[Finished: DEC2019] Train Station
polycounter lvl 4
After finishing one old scene, I decided to tackle on to another project inspired by playing Trails of Cold steel, a train station!
It will have a cafe, information booth, and a train itself!
The train will take the most time due to the intricate details, so I've been debating on working on the cafe first OR the train.
So far it's concept and getting a more clear image of what I want to model,
Will work on a 3d Block out for scaling tomorrow! The whole scene will be hand painted and low poly modeled, with experimentation with zbrush for other items.
It's gonna be a huge project but I really wanted to push myself,
feel free to leave critique or even any tips or suggestions through this process!
It will have a cafe, information booth, and a train itself!
The train will take the most time due to the intricate details, so I've been debating on working on the cafe first OR the train.
So far it's concept and getting a more clear image of what I want to model,
Will work on a 3d Block out for scaling tomorrow! The whole scene will be hand painted and low poly modeled, with experimentation with zbrush for other items.
It's gonna be a huge project but I really wanted to push myself,
feel free to leave critique or even any tips or suggestions through this process!
Replies
Rough 3d model of position/scale I want to do for certain pieces,
My plan is to break down each part of the train station part by part.
So far my plan is to work on:
Working on modular pieces for the train station first then cafe
the cafe has a lot of modular pieces i can use from it too, so it's not too bad.
I'll also use this image to draw a better reference sketch.
the train will have to be last because the train itself is a HUGE piece that may need it's own thread.
Got some suggestions from some others about some changes I could do to make it more welcoming of a train station!
Ive decided to turn this to a daily progress log over this scene in order to track down all of my work on a day to day basis if I can.
Today Ive decided to do a little work to start creating the modular pieces, didnt have much time due to lunar new year
Uving/Modeling at the same time for everything is hard, but I figured after everything I can go right into texturing
The sort of environment I'm going is close to scenes like example or this.
I was inspired by the games by Falcom, but I wanted to give it a more warmer atmosphere.
Plus I wanted to really clean my modeling skills up little by little.
Made the little theater barricade things, please let me know what the actual name of it is, but Next is working on the windows and stairs, debating how I want to make the stairs.
After these pieces will be the pillars and sign board items
working on more modular pieces, didn't get much done today due to other circumstances.
I wonder if it's better to keep a journal or something less... intrusive
Spent time today trying to figure out what I want the door to look like, and figured that open wide doors would be better, while figure out a way to model the door way to fit the door.
I spent way too much time fighting maya while uving and it kept crashing on me. Will most likely UV the arches and window tomorrow then place it in scene to see how it looks and what to replace/edit for the big scene of the station,
After that will be the Cafe modular props,then the cafe building itself.
Edit:
Started to place items into the scene to place to see the design, It's coming together!
cleaned up the model so it can be portfolio and to get rid of the arch that was blocking the train path. Plan on finish UVing the window then work on the ticket booth/cafe area!
As well as adding items like trash station and benches
cleaning up UVs/modeling is tough but next on the list is making the small cafe area so its more lively in design!
after that I'll start working on the train while making rough color maps for everything else
Uved the walls and the base of the train station, hoping to get it uv/modeled everything by end of night, will edit with changes
edit:
kinda liked the way I did this, gonna have to uv this tomorrow and do more refinements
Since I'd like to make it close to the old classic jrpgs I'm leaning towards unity since I'm familiar with coding in unity/vfx
I'd love to hear any tips about how to approach the train since I'm just kinda figuring out how to model it
I'll for sure message you for some feed back on the train and how to add on to it, especially since there's certain aspects the really make things, well, a train. Even for a fantasy sort of train, I like to believe they did refer to older train around the era it was inspired by too even if it had 'magic'.
current progress: everything BUT cafe is uv/modeled for,
Ive been having an few hours long fight with maya and im pretty certain it just wants to rebel against me
spend the day modeling/blocking out the cafe parts things i have to uv/model:
- old coffee makers
- mug
- pasteries
- coffee bags/tea bags
- shelf
- counter
- sink
- mini stove
at that point ill populate the cafe with these items, and attempt to make the items in this cafe scene share the same UV in order to save uv space or make them small, its debatable tbh.Once the cafe is done ill go on to color mapping then revisit the train.
