Alien: Isolation inspired environment

razz

Hi!

I've started a new piece and it's going to be an environment this time. My goal is to learn more about UE4, so the final would obviously be done in there. My aim for quality is something like THIS and THIS, so get your whips out and let me know where I need to push myself.

I'm yet to pick a concept to go after (open to suggestions), so I've just started with the save station. Here's a high poly from marmoset.

TheWalkerGod

I mean if it's an alien isolation inspired environment, why don't you look at concept art for alien isolation:

http://www.avpgalaxy.net/2014/10/08/new-alien-isolation-concept-released/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/392516923750610214/ (looks cool)

Anyway if you're doing a full environment wouldn't you normally start with a blockout as opposed to individual props?

razz

TheWalkerGod, I did look at concept art for it, just haven't picked one to go after. In fact, there's some really cool environments in the game itself that I haven't seen concept art of, that's why I'm undecided what to go after, but I guess going after concept art might be a better idea. I didn't start with the block-in, because, as I said before, I need to pick a concept first. Good points, though, I shouldn't just rush into it, but work on it the usual way. I'll get to it; concept and block-in next.

razz

I'm running into a little issue here.

There must be some simple fix that I am not aware of. When I smooth normals on everything i get this nasty artifact on sharp edges. I can get rid of by hardening those edges or adding more loops around it, but both are things I don't want to do, cause hard edges look bad with normal maps applied (right?) and more loops mean more unnecessary polygons.

What am I doing wrong?

I will make a graffiti in the texture of the name of whoever gives me an answer. Thanks!

threedeeme

Looks to me like a UV/Texture issue.

Hit UNFOLD in the UV texture editor.

noosence

Normal maps shouldn't look bad with hard edges, just make sure your hard edges lie on UV Island edges, and have plenty of space in between them within UV space. In my opinion both of the edges on that area should be hard, with the front faces being a separate UV island.

xChris

Choose the verts along that line and go to Normals -> unlock normals, that should fix it, if you already did a lot to your smoothing groups you might have to do it again.

razz

Threedeeme, the mesh is UVed completely, so it wouldn't be just that.

Noosence, hard edges on UV seams looks like the way to go. That means though that wherever I have a 90 degree or less angle I would need a UV seam there, no? Otherwise soft normals won't look right and hard ones won't work well with normal maps. I'm yet to play around with this + normal maps to figure it out completely, but I did some digging around and it seems the way to do it.

xChris, unlocking normals fixes a bit of a different issue, I tried before and it didn't help with this one, unfortunately.


Thank you everyone for the help! I'll play around with it and get back soon.

huffer

The edge of faces looks like that because of Maya's Angle and area Weighted vertex normals algorithm, you can keep it like that, and bake a normal map that will fix the shading issue (albeit with a heavy gradient), add a hard edge, or change to Unweighted normals (or maybe angle weighted), the artifact will be less prononunced. Ideally you should have a hard edge there (or even a bevel).

razz

Huffer, thanks! Hard edges in those places was the solution I needed. I'm glad I chose to work on this, learning a lot ;]


So, some hardening of edges, UV readjustment and I can continue on. I'll have to rebake the maps, because some of the edges are way too sharp in the high poly, but overall the hard edge + UV seam in that place works fine. Thank you again everyone for quickly helping me out.
Here's a screenshot from Substance with quick base colors dropped in. I'll make a nicer preview once I'm further ahead with it and not working into the night. Off to sleep now.

razz

Update. Put it into Marmoset here before I finally move on to UE4. Some stuff didn't transfer correctly, looks too glossy. Lots of little things to work on. Looking forward to adding all the writing, that should make it look more lively.

Feedback much appreciated

xChris

Glad hardening the edges worked, my critique now would be making the roughness of the exposed/wethered metal a little more apparent than the paint, and bumping up the normal so it'll look like cracked paint. The reference you posted has a lot to do with the roughness, and roughness is king when it comes down to this stuff, so keep on iterating on that . Also just for reference, there's a neat instagram with just a bunch of payphones on it, thought it be something you'd probably like to look at for ideas. https://instagram.com/payphones/

razz

Thanks, xChris. I'm going to do a pass on roughness to make sure it's where I want it to be and check the rest of the things as well. Haha, who knew there's an instagram just for that. The one I'm making is straight from Alien: Isolation, so I'm not doing any design myself, but I'll definitely take a look at it for inspiration.


Here's a little update before I'm gone for a little bit. I'm super busy for a few weeks (making 3D stuff for others). I'll hang around the forum, but it's very likely I won't update this until mid November. Apologies for that.

FactoriesBurning

On the issue of softening all the edges, I usually select and soften all of the edges (not the object) and then do filter selection based on angle to isolate the edges that are closer to 90 degrees and harden those. definitely beats going in manually and selecting every hard edge. 

razz

Thanks, Factoriesburning. I can see that working, however UVs then need to be adjusted accordingly so in the end one would be selecting those edges anyway to make a seam there, no? Automatic stuff like that is nice, but I do like to go in and make sure everything is correct.

I'm done with the heavy workload, so I'll be back to working on this!

razz

Alright, so I've decided to keep this project as a prop only. Tons of things to learn before I can delve into a full environment and be happy with it.

Here's where it stands.

razz

Here's the Artstation link to a 3D preview. I'm off to search for new adventures!

Ged

good quality finish on that prop anyway, well done perhaps choose a small environment eg 1 small room or a corridor segment that can be duplicated

razz

Thanks, GED! I'm sure going to tone it down and create something that wouldn't take half a year ;]

Slow reply, my bad, but a lot has been going on. I graduated and my graduation film is finally out! I'll leave a link at some appropriate place on the forum, but HERE it is for now.

marks

Your metals look very clean maybe dirty them up a bit.

razz

marks said:

Your metals look very clean maybe dirty them up a bit.

Forgive me for taking so long to reply.  I'll admit, I didn't want to overdo it. Too often I see (and do) super dirty, scratched and old looking materials, so I did want something more clean. I understand it stands out, though, and thank you for pointing it out.
Appreciate you stopping by!

3dReaper

I think your material definition is excellent, and your metals are fine dont dirty them up.

I would add some AO to the phone cord.

Great work.