SteamPunk Carriage

Loren Broach

Kind of a weird situation, There is a class at Ai that is making a game and although I'm not attending Ai, I'm helping with the project building some assets.

The game is called Aether, a first-person shooter that takes place in the 1800's. It has a steampunk genre with ZOMMMBBIIEEESS (most likely powered by steam ).

Although It's being made in UE2, I'm still going to make normal maps and such. Anyways, here's the start:




Trying to figure out a way to make it steampunkish (and still make sense). Any ideas?

Neo_God

Take a look at this, it should head you in the right direction.

http://www.crabfu.com/steamtoys/diy_steampunk/

Loren Broach

Wow good good stuff, thank you very much

Loren Broach

More progress, tried to make the shapes less 90 degrees and make it much more steam punk. Still playing around with the design....

EDIT: The whole thing will be highpoly, it just isn't yet

Steve Schulze

You'll need some more outlet pipes than that little whistle otherwise you're going to find your boiler will explode in a huge conflagration of shrapnel and searing steam. It could make for a neat game mechanic, but its probably something you'd want to be controllable, rather than inevitable.

Jesse Moody

Hey check out the movie the time machine. That had some pretty cool designs using steam.

and yeah more out let pipes. Stylize this baby.

AI making a game huh? This for prototyping?

konstruct

you should try doing a monster truck carriage design,

sorta like in this drawing,
http://www.crabfu.com/steamtoys/diy_steampunk/fix.jpg
with the giant metal tractor wheels.

And dont forget the cool machined panels, like mech parts, but with gears visible underneath

Ott

I don't get why your wheels are a half million polys, but most of your silouette and detail edges are still low? A lot of that detail can translate into a nice normal / AO map.

PolyPutty

I agree why do you have so many sub-divisions on the flat part of the wheel, its a waste? You need to go back through and improve the efficiency of you model.

Mark Dygert

cool idea, its shaping up pretty well too. Mowr bits and bobs. If everything is powered by steam you need tons of little hoses, pistons, pipes, holding tanks, valves, bleeder lines, rivets, just more steam punk-ish junk.

Loren Broach

Well guys, I decided to start over. I did some more research and took some concepts from Steamboy and made thumbnails and concepts and here's my progress so far.

It's going to be highpoly so that's why there are "wasted poly's" and I still plan to add lots of tubes and cranks and gears.

Jesse: Yeah this is for a prototyping class. By the looks of it it's probably going to be a decent game! Cross your fingers!

oobersli

I'm no carriage expert, but don't they usually have bigger wheels in the rear? think that would look cool with some drive system with belts and whatnot.

Loren Broach

Yeah good idea, I made the wheels bigger in the back. Specially since there's that big ol' boiler back there. Still have to add a lot more edge loops before I can turbo smooth it to high poly so that's next on my list. Then ON TO THE LOW POLLAY!

Here's progress:

Octopus

Dude, I really like your design. I'll being following this so keep it up!

Loren Broach

Thanks Octopus, I will!

High poly done, currently working on low poly:

Loren Broach

Alright for some reason my Ambient Occlusion is coming out really crappy. It makes certain areas solid black. Anyone ever run into this problem? I keep doing different things to try and avoid it (like detach objects and run an AO by themselves, cause I thought maybe the stacking I did in the unwrap had something to do with it) but I keep getting the same solid black areas.





On the plus side I did get the normal map done.

MoP

I'm guessing the solid black parts are either overlapping UVs, or parts where the lowpoly mesh intersects the highpoly.
if your UVs are overlapping, move the duplicate versions out of the 0-1 range (by exactly 1 uv unit, so they still line up, but won't be baked to).

If that doesn't work, try turning off shadow casting properties for your lowpoly mesh.

This is looking really cool, i'll be interested to see how the texture turns out!

keep it up

diminished_Self

yeah, totally looks like overlapping UVs. do what MoP says and you should eliminate that problem. looking good though.

konstruct

plus- dont expect AO maps to bake out 100% perfect. More often than not there is a bit of clean up involved.

Also, (and I don't know why) but AO maps seem to have a bit of a blue-ish purple tint to them, so don't forget to desaturate.

Smithy

Max defaults to a blue-tinted skylight. Set your skylight to white before baking AO to fix that.

