[UE4] Bloodborne - Hemwick Charnel Lane Inspired Fanart (WIP)
Current Progress;
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Alright guys, I’ve decided my next project is an environment
inspired by the Hemwick Charnel Lane area from the 2015 game Bloodborne by From
Software. I’ve always loved this area, and find it pretty amazing that the
‘sunset’ version in all the promotional media is only available if you ignore a
boss, head through another difficult area and essentially stumble upon it (so
not all players would see Hemwick like this, including me on my first
playthrough) Defeating the boss changes the time of day to night, altering the
mood of the area entirely.
Here's a small sample I threw together of some of the reference I’ve collected. Aside from the obvious Gothic/Victorian motifs, the environment artists seem to take inspiration from central European landscapes, so I’ve chosen reference from areas like Transylvania, Bavaria, Lichtenstein and Slovakia.
I'll be using UE4 to create the scene. My goals for the environment are as follows;
- Study the composition of the existing ingame environment
- Use World Machine to create the base landscape, then export additional maps to support landscape texturing
- Set up a vertex painting/layer blending system for landscape textures
- Practice creating tiling textures in Substance Designer
- Get used to creating vegetation including with Zbrush/SpeedTree
- Get used to creating other organics such as rocks
- Practice set dressing a scene
- Practice lighting techniques for large landscapes
- Incorporate optimisation techniques such as LOD and billboards
I’m still deciding the scope of the project, but I don’t think trying to recreate the area 1:1 is a good idea, so I might do a short path down to a sea edge like the ingame area, or just set up the scene for a single angle camera shot. I’ll be studying the composition of the ingame environment next.
Replies
@kohg
Ah I crammed them into a horrible little jpeg, I'll PM you all the graveyard references I collected so you have them full res.
It is ambitious - I might have to scale back the scope depending on how I get on, but if I achieve most of the goals even in a small scene, I'll be happy. I need to work quickly to get the overall composition and blockout done, as funnily enough I think that's what I'm most concerned about.
Having recently watched the excellent talk at Gnomon by some Naughty Dog environment artists (in this case I’m referring to Anthony Vaccaro’s portion of the talk), I’m aiming to observe the ingame environment through the same lens of large/medium/small shapes (or 'layer cake') to see if there is a ‘gradation of detail’ that grounds the larger shapes in the scene. The topic in question can be found here; (10 minutes in)
Green = Large, Blue = medium, Purple = small shapes
(Comparison gif)
Here we can see that the use of vegetation ‘grounds’ the gravestones, hanging corpses and small trees, conveniently masking the area where the meshes intersect with the ground. The medium shapes in turn ground the large shapes of the buildings (the Charnel house itself could even be broken down into large/med/small shapes also, but that would clutter the paintover). Objects are clustered together and are balanced. The road could technically count as a large shape, and the protruding mass of rock and fallen leaves break it up too.
Here’s a second paintover of a larger composition on a promotional screenshot;
(Comparison gif)
Again, vegetation plays a huge part in creating the smaller shapes of the scene. The gaps in the vegetation are filled with moderately sized rocks, which also line the Cliffside and are joined by the gravestones, which group near the base of a small tree and several hanging bodies, the scale of the detail almost flowing upwards into the larger tower behind. Large, quite cloudy-looking rocks fill the background, while the silhouette of a few buildings cut into the lighter colour as medium dark shapes.
It’s subtle and I forgot to mark it, but what is likely an alpha card of fallen leaves rests on the medium rocks just to the right of the player’s weapon, helping to break up the form further.
So in conclusion, the principle, of course, applies
Dissecting some of the areas has helped me to see the rationale of the environment artists more clearly, and off of this I should be able to reverse engineer this kind of mentality for my scene.
Currently it's possible to walk through the scene in third person (I wanted to demonstrate how the scene would function as an actual game level). I ordered the art of Bloodborne book from Japan, and after taking a look decided to follow this concept of Hemwick;
Over the last few weeks I've experimented with terrain tiling textures, sculpting rocks, and making foliage such as grass and trees with zbrush and speedtree. I initially tried to build the terrain with world machine but wasn't happy with the results I was getting, so decided on using UE4's landscape sculpting tools for the finer control. I might use world machine to create some far terrain to give the scene more context however.
I went to EGX Rezzed in London last Friday and showed the scene to various industry artists, but the most helpful (and most critical) were the artists from Creative Assembly. Here's their feedback;
- Large rocks are throwing off the scale of the lampposts (I haven't made many smaller rocks yet)
- Rocks either side of the cobblestone path are distracting, remove and blend the path into the ground?
- Value/Colour ranges for rocks and even the buildings are too close together, making the scene look drab
- Rocks collecting at the top of the hills rather than at the base - look at real world geology
- More vegetation for variance/to break up rocks (I only have one tree so far, as I'm still wrestling with speedtree)
- Fences - need to be spaced closer together (an easy fix)
- Gravestones don't make sense - no space for a body if they are all stacked up (this is more of an art style type criticism, as in Bloodborne the gravestones I feel are more of a motif than an actual functional grave marker
The biggest overarching criticism was the lack of a narrative however. I need to rework the scene to make the story more apparent and create a focus for the viewer. Right now I'm thinking a large ominous building in the center of the composition.I also took advice from another industry artist who recommended I change the lighting to create more depth to the scene;
It's true that it's clearer to see my prop work, the rocks look more defined and the dimension of the scene is clearer, but I feel like I lose the mysterious, unsettling atmosphere and the lighting would be far removed from the area I'm being inspired by (a shadowed valley with the sun hitting the tops of the hills). Still, something to think about. Open to any and all criticism as I think about how much I want to rework the scene!
@mcgillchris
A night scene does sound like an idea, but I want to see if I can realise the sunset/dusk atmosphere that I set out to achieve instead of compromising - sorry if that sounds selfish, but I feel like I need to stick with my chosen light condition and really learn how to light how I want rather than switch it up entirely even if it might work better in the short term. You're right about the geometry - I think manually sculpting the terrain gave it way too much of an artificial look once the props were layered on top. Maybe I'll redo the terrain entirely and generate it instead. I haven't attempted much post work yet aside from some contrast adjusting, so I'm optimistic about a post pass improving the overall look once I'm happy with where the scene is.
@Stavaas
Thanks! I loved your environment, it definitely inspired me for this one.
@Benvox2
Thanks Benjamin. Your environment was a huge inspiration also. Congratulations on getting a position at From Soft by the way!
I see what you mean about breaking up straight lines, I'll bear this in mind when I come back to the scene in the future. Thanks