Following on from the above post I had a chat with everyone involved about scaling back the scope of the project. It's due end of August, and I'm keen to have a high quality section of this city to be finished by then. This (highly technical) image shows where I'm going to limit the playable area to, it's still a large area, but it means I can focus all my attention and detail here, and everything else can be background noise. The flying on the dragon part i believe we've decided will be on rails, more of a cinematic experience of flying towards the island, landing, and then walking around freely. As I'm the only environment artist on this, I don't want to spread myself too thin, and I think it's important to manage our expectations correctly. This conversation came about purely from me writing the above post, so a thank you to Polycount in general for making me think harder about this from just writing a post
If anyone has any suggestions on how to better approach this, or to tell me we're going about this completely the wrong way, then please let me know
I'm not sure if you want flythroughs with the whole level visible at once, but LODs is a great start to handling that. As for performance issues on the ground level:
My layout should be taken with a grain of salt, it's just kinda demonstrating how you can use your modular assets to help with performance issues. Right now a lot of your areas have long straight lines and big courtyard areas. You can still have those kinds of areas, but they need to be strategically placed so that's really the only thing visible, rather than that particular point of interest along with every other POI in the level.
I like your current scale back, I think you're going to find that after taking those areas to a vertical slice, you would be able to start duplicating those fully dressed modules around, with the only changes being layouts to the modular assets.
My layout should be taken with a grain of salt, it's just kinda demonstrating how you can use your modular assets to help with performance issues. Right now a lot of your areas have long straight lines and big courtyard areas. You can still have those kinds of areas, but they need to be strategically placed so that's really the only thing visible, rather than that particular point of interest along with every other POI in the level.
I like your current scale back, I think you're going to find that after taking those areas to a vertical slice, you would be able to start duplicating those fully dressed modules around, with the only changes being layouts to the modular assets.
Thank you for the feedback. I hadn't thought about it in that way, and I like the idea quite a lot, it would also reinforce a multi tiered feeling to the castle walls if maybe the vertical slices aren't quite as tall as the outer walls. I'll play around with some ideas. Thanks!
@JLHGameArt Well, admitedly actual bat wings don't bend as much as in my animation, but my only advice would be to have your animator look a bit more closely at the bat's wing tips as it's close to reach its apogee, and see how the fingertips bend just then.
@JLHGameArt Well, admitedly actual bat wings don't bend as much as in my animation, but my only advice would be to have your animator look a bit more closely at the bat's wing tips as it's close to reach its apogee, and see how the fingertips bend just then.
Started blocking out smaller areas of interest. Tudor sculpted a high poly gargoyle, but it didn't really fit the aesthetic of the buildings, so @Elithenia made a low poly and textured it, and I'm making a small area where some kind of demon worship has happened, and possibly the reason the city is abandoned. Might make a decal for a ritual symbol on the ground and make some candles to place around, could look cool. Not a fan of the fire braziers in front of the gargoyles though, so I might make them fire bowls instead.
Started blocking out smaller areas of interest. Tudor sculpted a high poly gargoyle, but it didn't really fit the aesthetic of the buildings, so @Elithenia made a low poly and textured it, and I'm making a small area where some kind of demon worship has happened, and possibly the reason the city is abandoned. Might make a decal for a ritual symbol on the ground and make some candles to place around, could look cool. Not a fan of the fire braziers in front of the gargoyles though, so I might make them fire bowls instead.
I'm sure you guys already have plans for this, but I'm noticing a lot of straight lines throughout the scenes that are separating the buildings from the ground/organic rock areas.
You have great ground blends already, But they don't interact with the buildings.
Here's a quick paintover to explain: Just bringing up some of the vertices already starts grounding your buildings and gets rid of the harsh separations.
@heyeye Thanks for the crit I completely agree. Currently my plan is to make a couple mesh's that will act as built up dirt and snow in-between the stone edges and the ground. I should be able to just place them around and break up the lines. In the playable area I'm using ground tile planes for now because we couldn't get height based material blending on the landscape mesh. So I'm going to break it up essentially with a really basic trim mesh I can dot around the place.
