[UE4] Steven Universe Beach City Environment

Synyster

Hey everyone!

It's been a while since I've posted my stuff on here. I've been in a bit of a slump so I'm hoping to get a lot of feedback that'll help push my skills further.

I've decided to take on re-creating all of beach city from Steven Universe. I'll be throwing everything in UE4 to render. I'm hoping to even get a build to be released for people to explore the environment.

For those of you don't know Steven Universe here are a few reference pieces:





I have a whole pinterest board here for those that want to see more of my references:
Beach City Reference Board

Here's my first blockout of the environment in UE4:


This is going to be a big project but it can be broken into a lot of smaller pieces. There are 4 main sections that are points of interest:

• The big hill + statue
• Beach city
• Mountains and cliffs that surround beach city
• The ocean

At this stage I'm just trying to make sure the scaling and proportions are all in place. Off the bat, the hill seems a bit small compared to the reference so I'll be adjusting that on my next update.

Next action items:

• Use 3rd person player to walkthrough the environment to ensure the scale is correct
• Compare various parts of the environment to references
• Fix the scale of the Hill and Statue

Any feedback or advice is well appreciated!
Cheers!

Tectonic

I'm excited to see how this progresses! Steven Universe is a great show.

Robert_H

It is looking cool so far can't wait to see it finished! I do have one point to make, in the first picture the background hill is a lot shallower than in your block out. It seems like more of a 30 degree sloop, I haven't seen Steven Universe before so it could be different from the top picture but just thought I would say

Synyster

Hey everyone!
I've been really busy but I decided to pick this environment back up and I'm determined to finish it. Here are some progress shots of where it is at the moment. Trying to knock out this first half of the environment first before moving to the city section. Been chipping away at it this week so it's still an early WIP but any feedback and crits are appreciated
Cheers!

Synyster

Hey everyone,

Just posting up a few progress shots from over the weekend. I've been starting to work on the ocean shader a little bit (Still early but starting to figure out how I want to make this ocean look), start knocking out the rest of the hands for the shrine, and test out scaling and collision. Ultimately I want the player to be able to freely move throughout this environment with as little camera issues as possible. Any crits or feedback is appreciated
Cheers!

Synyster

Hey everyone!
I just finished up a blockout of the interior of the house. I tested it in UE4 already. The scaling is pretty close just a few minor tweaks and the camera works well within the space. Here's a link to my tweet that has the character running within the space on video. I'm pretty happy with this to be able to move on to the next phase of this house. I'm looking forward to making this space look good!
So far I've been doing some good progress on this everyday and if I keep it up I'll start updating this thread everyday as well.
As always, any crits and feedback are always appreciated.  
Cheers,

Sam Leheny

What a fabulous idea! It's all going to come down the render style, but it looks like you have that covered;D

Synyster

Thanks! I agree though. Once all the pieces are set in place then I'll be able to work on touching up some core pieces, shaders, and lighting that will really bring the whole thing together.

aaronhiggins

Would love to see a video or something to get a better sense of scale. Very excited to see how this turns out, the setting is beautiful.

Synyster

I posted a link to my tweet that had the video but I might as well upload it to YouTube as well. I just made a YouTube so I'll start uploading more videos from here on out
https://youtu.be/5YiEI4Qdeaw

Kid.in.the.Dark

really digging this atm, subbed

Synyster

Thanks for the sub @Kid.in.the.Dark !  
Sorry for the lack of updates guys. I've been feeling under the weather the past couple of days so I decided to take a small break to recover. I have a feeling it was the GDC plague. 
Nonetheless, I'm still chipping away at modeling the whole house. I should be wrapped up with getting all the props and set pieces in place tonight. 

