UE4 - Stylized Dungeon

RipNic

Hi Folks.
Working on a stylized Dungeon / Prison Scenery, its gonna be in a 2D side scrollers point of view.
C&C are more then welcome

Here is a simple blockout done in Maya and a Test version in Unreal with some quick lights and post effects to it.

Caiterade

ooo. Can't wait to see the textures

RipNic

Hi Guys, sorry for the slow response have been busy with the scene but here is some progress at least
Also what do you think , straight floor or the bar grid instead?

Fweddy

I like the floor with the bar grid, it looks more interesting and less flat that way.
It's coming along quite nicely, can't wait to see the final scene!

TOBSn08

This looks great already Very modular. Also like the grid. Are you doing anything for the foreground? Right now it just cuts off. Or is that now in view?

jose.fuentes

This is great! keep it going, can't wait to see it finish 

RipNic

Hi Folks. I will try my best to keep a regular update. it is alot of work for one man army so doing my best:)
Anyway I thought to share you some sculpts of the assets I am working with.

Also I am a fair beginner in unreal so every new thing I encounter is a challenge in its self.
Never done lighting, then I have to watch some tutorials on that and so on . 


When I added the new pillars into the scene and tried a lighting bake session this thing occurred?


And here is some sculpts of the assets. Its a lot of modular building,duplicating models and copy uvs.

RipNic

TOBSn08 said:

This looks great already Very modular. Also like the grid. Are you doing anything for the foreground? Right now it just cuts off. Or is that now in view?

Yea I will tweek the camera in the end and worst case scenario add more assets to fill out the gaps, But that is something I will do later on 

Fweddy

What's the resolution on your bricks like when you sculpt? I can't seem to find a nice density to get nice clean edges without going too high on the polycount.

RipNic

Fweddy said:

What's the resolution on your bricks like when you sculpt? I can't seem to find a nice density to get nice clean edges without going too high on the polycount.

I export the lowpoly meshes from Maya 30 Tris to Zbrush then I use dynamesh on a level of 800, ( can go 1000, depending on how exact I want it).
That will get a nice amount of denisty to the mesh but aswell enough to keep my original shape.

RipNic

Fweddy said:

What's the resolution on your bricks like when you sculpt? I can't seem to find a nice density to get nice clean edges without going too high on the polycount.

I have been following Tobias koepps tutorial and it has proven useful for my scene.
http://3dmotive.com/series/stylized-dungeon-in-maya.html

RipNic

Having baking issues In Unreal 4
A short description :
Model consist of 2 UVs. One for texturing and one for Lightmap.

+I exported them with the same naming conventions.
+I import them into unreal. Disable Generate UV. ( overwrite any existing meshes allready created)
+I double check so they have 2 uvs in editor and that Index is set to 1.

I have a lot of Blueprints in my scene and so far nothing is missing or errors given.Even tried creating new materials and new blueprints.

But when I bake the scene and it still shows blackness?.
Any Idea?

pixelpatron

Process of elimination when dealing with weird errors like this. I'd try the following. Ask these questions...Is it a UV problem, a mesh problem, or a lighting problem? (or combo FTW!)

Troubleshoot:

Bring pillar into new blank scene/new package....and see if it behaves as expected. (does it light correctly?) If everything looks gravy in a new blank scene so then there is something wrong with your bigger level/scene.

If it doesn't look right - bring in asset with new name and new automatic mapped lightmap UV's

Still messed up, try new material.

Still messed up export mesh outta maya/max as a .obj - then back into new scene in max/maya and re-export a fresh .fbx and take through steps above.

Report back your findings; something along that process will reveal the issue as your trying to identify if it's related to: unreal scene/lightmapUVS/material/texture/mesh/probes.

There so many things that could be messing this up....it's hard to say what it is for sure, but this will take a lot of things out of the equation and identify the broken link(s) in the chain. 

RipNic

Hi folks, Sorry for late update, Had a moment of inactivity but I am back again.
So here is a bigger update

RipNic

And here is some screenshots from UE4. Havn't bothered so much with the lightning yet.
But.. I don't really know what I feel about the scenery atm.
I could be wrong on this but It feels kinda boring level design, A big issue has been how what to do with the left side of the scene.

Thoughts ?

Fweddy

The metal grating looks a little stone-like to me with the sculpt, maybe focus more on making small dents and scratches rather than having so much noise on them? Lower the amount of busy work of the sculpts on them and they should look much better

Things are coming along nicely, your stones look great as always!

David-J

Looking really good. I like it.
My only concern is for you to keep an eye out on those bricks. Right now they have a lot of contrast so they are making your walls very noisy and drawing too much attention. Just something to think about when you texture it. Cheers!

Jeff Parrott

RipNic said:

...but It feels kinda boring level design...

What story are you telling here in the environment? Right now it looks like you are trying to check the correct boxes in terms of creating the actual art but there is no story foundation for that art to stand on. Have you done any loose paint-overs of ideas that could help with that? Maybe banners on the walls that tell who's dungeon it is? Tables with items on it that relate to the guards. Where are the keys? Weapon cases? You can expand on that story heavily as well. It's one thing to be able to functionally create environment assets. It's a whole other thing to be able to tell a story within a 3d space.

Also this all looks extremely modular at the moment. You might look for opportunities to create some hero pieces that are unique.