Phantom Manor Environment WIP

rhoymand

yay my first project in the polycount forums

building an environment based off of the phantom manor in disneyland paris. about 12hrs in so far. hopefully I'll have the modeling done by the end of the week so I can start texturing. let me know what you think.





inspiration:

sprunghunt

looks good so far

but there's a lot of polys in the columns on the ground floor. Particularily the wrought iron on the top. It seems like this is a bit of an uneven distribution of polys to me.

bluekangaroo

^ agreed. Also close ups on the columns and tri count would be helpful

rhoymand

I only recently finished blocking out the shapes and I'm starting to add details. it will all be detailed as much as the pillars.

its currently 44k tris. being my first high poly environment I'm guessing it'll probably around 500k when its finished.

close up:

sprunghunt

There's a lot of tiny tiny bevels on those columns. I'd remove a lot of them from the trim below the wrought iron and the trim above the bit on the bottom. They're such small details that it's better just to use a normalmap to do it.

Not sure if the wrought iron is too much or not. You could use an alpha to replace the interior detail if you wanted to but I think it would be just as expensive either way. Maybe look into making the cross-sections 3 sided rather than 4 sided?

keep at it though - it looks very promising.

rhoymand

thanks for all the advice. I've reduced the amount of polys on the columns as suggested, but I still want to keep the majority of the detail there. finished the doors and wood siding. current poly count is 46k tris.

I want to make this environment as detailed (if not a little more) than bioshock (or any high-end FPS). does anyone have a rough estimate of the architecture density. a wireframe would be even better, but I know that's impossible.

Justin Meisse

sprunghunt wrote: »

looks good so far

but there's a lot of polys in the columns on the ground floor. Particularily the wrought iron on the top. It seems like this is a bit of an uneven distribution of polys to me.

I don't see a problem with that, put the detail where the player is!

rhoymand

I'm pretty much done modeling now. hovering right above 212k polys. the bricks, and pillar/moulding/door inset geometry will be removed and replaced with normal mapping. so it'll probably drop down under 200k. time to start texturing!

some ambient occlusion renders:

cholden

real good looking model. I like it.

GOBEE

Wow. That actually came out looking good man. You got skills. Now texture it.

JDinges

Very nice

Jeremy Lindstrom

question, did you cut the windows in or are they sitting on top?

rhoymand

Dekard wrote: »

question, did you cut the windows in or are they sitting on top?

the sides of the house are cut around the glass portion of the window.

Thegodzero

No need for those cuts, just push the windows out one or two units. MUCH cheaper with zero visual cost.

MLinderholm

I like the pillars, they would be quite close up in a FPS so make 'em look good. Polycount on stuff all depends on what game type, setting etc. I don't have any numbers, but you can probably go pretty wild. Are u replacing the boards with normalmapped planes aswell?

And yea, the cutouts for the glass isn't necessary unless you are planning on making transparent glass and interiors. I would add some roof tiles or whatever material you fancy. If you are going to have boards or a pretty flat surface i would just do them in a heightmap and add to normals.

EvilPixills

Looking good sir. It's hard to tell from your concept, but the only thing that stands out to me is that some surfaces (the railing supports and the sphere decos on top of the rail posts) have hard edges. Maybe try smoothing them?

EarthQuake

What was the point of modeling out all of the bricks and siding? Surely this could easily be done with tiling textures. I know you said you'll replace it with normals etc, but why would you do it in the first place? Its a huge waste of time.

rhoymand

MLinderholm wrote: »

I like the pillars, they would be quite close up in a FPS so make 'em look good. Polycount on stuff all depends on what game type, setting etc. I don't have any numbers, but you can probably go pretty wild. Are u replacing the boards with normalmapped planes aswell?

