Metroid Fan Environment - Chozo Temple WIP
Hello! I've started a new environment, sort of a fan-fiction of what a new Chozo temple could look like in the Metroid Prime universe if I was assigned to build it!
Sorry if I make some new member mistakes; I haven't been a part of a forum community for a long time, and I joined here on Polycount specifically to share this WIP, and I'm scared out of my mind to actually show my work since now everyone who used to respect me will see that most of my work belongs in a landfill somewhere. But through the end of the month, my schedule is totally clear except to work on this project, and I want as much feedback as I can get, from consistency with Metroid lore and canon to good design and prop modeling technique! I'd like to thank in advance everyone who takes the time to dive into this project with me, even if it's just a passing remark of something you like or hate about it.
I want to really focus on creating a meaningful and appealing temple that stands on its own as something that can captivate and inspire people by its imagery and symbolism, even if they have no idea what Metroid is or who the Chozo are. And at the same time, I want it to resonate with the imaginations of fans of the series who have grown up being shaped by the many different aspects of the Metroid universe which have fused with who we are as people and as Nintendo gamers!
Realistically, I don't expect to finish this project completely. But I hope to at least polish up the main shot of the Chozo at the head of the room, and to have the rest of it blocked in to get a feel for the space and layout.
Anyway, enough running my mouth (or fingers?), I want to show some pictures! Here is the basic concept map I'm following. I'm definitely not a strong concept artist, so it's all open for refinement. I wish I could have posted these sooner, since I've committed to some progress while waiting for my account here to be activated.
The main visual composition I want to focus on is at the head of the temple room, where statues of the Chozo depict the iconic item-holding Chozo Elder statue, surrounded by sons and servants with various comments and symbolism. I want the visual mood to generally allude to the Chozo Ruins on Tallon IV, but not so closely that it is assumed to be a remake of the same temple by the same group of Chozo.
My goal is a symbolism-rich environment that heavily emphasizes contemplation and spirituality of discovery. The heart of this piece is the focus on a prophecy that the Chozo will need to aid the coming Warrior in the restoration of peace for the land. Right now I haven't thought very far into what the Chozo might be so desperately needing peace from, so it's just a generic motivation at the moment, but it would be fun if I could get some ideas on what could be happening in the world around this temple, to inform the type wear and tear when I start building the final props.
May 6 update:
Beginning the graybox model. Not worried at all about topology on this, just getting a feel for the space so I can quickly and easily make proportion and layout changes:
Did a quick sketch-over to see some of the statues in the front of the room, and decided I needed to make a couple changes and notes for the final model:
Here's my scale reference biped. His name is Matt, short for Mattroid, and don't you DARE mistake him for Samus! He's an individual, and he's valuable and irreplaceable just like anyone else. As his pose makes obvious, he used to be a soccer referee, and handed out more red cards than anyone...so... yeah I'm never going to get a job, am I?
Sorry if I make some new member mistakes; I haven't been a part of a forum community for a long time, and I joined here on Polycount specifically to share this WIP, and I'm scared out of my mind to actually show my work since now everyone who used to respect me will see that most of my work belongs in a landfill somewhere. But through the end of the month, my schedule is totally clear except to work on this project, and I want as much feedback as I can get, from consistency with Metroid lore and canon to good design and prop modeling technique! I'd like to thank in advance everyone who takes the time to dive into this project with me, even if it's just a passing remark of something you like or hate about it.
I want to really focus on creating a meaningful and appealing temple that stands on its own as something that can captivate and inspire people by its imagery and symbolism, even if they have no idea what Metroid is or who the Chozo are. And at the same time, I want it to resonate with the imaginations of fans of the series who have grown up being shaped by the many different aspects of the Metroid universe which have fused with who we are as people and as Nintendo gamers!
Realistically, I don't expect to finish this project completely. But I hope to at least polish up the main shot of the Chozo at the head of the room, and to have the rest of it blocked in to get a feel for the space and layout.
Anyway, enough running my mouth (or fingers?), I want to show some pictures! Here is the basic concept map I'm following. I'm definitely not a strong concept artist, so it's all open for refinement. I wish I could have posted these sooner, since I've committed to some progress while waiting for my account here to be activated.
