[UE4] Rooftop Offices - mini-environment for a gumroad tutorial
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>> DOWNLOAD PLAYABLE DEMO <<
NOW AVAILABLE!
Get it on Cubebrush or Gumroad.
Latest screens:
---------------- Original post below -------------------
Hey guys!
I've been meaning to make a gumroad tutorial pack for quite a while now and the time has finally come.
My plan is not necessarily to make a how-to tutorial, teaching you how to use Maya or Unreal (there are better people out there to do that than me), but instead I want to show my complete workflow for creating modular environments quickly and how to develop a vision for an environment. I think that's a more valuable thing I can share at this point.
I started this environment with no clear idea in mind, got a few shapes down and now I'm increasingly fleshing out the parts as I go. My process for this has been akin to a speed painting, I made a few shapes in the beginning and tried to see what I could extract out of them, each day fleshing the idea out a bit more. It started as a warehouse and ended up as a rooftop office lol
This mini-environment has been a really fun challenge for several reasons. First I can't noodle too much (something I've been a victim of in the past) because I want to keep this short and straight to the point, and second I have to trust my instincts and hope that everything will come together in the end.
Since the environment is starting to look like something, I thought it was a nice idea to start posting WIPs here too (i've been posting WIPs on my twitter account if you want to follow there too). My plan is to be done with this very soon to keep the tutorial manageable in size, so if there are any specific situations you want me to tackle on this post it here and I'll do my best to accommodate
So far I've got about 8 hours of video time, including the creating of brushes (everything was made from scratch) and planning stages.
A lot of the assets you see here are in early blockout stage btw, and will be fleshed out soon.
NOW AVAILABLE!
Get it on Cubebrush or Gumroad.
Latest screens:
---------------- Original post below -------------------
Hey guys!
I've been meaning to make a gumroad tutorial pack for quite a while now and the time has finally come.
My plan is not necessarily to make a how-to tutorial, teaching you how to use Maya or Unreal (there are better people out there to do that than me), but instead I want to show my complete workflow for creating modular environments quickly and how to develop a vision for an environment. I think that's a more valuable thing I can share at this point.
I started this environment with no clear idea in mind, got a few shapes down and now I'm increasingly fleshing out the parts as I go. My process for this has been akin to a speed painting, I made a few shapes in the beginning and tried to see what I could extract out of them, each day fleshing the idea out a bit more. It started as a warehouse and ended up as a rooftop office lol
This mini-environment has been a really fun challenge for several reasons. First I can't noodle too much (something I've been a victim of in the past) because I want to keep this short and straight to the point, and second I have to trust my instincts and hope that everything will come together in the end.
Since the environment is starting to look like something, I thought it was a nice idea to start posting WIPs here too (i've been posting WIPs on my twitter account if you want to follow there too). My plan is to be done with this very soon to keep the tutorial manageable in size, so if there are any specific situations you want me to tackle on this post it here and I'll do my best to accommodate
So far I've got about 8 hours of video time, including the creating of brushes (everything was made from scratch) and planning stages.
A lot of the assets you see here are in early blockout stage btw, and will be fleshed out soon.
Replies
Or at least that's my first, very strong impression. Something about the paint color and sterile, wide corridors with random benches around.
It's a very nice futuristic looking hospital thing, but my first guess is still very much "hospital".
@robeomega: Thank you!
Fwiw, I don't get a hospital vibe from it because the floors aren't right for it. If they were a simple flat surface with a single material, then it *might* feel more like a hospital, but as it is I can't see anyone rolling beds around on that surface.
@ULTRAMEDIA: Thanks! Yeah that's a good point. I intend to replace the floor on this area with carpet anyway, the scale is way off on those tiles
@The Rizzler : Thanks! Water cooler would be awesome, I might be able to squeeze that in
Things have been pretty hectic at work so I couldn't get much work done during the week but today was a very productive day!
I changed things up quite a bit. First I removed the lobby (which is not visible in the past screenshots) and made the two floors separate, so I can have two ambients. The bottom floor now will function as a full fledged office (where people get work done) and the top floor will feature a reception area and an helipad outside.
