[Final] Enlighten Contest - A Gem among stones
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「Disclaimer: Just like with most everything else I do; I've no idea what I'm doing... so to any real artists who's eyes I may offend; please forgive my impertinence.」
Newly joined Polycount person here, though I usually stalk this site like an obsessive person would stalks their ex.
Anyhoo earlier this month came across this Unity x Enlighten competition read the description and decided to give it a jab. So for the theme of this project I decided to go with an idea I've had in my head for literately years but have been to lazy to fully render for real. Though the original setting I had planned was quite different I decided to try to blend it together with The Courtyard scene and see if I can some how to make it work.
The first thing I did was to surf through that newfangled thing called the interwebz to find images and build up a Pinterest page that contained images closely resemble what I imagine would be in the final scene. (That last sentence was a lie first thing I did was to was waste time look for stuff to kit bash into The Courtyard seen but that wasn't as constructive so ya...)
Here are a few of the images that kinda carry the idea I would like to go for.
Newly joined Polycount person here, though I usually stalk this site like an obsessive person would stalks their ex.
Anyhoo earlier this month came across this Unity x Enlighten competition read the description and decided to give it a jab. So for the theme of this project I decided to go with an idea I've had in my head for literately years but have been to lazy to fully render for real. Though the original setting I had planned was quite different I decided to try to blend it together with The Courtyard scene and see if I can some how to make it work.
The first thing I did was to surf through that newfangled thing called the interwebz to find images and build up a Pinterest page that contained images closely resemble what I imagine would be in the final scene. (That last sentence was a lie first thing I did was to was waste time look for stuff to kit bash into The Courtyard seen but that wasn't as constructive so ya...)
Here are a few of the images that kinda carry the idea I would like to go for.
Replies
Just trying to figure out where things should be.
Kinda an appropriate image me thinks, it's as blury as my idea on how everything should be.
Haha,
It's a beautiful scene; Personally it reminds me of an old slightly haunting abandoned house in my grandparents town that me and my cousins used to sneak into for adventure (or as some would call it, trespassing), when we were kids.
Again, beautiful work (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و
So with that I decided to take a few of the scene props and slowly re-add them as I build up my scene (of-course while keeping everything where they were originally as per the comp rules).
Also started looking into what objects from the original scene I could re-use as props, and one of the object that I decided to use was the vines from the outer support pillars. I took them into Blender and rigged them and re-imported them back to Unity. I did this so that I could save time and have more control over their shape and positions.
「Side Note: Started this work flow because I had to switch to my laptop, as somehow blew up (literally) my desktop PC playing with the full Courtyard scene and Enlighten...」
( ´；д ；` )
I guess I could do multiple shots in the same area, but with the 6 screenshot limit it feels like a missed chance to show of other locations, because I do have a kind of story progression I would like to show with the final screenshots.
Hmm.. really not liking the water that's included with The Courtyard scene, because it does not reflect shadows (as you can see in the top left screenshot) nor a big fan of the way the texture on the vines are looking.
But to be fair I probably just don't know what I'm doing that's why I cant get the shadows to show up (￣(エ)￣ )ゞ 。。。
Oh ya! just to be clear not really messing with post effects to much right now, as I'm trying to just find a decent layout for the scene.
Here I started working on the arrival screenshot.
It's really hard to decide on a time of day for the travelers arrival to The Courtyard ruins, as each time of day offers some really nice possibilities in the way to display the lighting and present the props. Though at the same time I want to keep the time of day consistent with the flow of each screenshot to help with my attempts to convey a story with the order of the screenshots.
Getting a nice angle to capture the lights and props is also a bit of work.
Here are a few more shots focusing on camera angles and less on the lighting.
Thanks, for the input! ( ๑ ゜▽゜)*ゞ
Just to reiterate, this isn't something I really know how to do, so I'm not sure how the different positioning are supposed to make one "feel".
But the top right one in the second set kinda reminds me of a National Geographic magazine shoot.
Like I mentioned, not a fan of the implemented water include with The Courtyard, mainly because of the non-reflection of shadows.
So here's what it looks like now.