The main visual composition I want to focus on is at the head of the temple room, where statues of the Chozo depict the iconic item-holding Chozo Elder statue, surrounded by sons and servants with various comments and symbolism. I want the visual mood to generally allude to the Chozo Ruins on Tallon IV, but not so closely that it is assumed to be a remake of the same temple by the same group of Chozo.
My goal is a symbolism-rich environment that heavily emphasizes contemplation and spirituality of discovery. The heart of this piece is the focus on a prophecy that the Chozo will need to aid the coming Warrior in the restoration of peace for the land. Right now I haven't thought very far into what the Chozo might be so desperately needing peace from, so it's just a generic motivation at the moment, but it would be fun if I could get some ideas on what could be happening in the world around this temple, to inform the type wear and tear when I start building the final props.
May 6 update:
Beginning the graybox model. Not worried at all about topology on this, just getting a feel for the space so I can quickly and easily make proportion and layout changes:
Did a quick sketch-over to see some of the statues in the front of the room, and decided I needed to make a couple changes and notes for the final model:
Here's my scale reference biped. His name is Matt, short for Mattroid, and don't you DARE mistake him for Samus! He's an individual, and he's valuable and irreplaceable just like anyone else. As his pose makes obvious, he used to be a soccer referee, and handed out more red cards than anyone...so... yeah I'm never going to get a job, am I?
Replies
I built the central tower with a lot of verticality, since the small overall room size was a little bit claustrophobic. I think I might have a beam of sunlight shine through the circular window at the top? It might create a cool effect if the bloom and light rays interact with a hanging sculpture there.
Reverse view of the entrance of the temple. Up top is where Samus, or Matt, will be able to access the switch via Spider Ball tracks that will unlock the doors. Not sure why Samus would need to be locked inside a power-up room though, since a mobility upgrade would automatically create a "locked-door" effect anyway by being able to access new paths.
The bird statues at the ends of the Hall of Privation and Plenitude were looking too squatty from the concept, so I changed the ends so they have a more grand presence that fills the space better.
I don't have any good ideas for what to do near the high part of the ceiling. (This is the view looking up, above the circular window the sunbeam will come in through) I like the idea of a depiction of the whole person: of body, mind, and spirit coming together but symbolized through images of earth, technology, and eternity. If I go with something generic like that, I want to keep it toned back as a part of the architecture, or maybe just a relief in the ceiling so it doesn't draw attention. But the player's attention is drawn up there anyway, so it's a good spot to make something really cool!
So now it's time to ramp up the originality. I'm no longer going for a recognizable Chozo environment in any way, and all the symbolism is banished to trash land. It's just going to be an item upgrade room, and this will be in a totally imaginary game where Samus has gone all crazy tribal, slightly more cartoony, and has mysterious tiger stripes painted on her armor, and I want to reflect that in the environment as well.
Here's what I'm imagining Samus could look like. I wanted to run as far as I could from the drab, boring temple theme, and I want to supercharge it with lush colors and materials that feel like they could almost be made out of hard candy and chocolate.
Of course, my crappy painting skills hurt the drawing more than they really help, but it gives me a mood and a feeling to help make decisions in the environment. I wanted to move away from the superhero proportions of Samus in Prime, and go more in the "human-spaceman" proportions of the original Metroid. So the design is stockier and less airy and majestic than the Prime design. It also sucks compared to the Prime design, so yeah...
The preliminary block-in in Max:
And what it's turning into in ZBrush (Still just concepting phase):
The Chozo statue is far from complete, but I laughed out loud when I went back in my history and saw the shape I started with. "I was so young and naive an hour and a half ago," I smugly thought to myself.
I await to see how will your aporach to developing this scene be.
Good luck!
Cheers!
Here's the final concept sculpt from ZBrush. I don't plan to stick to these shapes perfectly, but at least now I have most of the spacial questions answered so I can jump into the more deliberate modeling in Max. I'm really happy with how much easier the block-in process was in ZBrush rather than in Max. Instead of carefully cutting edges and poly-modeling every surface curve and shape, I could toss some cubes down, dynamesh them together, and immediately start working totally freely on forms and resolve how the elements of the drawing fit together in 3D space.
From there, I needed a starting point for my modeling, and for me the easiest place to get some momentum going is to plan out all the reusable textures in the scene.