Loren Broach

Thanks for the help guys. Mop, I moved the duplicates in the unwrap but didn't get any better results. I ended up painting in the shadows in a lot of spots. Although, honestly I don't know what a uv unit is exactly so I didn't know how far I should move it, could you explain?

I de-saturated the AO, thanks konstruct.

Gonna be picking up a lot more speed on this thing now. so, get ready for lots of updates!



Obviously it's very WIP with the textures still but C&C's are very welcome.

rybeck

[ QUOTE ]
...Although, honestly I don't know what a uv unit is exactly so I didn't know how far I should move it, could you explain? ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Here is the link from Ben's site.
ben's tut

Basically, UV map area is coordinated with value of 0 to 1 on each axis. Overlapped part of your UV map can be moved either U or V direction (either positive or negative direction), and still it recognize your texture belong to it. WIthout knowing which 3d s/w you are using, but any of 3d package should be able to do so.

Hope this help.

By the way, I'd love your works...

vertexguy

I really like your design on this! It reminds me of something from the Wild Wild West movie with Will Smith. The only thing I see in your base texture that's bugging me at the moment is the wood paneling on the steam tanks. It's hiding the fact that its steam powered where in this case I think you want to accent that feature as much as possible. I'd recommend using a slightly aged metal surface instead with rust spots around the joints of the steam pipes. It also might be cool to play with adding in some ornate metal wire designs to the roof and a little step that folds out by the side doors.

Loren Broach

Thanks Rybek, that helps, glad you like it.

Vertexguy, I originally had it all metal but it wasn't looking that good. ( http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h201/VeryKeen/carriageV8.jpg ). I took a look at a lot of the steam boilers through this site
http://www.crabfu.com/steamtoys/diy_steampunk/ and found about half of them have wood paneling. Plus I think it gives the model more unity with wood on the boiler and on the carriage.

So I'll probably keep it with wood paneling unless more people think otherwise. But thanks for the feedback! I'm definitely going to try and address your other comments.

Xenobond

I'd say keep the wood panels on the boilers, but add metal straps around them like on barrels. Would help make it look like it's trying to hold back the pressure of the steam, more.

Loren Broach

Yeah I think I'll do that Xenobond, thanks for the suggestion.

The base textures are done. I'll start adding a lot more detail to it tomorrow.

Question for you guys, Since the windows aren't see through, how would you go about making the texture look like a window?

Progress:

vertexguy

Use an environmental reflection map on the windows. Or you could also paint the illusion of some subtle reflections in the window texture and specular highlights in the corners. The wood paneling looks a little too small. From your render view distance the details are lost in the paneling. It would look better if the paneling was wider with bigger gaps. It also should have a light reflection map on it with some grain to better communicate the feeling of wood. The metal trim also needs a reflection map with a tight specular to make it feel more like metal.

hawken

I'd make the interior but texture it black, nothing fancy. would add 100 times more realism to the model than an env map

Loren Broach

I put this thing on hold to do an art test which I just found out today I failed ... So I picked this up again and I'm going to try and finish it soon. I made some changes on the color scheme and added some more dirt. Much more dirt and damage to be added.

Hawken - That's the coolest idea ever, I would have never thought of that. Took a while to remodel, unwrap and such, but it was worth it.

Vertexguy - good call on the wider panels. I think it looks better this way.

Here's Progress:

oobersli

might want to try and fancy up the wheels. They're a tad bit boring atm and need more detail lovin.


I like the color scheme ya have going now, but ya need to work with the spec most def to help the metal pop out more.

Armanguy

the spokes on the wheel look so!!!!! blocky! but in your normal map they look good you shoulld add more polies to the spokes!

Mtg_kirin

ya looks awesome except for the wheels. I love steam punk so congrads for that.

Mark Dygert

It's coming along nicely! I agree about the wheels, they need some lovin'. Also you might want to introduce more copper to the textures. SteamPunk, as in steam powered. Normally a boiler would be made of metal to better withstand the pressure and the heat. It would give you another material to play with too

Keep it up your doing good work.

Edit: One thing that always bugs me when people work with wood as a material. They think they can get away with applying a wood pattern to their entire texture and mask out the areas that aren't wood. What you get when you do this is a mess, the wood grain pattern runs right over the boundaries of the individual wooden pieces making it look like the entire thing was carved out of one solid piece of wood. Break up the pattern, flip some pieces around, use different types of wood taken from different sources.

