THRONE ROOM - Deadwood Throne

Kidzik

First time ever entering a contest of this sort but I'm pretty excited!

My idea is a mysterious throne carved out of a tree trunk, with mushrooms growing on and around it. I haven't quite worked out if it's a fairy throne but I want to imply it's a throne of deadly power.

I'm thinking it's going to look cartoony and I want to try to keep the poly count not crazy high so somewhere in middle. I'm still trying to figure it out exactly. Here's some of the references/inspiration I've been looking at:



Software:
Maya
ZBrush
Unreal4
Substance
Photoshop

Kidzik

So here are my concept pieces I've been working on for the week so far:



I'm not too sure about the symbol on the throne quite yet, still trying to work it out so I'm using the one I have now as a placeholder. I'm also not sure if I even want to have a symbol as well so I'm trying to work that out. I'm thinking of coming up with some stuff when I bring the model into Zbrush.



These are sketches of the kinds of mushrooms/assets I'm thinking of. I want there to be a subtle warning around the throne so all of the mushrooms (minus the orange shelf mushroom) are all horribly deadly There's fly amanita's, death caps and sulfur shelf's which will all make you pretty sick or dead.

and finally I have a mood piece to show before I start seriously blocking my models out in Maya:



I want the focus on the throne so I want to keep the environment pretty simple (also for my sake haha). I want the throne to be in a small opening in a dense forest.

I'm pretty excited to start modeling this, hopefully I'll have the block out model to show you guys soon!

tobeeffle

Really cool idea dude, i like the cartoony render

Kidzik

Thanks man!

So sorry I haven't updated in a while, busy with life plus the website I use to upload the pics decided that it didn't want to let me in.

Heres what I've been working on now, I got my block model done and set up:


I'm not 100% sure how to handle the background yet...I might make my own quick trees or see if there's something in UE4 I could use. I'm learning how to use UE4 during this project so im not quite sure of the possibilities yet.

In the final version I plan to add a bit more variation with the mushrooms in terms of size and placement.

Nheerph

Loving the cute sketches! Looking good so far

Kidzik

and here's where I am now, zbrushing the throne!



I'm still fiddling around with the wood but I'm liking how it's turning out! I have yet to put the symbol in but it'll be there no worries.

The way I have this planned is that I'm going to bring the throne and the shelf mushrooms (the orange ones) into zbrush because they are the most organic and I can get nice shapes. The other mushrooms I'm not gonna worry about too much unless they don't match well with the retopologized objects. If that happens, which won't be the end of the world, I already have lower poly models to work from.

Gonna be sooooo much fun retopologizing this mmmm yes

pour.quoi

You go girl!

SLOT

Very nice idea! Good luck!

Kidzik

Thanks so much all! I'm glad you guys are liking it so far

I think I'm finished zbrushing the throne itself yaaay here's how it looks now. Not too different but it has a symbol im happy with. Going to start retopology tomorrow wooo



Also started on the shelf mushrooms which will be hard to show but I'm gonna try haha they look like weird lumpy pizzas. They're pretty much done, might touch up some stuff tomorrow but I plan to retopologize these as well.

Kidzik

I'm about done the retopology on the throne phew! Not as difficult as I thought it would be. I've already baked out my info in Xnormal so it's ready to be textured which I plan to finish up midway through the week if all goes well.



I'm finishing up the two shelf mushrooms first though and boy howdy are they the ones that are truly hard to retopologize. I'm seeing if I can do the most of it in Zbrush first so hopefully I'll have a faster solution.

elindell

I thought this was going to be western theme based on the title haha

I've been going through a bunch of the throne threads to see what everyone is doing, I really like your toon style concepts in your second post, I haven't seen many cel style shaders so that could help you stand out

I haven't created a thread but I'm doing a similar nature theme, but much different style, good luck to you

Kidzik

oh lol yeah I realized only afterward that there was a show called Deadwood whoops

Thank you so much! I will have to keep an eye out for your thread good luck to you as well!

