[UE4] Desert Environment

Ubuska

Hello, polycounters. I started new UE4 environment.
This environment sat in desert, in city called Nazaralan.

My last UE4 environment could be found here: http://polycount.com/discussion/156578/ue4-cyberpunk-city-environment#latest

Here are some key references and blockout shots.
This time I started blockout phase straight in Modo, no Blender involved.

Indoor area, throne room.




Now, I'm struggling what texturing tool to use: 3DCoat or Substance Designer / Painter?
There will be lots of tiling texturing for floors and walls (bricks with sand).
I tried SD: made tesselation material and extruded bricks with height map, but I did not like the result - maybe I need more practice with this workflow.
I can go old-fashioned way: bake tiles and paint in 3DCoat. Then I can paint sand on top of floor texture (I made material functions (layers) in UE4) with vertex painting.
What do you guys suggest?

Ged

In my personal opinion that environment is too large, unless you have shed loads of free time I would suggest just making one part eg the hall or an entrance or a balcony scene etc. This would allow you to focus on quality and help you to show off great materials and impressive details. make the environment too large and you run the danger of making something epic in scale but mediocre in quality.

Ubuska

To be honest, I train myself in making large scale environments, but I can make impression of environment being big, but not actually big.
I think I can abandon the hall for sure because there a lot of stuff in there as I see it now. I'll think about balcony and entrance parts. I can abandon bottom balcony.

Higuy

I think if you abandon the hall area, and go for full exterior, you could definitely accomplish most of it by using some form of modular assets. I like the style and direction your taking it too, the blockout looks cool!

Ged

yeah thats a really good point higuy! being smart with modular assets could make a great exterior.

vbaguirov

HIGUY, great idea. Although it depends how long you wanna spend on this project 

Ubuska

Completed first asset - tower. I really enjoyed texturing in 3DCoat, so I think this is the way to go. I see some area for improvements in here - the corners are too sharp, I will add some bevels later.
I will try to get as much detail from highpoly as possible because for this asset I wasn't able to pull everything from highpoly because texture density wasn't high enough even when I unwrap 1/4 of the mesh. I need to think about more modular texturing approach. Maybe I need to use horizontally tiled textures and add a little bit of variation on top, we'll see.

Tim Lewis

I know I'm echoing what was said earlier, but trimming your scene down is probably the right move. Focus on making a really killer outdoor area. Also, thinking about your scene as a modular building kit will save you a lot time and let you focus more on creating quality assets.

TheKlu

Looking amazing!

PianoPolish

Really nice...! Just one question. What program did you use to create the models...? Looks like that you model them with a extremely facility..

Ubuska

Yep, I already breaked down my blockout to modular pieces.
I use Modo for modelling.

PianoPolish

Thanks for the answer... Well, for me everything looks really good. My only critic is the coconut palm tree, this tree cannot coexist in this kind of dry environments, try to model date palms for your scenes. In the scale of the map, I think there is not problem with that, I think everything is a matter of time and dedication that you want to invest in your project , and that's relative. I'm working on a oasis, later I will post some updates. I will follow this thread to see more updates. Good models...!

Ubuska

Small update - made arc and trim pieces
Wall and floor pieces on the way.

Ubuska

Made floor tileable asset, columns and wall (test)

Floor workflow was:
Modo: blockout -> Zbrush: sculpting and remesh -> Modo: bake -> 3DCoat: texturing

av0101

looking good but the tiles don't seem too be lineup(unless that's on purpose). Really like the archway.

Ubuska

Yep, this is intentional. However, I think It's too exaggerated, I'll flatten them a little.

Ubuska

Finished some buildings, bricks.
Rocks in screenshots are placeholders.

Ubuska

I wasn't happy with floor asset, so I made several more. Here's screenshot from ZBrush and textured assets in 3DCoat.
Second asset's details (ornaments, reliefs) made straight in 3DCoat using texture projection.


And some screenshots from engine.

gsokol

A couple things stood out to me here.  

1.  Your lighting is really harsh.  Your shadows are very dark, which are at odds with the bright sunshine/desert look you have going on here.  Maybe your bounce lighting is a bit weak?

