[WIP] Hydroponics Lab

AndyJB

Hey all! I started this a while ago but shelved it to finish off my Proton Pack (which I also shelved when I started this environment - a lot of back and fourth haha).

My ArtStation Blog goes through my process up until now but here's a quick rundown:

After leaving Foundry 42, I started to really miss making sci-fi stuff so after going through a few ideas I came across this concept by Oliver Guiney and started to plan how I would recreate this. 

I've got the main points like visual targets, ideas for props, lighting, general reference and material breakdowns done. I've got all the materials I need up to an okish standard but closer to finishing I'll go back and review them. My target quality is Star Citizen but in particular these guys: Matthew Trevelyan Johns, Jay Malhotra, Phil Howlett & Joel Azzopardi so if by any chance I can hit their mark, I'll be happy!

Next up is to work on the ceiling as I think, at the moment is bringing the whole scene down. Hopefully when that's at an 'ok' point I'll start to notice areas that need a bit more work

Anyway, here's some screengrabs of the latest screenshots:

Lucas Annunziata

This is some awesome work man! I think the back wall above the desks is just screaming for some wall screens with scif-data stuff on them.

AndyJB

Thanks! Yeah I'm definitely going to add some sort monitor(s) there. On a really early blog post I made a screen shader based on Harley Wilsons screen shader so going to use that when I get around making the screens

AndyJB

Not a massive change since my last post but got some placeholder plants in the side beds, there's still bits to do for the walls and floor but going to leave that for polishing so I've moved on to the ceiling now and it's starting to bring it all together! Oh, and got a planet in there to help with narrative

Once the ceiling is done I'm going to polish up the rest of the scene and then move on to props. The biggest change will be center area as I don't really like any of it apart from the plant pods (which are also going to get a slight makeover)

AndyJB

Hey all!

The past couple of weeks have been quite busy! I've got most of the ceiling done, the center floor area at a place where I'm happy with, I started on some props and made some slight tweaks to the lighting!  I've still got the 'unit' bit where the pipes (which a couple were made using Marvelous Designer!) feed into at the back of the room to do, a bit more pipe work and then I'm going to focus on props and then it's the home stretch of polishing!

Hope you like it!

teodar23

Looking really good!
One thing tho, the lighting seems too uniform. Even if you have variation through textures, some lighting variation will help a lot. Maybe lower the intensity of some lights or change their colour. Also, most materials have the same roughness, maybe make the walls or the ceiling shinier.

AndyJB

Cheers! A lot of the materials do have quite different roughness values, the walls are pretty shiny but yeah I do need to work on the lighting and hopefully that'll make the textures pop a bit more

AndyJB

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a while since I've updated (there's a good reason!). At the end of the month I'll be joining Creative Assembly which has been a career dream for quite some time! I'll be part of their console team working on their new first person shooter IP This is why I haven'y made any updates recently, it's been a bit of a crazy month and wanted to relax a little bit. Also, any further updates will be few and far between as both my monitors at home have died so until I get new monitors, this is it for now!

I've mainly added some props and the 'plant drum' thing embedded into the wall. I've changed the lighting too, though the ceiling is still super dark (the materials are pretty much white too!) and am struggling to correct it. Will most likely need material changes on the floor to help brighten up the scene. I also downloaded the Amplify LUT Pack which has helped with the overall look and feel quite a bit!

Anyway, hope you like it!

AndyJB

Aaaand I'm back!
Not a big update as to be honest, I've been relaxing a lot since the new job but I'm slowly getting back in the swing of working on the lab. I've been playing around with the lighting, materials & post-processing and feel like it's a lot more balanced now. Looking back, the center was really washed out but I still think it'l pretty dark in some places so when all the assets are done, or at least placed, I'm going to switch over to a baked lighting set up.  It'll be quite a bit of work but hopefully that'll solve a lot of the issues and get some good bounce light.

Anyway, here's the latest!

pixelpatron

I'd love to see a version of this where the flooring is white. Illuminated panels. This is a bit extreme but something like this...
 
mixed with this. (go super clean with it).

AndyJB

@pixelpatron Oooo floor lighting doesn't sound too bad! Think I'd have to be careful with it though, could maybe put it around the edges
But sort of want to avoid too much white and light otherwise it'll look super sterile, which I guess makes sense for a lab but I don't think it gives me a lot of options to play with the overall look of the scene

Ashervisalis

Looks really cool. Especially love the ceiling!

GUYPHILL

Nice scenes overall. Maybe adding some vents to the ceiling in the plant's room will be cool. 

AndyJB

GUYPHILL said:

Nice scenes overall. Maybe adding some vents to the ceiling in the plant's room will be cool. 

Thanks! I'm thinking about changing the ceiling to be honest, I don't know if it's because I've been looking at it too long but I'm disliking it as every day passes haha I just think there's too much going on of the same thing (pipes)