And yea, the cutouts for the glass isn't necessary unless you are planning on making transparent glass and interiors. I would add some roof tiles or whatever material you fancy. If you are going to have boards or a pretty flat surface i would just do them in a heightmap and add to normals.

this is my first real asset using normal maps. I'm using crazybump to generate normal maps from my textures. heres a test with the roof tiles:



the top is without normals. the bottom is with. still doesn't feel right to me. I'm not sure if I'm setting up the normal map correctly in maya. anyone got a tutorial?

I'll probably take out the siding. looking closer at reference photos its actually wood paneling, not siding. I guess a heightmap would help that too, but I've never made one of those. are there any tutorials for that also?

sorry, I'm pretty noob when it comes to advanced texturing. everything beyond a diffuse map is new to me.

IxenonI

you might wann model the roof tiles as highpoly objects and bake a nm / AO with xnormal or something similar. After that, just layer a crazybump pass on top. Will give a much nicer depth to it.

MLinderholm

Crazybumping normal maps directly from a phototexture isn't something i would recommend, do a height map first and create a normal map from that one.

Make sure bump-node in Maya is set to "Tangent Space Normals" not the standard "Bump Map"

Kevin Johnstone

Super clean, very nice. I think the pillar's deco top's are the best thing about it, they
are such a great design, very stylish.

rhoymand

as you probably guessed I stopped working on this project for a while. but I'm inspired and determined once again to finish it. I forgot how much longer it takes to texture than model!

my texturing pipeline has changed since the last time I worked on this. instead of crazybump I use the nvidia photoshop filter. the main reason I switched was because my crazybump demo expired, but I'm actually liking the nvidia photoshop filter better; its more subtle. its easy to go over the top with crazybump.

here's what I have textured so far (w/o HQ rendering):


here's a closer shot of the front door w/ HQ rendering and a point light:


I've taken out a lot of the detail and replaced them w/ normal maps. the actual door is just a single plane now =P

ivars

You've modeled details like crazy, and still your window arcs look very lowpoly...

SHEPEIRO

yep rework your poly placement, its very high considering you have quite rough sillohettes on the roof etc, id put more into the big shapes and let the normals do the rest, much cleaner and cheaper, all those tiny hard edges would be much more suited to normal map detail. then you could add some loops to the big shapes.

also the main wood texture loos sideways revise the dirt so the it goes vertical, horizontal wear and tear is much less than vertical from falling rain, drips etc

Jeremy Lindstrom

hrmm must of ninja edited the images out?

rhoymand

ivars wrote: »

You've modeled details like crazy, and still your window arcs look very lowpoly...

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

yep rework your poly placement, its very high considering you have quite rough sillohettes on the roof etc, id put more into the big shapes and let the normals do the rest, much cleaner and cheaper, all those tiny hard edges would be much more suited to normal map detail. then you could add some loops to the big shapes.

I can't believe I did that! :poly127:

I got so fixed on the details I forgot about the bigger shapes. seeing only the trees and not the whole forest kinda deal. I reworked the windows, roof, and deck to make them smoother. it's looking much better now thanks.

I'm almost done texturing. here are the latest screens. please let me know if you see any problems that I've missed.

bounchfx

I like it so far, but the biggest issue I have is that the bottom stone texture just doesn't seem to 'fit' with the rest of the textures. maybe it's just because I'm seeing it out of an environment, or maybe it's just me, but I thought I would mention it. Otherwise, looks great.

pliang

Seeing this from the end of July till now it seems the textures are underway....but adding on to the last post it seems like the dirt trim is not masking properly from the moss on the bricks...seems very unnatural.

imb3nt

keep it up! lookin good.

Mangled Poly

Your work is improving vastly from the stuff on your webpage! Great job.

I would suggest using a next gen engine for showing off your work instead of max. It is severely handicapping your final art piece.

rhoymand

dropped the house inside UT3 editor. still new to the program, but it's pretty cool after you get used to the workflow (still hate the UI/hotkeys though). also, I've recorded a quick run-through to better showoff how the player would actually experience the house.

phantom manor run-through (12.8mb)
http://www.rhoymand.com/3D/PhantomManorTest01.avi

some editor screencaps:

Marcan

It's looking good so far, I like it.

