[UE4] WIP - EDEN
Hey everyone,
After watching the awesome video blog by Tim Simpson, I wanted to start applying the advice he gave. This includes documenting my workflow.
I was quite resistant to this idea at first, being quite protective of my work until it’s finished. So this is quite scary, but good scary. Hopefully myself and others can take something away from this blog series.
REFERENCE
I struggled for a while trying to decide upon an environment to work on. I find the biggest stop gap in working on a project, is actually starting it.
I was drawn to the artwork of Pascal Blanche; the way he blends rustic machinery with organic objects is striking. His use of colors emphasizes the disturbing nature of his environments. I was excited to expand upon his ideas and translate them into a video game level.
When I first began working on this project, I tried to think out the composition of my main image. Composition and Color theory have been things I’ve neglected to consider in past projects. So I wanted to nail these aspects early in the blockout.
I also looked at old factories/missile silos for reference. I wanted some kind of real world reference and felt these environments evoked similar architecture as seen in Pascals works.
Complex and seemly infinite pipes that wrap around the world like vines as foliage would. They could also serve as guidelines towards the focal point, so i wanted to incorporate them into the scene.
BLOCKOUT
This is the current state of the blockout, made mostly using Unreal. In the blockout phase, I like to stay in Unreal as much as possible so I can work quicker. For the walls of the ravine, I took assets from the unreal marketplace and kit bashed them together. The skull and pipe sets are the only assets I made outside of unreal.
Mood and Composition are key pillars I wanted to nail at this stage. I feel I’ve neglected these aspects in past projects, which is way I focused on them early. Hopefully the environment should start to resonate with people even at this early stage; that’s my goal at least.
I tried to emulate the color scheme found in Pascal Blanches art; committing myself to his art style. I extracted the Yellow and Greens from Pascals; ‘DANU’ piece and tried to stick to those colors as much as possible.
Above, I’ve broken down the composition for the scene. I’ve used lines to draw the viewers eyes to the focal point. Using the rule of thirds, I divided the scene into distinct elements; breaking up the sky, the desert and the mechanical ravine. Where the lines cross, I tried to add points of interest; including the focal point.
REFLECTION
I want to do another pass on the ravine walls. The idea behind them was have them be quite complicated and busy to contrast against the desolate desert.
Right now, I feel like the assets don’t read very well. I want to capitalize on my current reference better. Having lots of pipes that drive themselves into the focal point.
The focal point needs more development as well. I want to add more mechanical elements to the skull; just so it reinforces the mood I’m going for. I feel that it doesn’t quite pop enough at the minute.
I am quite happy with my current color and lighting set up, in the sense that I feel it’s emulating the style I’m going for.
But I want to take another stab at this. The shadows on the ravine walls are too dark, making it hard to read the asset. The focal point is currently blending into the background. I need to saturate this more and mute the rest of the scene ever so slightly, so the focal point sticks out.
The plan currently is to iterate on these points and take in feedback before going full steam ahead on production.
Thanks for taking the time to take a look through my current progress. I tried to keep things concise and let the work speak for itself.
I’d love to hear your feedback, especially at this stage of the project. I’ve been staring at this scene for a while, so there probably stuff I’m blind too that could be improved.