I've been watching movies while I work, to keep from getting distracted with other stuff around the house, and I don't want a movie that's so interesting that it distracts me on its own, so I've just been watching The Cat Returns over and over again. I think I just finished my 10th time through it. Natoru makes me laugh every single time, so he slipped into my texture page. This is probably one of the dumbest paragraphs I've ever written. I apologize.
Here are some screenshots of the tiling textures sculpted in ZBrush.
With the block-in and textures complete, I could jump in and start creating near-final geometry right away, which is really rewarding and helps keep the inspiration alive, instead of struggling to remain interested spending time on temporary geometry that I know will get replaced. I'm building over a frozen and semi-transparent block-in model, which is just the entire ZBrush model decimated down to about 200k polys. It loses most of the recognizable detail, but that actually helps me approach it loosely, so I at least have the opportunity to re-think some of the shapes a little more freely while I'm building the final geometry.
I thought the right-side wall looked boring, so I added an arched hallway that's all caved in and sand pouring out. I wonder if pros can make choices like this, or if there's usually so many people involved that it's best to just stick strictly to the approved concept? I think it would be fun to be able to just ad lib stuff on the fly like this.
It's all looking pretty orange! My next step will be to start adding plants and vines, to bring in some dark values and red accents.
There's a lot of orange in those textures at the moment. Are you going to keep the color scheme that way? Because I reckon this might end up conflicting with the blue lighting you plan on putting behind/around the chozo statue.
Anyay, I like the spin you put on the designs and can't wait to see your version of Samus in 3D.
DerRazputin, thanks for the color tip! I was gonna quit for the night, but after reading your post, I put in a little more time adjusting the lighting. I hoped the dark greens from the plants and the dark gray of the Chozo statue would balance out the heavy orange, but they didn't do enough, as you can see in this shot:
So I toned back the bright orange ambient light I was using and tried to compose a little bit of color across the scene to tie things together, and I think it helps, but now it's lost the warm atmosphere and there's nothing really juicy to boost the appeal back to that same level, so I'll work on it a little more to get it to look good, but this is where it's at so far:
Also, here are some shots of the Chozo Statue from Substance Painter. The model itself is okay, or at least it meets the quality of the rest of the environment, but the values of the texture variation really aren't working yet. I'm not sure what to do; I tried a few different ways to place different color gradients across the model, but nothing was working so I'll set that aside for a while. He doesn't have his energy ball or throne pieces yet. I haven't decided yet whether to sculpt them individually or use the tiling textures to quickly make them.
The statue still is reading just a little bit out of place, like stone cut from a completely different quarry, which could make sense logically, but I think it still looks weird for the statue to be so uniformly different from its environment. It needs some form of integration, especially near the bottom where it meets the ground.
I've also done a quick paintover emulating some potential lighting and atmosphere to move toward, including some sunbeam rays and pollen in the air, and I think the Chozo statue's ball looks a little cooler when it's a red-to-yellow gradient. I might ask some concept artists for advice on the colors, since I have so much trouble with color design. Every combination looks awesome in its own way, I can never decide what's best!
BradMyers82, thanks for the atmosphere advice. I tried some white beams instead of the yellow in the paintover, and they feel a lot more like natural sunlight coming through. That was a great suggestion! I tried toning the environment back a lot in the scene, but I ended up overdoing it again!
javi, I also tried to keep your advice in mind, but I'm not very good at artistic composition. My attempts to lead the eye tended to just turn into random brighter patches around the scene. Do you have any tips or advice on which places in my scene could become strategic points of interest or other things I can do to create an effective composition?
The atmosphere helps the scene feel less cluttered, but I need to tone it back; everything is hazy right now. It doesn't help that I'm kind of blinded by how cool it all looks in Unreal with normal maps and highlights, so I'm probably not making the best design decisions with it, and I think that's really showing in the heavy atmosphere and loss of dark areas.
Here's a shot of the Chozo Statue. I'm still not happy with it. The lighting helps, but it still just feels like a really boring surface type that doesn't fit at all in the environment. Maybe I'll take it into Substance Painter and see if I can do a little overhaul on it.
