[UE4] Great Western Railway

Kazperstan

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Latest



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Hey!
So for a while now I've been wanting to do an outdoor scene, and with all the work being done on lighting and foliage around here as of late, I figured it was about time!

My dad is an avid steam train guy and although I'm not nearly as knowledgeable on them, he has passed on a bit of that love of steam to me! We often went up to the severn valley railway as well as me watching him make his model railways over the years. I thought it would be nice to create a little scene based around the Great Western locomotives as those are his favourite and hopefully let him have a little fly around.. if he doesn't get frustrated at a mouse and keyboard / controller again..

For anyone interested in the Locomotives here are some awesome links to check out (If i find anything else cool I'll add to the list):

Blueprints:
http://www.greatwestern.org.uk/loco_draw.htm
http://www.champwilde.f9.co.uk/gwdrawings/locoindex.html

Videos:
Close up footage of the King George V - King Class
[ame]

Castle 5043 'Earl of Mount Edgcumbe'
[ame]

Books:
Castle Class Owners Manual http://www.haynes.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=60419&langId=-1


So right now I'm just doing a lot of tests and setting up foliage and lighting based of Alexander's latest work (thanks for your breakdowns! you are awesome! ) as well as setting up some basic blueprints to make life easier when doing the blockouts.

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Mesh Spline Blueprint

Substance Wood

Auldbenkenobi

How did you achieve that Railway spline technique? Doing a desert scene myself and I'd like a road running through it, but I'm not sure how I'd do it.

3DKyle

Auldbenkenobi wrote: »

How did you achieve that Railway spline technique? Doing a desert scene myself and I'd like a road running through it, but I'm not sure how I'd do it.

You can find information on it in the UE4 Docs and tutorials.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Resources/ContentExamples/Blueprint_Splines/index.html

Also subbed and look forward to seeing more

A-N-P

Looking good so far. Grass and wood texture look nice

Sub'd.

Auldbenkenobi

Cheers, Kyle

Makkon

Did you ever find out if spline meshes were supported by the new Ray Traced Distance Field Soft Shadows?

Kazperstan

Auldbenkenobi wrote: »

How did you achieve that Railway spline technique? Doing a desert scene myself and I'd like a road running through it, but I'm not sure how I'd do it.

This guy has a good short series on Mesh Along Spline stuff
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsr0XGfHV8M[/ame]

Makkon wrote: »

Did you ever find out if spline meshes were supported by the new Ray Traced Distance Field Soft Shadows?

It looks like it still only supports Static from what I can gather from their Docs. Although foliage is now!

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/RayTracedDistanceFieldShadowing/index.html#quality




"Limitations

The limitations of this technique are similar to Distance Field Ambient Occlusion's limitations:

Only Static Mesh components, Instanced Static Mesh components and foliage (once "Affect Distance Field Lighting" has been enabled) generate distance fields and can cast shadows. However, skeletal meshes can still composite their shadows with 'Cast Inset Shadow'. Landscape is best handled with Far cascades enabled by "Far Shadow Cascade Count".
Only slight non-uniform scaling (squishing) of meshes is supported. Artifacts in the penumbras will appear with higher amounts of mesh squishing.
Deformation through World Position Offset or Tessellation cannot be represented and may cause self-shadowing artifacts. It can be useful to use CSM to cover areas near the viewer to support vertex animation while using Ray Traced shadows in the distance."

ScottHoneycutt

Watching and learning. I like the wood. Outdoor stuff is something I need to work on myself.

Kazperstan

I've been doing some more tests for stuff to make life easier later, this time its a Leaf+Branch generator in substance.

I've got the basics down of generating the leaves and branch then getting the leaves to place on the Branch. Now I just need to clean it up and make it look a bit better, then I want to see how many different types of branches and leaves I can get out of it!



Substance Graph Here

Kazperstan

Decided to ditch the branch generation in substance as I found its quicker just to jump straight to speed tree for that.

Basically about 20mins for set up then infinite trees ahoy!

I didn't spend much time in the speed tree part so there is a few floaty cards, but its damn quick to get something in now

[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUyhk8VjNkk&[/ame]

Kazperstan

Double post... but managed to fix the floaty leaf cards and had a play with lighting again:


I think I have a good foliage/tree workflow down now so will be making a start on the actual scene huzzah.

Schwarts

Subbed, always love the work you do, can't wait to see how this one turns out!

Kazperstan

Thanks Schwarts!

Just blocking things out with placeholder assets:

Mathew O

This is looking really good, kicking ass

Kazperstan

Mathew O wrote: »

This is looking really good, kicking ass

Cheers Matt!

