THRONE ROOM - Sky Empire - Cloudmind

SkyWay

Hi.

We're team Cloudmind, consisting of ikarus and SkyWay. Our throne will be on a flying ship, mixing a bit of fantasy with sci-fi and still keeping it kinda realistic in style.

Software list:
Modo (ikarus)
Blender (SkyWay)
Substance Painter and Designer
Photoshop
Unreal Engine 4

We had a two week concepting phase for this during which we did not post anything due to not being sure if we would even be able to participate. We went through multiple ideas before settling on this one.

Concepts

SkyWay









ikarus

BJA

Those two weeks of concepting really paid of! love those shapes and how dynamic everything feels. I hope you guys are able to finish this in time.

Awoken

Great start, I love the shapes and light colour you guys have chosen! Subbed and looking forward to more

ikarus

Hello everyone, here is our progress with the throne room challange, as you can see we are going with a semi-fantasy-scifi themed air/spaceship where we tried to establish our own style. It should be something between art nouveau decorations, architecture and space opera scifi with mechanical details but overwhelmed with clean shapes.
We first blocked out a general layout based on skyway's idea of a throne room after which I detailed and finished the interior in a form of 3D concept, while trying to establish the overall feel.
After agreeing upon the general layout I went on in photoshop and overpainted the texture work that needs to be done within the desired style, mainly the linework and other details which I missed in 3D. Trying to be time efficient here.
As you can see there is no actual throne. Yet.

Most of the 3D is done all that is left now is to implement it ingame, tweak and add textures... and of course, the throne!

Cody

Looking really cool! can't wait to see this one shape up. the shot with the purple orb and lightning looks very interesting. def would be unlike any other entry.

ikarus

Thanks everyone !
@cody yeah that was one of my favorites actually but eventually we decided to go with a safer option.

Anyway, i managed today to pile up all the reference images that we used for inspiration. These include influences for the big general shapes, inspiration for the ornaments (we eventualy developed our own style, less floral, but still organic-like) and of course details that we will add in textures and small kitbashing props.
I also tried another set of throne doodles unfortunately none of these will be used either. Still getting there, might actually jump into 3D and see what comes out of there.
Last picture shows the actual art direction for the railing design and it's "ornaments" along with a clarification of how the railing struts should look like.

SkyWay

Small update, weekend is going to be full work.





My approach to textures is big shapes baked from hi-poly and most things smaller than that (especially those panels lines) I make in Photoshop and import the black and white heightmap to Substance Designer. Slap a Height/Normal blend node in there and it's all good.

I'm going to use detailmaps for a lot of things, getting that pixel density up with big world objects like these. I'll try to do a breakdown of the things I do and how I do them when I have more progress.

Stream
I'm streaming most of the work I do on this at http://www.twitch.tv/skaiway. Follow for updates when I go live, I'm +2 GMT

SkyWay

http://www.twitch.tv/skaiway I'm live for about three hours, doing texture stuff and mesh cleanup.

ikarus

Quick blockout of the actual throne. Just this for now.

SkyWay

Sneaky peek of the material layering system I finally got going

ikarus

Additional concepts done defining materials for Skyway and detailing already existing props.

Ingame shots coming soon but until then, more concepts.

Tripl3M

Seriously guys ... you are destroying the others XD amazing work !

Spencer_Holmes

This shit is NEXT GEN!

d1ver

loving the style. keep it up!

SkyWay

Thanks for the kind words!

Here's a small update again, getting the kit out small parts at a time.





I'm also streaming again http://www.twitch.tv/skaiway Mostly boring mesh cleanup and technical stuff, but I got a webcam if that's the sort of thing you're into :P (EDIT: Stream done)

SkyWay

Another object, actually using four masked materials now so next I'll have to use two masks :P

Orango

Amazing work so far!
Looking forward to the next updates, keep up the good work

ikarus

Quick update with the final design of the throne we agreed upon. Just a WIP for now, will come back with a more detailed render of it.

SkyWay

Crunch time! I'm confident on finishing though, got two days with no other plans.

SkyWay

Here's a little explanation on my material system, which is pretty much the biggest technical thing in the whole scene.

SkyWay

Working until the last minute:

SkyWay

Haven't shown a lot from inside Blender, let's rectify that a bit:

SkyWay

Eheheh sleep deprivation:

ikarus

Fast 3D renders, concepts and blockouts.

SkyWay

Final shots:






Thanks for the experience, good times were had