[UE4] Scifi Control Room

sloppymess

Hey folks! I'm starting on a new project for my portfolio. Here's the concept image:

Here's what I've got so far:

I'm going to be showing a lot of my progress here. It's just a blockout so far. I haven't done many fancy shaders in UE4 so the monitors/tank might be a challenge but it should be a great learning experience. I also need to work on my hard-service and prop modeling/texturing so I feel this is the perfect scene. I really want to give each prop a lot of love so I can show them off.

The artists respective deviant page

Critiques/advice is always welcome! Thanks!

ZacD

If you haven't already, I would go ahead and make sure everything is modular and fits to a hexgrid, since that's what the floor layout is based around. It'll help with the perspective and spacing, too.

sloppymess

Yeah! I'll totally get a paintover up tonight of all the modular pieces. I sort of skipped doing the paintover but I should know better than that :P

sloppymess

Here's the breakdown of the assets! Next up i'm going to start low polying!

JacqueChoi

oi.

Before you start the lowpoly, can you plz model the panels on the floor?



Also, generally when you render those shots out, do it with AO on (or in Max, just throw in a skylight).

Gives a better sense of what it looks like, and we don't lose the roof.

sloppymess

Hey! Thanks for the advice. Here's the blockout rendered out all nice like.



I'm currently moving stuff over to UE4 while finishing up low poly's and things like that. after I get all that sorted i'm going to work on them high polys. So not too much new to show yet, other than the better render of what I already have.

primnull

ceiling just looks like you threw cables up there. no real integration to the structure. also, the floor is too symmetrical and needs more chaos,

steve0

I agree with everyone's feedback.

I'm getting a weird feeling with your current framing. I'm not sure if it's the camera's focal length or the perspective. It wouldn't hurt to experiment with different focal lengths to help add some more depth to the scene. But the foreground floor looks super skewed to me.

(Even though you were probably going to add these)Your missing foreground elements. Particularly, the foreground cable's like the concept has. It will help frame your shot and give a nice grounding element to your ground, plus breakups your floor texture.

I'd also get rid of those vents next to your two main desks on the right/left side. Those two areas feel particularly clustered to me. I didn't see those vents in the concept and I think by not having those, will give more depth without having to move other props. I also like seeing the wires pass through the desk and go under/over different cables. It really grabs your eye and is an easy way to add some more asymmetry to the scene.

Looks good so far. Can't wait to see it inside UE4!

sloppymess

Thanks everyone for the feedback! You're right, the perspective is weird. I was trying too hard to get the perspective.

I've played around with focal length and camera location for probably too long and still couldn't get it to match the concept. I did some other experiments with the actual geometry (Tilting the floor and ceiling, and stretching the entire scene horizontally,) and it looks like to me the concept has some broken perspective. The only way I could get it to match was basically by skewing the geo of the scene beyond realism. I wanted to have a couple of different renders of the scene, and not just from this one perspective so that's not really going to work out.

So my goal at this point is to get it close to the perspective, and nail the atmosphere/lighting and other aspects of the piece. This will hopefully add more depth to the scene, which i'm currently lacking.

Thanks for the helpful feedback! I'm still moving stuff into UE4 so expect and update on that soon!

sloppymess

Here's my stuff in UE4. I'm veering away from the concept a little, just to make a bit more interesting. I've got some blockout lighting and some blockout monitor shaders on the screens. I decided to pull back the camera a touch and add a little bit more in the mid ground on the sides. Almost everything is UV'D already and ready to be textured, so that should be coming very soon!

Any advice/critiques are always super helpful.

sloppymess

So here's a big ole update! I changed the composition of the scene by a lot. I also started getting down and dirty with the textures! Some things still aren't textured or I need to go back and tweak some of the textures a bit. I'm still not 100% sure what i'm going to put into the tank......

Here's the progression of my work tonight. I'm still not 100% happy with the lighting but it looks a lot better IMO. Any Crits or advice with the lighting/composition would be really helpful!

Thanks

sloppymess

Hey polycounters! This is what I've got so far! I'm thinking about wrapping it up pretty soon. So any last feedback or anything like that would be really awesome!

Probably going to touch up the tank shader, monitor shaders, and the little metroid in the tank. Do a bit more polish. I'll update soon with maybe a gif or video, because it looks kinda cool with the moving screens/water/etc. Thanks!