[UE4] Abandoned japanese village + tutorial vlogs
veteran polycounter
Done the scene....for now 
http://youtu.be/c9qOfP4Y-60
UPDATE: Latest tut video is live!
https://youtu.be/jsN0LBgrj14
Hey hey you vertex ticklers....
So I decided to vlog the process of creating my entry in the artstation feudal japan challenge, figure it would make some good learning material for anyone who is interested. First episode is up, its a bit long, but I really wanted to give context to who I am, why im doing it etc. I also hammer on the importance of moodboards/references and give away one of my secrets in the process A little awkward filming myself being that I am a bit of an introvert but whatever! by the time it's all said and done the series should be one big tutorial pretty much, with career advice layered througout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJps8QxOh4s
future episodes will probably be around 5-10 mins max and cover each major milestone of production (blockout, asset creation, alpha, beta, lighting and final color grade etc), so probably 1-2 episodes a week. Basically, I want you guys to see that my actions map to my words of my articles and I'm not full of shit hahahaha
enjoy, and if you do, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed to my new polygon academy youtube channel if you want that phresh art content in your feed.
link to my progress/WIP thread on artstation, but I will probably also create one here with some special sauce for the homies.
http://youtu.be/c9qOfP4Y-60UPDATE: Latest tut video is live!
https://youtu.be/jsN0LBgrj14Hey hey you vertex ticklers....
So I decided to vlog the process of creating my entry in the artstation feudal japan challenge, figure it would make some good learning material for anyone who is interested. First episode is up, its a bit long, but I really wanted to give context to who I am, why im doing it etc. I also hammer on the importance of moodboards/references and give away one of my secrets in the process
A little awkward filming myself being that I am a bit of an introvert but whatever! by the time it's all said and done the series should be one big tutorial pretty much, with career advice layered througouthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJps8QxOh4sfuture episodes will probably be around 5-10 mins max and cover each major milestone of production (blockout, asset creation, alpha, beta, lighting and final color grade etc), so probably 1-2 episodes a week. Basically, I want you guys to see that my actions map to my words of my articles and I'm not full of shit hahahaha
enjoy, and if you do, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed to my new polygon academy youtube channel if you want that phresh art content in your feed.link to my progress/WIP thread on artstation, but I will probably also create one here with some special sauce for the homies.
Replies
Do we just find the videos here first?
Day 1:
day 2: added color and expanded the overall scene:
Back with another episode for you guys! the feedback and comments so far have been GOLD! I really appreciate anyone who has taken the time to watch or leave a comment, you guys are awesome.
I'll let the video do most of the talking but I just wanted to quickly hammer on the importance of starting a project on the right foot and easily navigating through to the end. I used to HATE this process and was always eager into building props and final art pieces but it always ended up hurting me. Now I fully embrace this process, and have used it on almost every game I have worked on, from sleeping dogs and spacemarine to FarCry 4 and Watch_Dogs 2.
A solid blockout allows you to prioritized your asset production based on what is taking up the most of the screen, so you are not just blasting out random details and suddenly realizing you have spent half the production time of the project on tiny objects!
As always hit me up with questions and feedback below and I will do my best to answer them. This next week is going to be focused on the actual modeling and large form asset producction so this will be the last you guys see of this greyblock. A fitting end to #Blocktober more progress and actual art coming soon..
I've got one question and one suggestion for you.
Question: In video 2, what setup did you use in Unreal to record the blockout process while not in the main camera view? I've tried timelapses before with level creation but I just used the main camera view, and the result came out really spastic haha
Suggestion: Also in video 2, when you cut to the shot, of you looking at your computer and narrating, it feels slightly awkward to see you talking to your screen. It might feel better to actively look back and forth between the camera and your computer, otherwise it feels like the audience is in the room with you but you're ignoring them while talking to the screen. It doesn't even have to be prolonged eye contact either haha, even just a passing glance every now and again would help. :P
Hopefully that helps! Keep up the great content!
@alytlebird
I just opened another viewport window, setup a cinematic cam and locked its translation to avoid accidentally moving it, and then had my second monitor dedicated to that extra viewport(you can have multiple 3d viewports in unreal), so I could record the timelapse while working on my main monitor. I just shoved all my content browser and any other unreal windows onto my main monitor, a bit annoying but worth it for the timelapse
Yea I agree with you about the over the shoulder cam, I will try and tighten up that editing with some talking to camera shots that are a bit more planned while demoing.
the roofs are pretty highpoly, each chunk is about 5k tris, but I still have to delete some of the tile faces that overlap/are hidden, so should get down to about 4k I would imagine. polys are a lot less of an issue than complicated shaders or tessellation anyways. and unreals automatic LOD's seem super efficient, so after about 20ft away the polycount drops by half.
I wouldnt recommend tinting your textures too much, it makes them not useable for other artists if they are building a level with a different color pallete but the same asset kit. the whole point of pbr is so that assets react to lighting properly, so having a bunch of green rocks that should be neutral/grey means if they were to be added to a volcanic environment thats super red, the colors would look super messed up and the lighting artist would be fighting that.
tl;dr- color pallete should be largely determined by lighting and post. objects should be their actual colors in relation to their materials in real life. it makes assets more re-useable in other levels or scenes.
I realised I follow a lot of the same process but it's great to see it crystallised in written and video form where you can pick up lots of great thoughts. Your Youtube videos are really informative so far and I liked you're article about jobs in the game industry - I had to laugh at the tessellated Substances comment. Great idea with the second viewport - I had been wondering the best way to do a time lapse myself
And using the Wacom Intuos 3, I prefer that version also!
Thank you!
added a few quick placeholder ground textures. right now everything has the same level of z-up moss, but I am going to start adding in variation during the polish phase. sculpting the rocks and stairs next. right now the rocks are just my placeholder with the shader for the flat stone tiles applied, totally hacky faked for compositional planning. the floor stones are actually just the top slabs for the walls re-used so that saves me a prop i need to sculpt down the road. re-use where you can get away with it!
Episode 4 is up! I give a quick update on the overall scene and then go into how using blueprints and prefabs can save you literally hours of work and makes bug fixing and optimization fast and easy. Hope you guys learn something and use it to save yourself some repeditive tasks in future. I also highly recommend Jonas Ronnegard's japan reference packs, they have come in handy while making art for my scene, you can grab them on his gumroad.
the bark sculpt for the tiling texture on the trunk.
Also, i must say that the environment is turning out amazing!
Wicked!!!
The lighting and fog is really just the final element to cap the scene off quite nicely, IMHO.
Anyway win or lose, congrats all the same.
Cheers