2.  You put so much emphasis on the micro-details of that floor panel, but it gets almost completely lost once its baked and in-game.  If this is detail you want to stand out, I would suggest emphasizing that stronger in your textures.  Otherwise, I would suggest to be careful to not focus so much detail on things that will hardly be seen anyways.

3.  You have a lot of hard edged geo that is unflattering due to the harsh transition of light.  Your tower and the concrete supports are the worst offenders.  Beveling those edges to get a softer light transition and having a little bit of surface on the corner to catch some light will help substantially, in my opinion.


I think the concept is pretty cool!  Your reference and blockout are fun.  I'm looking forward to seeing where this ends up!

Ubuska

Thank you for your detailed feedback! 
1. I agree with you, but I want to mention that I have not worked on the light yet. I just threw one dynamic light source and turned off lighmaps (will mess with them later on). I will work on lighting/effects/mood later, for now I just want all assets to be in place.
2. Yeah, I noticed that too. Now when I create highpolys I am concentrating mainly on the form and add micro details in texturing phase in 3DCoat.
3. I will definitely add more bevels and geo in general, thanks for pointing this out.

Ubuska

Made door asset.
ZBrush sculpt


Textured asset

Ubuska

Today we worked on lighting with Andrew @Thoughcrayish. What do you think about this setup? Also statues, fountain and some other props is just placeholders, I replace them later.
I kinda like the blue magic stones idea, it gives some tips about the purpose and story of this environment.

ZombieDawgs

That last image is beautiful, love the lighting.

I'd maybe ditch the blue or tweak it - doesn't compliment the scene that well.

Ubuska

Thanks!
Yeah, I think it need to be tweaked. It feels almost like a neon light now.

FreneticPonies

The sun in the distance looks great! Keep it up.

Ubuska

Thanks! I really like it too.

Maxilator

Looks really good, I think some of the walls meed the floor a bit abruptly but for the most part it looks amazing!

Nicorepe

Really loving where this is heading. Maybe I would add something on the walls to break a bit the shape, another version of the same wall with some variation, like its broken or something to tell more of the story to this place. Would love to see more!  

ZombieDawgs

How did you go about achieving the sun gradient btw? Is it a large particle in front of it or are you using height fog?

Ubuska

Thanks a lot guys! 

MAXILATOR - Yeah I think I can add some props and sand (over vertex color painting) to break up it a little.

NICOREPE - I plan to add at least 1 variant of wall and crack it.

ZOMBIEDAWGS - mostly height fog.

Update on it's way, just want to finish some assets before posting more screenshots.

tomenjerry

Hry man looks really cool so far. I think your textures could use some cavity map layed on top (especially the floor asset). It'll really bring out the detail you sculpted.

Ubuska

  

Ubuska

Almost done this scene.

Here are some screenshots in engine.



I will make statue and rock asset and call this done. Any comments / crits?

Jack M.

I like your assets a lot and the lighting's getting there! 

I think you should definitely utilize the blue light less and maybe pull back the brightness and saturation of that blue a little. Strategically place the blue light where you want players/viewers to look since it will draw their attention almost immediately. I found myself looking all over these images fairly erratically due to how many blue lights are in them.

Another thing I think would help the lighting is having the areas where the light hits reach a near white highlight, with the shadows having a much warmer vibrant orange. Right now it's looking a little too flat in my opinion.

That said, great work so far. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Ubuska

This scene is now done. Thank you guys for your feedback. 
Andrew made night lighting setup and music.

Here's the video
https://youtu.be/vNzlkm5xvFY

Ubuska

Some sketchfab models (you can find more here https://sketchfab.com/petergubin)

model
model
model
model

Ubuska

Day

Ubuska

Night

Nuclear Angel

It turned out great, I especially  enjoy the night scene a lot. I do think though that the plants you have on one of the roofs are really the weakest part of this environment, and overall I think the scene would have been benefited greatly by more vegetation. Maybe surrounding a fountain or something with palms and flowers like a small oasis, that way you could have added a natural blue color and such in the water. With some greens to keep it varied, so it is not only blue and orange. I am no environment artist, but just my thoughts. 

Good job on finishing this! It have been a joy to follow. 

Ubuska

@Nuclear Angel 
Yes, I think this scene would have benefited from a large amount of greenery. Thanks!