This is only a suggestion, but I think it would be pretty cool if your banners and flags had some type of cloth simulation. Otherwise great work so far
This is only a suggestion, but I think it would be pretty cool if your banners and flags had some type of cloth simulation. Otherwise great work so far
Yeah I really want to do that. They're blockouts right now, but I want to add in some verts to allow them to move in the wind etc, only a little, would look cool.
Respect, this is a very gigantic project which come togehter nicely. Especially the stone building pieces are awesome. Any chance you give us some insight in how you approach them?
Wall Pieces. 1. Blockoout scale reference in 3d program (Maya, Max, etc) 2. Zbrush. Load in blockout. Append a cube, sculpt a stone brick. 3. Sculpt a few more bricks, varying size and shape. 4. Place bricks on top of the base mesh and position. Duplicate them around the whole base mesh until covered. 5. Sculpt bricks further to make sure none are overlapping. 6. Save (often) new file iteration. I usually save before I move on to each major step. 7. Dynamesh everything together. 8. Clean up areas where stones have joined with the base mesh. 9. Sculpt in more large details/variation. 10. Duplicate your finished high poly. 11. Decimate the wall down as low as you can while retaining the silhouette. 12. export both high and low poly's 13. Clean up low poly in 3d program. 14. Unwrap low poly. 15. Bake in chosen program. 16. Texture. (i use substance painter to easily add moss and dirt to the crevices by using a mask with an inverted AO map) 17. Check out how it look in engine. 18. Smile at your work and get some rest. Look at it again the next day and see all the problems. 19. Get back to work.
Been working on a few things since my last post. Started on some snow build up trims to break up those lines. Also going to make some dirt/stones trim for the same function. Built the door, and a few more props. Changed some lighting and the sky to test how I like a sunset look for the scene. I quite like the gloomy feel in the streets but seeing the orange colour from sunset on the walls as you look up.
Album of progress shots here Mostly looking for some more interesting shots, and developing some level of detail. Starting to feel better about the scene now i'm getting some more colours in there. If anyone feels like making me some props for practice to stick on the tables (stuff you would sell at a market), feel free and i'll obviously credit you when it's all finished.
The ground seems extremely flat, Streets could use some lowering where the most wear would have happened, like wagons, walking, and rain have pushed it lower into the soil, If you have a look at a paved street even today you can see that it's not flat at all.
The ground seems extremely flat, Streets could use some lowering where the most wear would have happened, like wagons, walking, and rain have pushed it lower into the soil, If you have a look at a paved street even today you can see that it's not flat at all.
yeah currently using ground planes because we can't use the landscape material with height blending. so I'm probably going to export the planes out and model in some height variation. cheers!
So i better show what i've been doing, because it looks like Joe is doing all the work. He isn't. Just like... 95% of it.
The narrative component of Orloth is told when the player collects crystals. The crystals contain messages left for them by the guardian of the town. We wanted a way for the player to be able to easily know when they are near a crystal. The players armour will begin to glow and get more intense as the player gets closer to a crystal, this effect will end once the player has interacted with that crystal. So you can see above the normal, and glowing armour. That's the low poly + wip textures.
And here is a video showing the effect on the UE4 base character. You can also see one of the crystals i made. I wanted to give the impression that it has energy contained inside it, and the particles around the outside help make it stand out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBWLN24sT-c
Spent today working on the bridge, combining assets for optimisation, and trying out new lighting. Darker mood, makes it easier to use lights to create focal points. I quite like it. Whole album here.
Replies
Super cool project, definitely gonna follow this. As many said, the scale of this is impressive, good luck following through!
Love the dragon btw, the little bit of glow on its underside is fun
The flying on the dragon part i believe we've decided will be on rails, more of a cinematic experience of flying towards the island, landing, and then walking around freely. As I'm the only environment artist on this, I don't want to spread myself too thin, and I think it's important to manage our expectations correctly.