And this picture, just for no reason. The broken stone looks kind of mushy, doesn't it... Maybe I'll re-model some of that to give it a more crushed and crumbled feel. But the drainage hole in back looks intriguing! I wonder if Samus or Matt will be able to get a lil' morph ball action up in those tubez!
Hmm. I guess I'm a little discouraged with my work today. All the technical aspects have improved now that it's in Unreal, but stepping back and looking at it, I basically have three completely unrelated environments happening. I have a cool tropical Donkey Kong Country temple in the middle, there's an intense desert furnace on the right where the Chozo statue is sitting, and there's a crazy yellow zebra world on the left where the door is. It's just bad design, and while I knew it would eventually hit a wall when I chose to design my own concept instead of going with something designed by a professional concept artist, it just is a little depressing seeing it come together into a confusing half-statement.
But with my woes now documented here, I won't give up! Or maybe I'll give up, but not yet! There must be some things I can do to tie it together. I wonder if the bright yellow door is hurting more than it's helping? Maybe I should try making that out of darker metal or something. Ah, I'm just rambling. I'll be back with more pictures tomorrow!
I think the middle of the composition is currently the strongest, and that's because it has a clear separation between the foreground/middleground/background. I think taking that idea into the left and right sides of your composition will help with the cluttering and overall make your scene have more depth, regardless of the camera being setup as a side-scroller.
Another thing I want to point out is how monochrome the entire scene is. Everything exists within the red-yellow spectrum. Id challenge you to bring some complementary colors into the shadows, such as purple/dark blues/greens to really kick up of color variety. Should help with cluttering as well.
That's just my two cents though, look forward to seeing even more of your progress!
In the meantime, here's my final update for the day. I did a bunch of... stuff... zzz...zzz...
Just comparing this update to the last I saw its a tremendous improvement. Just keep going with it man, try implementing some of heyeye's advice and see where it leads you.
One thing you could try is a dark and cool foreground. "Ori and the blind forest" has some really awesome stylistic things they do for there game which is a side scroller as well. Id checkout some of their stuff for reference and maybe you will get some ideas.
Here is an example of a darker foreground from ori
I'm not sure if this would break from a particular style you are going for, but I think its really cool anyway.
BradMyers82, thanks for the picture! I checked out more of Ori and the Blind Forest- Wow!! Such incredible backgrounds and lighting! The colors might be different from what I'm going for, but the value patterns clarifying the foreground, play area, and background are really helpful. I think it's helping my environment a little to try out similar ideas.
Woah, Mstankow! Good to hear from you, and thanks for the awesome tip! I think it's crazy how even old Super Nintendo artwork, made with way less time and technology than today's games, can still demonstrate fundamentally appealing design so strongly that they end up equally appealing and immersive, if not more so, than the most impressive games out today. I think my environment definitely has lost some of that charm of simple clarity, so I tried darkening the foreground a little, but I don't think it's quite there yet. Although, using Unreal 4 with PBR textures and lighting displayed in High Definition is sort of a fundamental contradiction to the concept of simplicity. Haha!
Anyway, it seemed like the general consensus is to darken the foreground and expand the color palette, so I tried adding some purples and blues, and boosting the light on the platforms where the player can stand and walk. I also cleaned up some of the vines and junk near the middle of the screen, to hopefully make that area look a little more restful, since it was very confusing to make sense of the shapes going on there.
Pixelpatron, thanks for your tips too! As you can see, I added the yellow glowing door back in. At first I thought the yellow was hurting the scene composition, but after making a few changes, I think other things were causing the problem, and it's way cooler with the glowing door. I also made an entire new scene variation with the Chozo statue turned sideways at the end of the hallway. It's totally just hacked together, and I'm not sure what to think of it yet since it's such a deviation from the original design. The statue was never intended to be viewed from the side; it was built based on this front-facing screenshot. But it's kind of cool, and it's definitely more iconic as a Chozo statue from the side like that.
im just curious, there was someone on this forum that created a samus model which turned out pretty nice about 2 months ago, it wasnt too high poly and it would fit well in the scene. Would you be willing to ask that person to have their model replace the cutout version you have here? it wuold really help sell it
Love the colors and the fact that you stayed away from too dark values gives it an ethereal feel and almost painterly quality in some places.
Its awesome that you're not afraid to experiment and redo things if necessary.
It was good before, it's fantastic with the new lighting and foreground