I think you could use masks to break down the shaders as the texture see are quite clean for a ghost house. Just plug a Lerp in the shader, use an alpha to use as a mask, your texture and a tiling generic dirt shader, I think you could get some nice results fast.

If you need any help how to do this, I'll be glad to answer, I don't know if you already know how to do this already.

I use this technique all the time and it works like a charm.

Edit: also, how about rendering your ambient occlusion and plugging it in another UV channel? It would help a bit to break the rough ending of that small porch where it meets the wall above the front door.

rhoymand

Marcan wrote: »

It's looking good so far, I like it.

I think you could use masks to break down the shaders as the texture see are quite clean for a ghost house. Just plug a Lerp in the shader, use an alpha to use as a mask, your texture and a tiling generic dirt shader, I think you could get some nice results fast.

If you need any help how to do this, I'll be glad to answer, I don't know if you already know how to do this already.

I use this technique all the time and it works like a charm.

Edit: also, how about rendering your ambient occlusion and plugging it in another UV channel? It would help a bit to break the rough ending of that small porch where it meets the wall above the front door.

I've heard about lerps before from a tutorial I've read. basically its just combining two textures together with one of them masked by an alpha right? if thats the case, why do ppl do that in the editor rather than editing the diffuse texture itself in photoshop? the only reason I can think of is so you can mix and match more easily w/o actually having to make every combination.

I didn't know ut3 editor could bake AO. is it similar to baking light maps?

salman_fas

Marcan wrote: »

It's looking good so far, I like it.

Edit: also, how about rendering your ambient occlusion and plugging it in another UV channel? It would help a bit to break the rough ending of that small porch where it meets the wall above the front door.

That's something I have been looking into. How do you make the material setup for that? Do you multiply the occlusion map(texture coordinate set to 2nd channel) with the diffuse or is it something different?

rhoymond: your stuff is looking good man:)

Cody

looks great. could use some foliage/grass alphas around the manor IMO, especially right where it meets with the ground.

Ged

really cool! I think this could really benefit from some spooky glowing lights in the windows

Marcan

rhoymand wrote: »

I've heard about lerps before from a tutorial I've read. basically its just combining two textures together with one of them masked by an alpha right? if thats the case, why do ppl do that in the editor rather than editing the diffuse texture itself in photoshop? the only reason I can think of is so you can mix and match more easily w/o actually having to make every combination.

I didn't know ut3 editor could bake AO. is it similar to baking light maps?

We do this because Unreal lets you plug in a Texture Coordinate and tile that generic dirt texture how you like. So basically you could have your dirt and wall textures for a wall texture tiled at 1.0, and that alpha mask texture will tile at .5 (or any value you like, can be .1) and as such, break your tiling even more because the pattern of the mask will be applied at a much bigger scale. So having a .5 values of tiling for a 512 texture would be like having a 1024 unique diffuse texture in Photoshop.

UT3 can't do it be default. We did have it for AO2 though, lucky us. It would bake it in a lightmap.

salman_fas wrote: »

That's something I have been looking into. How do you make the material setup for that? Do you multiply the occlusion map(texture coordinate set to 2nd channel) with the diffuse or is it something different?

rhoymond: your stuff is looking good man:)

Here you go.

Notice how the CoordinateIndex (or map channel) is set to 1. This will be the 2nd UV channel you set in Max. CoordinateIndex set to 2 would be the 3rd UV channel and so on.

woogity

I agree with cody throw some sort of foliage in around the base of the house overgrown weeds or hedges or somethng, its much to tacked on looking when you can see the edges meet the ground plane like that, just nitpicking tho it looks great keep up the good work!


