[UE4] Project Noxus

Sybren

Hello everyone, welcome to my first project thread on Polycount!

After some time of trying to find the perfect personal project, I got inspired to create this https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gY8XL gorgeous concept art piece from Gabriel Yeganyan made for League of Legends in 3D.

The concept art will be my main reference point for the lighting and the final scene, but to get more detailed references, I started with collaging some of the key references I will use for the scene.

I created a simple list for myself to know all the elements I will eventually need. These include, but are not limited to: arches, bridges, wall pieces, the various destroyed versions of these, muddy water shader, fire particle, etc.

At first, I created a quick block-out of some of the larger pieces of the scene in Unreal Engine 4.



I started out by experimenting with some of JRO’s awesome brick alpha’s in Quixel Mixer in combination with Megascans, but this workflow had two problems for me. Problem number one was that I didn’t completely like the result, although I could probably get to a desired result if I kept iterating. But the most important thing was that it would be difficult for me to use the result in my destroyed models, so I decided to take another approach.



I waited a bit too long before posting, so to be able to manage the work and make sure this post isn’t extremely long I will write my progress in different batches. So more to come!

Sybren

Update, my last post continues!

My other approach was to sculpt different bricks in ZBrush, so I can use these in the tiling material as well as the destroyed models. So that is what I did.

This was my first iteration on the tiling material, but this was a bit too stylized to my taste.



Here is my second iteration, also the one I am still using right now.



I also ended up baking twelve of the bricks, so I can scatter these around in the scene.



After those were done I applied the final material and scattered some of those bricks around the scene.



My next post will be all about the destroyed arches and walls.

Sybren

Update, these are the different destroyed arches I sculpted.



This is how they look in the scene.



More to come, feedback is welcome of course!

Sybren

Update, I created a fire particle with a sprite sheet created in Houdini.



I also made a simple brazier and created the same patterned iron bars as in the concept in 3D. Here is how everything together looks in the scene.

Sybren

Update, Bones!



I created a muddy bones material with Quixel Mixer using Megascans and sculpted a skull in zBrush to add some extra depth. The material also has a very basic panner animation on it, to give the illusion of moving water.

Sybren

Update, planks, extra ruin pieces & guard statue.

Guard statue sculpt, started from a zBrush base man, posed it and sculpted the armour pieces & spear fitting it to the guard.

Everything together! My next step will be the sitting tortured people? I'll make these as statues too, after which I can start on populating the scene more and work on the lighting!

CybranM

How close to the concept are you aiming to get?
It looks good at the moment but the background is missing stuff from the concept.

Looking forward to seeing this progress

Sybren

@CybranM

I am doing my best to be close, with my 3D benchmark being a realistic look like in the Witchfire game. Although some of the things from the concept are difficult to reproduce super accurately without having a lot of assets, I am aiming to reuse a lot of stuff but still get as close to the concept as I possibly can. And as you mentioned, I was maybe focused a bit too much on getting the foreground to hold up first, the background will follow soon!  

Sybren

Update, I sculpted statues in 6 different poses and scattered these around as in the concept. They were started from a ZBrush base man. I did a lot of tweaks to the lighting and in the scene in general, added different fogsheets as well.

Sybren

Update, created & added the missing bars and pillars. I now made it so the fire particle has a start delay with range, so that it doesn't have the exact same animation. I also added some more things to the second screenshot.

Cactus on Fire

if it's possible to do blurry shadows with UE4, I'd go with that and give it more contrast. The vague lighting from the sky would help you catch that gloomy atmosphere

Sybren

Update, I replaced the Megascan material by creating my own Substance Designer material for the ground and added some vertex blended water & skulls.

I made the shadows softer and added more contrast, like @Cactus on Fire suggested

I also created some small assets, like the bones and ribs and polished the scene overall.

I'm calling it done for now. Here is the final result and some more breakdowns:

You can also check it out on my Artstation here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xzyNY1