Sketchbook: Bryan Adams

Delta307

First ever thread here, hopefully its done right.

So I'm a self taught skyboxer and student for 7 years in the field of 3D, Animation, VFX and Game Dev. I create snazzy looking skies. I create both Volumetric and Static skies and currently have a Hybrid set up im currently researching. I come from the land of Hobbits where the skies are extremely beautiful and the land untouched.

Soooo abit about last year before I start this year 
Last year for me was an awesome year, I got a lot of work done and experimented with some awesome tech( I even created a Borderlands themed skybox and composited it in game ). I created a few fan art panoramic images that got a bit of traction as well as a interview on the basic set up for volumetric skies. Throughout the year I covered a range of technical aspects on rendering, delivering and compressing skyboxes. Feel free to check my Artstation for previous years work >>here<<.

This year I thought why not create a thread that keeps up with all my experiments, failures, successes and completed work, It would be awesome to reflect and see how far I've gone within a year. 

So the first few posts will be back to back as I have done a bit already this year, they will be compressed images with links to either videos or the Artstation page they are from.

Last years collective work

Delta307

First Skybox of 2018, This was inspired from the Westcoast of New Zealand. I learnt alot in this skybox, From node/graph work within the program, creating custom water and custom clouds. The piece on Artstation includes the stages I went through.

Artstation piece: West Coast

Delta307

2 nights ago I did a skybox sprint where I created, edited and revisited some work just for the fun of it.

The first image I put my Heavens Window skybox in Unreal with a quick World Machine export and a quick water shader. I ended up making a video of me playing around with some savvy god rays.

Video here




I added a skybox to my Aegis Vangaurd Fan Art 

Model Credit goes to RSI 


Last one is a quick 10 minute Volumetric skybox which is using the same World Machine export I did above. This skybox was running at 2k (2560 x1440) at 90 FPS 

Delta307

Last night I did a quick 1 hour study on Nor'Westers a crazy cloud formation in NZ where it brings strong hot gale force winds, they are similar to Chinook winds or wave windows. The things I experimented with is Layers and "tails" 

Delta307

I've just started a new mini project. Its a Halo inspired skybox, which I may use in a later project. so far I have a base block out of the clouds, planet and the actual ring, which can't be seen in this render. I'm planing on spending about 2 weeks on this one before rendering it as a panoramic and using some industry standard compression methods for delivery.

ParksMarks

Hi Bryan, amazing work so far. Can you speak more on your compression methods please? Will the final output be HDR?

armagon

How do you paint skyboxes?

Delta307

Sorry for the delay

@ParksMarksI'm using a compression method that is used at CodeMasters so I dont know if I can explicitly state what the workflow is. But technically yes it will be a "compressed HDR" for game Im sorry I cant offer more of an explanation

@armagon , I use a wide range of programs for Skyboxing depending on what I'm doing which is either Procedural Volumetrics or Static Skyboxes. They go from Vue, Terragen, Hodini, Photoshop and my own images. I did a small Interview for 80 level on volumetrics >Here<

armagon

You are the best. Thank you!

Delta307

A bit of a throw back to when I did realtime Iridescence in Unreal.

Video of it in realtime >>here<<



Update on the Halo skybox will come tomorrow, unless it renders faster

Delta307

More on the Halo fan art skybox, still in the blockout stage, I think I got the clouds sorted, except the low cloud on the bottom right where the extinction rate is too much and I didn't set up the ambient light for it  Its all goods though its a blockout and will be refined heaps towards the end.

Little heads up:
Because of my mentorship and masterclass I will start to post more texturing and environment art on this thread too

Delta307

One thing I need to do is learn to effectively and efficiently create 3D landscapes to put my skyboxes in, this is one large step in learning that.
I spent the last 2 days creating this, throughout the rest of the week I'll create a small scene with a skybox to compile it all in 

What I feel like I have to do is sort the rock and dust colour out, the sand seems fine but I find the rocks a bit off

Any C&Cs welcome 

Delta307

So I was only supposed to make a material this week, but I went all out and created a small scene to put it in. 1k quick skybox, sand VFX and 2 materials(Sand / Sandy Rock)

High quality and some other images >>here<<

Delta307

Just dusting off the old gears with World Machine, its been about 6 months since I've used it. Just going over splats and layered effects. Nothing too crazy or exciting 

Delta307

2 more base mesh landscapes in World Machine, I've got two more to go and this weeks sprint is finished, these projects have added splatmaps and will be exported as a small library 

Delta307

4th Landscape, its 10km x 10km, I hope to have a better landscape with my 5th one

Delta307

5th and final landscape for the week. After having some input from my mentor I'm blown away how it looks, I may redo all my landscapes with this method now. 

Delta307

I decided to make one more landscape after what I got taught, I tried to spice things up by fusing another project into this one, the nodes look like a spider web but I think I got there. Luckily this is just some splat maps and World Machine renders, soon they'll be in engine. Now its on to something else for week 3 

Delta307

Here is the finished sprint, I didn't feel like some of the landscapes were good enough to post on Artstation but these 3 I'll definitely use. 

