[UE4] Dark Souls 3 Environment (Finished)
polycounter lvl 10
Finished: More details on my various social media.
Hey guys,
I have been working on a small section of an Environment from Dark Souls 3 as a portfolio piece. While playing this game I have continuously been amazed by the detail and style of the environment artwork, even in sections that seem unimportant. I realize that they do this through clever use of efficient modular assets.
Anyway I have chosen a small hallway area that leads up to the Abyss Watchers (for those playing) shown in red below (Primary Section). I broke down the area into the pieces I will have to make and now I believe that I can extend the environment to the blue area (secondary section) with the same assets. However I will focus on finishing the red area to make sure I am not taking too much at once.
This is how I identified the modular pieces I would need. I have had to have the game running in the background to gather reference (and a ton of cracked red eye orbs thanks to near by enemies) while taking screenshots.
My goal is to create this with about 90% accuracy to the in game assets in Unreal Engine 4, with about 10% added or slightly altered pieces and my own ideas. This means I will be making it as if it was a small section of a much larger world like it is in the game. I will be placing a high emphasis on efficiency such as UV space, substance files and reusable textures.
The software I am using are 3ds Max, Substance Designer, Quixel Suite, Zbrush and of course Unreal Engine 4. Here it what I have so far:
Scale is very important for this project and it has proven to be very difficult as I have to compare in game with DS3 and then in 3rd person view within UE4, luckily everything is modular and somewhat easy to tweak. Also to add to the difficulties I am not sure on the differences with FOV and focal length etc of the cameras used in DS3 and UE4.
I am wondering if I should go ahead with basic lighting now or if I should start refining modular pieces/textures?
I will post my progress here as I go for anyone interested, and any feedback and critiques would be incredibly helpful, thank you very much!
Hey guys,
I have been working on a small section of an Environment from Dark Souls 3 as a portfolio piece. While playing this game I have continuously been amazed by the detail and style of the environment artwork, even in sections that seem unimportant. I realize that they do this through clever use of efficient modular assets.
Anyway I have chosen a small hallway area that leads up to the Abyss Watchers (for those playing) shown in red below (Primary Section). I broke down the area into the pieces I will have to make and now I believe that I can extend the environment to the blue area (secondary section) with the same assets. However I will focus on finishing the red area to make sure I am not taking too much at once.
This is how I identified the modular pieces I would need. I have had to have the game running in the background to gather reference (and a ton of cracked red eye orbs thanks to near by enemies) while taking screenshots.
My goal is to create this with about 90% accuracy to the in game assets in Unreal Engine 4, with about 10% added or slightly altered pieces and my own ideas. This means I will be making it as if it was a small section of a much larger world like it is in the game. I will be placing a high emphasis on efficiency such as UV space, substance files and reusable textures.
The software I am using are 3ds Max, Substance Designer, Quixel Suite, Zbrush and of course Unreal Engine 4. Here it what I have so far:
Scale is very important for this project and it has proven to be very difficult as I have to compare in game with DS3 and then in 3rd person view within UE4, luckily everything is modular and somewhat easy to tweak. Also to add to the difficulties I am not sure on the differences with FOV and focal length etc of the cameras used in DS3 and UE4.
I am wondering if I should go ahead with basic lighting now or if I should start refining modular pieces/textures?
I will post my progress here as I go for anyone interested, and any feedback and critiques would be incredibly helpful, thank you very much!
Replies
I am hoping to get some DS3 inspired art work done after June, can't wait to see more!
I'd say now is definitely the time to start looking at a lighting solution though. From the screenshots (and playing the game a considerable amount), I'd say that this particular area relies on the lighting and negative space (shadowed areas) almost exclusively. The beauty of this part for me is that it's entirely game play driven and still beautiful to look at.
Good luck with the project!
Edit: Ditch the Lothric Knight Armour and get something lighter, it really doesn't matter that much in this DS!
haha yea I have the full Lothric set and it is ridiculously heavy but its so fashionable!
@Cremuss Thank you! I will continue to post progress here.
@chrisradsby Thank you very much, your work on Far cry and the Division are amazing!