From left to right you can see where I started and where I ended up trying different methods and settings for creating the water and caustics.
Actually there were a ton more attempts but these are the screenshots of my attempts towards the end.
Even textured the bottom of the pool because of my decision to go with transparent water, same reason for why I added caustics.
Quite happy with how it looks now ╭( ･ㅂ･)و ̑̑
Oh ya! also re-textured the vines (its the darker brown ones in the pictures) and added a few more that I snagged.
We move to the camping scene, it's where the traveler camps out for the night right outside the Courtyard.
Kinda want to put his camping location up in one of the towers (like a true sniper), but for me logically it makes no sense, because he would pretty much have to pass by the center of the Courtyard to get there and I'd really like to have the pool/pyramid area be he's final destination.
NOTE: Still not really working with the post-effects or lighting to much I really want to get my props and general lighting in order first, and then really prettify everything up with post-effects and the Enlighten-GI... or at least try to
Managed to model and texture most of the custom props I plan to add to The Courtyard maybe one or two more left to detail, but screenshots of that later.
What I decided to start working on was the atmosphere, which is the lighting and the um... atmosphere?
First thing I really wanted to get working was Atmospheric Scattering and Volumetric Lights.
I somehow lucked out and didn't have to create the effects from scratch, though the effects are really trying to kill my poor laptop causing Unity to crash, but right before Unity crashed on me I managed to get a fairly decent snapshot showing of the dawn(dusk?) atmospheric scattering.
And I have to say, I like where this boat is headed . (╯✧∇✧)╯
Take a gander!
「Side-Note: Not to happy about the way them leaves are looking at me... gonna have to "fix'em" up later ( ¬▂¬) 」
Leaves fixed, more or less.
The new leaves look quite a bit better than the old set that I was using, and even handles the lighting in a much more acceptable manner.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand with this finally posted, I can finally go eat something （ ；￣д￣）
「Old Leaves」
「New Leaves」
As I've been working on the final camera angles, positioning props, light sources, and tweaking post processing parameters.
But anyway I will start posting images of some of the props I've decided to add to the scene.
Here I'm showing an old model 「Left image」that I wanted to use which I had created in the day of yore, but it did not quite fit in with what I wanted to do.
So I ended up biting the bullet and just modeling a new pod, and I have to say I'm glad I did.
The new model 「Right image」ended up being quite nice and something I will probably use in other projects.
Thanks !! ~~~ヽ( * ≧ ω≦)ﾉ
Tried the Blacksmith scene Atmospheric Scattering assets (and god knows how many others), but problem is that the Blacksmith Atmospheric Scattering requires the objects in the scene to have a specific custom shader, which was a no-go (not to mention a hand full of other quirks that I dint like).
So I couldn't really use it, but it could still work for other people, depending on what they are trying to do.
As for volumetric light you may be referring to in the screenshots above, those are just standard asset sun shafts and are not pro only as of Unity 5, here is a tutorial of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seC3kHWExv4.
「Side-Note: "as of Unity5..." dam.. Unity 2.x was 6-7 years ago, which is when I first used Unity, I fell old... ( ☍ ﹏⁰)」
Here is what the pod looks like textured.
「Note: Yes, I know, I know... The emphasis for this competition is on the lighting and not the props.
But I feel that having decent looking props contributes to the feeling and to the overall quality of the lighting presented in the scenes. Hens I've decided to put some effort into them」
Thanks ( ＾▽＾)／
And ya that hierarchy, was totally not designed to be easily understood for anyone outside of the original team who created it.
Especially how scripts/components they use to control the scene with are linked together; don't get me started on that ╮ (•˘︿ ˘• ) ╭
but... I should not be one to talk, you should see the mess I make in the Project and Hierarchy view when I'm working on a project
( ๑ •﹏﹏• ) ...
I'll upload what i have anyway, it was fun(and sometimes a pain) working with The Courtyard and Enlighten in Unity.
Any way here's all i gots, quite proud of what I ended up with.
Yep I was super depressed when i realized i had forgot to submit my final screenshots. （ ; へ ; ）