[Finished][UE5] Orbital SpaceTower - Animated

SomeAB

Sometime back I found this very cool 2D concept by an artist Marcel Deneuve

So, here is my attempt at making it in 3D in Unreal Engine 5. Modelling in Blender.

SomeAB

First quickmockup, one morning's worth:

This is already in 3D, just projected back the image over a 3D hexagon, 2 cubes and a cylinder.

Grubber

Looks interesting! Keep going :)

SomeAB

Further Progress:

• - The overall set is small, sort of inspired by Spiderverse movie set they used for one of the dive shots
• - Cables were pretty tricky, but I figured out a pretty decent way to make them for now. In future, I would have to use Geometry Nodes in Blender or Houdini for this kind of thing.

SomeAB

• Picked it up again last night
• - Pipes were a bit time consuming, but done.
• - Made 2 ships, which would be moving in animation
• - Some test lighting & material for now. Did this render above.
• - Importing into UE5 next

SomeAB

A Slightly better version of the render above, with basic materials

SomeAB

Finished modelling this. Now UV unwrapping, importing into UE5, and Painting it next in substance.

SomeAB

Ok UV-unwrapping took a bit of effort, since i had to go back a few steps and had to redo those pipes (a lesson learnt for future). But really really happy with the UV work I just did. Note: I only tested this scene using uniform 4K texture map, thus UVs are a bit too dense at places.

The final maps would be about 5-6 of variable size:

-- 4k or 2k for the tower

-- 4k for the spacestation base (Main)

-- 1k or 512 for pipes

-- 512 for ships

-- 2k for the buildings in background

In terms of size, I'm keeping things on upper side, since its a portfolio piece, but half the sizes for each would work fine. (2k, 2k, 512, 256, 1k)

SomeAB

Did a test turnaround ANIMATION of the scene with some audio, here is the vimeo video:

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/739366470

I will be at first joining the Arstation Challenge that is going on, and Epic Megajam in coming days, so I might finish this after I'm done with those two.

samjahraus

Hey that looks great, I'll be interested to so how the materials work out in the end.

tythomas063

This is awesome! It's looking great. The modeling looks solid. Can't wait to see it textured. Keep it up!

SomeAB

So finished the Artstation Challenge .. a few days ago. Now back to finishing this. Added a starmap for background today. Adjusted some lighting elements, in prep for final textures.

SomeAB

work-in-progress screenshot of the net-pattern on the tower.. now only a few tweaks are left

Ref:

SomeAB

Okay, so I setup the materials inside UE5 .. though textures are only proxy level for now. Also removed the dop effect for now, since I'm tweaking the scene. Did a quick render video at half the resolution. Here is the vimeo link:

https://vimeo.com/758169794

SomeAB

Getting closer to finishing this:

(ignore the repeating texture, its just temporary)

SomeAB

Finished this scene, here is my Artstation post:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8bW6P6