[UE4] Street Scene-Environment (Finished)

aclund3

Hi all, I've begun work on a new small-scale contained environment and am excited to share my work as it progresses.

Concept:
March 2017, I traveled in Germany/Austria and my favorite places were often discovered after wandering away from the main tourist areas.  I'd  happen across a small square or wander through an alley full of life with the local people doing their local things.  And this occurred over and over.  I loved these 'side' spaces, just adjacent to the hustle and bustle of the main streets/areas. They felt cozy, comfortable, and familiar, even though I was in a foreign land, couldn't speak the language, and could barely read the signs.  The buildings were old and tall and would often have projecting bays reaching out and gently enclosing the outdoor spaces.  I endeavor to create a similar reality in a small environment.

Architecture/Massing Reference:
I've organized reference from my own photographs using PureRef:


Planning:
I then started sketching out some ideas and worked those into something a bit more manageable, planning out asset creation.  I'll shrink the street down to one lane to help cozy up the space a bit.



Software:
I'll be using mainly 3dsMax for modeling, Substance Painter/Designer for baking and texturing, and UE4 to pull it all together.

Feedback Appreciated!
I'm intentionally going after some new things with this project to keep myself learning and growing, so I will greatly appreciate any wisdom and advice in the form of critical feedback throughout this process.

Thanks for the look, please leave any thoughts, and stay tuned for updates as I progress!
Andrew III

Larry

Seems like you are fond of this kind of "gate" passage. Personally i mostly like your medieval refference, but that is just my passion in general. One thing i noticed is that all the picture's buildings are kind of cold colors, so try and avoid that in your textures! 
Also, what kind of trim sheet are you going to make?

aclund3

@Larry Some form of arched corridor seemed important to me as part of the passage into the scene, but it's early, things can change

Thanks for the note on the cold colors, I'll keep an eye on it.

At the moment, I plan on creating a trim sheet for the wood panel elements on the projecting bays, but not sure where else I'll use them just yet. Things will get clearer as I work through the blockout. I'll use repeating tileable textures for the large walls/roads/sidewalks with variable dirt/grime textures overlayed on top, but I need to do more research into how that's done. One of the 'new things' I was referencing.

Larry

aclund3 said:

@Larry I love medieval stuff too, that'll be for another project for sure    I added that image in as kind of a scale and clutter/activity reference. The arched corridor seems important to me as part of the passage into the scene, but it's early, things can change

Thanks for the note on the cold colors, I'll keep an eye on it.

I plan on creating a trim sheet for the wood panel elements on the projecting bays, but, I'm not sure about where else to use them just yet. Things will get clearer as I work through the blockout. My hope is to use repeating tileable textures for the large walls/roads/sidewalks with variable dirt/grime textures overlayed on top, but I need to do more research into how that's done. One of the 'new things' I was referencing.

Thanks for the note!

I haven't made this work as well, but i think that if you are going to lay multiple uv's on top of each other on a trim sheet, you cannot have dirt on them on the  texture. That would propably be done with vertex painting combining 2 materials.

Or is there a way i don't know that you can both have a trim sheet and add dirt on top of your meshes?

Kanni3d

Wonderful reference, and solid concept you've put together. Definitely a fan of centuries old architecture, especially ones that are prevalent modernly. 

aclund3

@Larry
Thanks for the thoughts, mate!  I'm not sure yet about combining materials one over the another, but I will dig into it as I go along.

@Kanni3d
Thank you kindly!  I have to admit that I haven't done much work on this personal project yet (babies coming, and house remodel needs to get finished) but I am super pumped about this environment.  Encouragement from the polycounter community is an absolutely wonderful thing, and a large part of why I started this thread so early, relative to other projects where I haven't posted anything until it was mostly complete.

aclund3

Well, finishing the house remodel and taking care of newborn twins pushed this project back a few (re: many) months, but I'm back working on it!

Coming back to the project after a bit of a break, I decided my concept could use a bit of an overhaul. I liked the bones of what I had, but it was looking very blocky and too heavily influenced by the 'grid' with elements appearing pasted on the three visible planes.  So I reworked my target into something more variable and appealing (I think). It's a bit less modular, but its a small scene, so that should be alright.  I think this gets back a bit more toward my original idea.



I've also created new material reference sheets with PureRef, which is an incredible and amazing program for reference gathering. Do yourself a favor and give it a try. I promise you won't be sad.


Material Reference Sheet
I have a separate sheet for each material (ref is KING), but rather than bore us all, I'll just post the overall material sheet.


At this point, I think much of the planning is in place, so it's time to start pushing verts around in Max and get a blockout up and running.  This will continue to evolve as the project progresses, and as always, any helpful critique or feedback is absolutely appreciated. Thanks for following along with me through the break and on we go!  

Genotype

Really loving the breakdown for materials, really adds scope to what your are trying to achieve really nice to break it all down into achievable chunks. The Plan looks super solid. The material variation should also be very visually appealing. Are you planning to add the characters in?