Here's another update. Polished stuff up quite a bit since the last update, I think the architecture is mostly done (except for the skybox) and now I only need to dress this with props. Some materials still need another pass too, but I believe I'm getting close to being done (don't want a 200 hours long tutorial hehe). I also made some plants, they are not the best ever but they do the job. For this environment I'm not polishing stuff to perfection, since the point is to show the viewer my workflow and process, and not have hours and hours of me working on a single asset.
I think that instead of narrating this I'll end up just writing a log for each video, explaining what I was doing and my reasoning behind each step. This should make the videos much easier to follow!
Let me know if you guys see anything weird, I'm going pretty fast on this so I might be missing some obvious mistakes here and there
Anyways, pics time!
- For Texturing will you be using Substance Designer and/or Painter? Or sticking with Photoshop?
- The tutorials themselves, will they be at a normal speed or sped up?
- This is a little hard to word, but will each section (modelling, texturing etc) have every asset you make, with no areas being skipped? Apologies if this isn't clear, it's extremely early here, and my brain isn't awake xD
Looks fantastic.
1) I'm sticking with Photoshop for this one. My intention is to show the entire workflow of creating an environment, and in order to do that in a timely manner I have to cut some corners. Unfortunately I have to move on with other projects once I'm done with this, but if I had time I could easily make an "addon" pack with a Substance pass on the materials.
2) This is something that I haven't decided yet, I was thinking of speeding them up just a little bit (1.25 maybe) for the sake of time. What would you guys prefer?
3) Yeah that's exactly my goal, to show how I made every single asset
No substance on this one. Since the materials are so clean I want to show how one can easily achieve a good look fast in Photoshop, in order to get the initial idea down, and then you can dive into substance and spend as much time as you want tweaking them
So far my idea is to release it all as one package!
Thanks, the carpet was a fun one, was just experimenting with some patterns and it turned out nicely in the end
Yeah I really need to take a look at what's going on with those shadows. Probably have to dig into some ini files to up the shadow maps resolution.
MartinH said:
Thanks
It'd be helpful if you kept the videos at real time, but a slight speed up would be fine too! I'll be definitely investing into this when you've completed the series!
I understand you're extremely at work, but the million dollar question on everyone's mind, when should we expect this series finished, and released for?
@STROMBERG90: Thanks!!
Looking forward to getting the tutorial when you release it.
What's the price point looking for this anyhow?
Congratullations, I don't know how can you imporve it, tbh, in my eyes it looks almost perfect xD. I'm looking forward for this tutorial to be out!
As allways awesome stuff! Just came here to say thank you because i learnt and still learning a lot studying your tutorials and creations.
Looking forward to the tutorial man! Love how this looks.
@SNAKOS: Glad to hear that
@N4UJ: Haha glad to hear that. The next update will be a huge improvement over this I hope. I'm finally reaching that last 5% stage where you start making a bunch of quick small adjustments that make everything look tons better. For example, I still need to add light fixtures to the ceiling. Yesterday I also made a new corner room in the office floor that make it look much more interesting.
@KEKET: I haven't really decided the final price yet but I have some ideas. Ultimately, I'll look at the product when I'm done and ask: How much would I be willing to pay for this? I also plan to have different tiers, so it should be very affordable
Spent the day making props and working on the small office room. Getting close to calling this done, still need to polish a bunch of stuff and make more props, but at least architecture wise this is about 98% done now.
It is Sim city 2000 on the screen? Nice one!
Don't forget to add mouses.
@snakos yup SC2000, I felt nostalgic this week :P (hope EA doesn't sue me)
Thanks! Just using the default settings so far.
I'm planning to finish this today if all goes well, and go over post processing and possibly redo the lighting. Good call about the SSR, I'll see if I can find better values for it (let me know if you have any advice on this!)
I did have to tweak some roughness settings so the SSR wouldn't look too shitty. I actually made the glass a bit rougher than I wanted because the SSR was looking super flickery on it
I didn't do BSP blocking for this, but I used a simple modular kit (walls, floors and ceiling) to block out the space. For some reason BSPs never stay on the grid for me...
Alright everyone, the environment is finished and I created a hotsite with more information of what you will get and ultra high res pictures. Also, if you subscribe now I'll send you a nice discount code when the tutorial launches
Thanks everyone who supported me through this and for all the constructive feedback! I'm now editing this and will get it done as soon as possible! I still don't have an specific date but it shouldn't take long I hope.
TLDR: For high res images and a discount when the product launches, head over here: www.unreal4environments.com