Spug

yeah i agree with vig...get a lil more variation with the wood...it would make it stand out and more unique, and put a nice spec map on the texutre to make it pop. Nice Work

Loren Broach

Thanks for the comments, I varied the wood in different places, is it enough? added some copper in there. I got rid of the normal map in the wheels which I think was making it too blocky. I'll add more poly's if everyone still thinks it's too blocky.

Ran into a problem when trying to import this into UE3. I can't seem to get the alpha on the windows working correctly. Here's a screenshot of what I did, anyone see what I'm doing wrong?




And here's what it looks like in UE3:

Jesse Moody

why aren't you using the diffuse maps alpha channel to store your alpha info?


Also you should have your alpha going to the opacity channel too. See if that works for ya.

Pope Adam

This is awesome man. Super cool design.

Loren Broach

Thanks Pope!

I actually tried that Jesse, but it didn't seem to work, so I tried this tutorial. http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3mated.htm

I also used your tutorial for importing meshes, so thanks! And I'll try your second suggestion and see if I get a good result.

Baddcog

I think the copper isn't red enough, actually looks more like brass to me (which is fine, you need brass too)

But I'd recommend making most of the steel there brass colored like the pipes, make them more red/pinkish like copper.

I like lots of brass copper, more than steel for steampunk stuff. personal opinion. Looks cool though.

Hourences

You should consider adding a Multiply + Constant1Vector + your original Specular, bump up the strenght of the spec, and then using that as the real Specular. Itll make the metal look more reflective, like real metal. Also you should consider using a SpecularityPower map to tell the engine where to use wide or small spec hotspots (wood/steel).

I dont fully understand what you are trying to accomplish with your alpha. Youve used OpacityMask, it wont be translucent this way. You are aware of that? Using Masked will simply make the windows disappear (or everything else except the windows). If you want translucent windows, you should split it into two material ids.

As mentioned you should indeed try to merge the alpha with diffuse/spec/etc as it is a waste of space what you are currently doing. The reason your alpha map might not work right now is because it simply doesnt exist? Are you sure the texture actually has an alpha map (dxtc5) ? Why dont you simply connect the red green or blue channel of that TextureSample? The result will be identical, and you wont even use Alpha..

Joao Sapiro

hey just wanted to chime in to work a bit more in the metal , add more highlights the same for the wood , it looks too monoclor, add some variations etc

GenghisKwan

I really like the design. is looking kool. But I agree with what the other is saying about the material. but is getting better and better.

Loren Broach

Thanks guys, very helpful feedback. Here's an update:



Gonna mess with it in Unreal now and try to get the Alpha to work in there.

Hourences I'm pretty new to Unreal so I'd like to do a lot of those things you suggested just as soon as I figure out what they are. But I'll try and make the Alpha work within the Diffuse map.

Zephir62

Everything looks top-notch and consistent except for the wheels. They feel out of place.

Wells

yeah, the wheels are rather wide. those period wheels were usually rubber, and much thinner. even if you're shooting for a wagon-wheel look. they should still be about a 1/3 that width.

to really punch the steampunk feel, you could make the entire barrel on the back made of brass, rather than wood. brass drums and kettles and such instantly sell steampunk to the viewer

Loren Broach

Minor Update, wanted to semi-defend and ask your opinion about the wheels. The reason I have them so wide is because there's this huge heavy boiler in the back. I would imagine if the wheels were really thin the whole carriage would look like it's ready to fall apart. Would you guys disagree?

Also added more poly's to the wheel to round it out more.

Jesse Moody

I would also round out the areas around the wheels. They really stick out to me and look like you could round them a lot more.

Joao Sapiro

make the back wheels like that and the front wheels thin. Also the metal still looks alot plain.

Wells

the point of having wider wheels would be for better traction. thinner wheels would get stuck in the mud, etc. I think, if nothing else, the front ones should be normal widths.

Loren Broach

Thanks guys, I'll do the things suggested. A little confused on your suggestion though Jesse. You mean like add a chamfer around the tire? or you talking about the spokes? or what.

Wells

he's referring to the metal arcing above the tires. their shape resolution is much lower than everything else and are rather eye-catching