Also Massively agree Pureref is the best!  

aclund3

@Genotype
Thanks for the input!  I don't plan on adding the characters at the moment, but will definitely work out some story elements sans people. This scene is going to be more about the environment art, rather than character stuff

aclund3

It turns out that personal projects really seem to slow down when you're busy raising twins

So, the mood/atmosphere/story targets have all been adjusted since I first began.  I'm now heading for more of a foggy evening, near blue hour, with a few snow flurries in the air, and snow on the ground (and everywhere else).  Here's a few shots of the basic blockout in UE4 with a tad of lighting and volumetrics blocked in as well.  I intend to massage the set dressings a bit to help compositionally and I also will add snow piles/clumps along the curbs before I really detail this out, but progress is progress is progress


Street View Blockout


Tunnel View Blockout


If you have any thoughts about where this is going, please do leave a comment.  Constructive criticism is always very much appreciated!

polygons

Its looking great so far. Love the idea of doing it in blue hour with snow. It will contrast well with your orange lights. Good luck! 

aclund3

I've added placeholder materials and continued to work through composition, lighting, adding props, background, some post-processing, etc.  As I was tweaking the lighting, I kept finding myself pushing darker, so I'm not sure how much 'blue hour' we're really getting here anymore, but its feeling nice.  Here's the shot pulled straight from UE4:



The models are at a proxy level, with UVs thrown together just to get them in the scene. Putting in my own materials will be the next step, and then adding age and wear to the buildings and tightening up the meshes and lighting/composition, step by step by step.  Still a ways to go  

I must confess, there are a lot of really awesome things I had initially planned for this environment scene, but time to work on this continues to grow ever shorter. So, now I'm working more in a 'production/wrap up' mindset, rather than the 'experimenting with new workflows and techniques' space I started in.  So, yeah... anyways, please leave any constructive criticism and feedback that might help me push this through to awesomeness.  Other eyes are very helpful and much appreciated!

aclund3

Heyo!  I was able to accomplish much over the last few weeks!  I've created tilers in Substance Designer, added props/assets and grime/dirt/crack details with UE4 decals.  I adjusted camera/composition, heavily overhauled the lighting, worked through vertex painting the different layers of snow and ice on the street, and managed to get a ton of other things together.  I also built a shader in UE4 which blends the street and snow meshes, allowing me to place snow meshes wherever and move them whenever with the blend automatically updating.

So yeah, I'm at a place with this scene where it feels like its getting close(r?), and I'd love to hear what you think!  Anything that comes to mind, good or bad would be quite helpful



Let me know if you have any comments / questions about how I achieved any of this, or if you have any other thoughts!  Cheers!

Larry

Hi, i'm really glad you kept on it since it's been more than 1 year when you started it.

Overall the scene looks nice, with a good feeling and nice lighting contrast. I love the warmth in the middle compared to the coldness of the scene. Is your snow modeled or tesselated?
There are a couple of things for me though that when you look closely tend to seem unrealistic:
1) is the brightness of your sky, doesn't match the atmospheric light. Your sky indicates that there's a source of light behind clouds and in a quite high position (not like dawn where the sun comes from the horizon), but the ambient light value in your scene is rather dark.
2) there is little to no fading of the lights of the windows, they all seem to have the same universal amount of light emission, even if it's on a different floor. You can't have the same light values in every window :P 
In case you're interested, that's a 5 minute video with a neat trick that could be applied to 1 or 2 of your windows as well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUGxwC8ddO0&list=FLoKB0LX8ZBgq8VVjagAy_aQ&index=35&t=1s

It's just an observation so don't take my word for it. I am crappy with lighting my own scenes :P

aclund3

Hey thanks for mentioning that, man!  I really had to push this to the back-burner while raising my newborn twins last year so its incredibly sweet to come back and shape this into something cool.  Shelved personal projects just make me sad, and I'm glad its not happening to this one

For the snow, I modeled a few variations of snow mound meshes in MAX and then created a snow tiler material in substance designer which I tessellated in the UE4 shader.  The little clumps were used with the foliage brush to scatter around and help with silhouettes, etc.  These meshes were placed intersecting the street mesh, and with the shader working its math, a nice blend was achieved


Here's a screen from back when I was testing the shader using basic placeholder textures (there's vertex painting and height masks happening in here too):


1)  The theory was city lights in the distance scattering through the fog and snow as it falls causing a strong glowing gradient coming up from behind the building.  Its a unique lighting condition for sure and could use some adjustment... here's some of the ref I was using:
 

2)  Perfect!  I will definitely give that trick a shot on some of the windows.  POM is one of those things I culled to try and push towards completion, but if it needs it, it needs it   Thanks for the link, makes perfect sense.

You're awesome, @Larry !  Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, immensely helpful

RustySpannerz

This came out beautifully by the way! There's not really much you can criticise, it looks like a postcard! 

aclund3

@RustySpannerz
Ah, thanks for the kind words, friend   Still a little bit more to go I think, but I'm closing in!

Spag_Eddy

This really is looking quite beautiful. Nicely done! You did a great job setting the mood, I wish I was there right now.

aclund3

Much appreciated @Spag_Eddy!

pixelpatron

Wow, dis gonna be good.gif

Macebo

damn, looks ace! really inspiring to see how long you've been working on and off on this

@Larry thank you so much for sharing that fake translucency material, very useful

aclund3

Thanks @pixelpatron, that's an affirmative   It feels even better with the steam and fog and snow all moving while I'm working on it in UE4.

And thank you @macebo. I've been staring at this on and off for some time now, and my critical ability with it is lessening by the day... so it means a lot to hear that this is looking good to others.

aclund3

Hey all!  I finally got my screenshots and breakdowns together for this environment:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1nGkVK

Main Shot:

Close Shot:


Cinematic (I hope this is everything you hoped for @pixelpatron)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0uli3n32Ps


Check out the Artstation link above for additional images and breakdown videos.  Thank you again to the entire polycount community for the support on this project. It was a long one, and you helped keep me on track when I did get the opportunities to work on it

Jimmy_Chao

looking good:))))

aclund3

@Jimmy_Chao
Thanks mate!  It all finally came together