[UE4] Oasis [WIP]

Nomad6

Good day, Polycount!

For my college exam, i have been tasked to created an intro/menu screen for a fictional game in UE4.
It is only meant as a menu screen so the environment is limited to what you can see in the video.
The given theme was 'Red rocks with flora and water'. Quite a lot of freedom, as you can see.
We have to make the bulk of the assets ourselves. No marketplace stuff allowed. Just the template stuff that comes with a new UE4 project.
I feel i'm nearly done with this one and i need to start working on other things so i figured i'd post some stuff here to get some feedback on it all.

Video link so you can see it all in action. Vimeo did butcher the quality a bit
https://vimeo.com/136189320

And some pictures of the bigger assets.







I probably forgot to mention a bunch of things but if there are any questions or feedback of any kind, i'm all ears!
Grtz

Goeddy

the vid looks cool, just a quick tip though:
don't ask for feedback when you are already done anyways... i mean realy hows that gonna help?

Nomad6

Hi Goeddy
I'm planning on using the same assets for a larger collaboration project later on.
There would be room for adjustments by then, just not for my exam.
Should have mentioned that, come to think of it.

Even if this would be a finalized project, having the points of improvement pointed out might keep me from making the same mistake again in the future.

Swarm22

It's never too late to ask for feedback, pay him no mind Nomad.

I really like the rocks in that first image, but in comparison the others look very soft and blobby. You should try and get that same hard edge rocky look from those first rocks into the others.

EpicBeardMan

Hey, nice job.
I really like how the rough rocks look. But, these smooth rocks seem a bit off to me, I'm not really quiet sure what is it. Could you show us the reference for those smooth rocks. And that small tree/bush looks great.

Cheers!

Bummer6

Goeddy wrote: »

the vid looks cool, just a quick tip though:
don't ask for feedback when you are already done anyways... i mean realy hows that gonna help?

Oh, I don't know... Maybe he doesn't want to repeat the same mistake if he ever feels like making a 3D model again?


As for the oasis; I like it! I don't have much experience with enviornments, but from what I can see it looks pretty darn promising.

Nomad6

Hi guys!
Thanks for the feedback and kind words!

I'll try to clarify the idea behind the 'blobby' rocks.
The idea was to create some kind of a gradient using 3 types of rock.
The blobby ones were meant to function as rocks eroded away due to water flow.
Then i would have a transition zone that would give a smoother transition between the blobby and crispy rocks.





The biggest problem, imo, is the scale of those rocks. Making a larger rock face instead of a collection of smaller rocks might have done it more justice.

Zerreth

Hi, I was the other guy next in line you saw at the Exam btw.

I think it looks really nice especially with the limited amount of assets you have. The birds are a very nice touch which helps to sell the atmosphere.

AS you said yourself, the scale of some of the assets are the biggest problem.

I went for the huge models using a medium detail normal and then using a tileable base color with another normal applied to it in world space coords so I could rotate the mesh and reuse it as much as possible. Even then texture density was still a problem and it still felt like the cliff face was pieced together instead of it being one continuous surface.

I think the solution is making a series of tileable square rock faces that can conform to a spline. That would make it like a perfect seamless cliff. And texture wise just use a bunch of masks so you can put enough variation in it so you don't see it repeat anywhere.

FYI, Lex if you're reading this, Art wise it was not my best work, but I'll let my work speak for itself over the coming years now that I've Graduated I've got a couple of projects in the pipeline that are already way way cooler.