This conversation came about purely from me writing the above post, so a thank you to Polycount in general for making me think harder about this from just writing a post
I'm not sure if you want flythroughs with the whole level visible at once, but LODs is a great start to handling that. As for performance issues on the ground level:
My layout should be taken with a grain of salt, it's just kinda demonstrating how you can use your modular assets to help with performance issues. Right now a lot of your areas have long straight lines and big courtyard areas. You can still have those kinds of areas, but they need to be strategically placed so that's really the only thing visible, rather than that particular point of interest along with every other POI in the level.
I like your current scale back, I think you're going to find that after taking those areas to a vertical slice, you would be able to start duplicating those fully dressed modules around, with the only changes being layouts to the modular assets.
Cheers.
Update on the dragon animations, Anims all done by @Avcat!
Whole imgur album here.
Tudor sculpted a high poly gargoyle, but it didn't really fit the aesthetic of the buildings, so @Elithenia made a low poly and textured it, and I'm making a small area where some kind of demon worship has happened, and possibly the reason the city is abandoned. Might make a decal for a ritual symbol on the ground and make some candles to place around, could look cool. Not a fan of the fire braziers in front of the gargoyles though, so I might make them fire bowls instead.
You have great ground blends already, But they don't interact with the buildings.
Here's a quick paintover to explain:
Just bringing up some of the vertices already starts grounding your buildings and gets rid of the harsh separations.
Adding drama to an earlier concept
Especially the stone building pieces are awesome. Any chance you give us some insight in how you approach them?
Wall Pieces.
1. Blockoout scale reference in 3d program (Maya, Max, etc)
2. Zbrush. Load in blockout. Append a cube, sculpt a stone brick.
3. Sculpt a few more bricks, varying size and shape.
4. Place bricks on top of the base mesh and position. Duplicate them around the whole base mesh until covered.
5. Sculpt bricks further to make sure none are overlapping.
6. Save (often) new file iteration. I usually save before I move on to each major step.
7. Dynamesh everything together.
8. Clean up areas where stones have joined with the base mesh.
9. Sculpt in more large details/variation.
10. Duplicate your finished high poly.
11. Decimate the wall down as low as you can while retaining the silhouette.
12. export both high and low poly's
13. Clean up low poly in 3d program.
14. Unwrap low poly.
15. Bake in chosen program.
16. Texture. (i use substance painter to easily add moss and dirt to the crevices by using a mask with an inverted AO map)
17. Check out how it look in engine.
18. Smile at your work and get some rest. Look at it again the next day and see all the problems.
19. Get back to work.
Changed some lighting and the sky to test how I like a sunset look for the scene. I quite like the gloomy feel in the streets but seeing the orange colour from sunset on the walls as you look up.
Mostly looking for some more interesting shots, and developing some level of detail.
Starting to feel better about the scene now i'm getting some more colours in there. If anyone feels like making me some props for practice to stick on the tables (stuff you would sell at a market), feel free and i'll obviously credit you when it's all finished.
So i better show what i've been doing, because it looks like Joe is doing all the work. He isn't. Just like... 95% of it.
The narrative component of Orloth is told when the player collects crystals. The crystals contain messages left for them by the guardian of the town. We wanted a way for the player to be able to easily know when they are near a crystal. The players armour will begin to glow and get more intense as the player gets closer to a crystal, this effect will end once the player has interacted with that crystal. So you can see above the normal, and glowing armour. That's the low poly + wip textures.
And here is a video showing the effect on the UE4 base character. You can also see one of the crystals i made. I wanted to give the impression that it has energy contained inside it, and the particles around the outside help make it stand out.
https://gfycat.com/GentlePopularAfricangroundhornbill
UE4's reliance on pixel depth offsets over actual normal map inputs for their hair shader is pretty brutal... textures and stuff are all WIP.