop, nDo2, Substance Designer/Painter, and the Unreal 4 engine.

JonSells

This is going to be fun, looking forward to seeing all the entries!

limeforce

I watched that recently and got some inspiration for my entry, the Kublai Khan throne is awesome! And don't worry, my entry is something completely different. Looking forward to your progress!

SeveredSon

Here are some reference pics of the throne room that we are using for inspiration.

SeveredSon

Here are some preliminary shots of the throne room. The textures are very placeholder for now. Just trying to throw some stuff together to get a good start.

EpicBeardMan

You got the layout pretty good. I can't comment much right now so I'm gonna wait for more updates. Good luck, mate.
Cheers!

elindell

I'm also inspired by the Marco Polo throne room design, I love the translucent green backdrop.

Your's look really good so far, keep it up

William3DArtist

Oh man, I am excited for this one. I was going to do this at first but decided not to. Awesome to see someone take this on. Pretty Sweet. So what made you guys decide this one over the little emperors throne room? They are both beautiful like the glistening sand blowing through the dunes of the Gobi desert. - Marco Polo -

LunaZ

wow, it looks awesome. Just the feeling in the series.
I really like that throne room and you're capturing its mood perfectly.

JonSells

Working on floor details. Using Adobe Illustrator to do the tiling patterns.

JonSells

Screen shot from Maya of the floor details

JonSells

william21984 wrote: »

Oh man, I am excited for this one. I was going to do this at first but decided not to. Awesome to see someone take this on. Pretty Sweet. So what made you guys decide this one over the little emperors throne room? They are both beautiful like the glistening sand blowing through the dunes of the Gobi desert. - Marco Polo -

For me I really liked the atmosphere and lighting of this throne room over the little emperors room.

William3DArtist

JonSells wrote: »

For me I really liked the atmosphere and lighting of this throne room over the little emperors room.

Definitely, that outside back lighting is off the hook shining on top of The Khan of Khans throne. Leaving his face in shadow and his garments visible. When he is interested in what he sees he moves forward and reveals his face past the darkness. Great lighting for a King. Great choice guys. Best of luck.

SexualHealing

Ha! I was also going to do this but changed my mind in the end. Like someone else previously said its great to see this getting made!

SeveredSon

Here are some updates on the Zbrush work. I'm currently working on the pillars. Sculpting the scales on the dragon caused a great deal of hand cramping but I'm happy with how it turned out. The sculpts still require a ton of polish, but at this point I figure it's good to get it into the scene to see how it's looking.

LunaZ

Nice work!

JonSells

Finished up the corner details on the elevated floor.

SeveredSon

Got the throne back wall in there. I had to widen the throne hall a bit to fit the wall in there. Scale is a mo-fo sometimes.

William3DArtist

Looking awesome!!!

SeveredSon

Here are some updates. I'm currently working on the throne. We also added some trim textures and materials, tweaked the lighting, added a new wall piece with a door, textured the beams, and lots of other small stuff.

We still have a long way to go, but we're plugging away at it.

SeveredSon

Currently working on the throne. I'm putting animal skins on there. I have one textured. The rest are in the works.

SeveredSon

Reworking the lighting a bit.



It appears I've jacked around with the post process too much and have to take a few steps backwards. :poly118:

Not sure if I like it darker and contrastier or well lit. Hmmmm...



I like the highlights on the horse heads in the pic below, but it's almost too dark. I added some smoke to hide the ceiling a bit as well as add some atmosphere. I'm sure those torches would give off quite a bit of smoke.

LunaZ

Great work. I really like it.
I like the darker version of the room, and the smoke will work perfectly with the light coming in.

SeveredSon

Angmarluna- Thanks!

JonSells

Working on the large beam detail textures

SeveredSon

Another late night working on this stuff. Here's the throne. It's almost done. Needs some final polish.

JonSells

working on the gold trim details around the elevated throne platform

JonSells

Update on the stair details and overall scene

SeveredSon

Updated the scene with some banners. I'm currently working on the map rug on the floor, but I'm starting to think I should replace the map with a fire pit though.

SeveredSon

I'm attempting to make the throne more of a focal point by altering the lighting, so I tried more of a night time setting. I'm open to ideas.

I removed the rug map too. It was bugging the crap out of me and didn't really fit the scene.



I think the door has to be scaled up slightly as well.

Also, I scaled up the throne a little to give it more prominence in the scene.

JonSells

Working on adding detail the the wood wall screens

SeveredSon

Worked on lighting post process and the back wall a bit more.

JonSells

Update on the doors and main entrance

SeveredSon

Here's the cauldron I've been working on.

SeveredSon

Here's our latest update. I've been tweaking the lighting quite a bit. Seems like dynamic lights work better than static lights when it comes to reflections. I put in some static fill lights here and there to get some more secondary lighting. There are still some areas that are too dark but I think we're on the right track.

Also, I placed some more cauldrons along the main pathway and I put a circular medallion decal on the floor.

We are still debating whether the medallion adds anything to the scene. I'm open to suggestions.

SeveredSon

Started working on this wall frieze that will go above and behind the throne.

SeveredSon

Here's the latest with the wall frieze above the throne. I tweaked the lit glass wall a bit more. We decided to ditch the medallion on the floor. We will probably go with a carpet down the middle of the floor.

SeveredSon

I worked on the furs, pillows and the glowing jade wall a bit. Also, I made a drum chair that the queen sits on next to the throne. The furs have some tessellation on them to make it look more like fur.

noscope

in the 3rd shot that fur is perfecto. I really like it.

DeepSpaceBanana

dat fur doh....this is starting look really good, mind sharing how you achieved that look? Keep up the great work, can't wait to see it when its done!!

Geno527

The fur is really cool, I'm also interested to know how you made it ^^.

SeveredSon

thanks! I'll post some images of the shader network tonight.

Currently we're having a hard time deciding how the back wall should look. I've posted an image below and we would like to know which version people like best. Do you like the fully lit one on top or do you like the darker version on the bottom. Feedback would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

WarrenM

Lit up makes for a better composition. It highlights and frames the throne area. Unlit makes the scene kind of muddy. Would be especially great if you could get it to reflect on the floor a little.

Anubis9

From the two images, I like the fully lit one more. As WarrenM stated, it adds enough contrast to highlight the throne.

SeveredSon

Cool. Thanks for the feedback. We will go with the lit version of the back wall.

I'm currently working on a table with a teapot that will sit next to the throne. I plan on creating some cups as well. Also I reworked the horse heads a bit and we placed a rug in the center of the walkway.

I'd like to get some irregularity in the banners as well, so I will probably add a panning normal map or something to mimic some movement in the cloth. We still have a long way to go but I think it's almost there visually.

Lastly, the fur shader is basically the carpet shader from the realistic rendering project, but with tessellation and a few minor changes to the shader. I'll post screenshots of the shader setup as well...when I get a chance to do so.

JonSells

Adding final touches to the floor that was created using Substance Designer