[WIP] Medieval Inn | Stylized
Hey everyone! Decided to work on a small project to improve my modelling and texturing skills while searching for a job ;)
I'll be realizing this amazing concept by Jourdan Tuffan below ^^
The current plan is to do a blockout of the Inn to figure out the volumes and move to work on the tower.
Once that'll be finalized I'll decide if to move on to realize the rest of the Inn, maybe also add scenery around it ^^
The environment will use a couple of tileable materials for roofs and bricks, a trim sheet for wood and metal, and a small kit for stones + small objects.
As for the referenced art style, I'll be going for a classic stylized overwatchy one and focus on that iconic look.
To that end, I'll be referencing some articles like "Building a Snowy Little Town in Unreal Engine 5" by Philip Klevestav and "Technical and Visual Analysis of Overwatch" by Timothy Bermanseder
Here's the current breakdown inspired by the one Sophie Rose Stübinger made for her Artstation Challenge "Dragon's Rise: The Forgotten Realms - Gnome Village". I'll also be referring to it and other threads here on polycount like the Stylized Chaparral one to create the upcoming posts, trying to keep them simple and to the point =)
And that's it! Feel free to point out potential problems with how I've currently planned to approach it or if you would be going about it in a different way, in the meantime, I'll start working on this environment, see ya soon ;)
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Replies
#Blockout V1
Project update! I had a bit of free time and was able to blockout the Inn and find a nice camera angle similar to the one in the concept =)
Below are the 3 cameras that I've locket at the moment, 2 and 3 are almost identical but they use different sensors, the middle one is a default 16:9 while the right is a "Full Frame DSLR" with a 36:24 mm sensor.
Keeping them both atm, since I can't decide which one would be the best, the middle is what someone would see if this was an actual in-game environment, while I find the right one more interesting shape-wise but I'll see if it will still hold up once the model is a little bit more deformed.
Left (concept reference), Middle (16:9), Right (Full Frame DSLR)
Next up, see if I need to modify the blockout a bit to improve its composition before locking it and move on to isolating the tower and start working on its final model and trim sheets blockout.
And that's it! If you feel like the blockout could be improved in any way feel free to comment or send a DM
Thanks for your time and have a great day!
#Materials Blockout
Progress! I've been working on blocking out the trim and materials needed and now 99% of them are done =)
For now, I've applied them only on the tower to see how they behave and if I'll need to adjust them before expanding them to the rest of the buildings.
The roof edge required some iterations, without limiting the material to have ordered tiles the edge didn't look clean.
But roof materials with disjointed tiles look more interesting, as I considered by looking at Josh Marlow's piece on Fortnite Season 7 Environment Assets so, I took a page from Overwatch and added a beam on their end, problem solved!
I've kept the number of textures low at the moment, the trim does a lot of heavy lifting by handling all wood, metal and a bit of stone allowing me to have dedicated roof and rock wall materials.
Something that I didn't consider doing was a dedicated window texture, the original plan was to just use an unlit black material for them to reproduce the concept. But after looking at other games and projects, the new solution would allow me to give them more personality by adding curtains or adjusting the grime on them, overall it seemed a solution that would enhance the final product even if it'll distance itself from the original concept. This is the only texture whose layout is not yet finalized, I'll experiment with it a bit more =)
And now the next task will be to start sculpting those materials!
I'll probably finalize the brick wall first, it's the material with the most references, specially sculpted ones and it should help to solidify the final look of the scene.
For now, this is it thanks for reading this far and have a great day!
#Brick Wall and Roof Tiles Materials
Small update! The brick wall and roof tiles materials are coming together, after gathering some references their overall look seems promising!
Both of them have been lightly sculpted with the goal being to appear as normal-looking materials, not overly damaged or ruined =)
References for the sculpt in an overwatch style have been a bit more difficult to find than anticipated since most artworks posted by professionals seem to be comprised almost exclusively of in-game screenshots.
So, I've been using the previously mentioned Josh Marlow's piece on Fortnite Season 7 Environment Assets, an amazing post which includes images of the individual modules used and sculpts of the materials ^^
Another great reference has been Gwanseon Oh's piece, Stylized Snake Statue, a great prop with close-ups of the sculpt and an amazing texturing work.
On the side, Texture Maps (from right to left) Base Colour, Normal, Ambient Occlusion and Roughness
At the moment the textures seem fine, they have a variety of colours and roughness values which seem in line with my references, but I'm still looking to enhance them if possible.
So, if you have any feedback, tips or sources that you would like to suggest to improve, feel free to suggest them!
The next step will be to start working on the trim and widows textures to complete the texture work =)
After that, it'll be time to go back to modelling and start adding some extruded bricks and roof tiles to add more details to their surfaces.
Thanks for reading this update and I'll see ya in the next one, have a great day!
#Materials finalized
All the materials are now almost done!
I've adjusted the roof tiles to show a bit more of the low edge thus helping to identify the individual tiles from the distance by simpling increasing the tiles' inclination in the high poly 😄
The trim was pretty straightforward to sculpt and bake with the only remaining consideration being the roughness values (around 0.8) of its metal if you know the value that is commonly applied to it just leave a comment, it could give it that extra edge😅
With all the materials done, I've added a textured cylinder as a skybox and luckily the colours didn't need adjustment, something that I should've considered before finalizing them 😋
The next steps are to work on the terrain around the buildings, I'll probably use Lotte de Brabander's piece, The Teal Wheel Tavern - UE5 as the main reference for it, it has just the right mix of shape, colours and grass and it should fit the rest of the scene.
Then it's time to add the vines and adjust the model to add those little deformations proper of the Overwatch art style.
But, before continuing the project I've decided to put it on hold to join the current Artstation challenge, not ideal but it seemed the best course of action🙂
As always, thanks for having taken the time to read this update and have a great day!
Thank you for the information you have already provided in this blog.
It looks very nice.
Could you help me with some questions I have regarding your unwrapping and texturing?
So you have created a tileable stone material (brick) but how are you handling all other brick related materials?
How would you texture a stone arc? or like a row of stones?
In your first post, you mention you will be creating a stone kit.
Can you show us how you created this stone kit and how you would unwrap meshes onto this stone kit?
Thank you!
That said, recent experiences have me reconsider this choice and, while the project is currently on hold, I did plan to update it by using a stone kit as originally planned since that would give the stone more interesting shapes.
So, to answer your question: I'd sculpt around 4 stones inside Zbrush (3 pic. stone wall)by using mainly clip curve, the Trim Adaptive and some alpha brushes.
You could keep the details to a minimum and just unwrap them as simple cubes, decimate them before unwrapping or proceed with a completely manual unwrap.
Once the kit has been done, you could use it to assemble the arches, wall and other similar details.
Have a great day!