Kidzik

I think I've finished up texturing the throne in substance plus the fly amanita mushrooms as well!





I think they all turned out all pretty good! I'm excited to get them into UE4.
Tomorrow's game plan is to finish texturing all the mushrooms I have left so they're ready for UE4 and hopefully setting up most of the scene. I can't wait to see what the throne looks like with the mushrooms on it

Kidzik

hmmm on second thought, I'm going to do some color touch ups on the throne tomorrow as well, it's actually not as dark as I thought. Needs a tiny bit more contrast I think

Kidzik

I've completed texturing all the mushrooms which means I'm done the throne! Here's the mushrooms:




and here's the finished throne in unreal so far (I'm using the moss and grass textures inside unreal for the ground/area)



All I have left to do now is the surrounding trees, fix the ground plane so the texture appears smaller and lighting! Whew, it's so nice to see everything coming together

Malodomini

I love those mushrooms!!!!!! I retract my statement from a few days ago about hating mushrooms, these are so awesome! (I was kidding anyway, mushrooms are cute)

Kidzik

I'm glad you like the mushrooms I'm pretty pleased with them myself!

So I've made a quite bit of progress, getting really close to be doing I think!
I made some quick trees for the background:



Here's how it's looking in UE4:



I created my own ground and surround area textures finally as well. I wanted to keep it simple to fit my style of modeling and the other textures as well.

I got a god ray to work, I think it looks pretty nice, it's close enough to my concept art:



I'm currently working on some grass to put into the scene to keep the ground from looking too empty. Trying to deal with the gross white lines, but im going to see how it looks in UE4 just in case it's just Maya since my alpha mask does cut into the grass itself.

Kidzik

Got my grass to work today and now im messing with lighting. UE4 is being a bit finicky about it, it's either too dark or not dark enough. I'll get it to work eventually.


Also added a canopy of leaves on top that may or may not be seen in the final renders but I like it. I'm also going to try to see if I can make the light shaft to be softer around the edges hmmmm

Kidzik

Fixed up the ground texture so it's not so flat and boring

It's starting to get to a point where I'm not sure what else I can do with this scene hmmmmmmm

Row'

Hi Kidzik !

Your scene's shadows look very black. And the light is too white. You should give more colors to this lovely forest

If you look at your ref pics, you can see how the light and shadows are influenced by the foliage. May be you should try to work with a slightly yellow light wich subtely turns to green, due to the translutcentcy of the leaves & blue/greenish shadows, which would look softer than the black ones you got here. A fog effect would be nice too By the way, you red mushrooms don't cast any shadows, is that normal ?

Don't hesitate to play more with lighting and look at more forest references.

Keep it up !

Kidzik

I agree, the shadows are pretty inky, I shall play with the lighting more and try to get it to be lighter. Thanks for pointing that out!
I'll be honest I forgot about fog whoops haha I will definitely put some in there and see how it looks

I'm not sure why the red mushrooms aren't casting shadows, it might be my spotlight canceling it out I think?? They were casting shadows before I started messing with it so it must be that.

Kidzik

Welp, I found out that the inky shadows are most likely coming from either my Sky Sphere or World Settings so that's fun for me since I'm still learning how to figure out how those work still.

Also, my mushrooms do have shadows until I build the lighting so I'm going to have to find out what that's about too dang. I'm not sure what could be causing that but it's probably something in my world settings as well

Kidzik

Yesssss, with some help I was able to get the mushroom shadows to work! Turns out it had to do with my lightmap resolution on my ground, so glad it's fixed now! Here are some high quality screenshots I took:





Thanks so much again for the suggestions Row', the scene defiantly looks better with the fog & yellow light

I think i'm at a point where I want to kinda sit on this for a while, I don't wanna look at it for a couple days at least and come back to it with fresh eyes. Any comments/suggestions are more than welcome, thanks so much to you all!

erelar

one of the most obvious thrones))) i like this scene design)