[Environment Art] [UE4] Cave
polycounter lvl 10
Hi,
a few weeks ago I began working on my degree project, and wanted to share my progress. The project is focused around scene composition, visual narrative, and creating assets with as high re-usability I can muster.
What I expect to gain from this project is:
1. improving my ability to discern a models level of utility
2. greater understanding of using contrast in light and shadows to push the interest of the scene
One inspiration for the project is MOOD Design Studio's concept attached bellow:
Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/y99EQ
I do not plan on recreating the concept, it is a piece of inspiration I can go back to when I feel uninspired.
Comments are welcomed!
a few weeks ago I began working on my degree project, and wanted to share my progress. The project is focused around scene composition, visual narrative, and creating assets with as high re-usability I can muster.
What I expect to gain from this project is:
1. improving my ability to discern a models level of utility
2. greater understanding of using contrast in light and shadows to push the interest of the scene
One inspiration for the project is MOOD Design Studio's concept attached bellow:
Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/y99EQ
I do not plan on recreating the concept, it is a piece of inspiration I can go back to when I feel uninspired.
Comments are welcomed!
Replies
Began with creating simple rock meshes in Zbrush, and sent the decimated models to Maya where I created UVs. These assets were used to blockout the initial stage of the scene.
My first obstacle was to flesh out a scene from an empty UE4 map. I find it hard to grasp where I should start, especially when there is nothing in the scene, so I focused on laying out a path for the player. Having placed the pathway it became easier to start blocking out the cave walls.
I was having trouble "blending" the cliff assets, and decided to go back to Zbrush and remove details. The changes are subtle, but decreasing the amount of details and focus on a few interesting flowing shapes, once back in UE4 the models blended easier.
Bellow one can see the result of resculpting the cliffs, and I had also begun playing around with buildings, scaffolding, and other man-made assets.
Last week was all about blocking and adding first iteration of lights. While building the cave walls, I kept looking for lines and shapes which would create interesting contrasts and silhouettes.
Decided to remove the buildings from the scene, and focus more on "natural" rock formations. Also, at this stage I wanted to start working on the cave floor, and decided to temporary remove the scaffolding and other man-made structures.
The direct images bellow shows where I was just before I began creating the models used to block and fill the floor.
Last day of the week I began working on the cave floor, and created the models bellow. Wanted an asset that could break up the flat floor surface, adding more light contrast and height differences.
Update 1.1
The week began with "pushing" back the level of details on the rock models, and in UE4 it became easier to hide the transitions between the various assets. Looking back at old screenshots, it's noticeable how less of a "pile-of-rubble-look" the side walls has, and I feel great about the current direction the scene is on. I'm also trying out new material colors and light positions.
Screenshot from camera01 as of November 7th, and just bellow is the screenshot from last week.
Screenshots 2 and 3
The goal rest of the week is to find a composition for the scaffolding, and add more interest to the scene. Also, I'm not satisfied with the current look of screenshot 3, so I'll probably do a few changes before the weekend.
Keep up the good work.
Ended last week with replacing all placeholders in the scene, and creating highpoly models for the scaffolding. Also, I decimated and imported the pieces into UE4. Other obligation cut into the time I had to work further, but starting this week I should be able to make more progress.
One of my goals for the week is to finish the scaffolding and add more interest to the background.
A few days has come and gone since I have uploaded any progress images, and a lot has happened the past days. There are two textured added to the scene, both on their first iterations. Currently there are no baked textures from the rock highpolys, which will be something I will be working on during the weekend.
I made some changes to the lighting, where I focused on the new contrasting highlights and shadows from the textures. Also, I wanted to emphasize the divide between foreground and background, so I used a basic sphere with a material faking fog.
Sculpted a highpoly model of a cart I want to add later, and I am quite happy with the result. Though, depending on time I might not finish it, since there are quite a lot of other assets I want to finish first.
Starting the week off, I made some adjustments to the camera and added some props in the foreground, plus a few spotlights highlighting a few interesting details.
The red color in the scene comes from the first iteration of adjusting the main Rock material's mask, so that I later could add dirt. The mask uses the combined ambient occlusion maps from the Substance Designer material and the baked texture map.
This update is on the smaller side, but there will be further updates tomorrow, or at the latest on Friday.
The current main camera angle
Finally here for a new update, and I have done a lot of work with materials in UE4 and a few improvements to the Substance Designer textures.
The rock material in UE4 uses a directional mask to blend two rock textures together, and I can also paint with vertex colors for the final touches.
Haven't been able to do much work the past week, but here's a small update.