Link >>here<<

Delta307

Just a quick screenshot of what I'm working on in this weeks sprint, 3 hours in and I've completed a 3rd of what I've wanted already 

Delta307

One more asset and then its on to making low polys and texturing. All Warframe fan assets, I think I've spent about 8 hours in total so far

Delta307

Did some more on this tonight, got the maintenance pane complete with its internal structure. Tomorrow I'll do the lights and door. I've also put some additional screencaps for the fun of it







Additional Screecaps

Delta307

It's been awhile since I've posted but here is a small update, I created a target which was reviewed and accepted. 



This is the final poly counts for the targets I've only done the walls as it was a busy week. I went a bit under on some but managed to keep the details there 



Next I'm on to a Trim Sheet and UVs

Delta307

Monday morning I decided to do a sprint model from concept and this was the result. I'm quite happy with the outcome and will take this further soon. I'll be using a Trim Sheet on this too 

The concept I referenced was on page 157 from The Art of Overwatch, Vertical Planter Concept

Delta307

Latest Skybox, I did this for a break and a refresher. Bungies interview with Mark Goldsworth, The Skywriters of Destiny was a huge inspiration and motive to get back to what started my passion for 3D in the first place

Full Version >>here<<

Delta307

Some WIPs of a piece called Fallen Titan

This was the original  idea to mimic the fields we pass every time we go fishing but it was pretty boring....Yes YEET was in there for a teaser on my other social media sites 



 After adding some lakes and trees to give it a bit more story, I was still working on the water shader at this point

Delta307

I've been playing way to much Destiny 2 at the moment. I haven't progressed far as those amazing skyboxes stop me every time. This actually started as a piece inspired from a fishing location but it seemed a tad to boring with just a field, so I spiced it up with a bit of inspiration from the Sunken Isle in the EDZ. Its all in Unreal with some World Machine, Vue and SpeedTree.

I'm really happy how this turned out, from a random scene trying to get my vision to engine, to a subtle storied scene and fanart for Bungie


Full 8k res and some Wips 
>>Here<<

Yedp

These skyboxes are real candies for the eyes! Great work on the landscapes as well! 

Eric Chadwick

I really like this last one. But it's strange that the rocks aren't reflected in the water, while the taller things are. Might want to adjust the reflection bias.

Delta307

@Yedp Thank you so so much it really means a lot to me to hear that

@Eric Chadwick thank you so much yeah its a bit of an issue, I'm trying to sort it out in a new scene, even planar reflections didnt pick it up

Delta307

One of the many skyboxes I reject weekly, I usually keep the discarded skyboxes to work on later or rip apart and use for other skyboxes 

Delta307

Playing around in UE4 working on the causal skyboxes and learning reflections and its impact on the engine. I'm currently reworking the skybox as i dont like how the flat cumulus clouds has destroyed the colour and overall feel of the skybox





Reflection test on the windows

Delta307

Real time volumetrics test. A extremely quick test, no refinement, no tweaks, just a quick world height fog and cloud layer all voumetric in TS 4.1.

Short Video >>here<<
Long Video >>here<<

Delta307

Edited back the skybox to a cleaner state, I removed the flat cumulus that destroyed the light quality and image quality and touched up some things

Image - compressed for Polycount (255KB)

Eric Chadwick

You don't have to go crazy small with your images. 300 pixels high makes it hard to see your work. I'd recommend just using JPG, and keeping it around 1920x1080 or so. 

Delta307

@Eric Chadwick most of my images are high res screenshots from the unreal editor and converted to a jpg format, the side by side one is a bit smaller as i didn't want to extend the width by 1920, i can re upload both images at full rez if thats better

Delta307

Larger images


New skybox


Old Skybox

Delta307

Just a random render, learning some new atmospheric settings 

Delta307

A bit more refinement on the clouds, I've done a small render becasue I've enabled Volumetric lighting which bumps up the render time.

I've also been working on some materials in UE4, so far I've made a dual normal material, a pearlescent material and currently working on a iridescent material which you can kinda see in the last picture 

Delta307

Created a Alpha Sundog and applied it to my old Destiny trials of the Nine fan art, I kinda stuffed up as theres barely any chromatic aberration on the sundog but its an awesome start to more atmospheric effects to my skies

Eric Chadwick

Pro Tip: JPG compression doesn't matter if you're uploading to Polycount; all images are recompressed automatically. Resolution is what controls the file size. More info.

Keep going, these look great!

Delta307

Iridescence shader work in progress. I'm really happy with it and how well its coming along 

Delta307

First time experimenting with global values and I did not expect it to look like this from afar (quick small render) I'm going to experiment more after my current project

Delta307

@Eric Chadwick Thanks for that clear up, I was a bit confused about the compression  

Delta307

I made a gif of the planet so far, just practicing making gifs for showcasing 

Delta307

I finally finished my planet, I had so many issues uploading and the image turning out blurry but I got that sorted by uploading through Edge

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GoqRB

Delta307

My new project, I'm really excited for this one. This is how far I got yesterday after work. Today I'll be editing the clouds and mesh more 

Delta307

Some WIPS 

The foreground will stay the same, I'll be editing the background and clouds more 

Delta307

Some lighting demos. Low quality renders for quick turn overs. Just trying to get a good overall feel for lighting 

Delta307

Project Complete , I stayed with the first lighting set up. It was such an awesome project, I learnt a lot and achieved some small goals, next up will be to put this into UE4 in preparation for a project later on in the year 

Link

GraphicArtsAttitude

I find that very interesting Follow. Recently i'm moving to environment art just to explore something different. Do you work only in realtime ?