Caps of the scene so far while I'm working on the cafe
cafe and the wall feel a little empty so I may create posters to put around the train station with advertising of different items or tourist like images based off the game.
could also be nice to try adding it's own lightning but the windows already clash with everything
gotta UV everything into one giant map OR make it large the reduce the resolution, not too sure what's best but I need to UV everything before end of this month as my goal to myself.
the train might be it's own separate project once the train station is textured, but the most I can do is work on that next month.
My goal this month is to finish uving modeling the train station and everything so that I can work strictly on textures while 3d modeling the train.
I think it might make sense when I start posting textures, but that's how I plan on doing it.
I might have confused you when I meant UV everything onto one ma so that's on me. I was mainly referring to the items presented in the image. Everything else such as the train station ticket booth, rope, railing etc. has it's own texture map (planned) since each detail is so independent.
For cafe population items I don't plan on making my work worse by making MORE texture maps to keep track of. Hope this answers your question!
finished uving the items!
next is base coloring the textures to see what kind of colors I wanna for for, then run tests later before painting everything on photoshop!
mean while im gonna work on the train roughly
Quick Color test to see what needs to be adjusted for color before i go right into painting,
I gotta do the same for the door way and also the signs.
The one issue i notice right off the bat is there's way too much gray so I'll go in and research different warmer color schemes I can use for the flooring.
I also considered added rugs near the door but the best way to handle the floor is to make a plaza tile floor design.
I'll do research and compare it
Tomorrow I will do color changes and start shading, but I wanted to pre paint to see what colors were off and what I could do to to fix certain errors in the color,
It was also nice to just pre plan the texture I plan to paint for the floor!
edit: Started to get a headache this week end so Ive decided that working on weekends might have been too much of a stretch this week, so the most I can do is reflect on that and take better of my health.
I also been re planning how I wanted to approach the train as I'd like to try the same trick I did for the ticket book and make 2 special window frames.
Edit 2: My goal for this month is get everything (The Train Station/Cafe) done before the week of GDC.
The train might be a separate project AFTER GDC week.
tried a bit if a painted light trick for the door today as well as textured some other stuff!
note the train might not be done until after GDC.
(w/flat lightning in maya)
I wanted to put some of the more completed texture with in the scene to see if I need to make adjustments,
but im really liking how it looks even with just some pieces!
I'm gonna make some fixes for the floor because I messed up and the spare photoshop file I made got screwed up,
Luckily I can work off the png I saved.
As planned the texturing is going along well and back from GDC, ready to work!
I wanna make a lot of adjustments in terms of colors and how the wall is drastically different from the floor in terms of details levels, so I'll be doing in and making some adjustments, so far so good!
might have to do the train around first week of april but my goal is to do this well before moving on to the train!
May also do adjustments for the benches, but enjoying my work is the goal here!
edit: i just realize I forgot one more important thing for the train station and i need to add that in last minute oh boy
Did a LOT of changed with sizing since I looked at the train rails, which I gotta model some extra stuff now, alas, but it's getting there, I'm working on everything but my goal is to do it WELL rather than just finish it quickly and on time!
fixing up some textures and other details,
after this I'm ready to work on train, but i wanna really perfect some details missing
Most of my focus right now is on the cafe and at the last spurt! (I wanna add some handpainted drawers later, but now i wanna get most of the textures DONE before doing more..
After the texture of the items here in the cafe part I plan to do one more color check for everything/over paint to see what I need to fix/add because there's actually a few small detail I'd like to add before calling it settled.
