[WIP][UE4] An electric sheep on a roof

antoine_bassin

[Last update]

Hi everybody!

I'm working on a personal project  based on Do electric sheep dream of androids?, by Philip K. Dick.
My goal is to depict the post-apocalyptic mood of the book rather than the cyberpunk one of the movie.

It's my first exercice of making realistic game assets with PBR textures. As I'm an self-taught artist, I'll be glad to read any feeback!

The scene takes place during the first chapter, when the protagonist, Rick Deckard, go up on his roof to see his robotic sheep. Here is a simple blockout of the scene:


To better understand texturing, I tough it it better to make assets one by one. So, I started with a complex one, a big closet. My process is the following: firstly, I search references of objects/textures I want to achieve.

Then, I get the blockout shape to build the lowpoly mesh. Then I duplicated it and add some bevels. I returned to the lowpoly mesh to remove unnecessary faces (invisibles from any perspective). Finally, I unwrapped uv and bake normals.

Finally, I go into Substance Painter to create materials from scratch. I very suprise about how heavy .spp files are (~200 Mo for this asset). I think my materials are too complex compare to smart material pressets. Anyway, here is the Substance Painter render:

4143 tris, texture size of 2048px.
What do you think about it (as a game asset)?

antoine_bassin

I made other assets with the same process.
For the table, I gone into ZBrush to add big holes. Then, I returned the tabletop to create a second asset, with the same topology/texture.
Regarding the bucket and the watering can, I'm not happy with the water, any advice?
I think I'll have to homogenize the dirt level while I put assets together.
As I can't add Sketchfab embed, you can see them with realtime renders here.


576 tris, texture size of 2048px.


142 tris for the stool, 128 tris for the shelf, 128 tris for each can, 1008 tris for the faucet, 1 uv set of 2048px.


646 tris, texture size of 2048px.


1973 tris for the watering can, 2440 tris for the bucket, 2348 tris for the small cabinet, 1 uv set of 2048px.

antoine_bassin

Ok, I redesigned the scene and I'll post alterations soon.
In the meantime, here is a big asset that wasn't in the first blockout scene.

Despite 2k texture maps, I'm not happy with the resolution (render is 4k).
In a game production, 4k map isn't too expensive for a single asset ?

Otherwise, there are 17764 tris because of tiles. I tried differents bake methode but I think the geometry needs to be model. What do you think about it? Am I permitted to produce heavy assets like it?

antoine_bassin

I come back with several updates!

The building was too simple and I wanted something which tell a story. As the book takes place in San Francisco, I decided to walk its streets to get some inspirations (inside Google Street View of course).

At the beginning, a wanted a very lowpoly scene in a cartoon style. But, in order to learn PBR workflow, I rework all the proportions to be as realistic as possible. So, I took advantage of the occasion to rearrange assets and better put the focus on the character-sheep relation.

I also made a quick sculpt of the sheep.

The character asset comes from Mixamo. I temporarily add it but I have no idea about his design yet. I think it'll be the last asset 'cause I intend to take some time to learn Marvelous Designer.

Feedbacks will be appreciated

antoine_bassin

New asset done: a hay bale!

It was difficult because I never done objects composed of hundred little things. I really want to depict this complex volume and I think I found a satisfactory solution!

At the same time, I learned UE4 (I dislike the way Unity managed material) to be sure of the realtime result. So instead of sharing Substance Painter renders, I will post UE4 screenshots 

Here is my process:

1/ I took photo of hay (I wanted higher quality as possible 'cause I didn't know what I could do). 

Then, I quickly isolated them with Photoshop.

2/ I combined them to make 3 main blocks of hay and some simple piece to populate the floor around.

To give relief, I generated a normal map from the diffuse map (with the xNormal plugin), and a specular map to highlight some stalk. I only worked in Photoshop.

3/ Firstly, I made a basemesh with some polygons above its surface but it was too bad 

So, I decided to only use floating polygon. I get a free plugin for Maya called "spPaint3d" which allows me to quickly place polygon objects onto a chosen mesh. I tested some density/scale/position/orientation configurations, exported them to UE4, tweaked materials and .... tadaaa !

I don't add a wireframe screenshot because it's beyond understanding

However, it's not a heavier solution (1434 tris / 1788 verts per bale) and I have fine details with 1024px texture maps.

KurtPoly

Hey.

Amazing work so far. Loving the textures, especially the hay.

Will be following your progress

antoine_bassin

Thanks for your interest!
It's a long time since the last post. Indeed, I'm learning Substance Designer and try different texturing approachs. I'll come back very soon with new updates 

antoine_bassin

Quick post to provide a global overview of my progress.

I constantly try different ways of doing things and I gradually understand how UE4 works, how to optimize assets, how to manage textures... These screenshots show that my scene is a real  (without making a pun) building site! Some textures aren't done, haven't normal map or a good density, some assets are missing...

Anyway, here are different cameras showing a first mood/lighting intent.




Currently, I search how to create fine smog. As tried several placements, orientations, shapes of meshes with a translucent texture, but I'm dissatisfied with the result. I would avoid using particles but maybe it's the solution. If anyone could help me on this point...   

Any feedback is welcome!

RustySpannerz

That hay is really well done!

Not sure how final any of these things are, but I have a couple of critiques for you, I think the texture resolution on your main walls is too low, and the normal map might be a little strong too. I also see in your earlier variant your walls were wooden? Why did you change that? I think most of these types of houses are wooden are they not, and it looked really nice! And I think maybe your lighting is a little too high contrast. Get some bounce light into those shadows, or brighten up the skylight. 

But I'm looking forward to seeing the end result! 

antoine_bassin

Thanks!

For sure, walls need adjustments. I just scale them up to set demages scale I'm happy with.

Initially, I planned to put wooden planks on the sides but I didn't achieve a good damaged texture for them, maybe I'll add them later. Moreover, I want contrast between matters, that's why I think concrete walls are interesting.

Regarding light, I'll take into account your advice. At this time, I don't know what to do with the sky, maybe working on it will help me to adjust lighting.