[WIP][UE4] Sumerian Dawn

Ozz14

Hey everyone, I'm about a month into my next Environment, and figured I'd start a thread to keep track of my progress.

Its going to be an explorer's temporary basecamp in an ancient chamber filled with artifacts, overlooking a mountainous terrain. The cultural influences are the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, like the Babylonian, Sumerian, and Akkadian empires.

The Geographic inspiration for the mountains, rocks, and ground are the Zagros mountains, which separate Mesopotamia from the Iranian Plateau. Note: I'm actually more interested in the rocks and ground that these people are standing on than the people themselves.

These are just a  couple of com positional references I want to keep in the back of my mind as I put the scene together and figure out colors.

Current blockout

One of the biggest parts of this piece will be the Cuneiform writing system. Why explain it when wikipedia exists?

"Cuneiform or Sumerian cuneiform,[a] one of the earliest systems of writing, was invented by the Sumerians.[4] It is distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus.The name cuneiform itself simply means "wedge shaped"

I decided I wanted the Cuneiform to be made completely in substance designer, to maximize its versatility and modularity. I also decided two base materials to start with- A "clay" version, for the classic cuneiform clay tablet that most people think of when they imagine cuneiform, and a "stone" version for etchings on walls and statues made of stone or even metal.

Clay Cuneiform Material Alpha

Stone Cuneiform Material Alpha

To make these material I started by just making each individual character with simple transformations and shapes

Eventually I ended up with a couple of base characters which can be used in different words

Here's the process of taking a couple of characters and making a word

After arranging different letters into different words, which is what the five separated sections below are, they're all fed into a tile generator, given offsets, random symmetry and variations, and a convincing wall of text can be made by only a couple of words

For the Clay Cuneiform material, I didn't impose a heightmap of words over a clay background, because I really needed to give the feeling that each word was carved deep into the clay. Every word fed into the Tile generator for that material actually already has its own backround which it is slope blurred into, making a better gradient and making the words seem like they're more deeply carved below the surface.

Ozz14

Update:

Hey everyone,

finishing up my last year of university so working on this in little spurts but will hit the ground running once summer officially starts. I'm trying to get a lot of the ground work of rocks, landscape material, and cliffs over with so I can sculpt the statues and more detailed props. I've been constantly tinkering with the composition and have something I like.

I want to give this scene the feeling that some explorer has set up a scenic open air camp right in front of this ancient imposing Mesopotamian statue. As you can see I went ahead and put together a table. Planning on putting a cloth, map, and some tools on there too. The little thing on the ground next to the table will be his/her's dog's food bowl   I'm thinking of a cheap looking plastic white chair, to get a juxtaposition between an incredibly cheap ubiquitous looking chair in front of an ancient powerful artifact. 

Majority of assets aside from the table are still blocked out or not even in.

Limestone cliff material

Alpine rocky ground material

Explorer's table, painted in substance painter

Ozz14

Big progress over the last two weeks in sculpting the main assets for the scene, the Babylonian statue and the dilapidated wall behind it. The statue is based on a statuette found in modern day Iraq (https://oi.uchicago.edu/collections/highlights/highlights-collection-mesopotamia) while the wall is mainly based on the Behistun inscription (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription , A very cool rock wall relief in Iran from the Persian empire. Using my cuneiform script substance will add extra flavor in substance painter to both these assets. Lots of props to go

Ozz14

Added in some spiral columns, made from an adjusted rope insertminibrush in Zbrush (https://www.badking.com.au/site/shop/industrial-custom-brushes/rope-brush-curve-insert-mesh-brush/) and some alpine cushion plants to add to the pink/violet color palette. These are all the big "setpiece" assets, so now I'll circle back around and start texturing them in painter and keep in mind how they'll all catch the eye together.

Ozz14

Main assets are textured. Probably going to go a second pass on the statue because I think it could do with a little darker coloring to make it pop more- a little too much tan and beige right now. Also going to make some grass cards in substance designer to help add color to the terrain. Went ahead and bought a white plastic chair model instead of spending a day making one from scratch. And some rubble to fill in space and add a feeling of history being elapsed

Ozz14

Lamp, dogbowl, and cuneiform inscribed stela are in, as well as lighting and a new better skybox.

I know the mountains aren't good enough, but I'm going to finish off the last props, then get the free version of world machine and see what I can do to make the mountains better. In addition to being more realistic, I think just one or two really big mountains closer to the camera will look better than this shorter range that's more in the distance.

Any feedback would be more than appreciated!

The idea is to lead the eye of the viewer from the tablets in the foreground to the statue in the mid ground then the mountains in the backround, then for them to explore the desk, lamp, and artifacts in the mid ground on subsequent viewings.

Ozz14

Done! All my planned assets are in, and the lighting and effects are all done. Full disclosure - I did buy many of the assets around the table, including the gun, since I am not a weapon artist and because this project was an excursion into sculpting a figure and tinkering with cuneiform text in substance, and there are only so many days in the month ... But i did try to texture and put the assets together in a way that they tell a story. That was the main overarching goal of this scene, to try to achieve a level of narrative in the setting that I haven't before.

Using world machine to make some more realistic mountains in the distance was also necessary because the houdini heightmap mountains I made at the beginning of the project just weren't doing it. Because I didn't anticipate redoing the landscape I had to bring in the worldmachine mountains as a static mesh and texture them in substance painter, but they're far enough away that they still work.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks to anyone and everyone who took the time to even check this project out. I am going to take a break from it and gather critiques before I post it, but it is mostlyyy done.