From what I can see of the geometry in the DS series, the third has taken a massive step forward. The difference in graphical fidelity between DS and DSII was almost backwards at times, and the geometry and texture alignment/direction in DSII (particularly on X360 and PS3) are what I fear caused slow downs on each of the systems. From seem to have addressed that somewhat in Bloodborne, and even though there are still some areas of serious slow down in DSII (at least on PS4) I think they've done a great job of using this approach.
Geometry for the most part in the game does seem more on the simple side though, and I think that where you're at is a pretty good representation of that. Would be cool to see some of your wireframes and sculpts (if you've made a start on those).
@fauxNormal Thanks for your input once again. Yea DS3 geo seems quite low compared to current titles but I think they counter it well by being very careful where they use them. Things such as bricks extruding from textures to break silhouette as well as bevels. Although I have no access to any DS3 wire frames or orthographic views I studied each piece very carefully and identified where they put their polys (which has been very informative in itself) to reverse engineer them and get a similar result, it is tempting to spend more here and there but I am trying to refrain. I will try get some individual props up soon.
Ok, so I fixed a few small problems and added some missing parts. I think now it is ready to recieve some basic lighting to match the 'concept' scene.
Is this a generally accepted good workflow? Basically to get some lighting done using the UE4 flat material before doing heavy texture work? I thought that the simplicity of shading will make it easier to tweak the lighting and also to preview my assets once its time to texture them.
Thanks,
I reckon the lighting is going to look pretty rad with a few torches in there, the red/orange could give you a nice contrast with the open air blue-ish light.
When working with heavy brick/grungy scenes, the noise from the bigger brick/stone normal maps can help decide which areas have a place for the eye to rest.
Zbrush has such a nice non-destructive workflow, it's really easy to go back to your layers and just play around with different combinations.
Also combined with the ivy cards, it's really easy to lay out some interesting cracks/vine growth that drag the eye around the composition. Combined these with a lighting pass and you're looking at a solid foundation before you dive deeper into texture and detail.
But again this is just my approach, what you have is already very solid in scale and composition. Looking forward to the lighting pass!
@Nomad - Nicolas Pirot Thanks! Yea the lighting is very strange/eerie (like all DS levels) and I am having a difficult time isolating particular colours. I remember reading somewhere that if you blur your concept (in my case screenshot) I can find some base lighting palette.
To me it seems the sky is a pale yellow/orange and the main lighting is a yellow/slight green mix? And yes the torch adds a very warm contrast, I think also the foliage adds more of a green feeling, this could take awhile.
@heyeye Thanks for the suggestion, I actually thought of that too, maybe I will do base lighting now, and then after my bakes are done for all the SM's I will rollback to flat shaded with just normals as you have mentioned and then do a final tweak before going full colours. The Ivy cards/vines etc are coming along but not ready to import just yet. Thanks again.
And here is my attempt to break it down and try to figure out what they would be in UE4 such as sky light, spotlight, fog volume etc.
The torchlight is no problem. I figure it is a simple point light with a warm glow. The sky is obviously a yellow overcast cloud (the skySphere?), however the ambient lighting littered around the scene seems to be a pale blue, I guess this is a little confusing for me. Maybe the blue tint is more of a fog volume or some kind of post processing?
Finally, there seems to be string lighting coming in on that angle and it appears to also be a yellow light, would this simply be the directional light, added spotlights or linked to the yellow sky sphere? Any and all help would be very much appreciated, thanks!
Other than that just use a directional light for the sun (what you're identifying as the yellow source).
@somedoggy I think you are right. It seems like the sky/cloud colour just does not match the sky light colour so I tried that with the yellow directional light as you mentioned, I think I have the base shapes/values in now, but will need more accurate surface detail to move forward with lighting.
And here are some comparison shots:
@Adelphia Yes DS3 was my first game in the series too, and I want to go back to some of the earlier games now. Thank you and the ground is actually a dirt plane with geometry blocks laid over it with some broken variations, I am actually working on that now hopefully have an image up soon.
Here is some progress.