Tectonic

keep at it

Synyster

Thanks @Tectonic   
I feel pretty good where this house is at the moment and I'm ready to start getting down to some textures, materials, bakes, and collision. I'm really looking forward to start giving each piece of this house the love and attention it deserves. I went ahead and did another video capture to show the space for scale. The collision isn't final so the camera still clips at specific locations. 

https://youtu.be/3vGfgzbxDpg

and here's some screens if you don't feel like watching the video.

yurid9

Its looking good Sam. I am interested to see how you are gonna tackle the distinctive rendering style.

Synyster

Thanks Akash! Nailing the rendering style is going to be somewhat new to me but I'm invested in it already. I'm not 100% sure if I'm going to match the concepts with a sort of cell shaded look or if I'll try to give it more of a Pixar look, but I'll be doing some tests to see what will work best for this scene. 

I've been wrapping up the deck patio/porch section of the house. I decided to use this to work on the shader a bit and I'm so far liking the results. I'm basically using the vector from the mesh to lerp between a "shadow color" and the albedo. 


Here's a better example that I've been experimenting with inside the house. The blue is representing the "shadow color" while the yellow is the regular albedo. 


As always, feel free to leave and feedback or critiques. It's all greatly appreciated  
Cheers,

Synyster

Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates. I took a small break and I've been slowly chipping away at this. Also been looking into teaching myself some new programs. I plan on learning Marvelous designer to create some of the fabric assets (Blanket, laundry assets, ect) and I'm also looking into learning some Apex cloth properties for the clothes that are pinned to a clothesline. Hoping to show some progress really soon! 
Cheers,

Kid.in.the.Dark

Having looked at the new update I think one thing that's called my attention is the extremely long wooden planked floors... are you planning to keep it that way? or is it just a placeholder for now? If anything I'd say break up those wooden planks into segments.

Good call on Marvelous Designer btw, it's a lovely program and totally worth learning (Y).

Kid.

bkost

Hey Synster, it is coming along. This is a rather large project but keep chipping away at it piece by piece! I look forward to seeing more of your texture work, and I'm interested to see how you will achieve the cartoon effect if you plan to mimic the show art style. 

I would imagine the cell shading, cartoon style would largely be through a node system and not the texture maps themselves.. 
Check out this experimental toon shading thread! - https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?306-trying-to-make-Toon-Shader-Material-on-UE4/page3

Synyster

Thanks for the feedback @Kid.in.the.Dark The planks are all long atm. Was trying to follow the concept but I think breaking them up would visually be more appealing and honestly would function better realistically.  

@bkost Yeah, in my head I didn't expect it to be such a big project but it's a lot bigger than I anticipated. I'm still super determined to get it done though. As I start chipping away at these indoor props I'll be showing off some more of the texture work and shading. also thanks for the forum thread on toon shading! It'll definitely help me out

Super looking forward to posting more progress shots over the weekend 

Synyster

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of updates. I haven't really felt like I've made any significant leaps that have been wanting me to post but I should keep up with making sure this is up to date. I've recently decided to make sure I nail the look of how the outside space of the scene looks before working on the inside of the house. So I started texturing in Substance Designer for the exterior of the house.

I also messed around with Marvelous designer and Apex cloth to really get a feel of how I could make clothes hanging up to dry in the scene. I also decided to go back to my original shrine sculpt to make it feel a bit more like a rock surface. Lowpoly and bakes are all done already done for it. I plan on texturing it in Substance painter soon. (Highpoly below) 


I'll try to post more when I can As always though, feedback and critiques are always welcomed! Cheers!

Cadellinman

Synyster said:

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of updates. I haven't really felt like I've made any significant leaps that have been wanting me to post but I should keep up with making sure this is up to date. I've recently decided to make sure I nail the look of how the outside space of the scene looks before working on the inside of the house. So I started texturing in Substance Designer for the exterior of the house.

Hey Synyster; I stumbled across this while I was about to start a similar project. I built the beachhead and temple in Unity 5 a few months ago and was more or less planning on porting the assets across and continuing within Unreal. Some screenshots from my Unity version:

Would you be interested in perhaps merging the two projects? With our combined assets, we should have a really tasty project on our hands.