[UE4] Deus Ex Corporate Office

FULGORE

So, right after the Mankind Divided trailer, I immediately went home and made a start on a little side-project :P
And once again I'm bowing to peer pressure and putting up a thread for it. Fairly happy with the lighting (aw yeah chiaroscuro) and trying to maintain that balance of realistically modern meets renaissance ideals.

I'm paying all my attention to the black-and-gold office space, but where the wall panel opens up I want to make a small panic room (a bit like Sandoval's bunker, but nicer, because Sarif).

Pay no attention to the floating cushion..

Wide shot:


Some assets:

locater16

Nice start! The black chair material looks... undefined. Is it supposed to be metal? Shiny plastic? Why would you put that on a chair or any furniture other than to be incredibly uncomfortable?

But I like the initial blockout and lighting pass, keep going!

underfox

I agree with the chair looking undefined design wise.

Other than this. This environment really has something already. Keep it up, this has potential to be something really interesting.

FULGORE

The chair or the sofa?
The chair is form this ref:

EDIT: Just got some in-person crits, I see the differences between my chair and the ref If I get the time tonight I'll make some adjustments and see how it looks with a proper normal map instead of smoothing & normals trickery

beefaroni

Subb'd to this for sure! Looks like an awesome start.

I agree with the chair looking a bit more plastic than leather (or whatever material it's supposed to be). But it sounds like you have that figured out.

FULGORE

ADjusted the chair, still working on making the leather more believable (harder than I thought..)

I gave the shadows a bluer tint, reduced the bloom, got rid of lens flares (excuse the lowres shot)


And I've been working a few different assets:

locater16

I liked the lensflares But then I didn't mind them in Star Trek either.

One note, on the sticky notes of your last picture, they don't look connected to the wall at all. Turn on SSAO maybe? Either way they're missing they're not recieving the lightmap shadows properly and so stick out a lot.

FULGORE

I'm hoping the sticky notes will sort themselves out once they have actual UVs. Here's hoping.. they seem to be too tiny for the AO to pick up on

And I just realised after taking a highres shot that the "shadows" below the TVs are from a decal I forgot I had placed.. -__-

Anyway, highres of it so far, I think putting the main desk at a slight angle has helped composition a bit:

FULGORE

Trying out a different kind of desk, a more traditional chunky wooden one (but I'd like to have the top of the desk Master Control Program style)

teho

love the props! keep it up.

MisterSande

loving this so far man, great job.

If I had to critique one point then it would be that the lighting is too uniform as of now. I think the scene will be allot better with some blue hues to contrast all the yellow goodness you have going on.

Snefer

Is this all your own designs? Extremely promising.

megalmn2000

Woah! I love it already!

FULGORE

Thanks all

I have a blue tint to the shadows, more noticeable at the back of the room near the door, but I might see if I can re-colour some of the other light sources or something

@Snefer - mostly at least - I wanted to make what a Sarif office would be like in the timeline of Mankind Divided

Also, since a lot of the official art for Mankind Divided differs subtly from Human Revolution (mostly in furniture and colours) I think I'll try changing the hanging lights from LIMB clinic-ish ones I have to clustered tube lights with hanging cables - think the music videos for Muse's Undisclosed Desires or Nero's The Thrill:

Minos

Looking great so far, really cool designs

Snefer

Nice, nailing it.

Shrike

assets looking nice but be careful with your composition, currently everything has a lot of detail and contrast, and its all equally important and detailed , theres a lot of information and it starts getting noisy and overwhelming. Maybe chose a clear point of interest and turn off some lights.
You have gold there, shiny glass, bright TVs, strong artworks on the wall, many lights, glowing floors.. its a lot competing for attention, bringing in a hierarchy can make it a lot nicer

altermind

I want to like this.. I really do.. but my eyes feel confused... the shapes don't feel separate or distinct... lighting is interesting tho

FULGORE

I had a think about the composition and lights, plus the light saturated wood was bugging me (and turning the indirect light orange instead of gold..)
So I took inspiration from the layout of a meeting room in the Picus building - trying out a new, simpler layout:


Better? Worse? Is bacon overrated?

(and I scaled the desk prop by .5 on one axis and duplicated as a placeholder for a more boardroom-esque long table, or maybe a modular table)