I've been able to substance on the train to work now and have been doing some bark for the tree's:

CandyStripes05

wow nice scene setup

PaulP

Nice work, I particularly like the birch! Could be cool to get a set up of the birch with these 'eye' shapes you often see in them:
http://www.featurepics.com/FI/Thumb300/20070729/Birch-Tree-Looking-You-395440.jpg
http://www.rbge.org.uk/assets/images/Paxton_Birch%20Bark.jpg

PogoP

Looking kewl Karen! Nice Substances! And the grass is feeling really nice and lush too, good job!

What's the story with the train here? Why's it stopped?

XIII

If you're after reference for railway track I have a stupid amount of photos on my flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelwhiteley/sets/72157627191120357

Loads of other tarin stuff as well:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelwhiteley/albums

- Mike
www.alligatorskies.co.uk

Kazperstan

@Paul Cheers! I'll give it a go

@Liam I actually want the train to be "moving" so will be doing some steam etc. Also need to vary the track as at the moment all the wood just sits at the same level.

@Mike Nice! thanks for that, I take it that's from the Museum in York? Nice planes to! I'll swap you for some Tanks http://kazperstan.co.uk/resources/

Kazperstan

Update on the Birch Bark:

PaulP

Ooh nice, eye like it! ;p

Kazperstan

Now the excitement of E3 is over, (and website maintenance because things like to break when you update it seems) figured it was time to get back to this!
I had a few people ask for a breakdown of the Tree bark so here it is:

http://i.imgur.com/NWPX1c3.jpg (Its huge so I wont embed)

Hi res and other things here: http://kazperstan.co.uk/tutorials-2/

Kazperstan

Random Quick Idea that popped into my head whilst making some Mud Textures for this:


There is a marmo viewer version to on artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/muddy-worm-substance-designer

Kazperstan

Made a start on the Trains High Poly - Still a lot to do

Kazperstan

Finished up the high for the loco. Carriages next!

Kazperstan

not dead yet, had a busy month but finishing off these highpolys, looking forward to texturing

EpicBeardMan

Great work on those highpoly train parts. I'm waiting to see how will materials turn out.

Cheers, mate!

Cube Republic

Grandpa was a fitter on the North East line in Darlington. Worked on the Flying Scotsman etc. Spent much time at different steam lines around UK when I was a kid.

3DKyle

Great stuff Kaz, looking forward to more. How you planning on going about your texturing?

Poinball

Nice man ! Really like your work

foreverlost

It'll be great to see where you take this.

amirabd2130

nice :thumbup:
looking forward to this

Kazperstan

Hey, long time no see...
Finally got round to starting baking and doing the blockout texturing of the Loco. Need to bake the back end and carriages next.

BenjaminoFree

bootiful

Kazperstan

Texture First Pass! and also comp. because I got distracted by photoshop.

EpicBeardMan

Nice details. Get some grease here and there, and you're good

Cheers, mate!

Micaki

Nice and clean, maybe even too clean at some places but its looking awesome.

Jack M.

You never cease to amaze Kazperstan. Looking forward to seeing this in it's final form.

Tim Lewis

The train parts are looking great! Can't wait to see it finished.

JoshWilkinson

oh i'm absolutely subscribing

Kazperstan

Cheers guys, Random quick update but worked a little more on the details of the textures between bakes

Kazperstan

Decided to boot up UE4 this evening and start importing in the train parts. Need to do some more work on the carriages and front end of the loco. I’m also intending to re-make all the foliage and build a better scene soon as this was my test bed for everything, hence the tracks are all out of whack now. 

Ged

that looks pretty damn awesome already, I used to walk past the great western steam museum in swindon on my way to uni haha

pinkbubblegum

Wooooaaa. That looks awesome! Super nice work on the train so far though * u *

Also that spline-mesh technique's really cool O:

Mathew O

I love it, it's looking really nice. Maybe you could create some openings in the trees so that the train receives less of the shadows from the leaves / branches. At the moment I think they make the sides of the carriages and the front of the locomotive noisier and I find it harder for my eyes settle on a nice, well crafted part of the train

Kazperstan

Cheers guys,

Mathew O said:

I love it, it's looking really nice. Maybe you could create some openings in the trees so that the train receives less of the shadows from the leaves / branches. At the moment I think they make the sides of the carriages and the front of the locomotive noisier and I find it harder for my eyes settle on a nice, well crafted part of the train

Thanks Mat Yea I agree with you on that, I feel like my tweaking has broken the lighting a bit so I'll give it a re-shuffle.

Quick material for today after work:

Jack M.

Looks amazing!

Only crit I have is I think the leaves could use a little more color variation. Right now it's looking pretty uniform overall. 

R00

Great work Kaz! Really digging those substance materials, keep up the great work  

GreyDesigns

Great work, everything looks amazing.

ram3d

this is so amazing man (Y)