I spent some time in Substance Designer (SD) working on a sand material. Also, special thanks to Josh Lynch, for his great tutorial about creating sand in SD.
I've added the sand material bellow; however, I want to make some changes, and show of the texture more. I spent quite some time connecting nodes
Camera angle #1
Camera angle #2
New updates will be posted at the start of next week.
Worked on a bare wood material in SD, and further adjusted the lighting. I will make some adjustments to the material; however, at the moment it will do.
Some changes I want to do are:
1. change the point light used to lighten the foreground to a spotlight. Currently, the foreground feels flat and I hope that switching to a spot light will add more highlights and shadows
2. flesh out the scaffolding in the background more, and add some details closer to the camera, such as pebbles, planks, etc.
3. experiment with other colors for the lighting. Does not feel right at the moment.
Next update will have to wait a few days, since I want to show more progress than a few tweaks.
The deadline for the project is closing in, and I am starting to see the end. I have not done an update in about a week, there has been a lot of stuff to take care of. However, below I have added new screenshots, and I am quite proud of these ones.
These camera shots are taken from a similar angle; however, I am playing around a bit with FOV. There is also some differences in how much of each side is showing. The first image shows more of the left side, and has a more even split between the dark, high, and mid light intensities.
Last week I worked on a rope material i Substance Designer, and it turned out nicely. I found great tips and tricks from studying Nathan Mackenzie's Substance pack on Gumroad, so special thanks to him.
I have also finished a barrel model, and the texturing was done in Painter. I reused the wood texture from last week, and used a smart material from the Painter package, with a few adjustments to the dirt and wear amount.
The next update will most likely be the final one, and I look forward to posting the final result.
There might be a texel density issue, with the walls and the floor.
Place a character reference mesh on the scene, 2meters tall.
This is another thing. You can change it if you want. This is a nick-picky one.
That piece that I circled in red, looks like it's blocking the pathway that you have. Maybe move it to the right, and play with the lighting a bit, to have it point towards the end of t hat pathway.
Nice work, though. I made only like one or two cave pieces, that were old-school stuff. You have all there, almost done, just needs a few more refinements. Keep it up.
You can probably test out a small structure on the back left, and still have the pathway/ground visible, and a mid/big structure on the back right. Just a suggestion, if that works.
Time is up, and the scene is done!
Today I added the final details, rope, boxes, etc, and adjusted a few settings before leaving my computer with baking the lights over night.
The final scene composition without the final light baking.
Image of the props I made the past week.
The final camera angle was chosen using the Rule of Thirds. The left vertical line is aligned with the vertical line made by the tower in the background, same thing with the lowest horizontal line, which align with the barrels top.
I desaturated the scene while tweaking the lights. The path and large rock formations in the background were the focus points, and working in black & white helped me highlight these areas. Based on the feedback from my teacher, I added lights in the foreground wanting to enhance the depth and interest of the level.
I had a lot of fun with this project, and I have learned a great deal. The main objective was to focus on the scene's composition and lighting, and I am proud of how it turned out. I am already thinking of my next piece, but Christmas is just around the corner and I need a short break, so the next weeks will be all about my family and friends.
Merry holidays and a happy new year!
Not that I'm terribly qualified to critique stuff like this, but whatever, maybe this might help and its a small thing anyway : The rope lashings on lumber frames there seem too uniform to me. Like it was just tied and with brand new rope and by a very meticulous sailor. Not such an important detail and maybe just me. But, awesome work, I am sorry I missed this thread until now. Great progress.
I see what you mean about the rope, and I'm still debating what I want to do about it. Don't have much time for changes, new challenges awaits, but I want to leave this project with confidence. Currently, I'm leaning towards removing it completely, not sure if what it gives the scene is worth it.
Great work!! The atmosphere is really great and I didn't noticed at first but when I looked my eyes drove directly through the path you set, so this would possibly work very well in the level design perspective too!
I kinda agree with @BIGTIMEMASTER on the rope stuff, they are meticulously tied and if I'm not wrong the way to tie ropes to make those scaffolds are on "X" format, crossing between the vertical and horizontal ones.
I didn't find any reference for you to see but I used the power of imagination to draw and let things be a little clearer.
Anyway, TL:DR that's all to say I don't think OP's lashings look like they are tied wrong to me. I'm not an expert on these particularly types of knots but I've done a good bit of work involving ropes and knots and it didn't really strike me as wrong, just that its very neat and clean looking, while I kind of expect the platforms down there to be heavily used and thus showing some wear/settling. This may help them meld into the scene a little better and feel more natural.
a few examples, but really there is probably a hundred ways to do these:
http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/skills/b-p/lashings.htm