[UE4] Air Capsule Crash Site

mickeyvpn

Project is finished!
If you just want see final result here is Artstation link.

Hello mates! I want to share the process of my work here. Would be glad to hear your feedback. So lets get starting

This work about crash site of some air capsule, that was forgotten and leave untouched ever since. The capsule begins to grow roots and merge with site. I want to put the capsule into a ravine and maybe link it with crater from crash.

I was made several sketches with basic composition and then moved to design of capsule:


Inner shell+Core with basic material:





Outer shell with basic material:


Play with core material:


First glance at composition:

mickeyvpn

Made a quick landscape in World Machine and bring it to Unreal Engine. I'll try to make it look like a ravine in forest.

mickeyvpn

Working on overhanging earth blocks, rocks and soil texture.

Soil made and rendered in Substance Designer.

mickeyvpn

I've added some roots and continue to work on soil texture.

mickeyvpn

Another update. Tweaking things here and there. While big shapes take their places need to focus on smaller details.


I want make those overhanging earth blocks look like on reference below, I'll be glad to any advise how to do it

mickeyvpn

I've reworked the earth blocks, make them full height(before was overhanging top piece). Also I made low poly inner shell of capsule, add some texture on it. And my first try making plants, those bushes in the screen shot below



Still need spend more time on this ravine

Earth blocks wireframe

model

mickeyvpn

Change rock color and decide to add fallen tree near capsule.
Also dunno why in previous post Sketchfab link to bush model didn't show up properly

mickeyvpn

Update roots, fallen tree models(not happy with the result on this one though) and soil substance.

mickeyvpn

I've been far away from home last weeks. After time out came back to this project. Working on foliage right now. It took  some time to get convincing results, but I'm sure that it still could be better in all aspects. Screenshots below show progress on bush/small tree asset.

mickeyvpn

Hi there! I've added a smaller types of small tree for more dense ground cover.



This one before adding smaller assets


This one after adding smaller assets

mickeyvpn

Worked heavily on trees. Replace all Speed Tree free assets with my trees(made them in 3D Max.). Here some scene process:









Assets

Robert Berrier

Good progress. Though it's unclear what the metal thing (air capsule) is.
The story is missing. Things like crash evidence (angle of crash, damage to nature) or perhaps explaining what the object is.
Foliage is going strong! nice!

mickeyvpn

Hi Robert, thanks for the comment
I totally agree with you that scene need to be more clear on what happened there. I'm now working on damaged parts of the capsule, trying different variations on torn parts of metal. I like the idea of dense skeleton under metal shell, but making this as geometry is too heavy on tris count and have difficulties with proper mapping. Trying now replace this geometry pattern with a normal map.

First try on metal skeleton, as you can see quite high amount of tris

How this look inside engine


Here another version, I've painted separate geometry parts(those metal wires) on surface and replace skeleton geometry with texture.

mickeyvpn

Update. I've made all parts of broken outer shell and now working on broken trees.

Scene shots




This is parts of outer shell

More closely look on them


Progress on broken trees. This is old version

This is updated. But it looks too generic, maybe need do another variation of it.

I've made a several variations of broken tree ends. At the beginning I tried made them as one solid geometry, but it wass difficult to unwrap them correctly, so I separate bark from body and this method work very well. Also second method is fully procedural and made of tube(bark) and subdivided plane(body) with several noise modifiers.

mickeyvpn

Tweaked foliage in the scene. Made more dense ground cover. Working now on inner shell(red one) textures in Substance Painter(had a lot of headache with proper map baking, before it start look right).

Before


After


Addition shots

The Rizzler

Nice, I like how the surrounding area is coming along, and how you've broken a few trees that the capsule must have hit in its descent. Maybe add some damage to the ground to complete the effect? You say you want the capsule to begin to grow roots and merge with the site - so how long ago did the capsule land in this scene? I see you've added some smoke rising from the wreckage so I'm guessing recently, but I'd increase the size of that effect. My point is you should make it more obvious that the capsule is merging with the roots - maybe the capsule was carrying some sort of alien bio-chemical material that splashed onto the roots and made them grow/fuse with it? 

On the look of the capsule itself - I think like Robert says, it's hard to read and possibly looks a bit simple for such a large object. Maybe add some panels and small details to show the scale better? It's great to see your process and the scene is coming along nicely.
 

mickeyvpn

Hi @The Rizzler thank you for the comment
I really like your idea about some sort of bio-chemical material. I think it indeed will make sense of this huge roots. I'm working now on the inner shell of the capsule(made my first step in substance painter). Here is first images:



and Sketchfab model
model

gfelton

I like it, although I feel like some signs of impact on the ground instead of foliage or along with it would help the scene quite a bit. It's coming along nicely!

mickeyvpn

Hi @gfelton, thank you for the comment.
I've added burned areas around capsule with help of decals and it indeed make scene more clear that the capsule actually fell from sky and crashed into this ravine.

mickeyvpn

Hi guys, long time no post, need to fix it.
Made a huge mess in the ground:

• spill some bio-mechanical liquid on the ground
  
• fix decal with embers(was too red)
• scattered metal scrap from capsule
• redo textures for outer shell of the capsule
• add those green steam from crack in the capsule.
  

Some screenshots:




Undamaged outer shell of the capsule


Broken pieces of outer shell

The Rizzler

Nice! The glow makes the focal point of the scene much stronger.

sgv3dmax

Very nice progress. When I look at it from the initial posts to recent ones, it came a long way. Good job. My question: If the capsule hit the ground recently (you have smoke and bio chemical spill), then the immediate surrounding area around the capsule will have very less vegetation. I think there will be more soil / ash / debris. Am I right?

mickeyvpn

Hi @The Rizzler thank you for the interest and idea with bio-mechanical material, it really helped make things more clear in the scene.

Hi @sgv3dmax thanks for the comment. If I get you right in your vision area around capsule looks like on the image below. My wife said the same thing actually, that area around capsule need more impact from crash But as you can see right underneath the capsule I place pool with bio material. As were suggested this bio material is accelerate growth of organic things. Maybe it somehow preserve their dying from taken damage? But maybe you're right, need see how it fits in the scene.

mickeyvpn

Hi guys!
Finally I made last tweak and changes with the scene and happy to share result with you. If you ask me, of course it's not perfect, I mean look at Uncharted 4 and Witcher 3, but I've learned a lot with this project and will sharpening my skills further. I want to thank polycount members for all awesome threads and wiki articles that I've used in creation procces. Special thanks to @Robert Berrier, @The Rizzler, @gfelton, @sgv3dmax for the ideas and critics.










https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vur_8ydUn3I

Robert Berrier

Nice man!
Seems you got a lot of learning from this project, many kudos for that!
I also hope (but kinda assume) you enjoyed making it.

You already have your next ideas and projects coming up?

mickeyvpn

@Robet Berrier
Next thing I wanna do is complete Hearts of Stone in Witcher 3, I'm joking
For the next project I want make an game ready asset based on concept art, still searching the right one though. I think it'll be like an exercise. Hope it will be more fast than create a whole scene from scratch.
And I have some rough sketch-ideas that poping up constantly, but I'll come back to them later.