Neo-Tokyo Environment [WIP] [Advice]

Alexios22

Hello Everyone, I joined Artstation's Neo-Tokyo Environment Production Challenge, and I need some help. They recommended you pick a concept from the concept portion of the contest and follow that, making changes if you need too. So I picked this concept by PJ https://www.artstation.com/challenges/neo-tokyo/categories/180/submissions/80333, and I have the rough blockout done. However, I've never really done a full Environment with modeling, texturing and porting it into Unreal and I've kind of hit a roadblock, I'm just staring at the screen not sure how to progress. Any advice you can give me I would happily take, I know what I need to do I just can't figure out how to start, don't really know how to explain it except that I hit a wall. I'll include the blockout I finished and the concept piece by PJ.
Bottom is mine, the top is the concept piece by PJ on Artstation.

ThisisVictoriaZ

Hi! I definitely understand having a hard time motivating yourself to work on a blockout. It can be hard to visualize how you're going to get to the end result from a bunch of cubes. I would recommend grabbing as much reference as you can to start off with for the architecture and lighting and stuff. If you don't already have it, I think PurRef is a great way t gather and see a bunch of reference at once. Its also helpful to compare your concept to the blockout frequently. Here is overlayed your blockout to your ref in photoshop 

your camera is way different from the concept, and it would be helpful to get some rough lighting in as well. Its easy to get overwhelmed with building an environment but dont give up! This is a dope concept! 

Here is a little blog about planning out an environment that could be useful https://www.artstation.com/blogs/ninaklos/7WMr/a-guide-to-planning-a-project-how-to-stay-on-top-of-it

Fabi_G

If you want to match the concept closely, you could use fspy to match it's perspective. Else look for scale references in the concept - human/mannequin - and use it to approximate dimensions. I recommend to work in real-world scale. Makes it easier to apply references too. Using additional references for details can make for a more believable result. Things like construction details and props.

Good luck!

Alexios22

ThisisVictoriaZ said:

Hi! I definitely understand having a hard time motivating yourself to work on a blockout. It can be hard to visualize how you're going to get to the end result from a bunch of cubes. I would recommend grabbing as much reference as you can to start off with for the architecture and lighting and stuff. If you don't already have it, I think PurRef is a great way t gather and see a bunch of reference at once. Its also helpful to compare your concept to the blockout frequently. Here is overlayed your blockout to your ref in photoshop 

your camera is way different from the concept, and it would be helpful to get some rough lighting in as well. Its easy to get overwhelmed with building an environment but dont give up! This is a dope concept! 

Here is a little blog about planning out an environment that could be useful https://www.artstation.com/blogs/ninaklos/7WMr/a-guide-to-planning-a-project-how-to-stay-on-top-of-it

Thank you for the response, I have some rough lighting in, but it's difficult to get proper lighting that also allows the detail to be seen, I'll tweak it a little and play with the camera some more.