[WIP] [UE4] Dark Room

JonJo

Hey Polycount people. Starting a new thread for my latest personal project, Dark Room. I'm working directly from a concept created by Slyvain Sarrilah. Really looking to focus on solid prop work and lighting in this piece. So far, I've managed to blockout all the main objects (besides stuff I plan to decal) and I've thrown in some basic lighting.

The blockout is probably 70 percent accurate to Slyvains original piece, it was pretty hard to replicate but I've achieved very similiar shadows and comp in some places which is good enough for me. The lighting has a long way to go. Currently too much fill from the red light and a distinct lack of pink / purple ambient light. Also an annoying skylight shadow near the entrance. Not going to get too precious about the lighting until my key materials are in.

I'm probably going to start refernece gathering for the props and going through some texturing tutorials over the next few days to prepare myself for the next steps.

Lemme know what you think


My blockout so far with some cheeky mannequins 

Slyvains beautiful work. Really do check his stuff out, he has an incredible range. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GEmzW

JonJo

Just been working away on some props over the past couple of days. Went through the barrels, the shelves, the trolley, and the pipe bundle under the desk and did my high poly and bake, no I'm moving onto texturing. Pretty happy with how the barrels came out, but very open to crit! Here's also how the scene's looking, not too much different from the blockout shots but I dropped the lighting resolution and removed the GI / fog for now, will revisit it later.

JonJo

Apologies for the dead space between the posts, been really busy the past few weeks. I've Just been working on some more props for the scene. All the textures are a first pass so still a lot to do on these! Just been enjoying getting stuck into highpoly modelling and slapping some quick textures on.

Lemme know what you guys think

Lou_

Nice work here man, props looking hella.

Epic style crit:

TV 

• Maybe having a portion of the dust wiped would help make it feel a bit more used. (also adds roughness variation)
• Maybe for readability scaling up elements like the logo for instant would help, for reads further away. 
• If it is taped together I am assuming its been dropped and hit the floor maybe a dent or two to break up silhouette.

BOX

• Cardboard tends to welt and bend due to dampness and weight. This would add some interesting silhouettes rather than just box. (just lattice tool)
• A few variations would help with giving the clutter vibe. A box open lid, another with paper spilling out, add this to a few bent and distorted will give the viewer more to view. 

BULB

• had a quick google and there might be a special type of bulb for a dark room, where the glass is not transparent. (personally I thing having the inner works is more interesting but something to thing about)

OVERALL LIGHTING

• I think the concept uses the blue sky lighting to add to the colour of shadows which right now your environment is not giving it enough justice, personally. Maybe widen the range, might add to the ambience. 

JonJo

@Lou_
Indeed, epic style crit. Solid stuff for the TV, I'll get on all those things. I've planned to do multiple cardboard variations, (i.e texture sets of varying damage as well as some meshes w/ lids on and off + damage) so already on that! As for the bulb, the one I got so far isn't a special dark room light, just a generic one for those lamps. They probably won't even be lit, just did the filament for the hell of it haha.

As for the lighting, I'm going to leave lighting for now as I mentioned in the previous posts. The concrete and surfaces will mess with the lighting, so going to leave it until my base tileables are sorted as achieving the look is probably not going to be easy. i.e. working out how to get the proper illumination with the static skylight (and no GI) and how to utilise the height fog for the purple fill whilst keeping the volumetrics from the light bulb. 

Cheers for the crit though dude, some solid points to go off

JonJo

Hey Polycount,

Had a bit of a lazy week on this project and ended up just polishing textures and doing minor tweaks. Worked a lot on getting the TV looking better. I added most of my details, pushed the roughness further, and switched out the masking tape for some scotch tape. I also threw the mesh into Marmoset for some nicer looking renders and to get a better feel for the program. Definitley need to tweak the renders and textures a bit more, but much closer than before. Looking to move onto the pallet jack and the table next!

Lemme know what you guys think

JonJo

Hey Polycount!

I've been working on the pallet jack for the past few days, I got a little sick of hard surface and took the weekend off it, but powered through today and have the model mostly ready for texturing. It just has basematerials now and needs another couple of evenings for texturing.

I re-did the textures for the shelf and started propagating some of the cardboard boxes around the shelves. I also added some rough base concrete materials from Substance Source to get set up my vertex blend and get an idea of how to approach the tilables when I get to them.

I attached some screenshots just of the scene in general, still real early days on this piece!

As always, let me know what you guys think have a good week all

JonJo

Some progress on the pallet jack textures and some tweaks to the TV textures. The rear hydraulics and the wheels need a lot of love and are next on the list to tackle. 

Let me know what you think

JonJo

THREAD WILL BE CHANGING NAME TO "LOADING BAY HEIST" AFTER THIS POST


Hey Polycount,

I haven't posted on this thread in almost 2 months! A lot has changed so I'm going to split this into two posts. 

First off, my aim with this project was to get better at prop texturing, but I found that a big room with a harsh red light nuked all of my nice prop work. I also realised I didn't need a whole scene to demonstrate this, I could just focus on making individual props and rendering them in marmoset. So that's what I did.

I ended up finishing up the TV a few weeks ago, so here it is! I was pretty pleased with the result in the end, but I still feel I have lots of different materials to tackle before I can be properly proficient with props. Check it out on Artstation for a small breakdown, turntable, and extra shots. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ybP0RQ





I've also made a start on refining the pallet jack, so far I've not done much more than create some basic variations and chuck them in marmoset. My plans for the pallet jack are to have 3 different levels of damage and wear. From mostly new, to well used and damaged, to wrecked and rusted. 

I'll expect these will take me a while as I properly study how these things take damage and how to give them enough variety in texture to make them look like different brands. 




And for those of you who are more interested in the scene, do not fret, as I'm still working on it, but I've changed the direction and concept entirely. The story revolves around an elaborate heist staged in a loading dock below an abandoned factory. I'll do a full post about it as soon as I can detailing some of the story, what my approach is and where I plan to go with the scene.

Here are some teaser shots for now




More coming soon, apologies for leaving this thread for so long! 

As always, I'd love to hear what you guys think