I have added a few base materials to the scene (just plugged into the slots nothing special yet) I think I will try get the base materials in engine for just about every part and then begin a long process of tweaking/light adjustment to get closer to the 'concept'.
Some parts are hard to replicate as I am using procedural materials from Substance Designer and trying to match the in game shots. Any crits/feedback are more than welcome
I have also noticed that my version seems lower and wider than the original, so at some point I will make archways,columns and walls etc slightly thinner and taller.
I will follow your cool work
@macoll Thank you, it is a real challenge to get the same lighting and I keep adjusting it everyday!
Here is a bit more progress, adding the base materials to the props. I will have to go over them again in the future to add details/colour variation etc, but for now it helps me get the feeling of the level. I keep adjusting the lighting drastically as I go, hopefully one day I will find a good combination!
PS sorry I could not resist adding the flame effect.
(looks great man!)
@TheMadArtist Thank you good sir!
@gfelton Thank you, I still have to adjust them as I go and change things, I think the original ones are much shinier than mine?
@almighty_gir haha indeed, thank you!
@pixelpatron and @Jeff Parrott Thank you both for the feedback. Yes looking now my shadow areas are too dark, i think I have to make them a bit more blue, but maybe that can be achieved in the fog later on? May I ask on a good way to increase bounce light? Stronger directional or add in some spotlights or something? I also feel like the albedo on the textures becomes very intense in dark areas but I am not sure why..
I'm really liking the ground texture you have going on with the stone and stuff looking good.
Progress update; I have a basic texture on all elements now. I have also been playing with the lighting and fog to try and get closer to the original here:
Now feedback on lighting/fog and base texture values would be incredibly helpful from another few sets of eyes.
My next goal is to add the final static meshes (mainly around the ceiling area) and then get the foliage and ground clutter in. My textures now are far too clean so I will go over and dirty/moss them up a bit like in the original.
- Another thing I notice is that the original ground tiles are not as flat as mine and they seem to have a bumpy surface. Perhaps I can use 'Detail Texturing' to achieve this effect?
- Finally, 'High resolution screenshot' and what I am seeing in my view port are not the same, does anyone else have this problem?
Thanks guys!
@gfelton Thanks! Yea I am really hoping (and pretty confident) that all the clutter and foliage will really add a lot of interest.
@Adelphia I have been trying to progress everything at about the same rate so I am nearing completion for most of it. I use Max and Speedtree for this so thanks again for the tutorials!
How the heck are you matching that in game screenshot so closely in terms of scale? Are all your modular pieces all squares?
@pixelpatron Thanks! Yea I am a bit divided honestly. I want to stay true to the 'concept' but the power of UE4 makes it hard to resist trying to push it further. I keep changing the lighting with almost every update! I am still struggling to make screen captures match what I am seeing, they appear much brighter and washed out.
@Hayden Zammit and @Soul Exist Yea all the pieces are modular sticking very closely to the originals and yes they stick to the power of two measurements for ease of placement. About scale and measurement it was a long and slow process of matching the UE4 character with the DS3 character as close as I can, I am still not happy with it 100%, I think I need to slightly squash everything in a little and make it a tad thinner and taller.
As I said, not much progress, just some of the upper damage and clutter. Thanks!
The lighting looks really close to the original game which is good but I think it deserves to be pushed a little bit more. Little bit more highlights and slightly more shadow/ao maybe? Keep it up
I am having a problem with Speed Tree - UE4. As you can see in this image, some of the fronds are showing very dark in lit areas. This error also shows up in 'Detail Lighting' so I am confident it is to do with the normals. I also noticed in UE4 that the 'bi-normals' (blue lines) are facing towards the ground on only the darkened plants.
Does anyone know how this could happen? I modeled in Max with normals facing up, then used Speed Tree to create the clusters, but now in UE4 the problem shows up.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Or isn't it just an wrong material setup? Did you use two-sided lighting preset an plugged a color/texture into the subsurface color input ?
Also, you mentioned the hi-res screenshot output not being the same as what you see in the viewport earlier. I also happen to have the same thing quite often (like bloom way too intense). What kind of problems do you have?