-Woog

salman_fas

Thanks Marcan

Pedro Amorim

the house doesnt look like it has specular sure wood doesnt has that much specular but this houses tend to be painted so the painted wood still has specular hilights. another thing that i didnt like in the video is that the door handles are just textures. where are the door handles? how can i come in? :S

rhoymand

lol just when I thought I was done I get pulled back in!

-added specs to most objects. didn't notice how many things in real life reflect light even though they're not necessarily "reflective"
-dirtied everything using the lerp method
-raised/lowered the ground plane around the foundation to help break the straight edge
-unique UV map for the doorknobs (actually has a keyhole and details now)

more images on my website


one thing I would LOVE to do is displace the bricks with a bump map. but I can't get the tutorial (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MaterialsTutorial.html#Bump%20Mapping) to work.

stimpack

this came out relly nice!! some of the textures lack general wear and tear for a building of that age.

ElysiumGX

great lighting on that. very pleasing to look at.

DarkAlleyEthics

Just a minor detail and probablly not a priority right now, but I noticed that the silloettes of all the trees are the same, just resized. If you rotate some of your trees, they won't all look like the same tree. And like the others have said, more grime/grunge on the building and more foliage would really help sell this environment. Great work so far! Looks great in the engine.

Michael Knubben

That turned out good! Nice dawny feeling on that with the lighting. One thing i'd like to see is a specmap on the windows, though, to get the edges to reflect less light. The windows are the one thing that really stands out in a bad way, them being so squeeky-clean.

imb3nt

Turned out great! The only thing that i could think to add would be some extra plant life, either weeds around the foundation or remnants of a flower bed. Looks awesome w/o it though. :thumbup:

Mechadus

rhoymand wrote: »

one thing I would LOVE to do is displace the bricks with a bump map. but I can't get the tutorial (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MaterialsTutorial.html#Bump%20Mapping) to work.

Hey man, nice progress! Im new to the game editor environments too, but Ive been doing architecture for 5 years now... Assuming Unreal ED works anything like Hammer or Max, you can load a grayscale map as a displacement. The easiest way is to paint the map in Photoshop - Paint over a copy of your diffuse image, black for the grout, and a mid-grey for the bricks themselfs. The black will displace the grout back, and the mid grey (128,128,128 RGB) will leave the brick face undisplaced. If your carefull it should match up pretty well. Then again, not having actually ever used Unreal ED, I might very well be sounding like a twit right now... *shrug*

-Nick

SHEPEIRO

yay thats nice, trees could do with some love, or maybe some DOF ;-)

rhoymand

Mechadus wrote: »

Hey man, nice progress! Im new to the game editor environments too, but Ive been doing architecture for 5 years now... Assuming Unreal ED works anything like Hammer or Max, you can load a grayscale map as a displacement. The easiest way is to paint the map in Photoshop - Paint over a copy of your diffuse image, black for the grout, and a mid-grey for the bricks themselfs. The black will displace the grout back, and the mid grey (128,128,128 RGB) will leave the brick face undisplaced. If your carefull it should match up pretty well. Then again, not having actually ever used Unreal ED, I might very well be sounding like a twit right now... *shrug*

-Nick

yeah I've painted a greyscale bumpmap for the bricks already, but I can't get the shader network to work in unreal ed =/

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

yay thats nice, trees could do with some love, or maybe some DOF ;-)

honestly the trees were just away to hide the horizon. since they're a default unreal mesh I don't want to work on them more then I need to. with all the comments on the foliage I might just add a lovely dead garden though. and what pretell is a DOF?

SHEPEIRO

Depth Of Feild- but as its unreal, didnt realise it, may not be possible

whats_true

DOf can be used in UT3 with the Post Processing Volume.

Just use the Red BSP brush to cover the entire scene, so the Volumes-Post Processing volume and have it applied to the scene. Click on it's properties, then the Post Processing properties, and enable DOF. Might have to change the settings a little bit to get it to work right.

EDIT:
This explains it better (scroll to the bottom))
http://ut3.herniweb.cz/print.php?type=N&item_id=20