[WIP] Sea Station - a UE4 Environment inspired by Spirited Away

TheGabmeister

Current Progress:

Original Post:

Hello! I found this amazing concept by Mary Gorbacheva which was inspired by Spirited Away. Really captivating scene. I decided to recreate it in Unreal Engine as a way to improve my skills in creating fantasy environments.

I will summarize all the things I learned in an ArtStation blog later after finishing this project.

TheGabmeister

Here's what I've done so far. I tried matching colors and composition.

The meshes do not have a modular setup at the moment, so that's the next step as well as texturing. The tree on the back might also need some improvements. I'm using the modified vertex normals technique which you can learn more about here and here. I also found this very informative thread on creating nice looking foliage:
Smooth Foliage like in Breath of the Wild / Europa by Helder Pinto - Mini Tutorial

I'm still undecided on the art style and am currently gathering references from various sources. I've been researching some stylized art from amazing artists such as Berker Siino and Helder Pinto. Might take a page or two from their techniques.

Ashervisalis

I'm really pumped for this!

TheGabmeister

Ashervisalis said:

I'm really pumped for this!

Thanks!

TheGabmeister

Been experimenting these past few days making the ocean water, but my results were very unsatisfactory. I decided to take a look at the UE4 marketplace and study how people are making stylized water. I found this really cool Cartoon Water Shader by Kioki. It has really nice customizable features which come in handy for this scene I'm creating.

One unexpected challenge was the seabed which was supposed to be visible around the station due to the shallow waters. At first I thought about painting a landscape underneath the water. After some experiments, I found a simple solution which was to use a flat plane with a color tint and a normal map.

This creates a fairly convincing illusion. I might have to model additional trenches to really sell the idea.

Additionally, I started designing the back side of the Sea Station which is not covered by the reference. There's still a lot of experimenting to do with the placement of objects. The lighting also needs some reworking because some parts are a bit too dark. The textures are all placeholders just to give me an idea of what color and how much details noise I should use. I imagine the back side to be some kind of plaza where people can relax, have a drink, and enjoy the scenery.

Will be working on textures for the next couple of weeks.

MrD4rth

coming along nicely.  looking forward to texture work too; the scene is well set.