Fantasy Power Shrine - Zbrush/HandPainted/UE4
polycounter lvl 12
Latest update:
Hello!
Here’s my new personal project I’ll be working on the next following weeks (months? 
) : a stylized fantasy shrine
Technical Goals :
- Try the Blizzard approach on hand-painting textures with Zbrush sculpt- Add animations
- Learn UE4 Cascade particles to add fancy FX
Art direction :
- I’m not sure yet but I was really inspired by Michael Vincente’s Heroes of the Storm art dump, so maybe something going in that direction?- Definitely something not too complicated and over detailed as I always do
- In the other hand, I liked a lot the Starcraft 2 art direction, with props a bit more detailed and busy looking, so who knows?:)
Here’s a first blockout pass
Replies
Anyway, slight update
I’ve cleaned a lot the meshes so it’s mostly ready to be imported into Zbrush. I also fixed the roots not touching the ground/rocks in a lot of places and simplified them, broke some spikes here and there and made the chains a bit more random (added semi-broken links and made the silhouette a bit more goofy).
Here is also a rough paint-over for the FXs I have in mind. I’m not sure about the reddish color yet. I guess it’ll depend on color scheme I end up choosing for texture of the shrine itself.
Hello!
I started toying with Zbrush and see what kind of magic stones design I would go for. I might try something more cartoony and blocky to check if that's what I prefer. For now I like B design. I'm taking my time with this project
And here are some refs I gathered to get in the mood of fllyyyiiiinn' rawwkks
cheers
Thanks Ziikutv!
Here is an update on my shrine. I focused on the sculpt of the magic stones so far. I'm not sure about the cracks yet. It's time to start sculpting the rest and see how the overall piece reads.
Thanks for the comments and support, I appreciate it
@Finalhart > I add an overall idea of what I wanted to achieve before starting the block-out, but a few things came along the way by toying with primitives and shapes and testing different options. Nothing fancy in the process, really
Anyway, I speed sculpted/trashed most of the pieces the past two days. I wanted an overall view of the piece ASAP to see how it reads. Everything is sculpted on layers so I can turn off damage/cracks/ornaments and redo them at will, which I’ll probably do!
I partially like what I have here but I think I seriously need to emphasize some of the details/damage/cracks so it can be read effectively from a certain distance.
C&C welcome! cheers
Resculpted some damage areas and a lot of cracks. I tried to make them bigger and emphasize them.
not super fan of the stairs right now so we'll see if I redo them ! Plus I'm lacking definition here and there but I think it's good enough for baking.
the carpet has strange folds because there is suppose to be some roots beneath.
cheers !
Would it be possible to show your workflow on the cracks and used edges?
I always struggle with these.
update! Finished the roots and started to sharpen the rocks. I'll also intend to sculpt the ground and make cracks where the roots emerge. I think it'll look cool.
Otherwise I tried a custom IMM with cartoony grass blades but I'm not satisfied at all. I'll redo them. I have a pretty clear idea of what I want but I'm having trouble finding the correct workflow atm
Sorry for the render too bright/wash out, I'm still trying to figure out what is the best way to show WIP out of Zbrush!
C&C welcome! cheers
Anyway, big update:
I’m approaching the end of the sculpt! The bake is gonna be tough… Can’t wait to start texturing!! I’m little stressed though, the sculpt is starting to be a bit busy looking... I hope with good values and colors separations in the texture, it will more readable!
Cheers
My only comment would be to be careful about the amount of details you put in your scene.
I have the feeling that you currently have a lot of density and it starts to look a little bit busy. (roots, cracks, rocks, floating rocks, chains etc etc....)
There is a point where if you put too many objects at the same spot, it becomes difficult to really appreciate your sculpting.
I think that at the moment there is no place to rest the eyes, and that would need some breathing spaces.
But I'm being picky ! Can't wait to see it done
It's been a while since I last showed any progress on my Shrine. I think I'm done with the sculpt. The hole in the center was a bit rushed so there is that but otherwise I like what I have. So I did a retopo which took a long time and baking (which needs to be improved greatly) and imported everything into Unreal Engine 4. I also toyed a lot with Cascade (so powerful!) to have a more precise idea of what the final colors and composition will be before going into texturing.
edit : actually here is another shot with added curvatures/edges/cavity maps an rough ground color test. Still needs to tweaks those and add a top/down gradient map and other stuff (PLUS actual painting of course). I also baked point lights maps in Blender from hi poly but somehow although the light was in the center of the hole, one side is more lit than the other. Needs to be investigated!
by the way tricount is ~13K. I'll post wireframes next time
I'd echo what Faf mentioned. The details are a little noisy. I think especially the center/floating bit is hard to read visually. If you could make the floating part pop a bit more it would help a lot. Maybe with some smoke or magic glow coming out of the crater?
Sebeuroc > Yes, I agree, it's definitely noisy! (as usual with my art...
Anyway, not much to show here but I've made some progress. I've rebaked everything piece by piece to have maps as clean as possible (with 4K bakes and AAx4) so that took a really long time to do but the result is much, much better. I also spent some time painting masks here and there, isolating ornaments and such to facilitate the colour scheme creation and painting process so that took a while as well but it'll be useful! next update soon!
cheers
Anyway, work on the textures. A lot to be done still. The stone for instance aren't painted at all yet but I'm pretty sure I won't go into too much details on them. Forgive the crappy ground border, I'll redo it haha
unlit shot
I would suggest adding subtle color variations, like some red-ish areas in the grass and some blue-ish ones on the stairs/rocks.
I don't have much to criticize, it's really good already, good job! It's eye candy
TomGT > I liked the orange hues as well but it added a bit of evil feeling that I didn't want.
I worked a bit on it today but nothing worth showing yet. Update coming soon though!
Thanks for the support, I really appreciate it. Here is the latest update. I spotted a couple of minor things to fix here and there but overall I think I'm done with it. Time to move to something else hehe, it's been 40 days
Other than that, great work!
Anyway, here are the wireframes and a little tutorial about sculpting stylized cracks. I want to do a few more breakdowns, hopefully people will find it useful! let me know
FULL TUTORIAL HERE : http://cremuss.net/3d/wip/ShrineBreakdown_StylizedCracks.jpg
cheers
FULL TUTORIALS LINKS : http://cremuss.net/3d/wip/ShrineBreakdown_StylizedRoots.jpg
http://cremuss.net/3d/wip/ShrineBreakdown_StylizedExplodedGround.jpg
here is two more. I hope it's useful!
PS : somehow I think img urls are broken on this forum. The <a> url is correct in the code but it's doesn't open the url image. Can someone explain? I added url links for now
Also, thanks for the tuts. Those are very useful.