[UE4] Autumn Landscape WIP

wester

FINAL:




I wanted to start a new environment up to focus on getting some organics in my portfolio and pull away from scifi only. I'm hoping to really dive into sculpting, creating organic tileable textures, texturing in substance, ue4...and all that goodness. 

I've always loved how the fall looks so I thought it would be cool to do something that took place during that time of year.  It roughly takes place around West Virginia since that's where most of my reference is from.

REFERENCE:

wester

So the first problem I'm running into that I don't know how to fix is the soft blending from landscape texture to landscape texture.  I want it to have a harder falloff instead of it being so soft. 


I'm using the Landscape layer blending which seems to be pretty straight forward and simple but not much control on the falloff that i can see.  I have my heightmaps in the "alpha" channel of my textures so it's blending based on the height maps correctly, it's just such a soft falloff and it looks really bad. 

Anyone know how to tighten up that transition from texture to texture?

Amatobahn

Using heightmaps to blend between the two works, but there may be a possibility that you're blending using weights instead of heightmap. Be sure to check your landscape paint layer info type is correct or in your blend node it is not set to 'LB height Blend.' It could be the variation in heightmaps between the two just so happen to be that harsh of a transition. In that case i'd use decals.

wester

@Amatobahn Yeah all of my landscape layer blend nodes are set to heightmap. 

Here's a quick update.  Finished up the aged railroad rocks texture and added a dead grass texture to help blend from terrain to grass.  The grass will come later.  The forest floor texture you see there with the orange leaves is temp. I'll probably be moving onto that forest floor texture next and a variation that's covered alot more heavily by orange leaves.

wester

Spent alittle more time on this guy.  The lighting will always be changing until I finish the trees.  I'll lay them out in a way that shows more of the foreground in sunlight than it does in this shot. 

Made a quick brick material for the tunnel, blocked out the props alittle more and did some landscape editing.  I'd say the broad strokes are done now I can start to go in and detail.  Spending this week on the tunnel entrance.  

After the tunnel I'll start getting some rocks in here.  The make it or break it part of this environment ha.  An environment artists rocks are what define him!  

Enviromist

Nice job. Are you gonna use real time lighting or full static?

wester

It depends on which looks best.  If I can get some nice GI bounce with the real time lighting I'll probably go with that since this is for portfolio and I don't really need to worry about performance.  I plan on adding some animals and animated objects as well so those things usually look best with dynamic lights.  

wester

Second pass on the tunnel entrance done.  Time to move onto some rocks and get rid of that big grey box.  

The color correction on this guy is temp as well.  Just playing around with it. 

wester

Sculpted out a quick rock piece.  It's important to get your rocks in game asap so you can start to see how you'll use them which will inform sculpting choices.  Still very WIP on the rocks.  Just decimated them down in zbrush and applied a quick rock texture to just get that first "paint brush on canvas". 

Slowly starting to take shape

macoll

Looks great, love the mood.
Perhaps the rock looks too dark? Also, not a big difference in albedos between the floor vs the rock and the rock vs the brick...but hey, it could be a matter of taste hu?
Keep up!

wester

macoll said:

Looks great, love the mood.
Perhaps the rock looks too dark? Also, not a big difference in albedos between the floor vs the rock and the rock vs the brick...but hey, it could be a matter of taste hu?
Keep up!

Yeah that's definitely something I should spend more time on tweaking.  Getting those values in there now.  Once I do a proper texture pass on the rocks they should have some brighter color variation in there.  I like the dark rocks and ground contrasted with the white birch trees and the vibrant fall colors..but I agree I think the rock and ground are a tad too dark. I will need to adjust that brick though for sure it does get lost. 

Thanks for the help!   

solidshark91493

Hey man, I want to get into the organic aspects of things as well and I was wondering if you had some spare time if you could breakdown a bit on how you did some things. Id love to make a scene like this but its a bit daunting for me. 

wester

Progress shot.  Finished up the sculpt, lowpoly, bake and first pass textures for the rock.  I also added some leaf meshes for the ground to help blend the tops of the rock with the landscape. 

I'll be moving onto some green foliage that hangs over the rocks then onto the trees!  

wester

Small update.  I've been spending most of my time having to relearn the lighting setup for UE4.  With the lighting at a good spot for now I can move on to foliage.  Working on the trees now. 

RustySpannerz

Wow, lighting and materials look really good. Really enjoying watching this develop. 

wester

This project is still alive...just slowly picking away at it when I can.  

I wanted to do a nice render of the rocks I sculpted.  Still a handful of assets to make, mostly foliage.  

wester

I've been spending too much time noodling away at the decorators and the lighting.  Moved onto starting to finish up some of the assets and wrap this guy up.  

Finished the rusted train wheels and added some more foliage.  Next up is the track.  

solidshark91493

Wow that looks great. 

9Solid

I just ran across this thread now, and this looks great! I'm excited to see how the track turns out. My biggest gripe with it though is the lack of variation in the leaves. They kind of all look red/orange. Looking at your references, it's like an explosion of yellows and oranges, with a few green trees still hanging on. You have a great amount of variety in the grass. Dead brown grass with green plants here and there. I'd love to see the same variety in the leaves/trees. Otherwise, fantastic work. Keep at it!

wester

Thanks for the feedback!  Totally agree bout the variation in the leaves.  They do look very orange!  I'll change that up tonight.

wester

Progress shot on this guy.  Made the traintracks!  Created a spline based blueprint to layout the track and give it a more unique and less uniform look when you look down at it from eye level.

Lighting is also not baked in this shot but I thought it'd be a good update.

macoll

Love your rawks man !
Keep up

wester

macoll said:

Love your rawks man !
Keep up

Thanks!

Update!.  Finished up the "Dwarf light signal" and touched the lighting alittle bit.  I feel like the lighting will be ongoing to the last day of this environment ha. Currently working on the large light signal. 

Macebo

I really enjoy the color palette. The railroad sign lacks a little more contrast with the background -  i only noticed it after a few seconds looking at the screenshot. Maybe puting one at the right side as well, closer to the camera? Just an idea. Pretty sweet work overall.

wester

Thanks!  Yeah that's great feedback!  I tried to light it in a way that pushed it foward and drew abit more attention to it but I'm thinking I might need to make some color changes to it to make it pop abit more. 

hmm_rock

Really wonderful work. The texture blending turned out nicely and the waterfall is a great addition. I like the push for red, but it might be a little too strong and mono-chromatic. Your reference has much more yellow/orange. The only thing that really stands out to me is the left side of the tunnel where the walls meet. It seems a little sharp, even with the moss blending. It might help to add some of the hanging grass along the wall, or to play with the camera angle so its not such a sharp corner. 

wester

Thanks  Totally agree about the monochromatic color palette.  I need to push my leaves to have more color variation for sure. both on the trees and on the ground. I have some trees that have a yellow material override on them but they still just seem orange.  I'll push to try to give more color variation. 

Good idea about that sharp corner next to the tunnel!  I'm going to be adding some crawling vines up the tunnel entrance that might help with that.  I'll be sure to concentrate them along that sharp connection.  

wester

I can see the finishline!

wester

Finally finished this guy.  Hope you guys like it!