I would like to start making a base of the train this month and final some more details on it, been busy learning programming to the side!
Might also be focusing on studying substance designer to the side so I guess that's a future thread???
For now this is where I'm at and i have not fallen off the face of the planet :'D
finished most of the texturing,
next is making adjustments to add drawers on the textures (as well add labels for the bags on the food), then model the train tracks (which I have no idea how I've forgotten) as well to add a PA system.
Once this is done I can focus my efforts on the train itself, which will prob take up most of this up coming month.
Ive been on debating the design of the train: as I want it to be a hybrid of a cable car / light rail train that is similar to San Jose's VTA train, but we will see when we get to it!
I'm debating of making the train itself it's own thread if that's okay or not. I rather not spam this thread too much so it focuses solely on the making of the station.
all of the items ive planned to texture is now officially done!
I plan to focus on the train at this time forward, but I will be busy due to circumstances!
I don't plan on stopping though, I plan to add a few more pieces to add on to the character of this scene that I feel would help with that issue:
- A PA system where it would have speakers / wiring to add to the technological aspects of the series
- A few posters/paintings that would show perhaps the city (or basic things like safety or even advertisements of the city the train station is at! There's a lot of potential for some story telling)
- Greenery in the form of a simple planted pot (could look fake!)
- I also have to add the train tracks that I'll model later on too
I'm having a lot of fun texturing this but here's the challenge now, the train design..Look forward to it!
Hey! been busy working on other things that have come up during the week and been trying to rest up more as well.
In the mean time I've really been having fun modeling this train so far, first time I've done anything that was in so many pieces like this before,
so I've been experimenting and trying out different things, I'll be adding a little more details such as a connective part between each train.
progress will be much slower due to me finding some contract work (yay!) but i'll still work on this on free time since It's been one of my favorite little projects
I would like to finish this when I can so I can focus on my next design using a new work flow, but for now thanks for continuing to read if you've been following this thread!
Started work recently so I've been busy with that! However I've been working on this on free time after work!
I'm happy how the train looks, and I plan to uv items/duplicate accordingly so I don't run into awkward light directional issues in texturing later.
Really looking forward to getting started on texturing, but first uv!
However I will take your comment and try to round out some edges around the train engine since it does feel a little too blocky and there's a lot of straight edges that could afford to be refined!
And thank you so much, a lot of the texture work was inspired by analyzing the texture work in Trail of Cold Steels, so I'm happy to see it's gotten attention!
https://80.lv/articles/textel-density-tutorial/
I think I'll be tackling that after the train's done, as that's my main focus since the solution would just mean I need to re handpaint the wall texture so it solves the texel density issue.
Thank you for bringing it up though, I really appreciate the feed back!
been cleaning up uvs for the model!
the texel density was correcting for how big the texture size will be for different parts of the train!
the first part will be 2048px while the smaller parts you see uved will be 1048px or so.
the second part of the train will also be 2048 if I can help it and will match the texture size to the first train in order to keep the density of the pixels equal
when I finish the uvs, I plan on fixing up the wall as @tinyworlds brought up as I finally have a plan to tackle it so thank you tinyworlds!
Uved and ready to texture out in photoshop!
Hey! I've been working on and off on other projects/ jobs but here's a inprogress shot of the painting of the textures (still working on hightlights)
I plan to try finishing this as soon as possible so I can put more time in learning zbrush + substance painter work flow
but recently gotten a job thats taken up more of my time haha
cleaning up some highlights and adding 23423423 highlights.
then I gotta fix up some color changes and then ill be a happy clam. kinda
Finally satisfied with how the train looks,
next is adjusting colors for the rest of the scene, as well as re doing the walls and floors so that the pixel density/quality is the same as everything else.
The train took the longest time out of this project due to me wanting to really practice mechanical parts and decor pieces, especially with modeling
Hoping to finish this asap so I can start learning new things (while busy with my current day job)