[UE4] Forgotten Roman Temple

Adel0n

Hey Polycount!

Here is my latest UE4 based project I'm working on. My blockout looks like this, trying different ideas last weeks, and that where I stopped for now. My main inspiration and refs were Hubert Robert's paintings, but I want to add a bit of fantasy elements and story to this, so that why I replaced statues, and made mood more melancholic and dark a bit.

My main goal is to improve my sculpt skills in zbrush, also try to make some narrative and storytelling via evironment (I have small story about this place in my notes, which I will try to tell), and, of course, make a good piace of art .

At the current stage I'm really intresting in feedback on composition and design, but anything you think about it will be also great.

Thanks in advance!

My refs

Adel0n

Had some free time, made a capital for the column.

And how it looks in the scene. Also. made a temple a little wider, to add more pathos.

Adel0n

Had some free time, so finally finished the base mesh of the entablature. I wanted to make all ornaments by hand for practice, and, honestly, it was not the easiest task. But I did it, and now it's ready to be broken in ZBrush!

And how it looks in the scene for now:

Adel0n

Finally got to the fun part - broken columns sculpt! First module done, I need to make just around 10 more pieces.

CybranM

Looks like a solid start, hope this turns out awesome

Adel0n

@CybranM Thank you! I also hope for that

Adel0n

More sculpts of column shafts, for now only slightly damaged. It will be mostly main parts of column, but I want to add some variations with larger damages. And first test how they look at the scene

Adel0n

Some small sunday evening sculpt before hard working week

Adel0n

Worked a bit on foreground and background, changed a bit lighting, also made a lowpoly/bake test for column elements.

Noren

Coming along nicely!  Not a huge fan of the skulls, to be honest, especially on the pillars. They seem pasted on, don't necessarily fit the style, and size and placement seems a bit odd as well. (Imagine looking from further down with the other elements in the way).

Adel0n

@Noren yeah, mb adding skulls was not the best idea, but I'll keep it for now and will try to make it more consistent, but If it will doesnt work, then return to classic architecture.

And here last update, I sculpted the base module of entablature.

Also, I finally started working on the statue design, and will be really glad to hear what you think about it!

arnov

What's your workflow for those patterns on the column? I guess you made it first in Max? Have you tried using height maps, alphas?

Daniel91

if you are looking for any more inspiration, have a look at the roman forum, i lot of that is very similar to the design your going for, tho what you have looks pretty good already

Adel0n

@arnov simply modeled all in 3d max, and sculpted damages in zbrush, just wanted to have more control on it. You can find examples in first messages of thread. No, I didnt use any alphas or anything, wanted to make it by hand for practice.

@Daniel91 yeah, it's a good idea, I'll look at it, thanks!

Adel0n

Sculpted the broken version of entablature, this one will be used as ending.

Also, very rough and dirty pass on textures, started working on shader, probably need to clean up a bit all this dirt with vertex paiting.

oraeles77

im more into classical roman stuff, but this is sick!

Aydhe

What are you rendering your highpoly sculpts in? I really low the highlights as well as smooth shadows. is it zbrush? keyshot? something else?

Adel0n

@oraeles77 thanks a lot!

@Aydhe it`s standart zbrush render, I just following this great tutorial by Michael Vicente with my custom matcap

https://gumroad.com/l/srZiJ 

wenglish

This is looking really cool!

I have a couple thoughts that I hope are helpful:

First how many teeth do those skulls have? They look pretty small. I think there are usually 14 in the upper jaw. That said I think that sometimes it can be a good idea to acutally reduce the number of teeth... sounds weird because it's not corect but since there are so many teeth they get really small and the forms become difficult to read. May not want to do that because astute observers will notice the missing teeth... but it might look better to a casual observer.

Another thing to consider is how narrow some of those cuts are in the sculpt. Did Roman masons have tools that could cut that finely? I'm just asking because I don't actually know, maybe there are some Rome experts who could shed some light?

Anyway it's looking really cool man! Keep it up!

Aydhe

Adel0n said:

@oraeles77 thanks a lot!

@Aydhe it`s standart zbrush render, I just following this great tutorial by Michael Vicente with my custom matcap

https://gumroad.com/l/srZiJ 

thank you

jordank95

Curious how you went about retopologizing the tops of the columns? They’re really intricate. Did you retopo by hand or some other method?

Adel0n

Slowly continue working on my scene, made sculpts of stairs and funerary altar, also add started adding some variations in columns. Dome and statue are next!

And how it looks in engine, for now main material shader looks terrible, so of course it will be refined. Also, for altar, I think I'll made for it unique texture in Substance Painter, to define main style of textures and use it as a reference for the stone tiling material in UE4.

Simon3Dart

I think the pillars look sick! Did you just slice / clip in Zbrush for all the damaged and broken parts?
Inspired me to work on some pillars.

Adel0n

@Simon3Dart Thanks! Yeah, generally I used clip brushes to define large shapes and a looot of TrimSmoothBorder for other

3DKlassen

I really like where this is headed, however it doesn't feel forgotten to me just yet.
I would love to see overgrown grass, bushes, roots, etc that you would typically expect in a forgotten area.
As for all the broken pillars, I feel like there are far too many scattered around. I would option some of those out completely.
Same with the walk way that you have the block out for at the moment, Make sure some of those will be missing or completely overgrown.
I would rip up and destroy the red carpet as well

I love the detail you sculpted, it looks and feels right. I love the scale of the temple, that huge epic size is awesome.

Adel0n

@3DKlassen Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I definitely want to add some foliage and more damages, as on the main concept, so it will be more forgotten.

hublus

Hey, great process and superb scultping skills. Ancient Rome is one of my favorite historical periods. I'm thinking about how this big round part of temple is made from technical point of view. Those big game models are still some kind of mystery for me
 Do you use trim sheets or is this made from separtate meshes somehow. If you could share some knowledge I would be grateful. Looking forward to next updates