[Finished] [UE5] Roadside Picnic inspired environment

Druwed

After recently finishing the novel and Finding this awesome concept by Pawel Hordyniak I'm going to recreate this scene inside of Unreal Engine.

I'm taking some big inspiration from Tsutomu Nihei (Blame!, Knights of Cidonia), walled city of kowloon  and Stalker  to nail down the sense of scale and grungyness of the scene,



Going to try to achieve the same oil paint aesthetic that the original concept has, going to use a mix of hand-painting and PBR to achieve that result.

I will be making this using a mix of tileable textures and trimsheets as well using modular assets to speed up the production.

Druwed

WIP #1 -Blockout refinement, Smoke Particles, VFX and Basic lighting

Made some additions and changes to the main structure and added some basic lighting, fog and some smoke particles.
Also made a small hovering animation for the main model.
Need to figure out to modify the Anti Aliasing and how to reduce/remove the white noise around the model.
 

Druwed

WIP #2  - More Blockout refinement, Atmospheric fog, terrain and light refining.

Found out that the atmosferic fog is the cause of the noise/squiggly lines around the edge of the main structure, still need to find out how to fix that issue.

low quality gif is low quality

Will work on some basic textures and debris to populate the scene with, really liking how this environment is starting to take shape. Any critiques and comments are welcome.

Druwed

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playing around with the FOV and Focal length to try and get the scenes perspective to look more like the original reference

Left image is with a FoV of 28 and the right image has an FoV of 35

Druwed

Druwed

Some general refinements and shot from different cameras  and angles  

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MiguelMNavas

I love this project! 

Druwed

MiguelMNavas said:

I love this project! 

Thanks, it's been great for learning lighting and learning more about Unreal

Druwed

Refined the debris around the main structure and tweaked some of the lights and fog,

Debris and Stair High Poly:



Gif of the scene, i need to figure out how to make higher quality gifs or embed videos here

I will focus on texturing and making a high poly of the main structure, and making a landscape material next

After that i will make some floating/ruined buildings for the background

Druwed

Trying to add more contrast to the scene and trying tog et the lighting closer to the concept

Druwed

Druwed

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Almost ready to call this done, just need to do some final refinements on some of the lights and textures 

Druwed

adjusting brightness and contrast

Druwed

Some more general color/contrast and value adjustments

Druwed

Druwed

Some more contrast and value adjustments, going to make some dead and ashy/snowy foliage and break the stairs up a bit 
After that i will start setting stuff up to upload to my portfolio

Pinkfox

You might consider redoing the fog you have surrounding the building. In the original concept the background is kept subdued by the fog while allowing the main building to silhouette nicely against it, but yours looks more like a perlin noise and makes the background blend with the main building instead. Which is the shame because the main building in your piece is extremely well done!

Druwed

Pinkfox said:

You might consider redoing the fog you have surrounding the building. In the original concept the background is kept subdued by the fog while allowing the main building to silhouette nicely against it, but yours looks more like a perlin noise and makes the background blend with the main building instead. Which is the shame because the main building in your piece is extremely well done!

I'll try reworking the fog to make it more subtle and less noisy, i'm not that well versed in VFX so i have no issues re-doing it, i think its the weakest part of this scene currently, i'll try to find a better method to make it.


I added some cables and removed the black corner in the top left to try to improve the composition

Druwed

Reworked the fog

Druwed

Decided to call this environment done and posted it to artstation with some alternate shots and renders 
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/0n0oLK
I would like to thank everyone that helped me out with critiques and advice, i couldn't have done it without your help.

 s
Material Renders inside of Marmoset Toolbag

Unreal Editor View