Unearthly Challange | kat | (concept 41)

kat

Highres concept No.41 - "Thee Al To Sore Smerte"
http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/events/4/concepts/images/concept_41.html



Still formulating ideas and stories but wanted to choose and post.

[updated info - 27th Oct 08]

TOOLS
Blender 3D - all 3D asset modelling
Corel Photopaint - textures (diffuse, specular)
CrazyBump - textures (normal maps, specular)
Quake 4 Radiant - level design compositor, compiler
Quake 4 - in game dynamic renderer

[updated info - 08th Nov 08]

ASSETS
Mesh - Final triangle count - 26402 (all models, no quads)
Textures - 8 sets of 1024x1024, diffuse, normal, specular. 6 x 256x256 env map.
SFX - fire and crystal motes from Quake 4 game content (that's allowed?)

Beauty 1

g0th

Cool Kat, Looks like you picked a theme that fits you well

Looking forward to see what you can do with it.

MoP

Mmm, spooky caves
Nice to see you in, kat, looking forward to see the progress!

kat

Definately spooky, I can't not do caves+spookiness!

I know most peeps will use UE3 so I might try this on the idtech4 for rendering out and see what happens.

kat

Don't normally do this stage like this (as in record what I see when looking at something), areas and possible paths through the 'level'. I want to be able to walk through this in game rather than it just being a static render.

larger version

MoP

Good move breaking it up into paths, i think it will be a lot cooler if it's created as a kind of "showcase level", so maybe not huge on gameplay, but at least complete if a player wants to walk around. I think that'd be more impressive than an environment which only looks good from one angle (although obviously you'd want to make sure that there a particular angle you can get a really good composition / scene from).

Yeah I'm doing all my stuff in ETQW's EditWorld, so basically id Tech 4 with some stuff added on.
I might do my final renders in Max though, depends what I need for the look.

kat

Just trying to work some things out in my head - notes and photos I've been looking at. Top left, general 'plan' layout; top right, scale idea - relative to standard in game 8 unit height steps. Photos are references for possible vegetation ideas, still pondering this...

larger

kat

Some basic blocks to get a sense of initial ideas/sizes based on player 'template' and "8" unit steps (which will no doubt change). Blocks also rough UVWmapped and AO'd.

larger

kat

Progress shots. Starts as a flat plain which is cut up and given basic area manipulations; path depression being the first, using the block objects to get an initial sense of relative in-game size/scale.
Larger


Further down the layout process, each area is pulled up from the base by extruding, including the pillar blocks, I find doing separate objects more tricky and time consuming than it's initially worth.
Larger

g0th

progressing good. Are you planing to make it work with vis portals and that sort of stuff as well?

kat

g0th wrote: »

progressing good. Are you planing to make it work with vis portals and that sort of stuff as well?

No need to for this. It'll get the usual lighting and what not but basically it'll be stuck in a caulk box.

Worked up more of the main shape.
larger



Further on and the mesh is broken into sections using material assignments to make it easier to manage whilst working on some of the awkward shapes that occur... thank goodness for Blenders layers ;o)
larger

planaria

looking really nice, i like the rock modelling .. also nice to see other blender users !

kat

@ planaria : yep, been a long time user and advocate of Blender 3D as a content creation tool

Using Blenders under-rated UVW unwrap tools - laying out (testing placement of) seams to unwrap a mesh section; being able to 'split' a mesh into sections like this makes managing the overall UVW map so much more efficient and easier to do.
larger


Modelled up most of the initial work I needed to do to get a clear idea of shapes and forms. There's obviously more work to be done but I often find it easier to work up a section of something rather than block out as that can be overwhelming and frustrating at times, especially when the shapes in meshes get in the way of being able to see what you're doing.
larger

MoP

Nice shapes! Keep it up

sgv3dmax

Nice rock model. Anxious to see what will be there in the background.

felixthepuerto

cool Block out man

kat

Lost a bit of time on this due to other projects but managed to get a good amount done in the last couple of days. As the Quake 4 (idtech4) engine isn't too good with big models that use unique textures I've been having to break the mesh and resulting UVWmaps down into smaller sections so I can get a higher pixel density on the model in game - got to test 'detail' layer textures in Q4 as I can't remember if they can be done (probably just a blend mode issue) but that will 'fix' low resolution to a great extent (something UT3 does iirc).

Created 16x 1024x1024 sheets to 'hard-wire' the texture limit, will need to decide on how to do the texturing next, probably 2D and crazybump rather than sculpted normal maps.

Larger image - trying to leave the whole 'floor' area on one texture gives poor quality results, so the mesh is broken down into sections, each getting it's own 1024 sheet



larger image - got most of the cave itself built so now I can 'study' how the man-made stuff will fit in so it look like it's meant to be there. Using about 3500 faces (c.5000 tris) so far and 13x 1024 (as reasoned above).

kat

Textures, finally. Using Crazy Bump to generate normal maps (specular shown below)



More UVW mapping fun, this time gridding to make sure texture res is approx over entire mesh. Texture scaling done via materials in Quake 4. Vertex painting shown for texture blending, also done via material files



Selection of textures. Normals and diffuse also with the height templates™ used to generate normals. Not just putting photos through CB as that's bad.


In editor shots next

MoP

Ooh, vertex blending textures in Q4, should be good!
Really nice organic rock "plinths" you have there, very natural!

kat

Thanks MoP. Vertex blending is ok, but as you know it has it's downsides so I've had to really work around that to limit it by hiding the seams between different blends as much as possible... could have use LWO to get around that, and although they do work from Blender it's not a tried and tested approach so it'd waste too much time trying to get it to work, unlike ASE.

I think even megatexture would haev a hard time with this mesh! heh

kat

Oooo in editor finally!

URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_phase12a.jpg"]larger[/URL Model sections shown below with editor images "rock" and "ground". Broken into 3 sections; two 'ground' sections and one big 'wall' section. Smoothing has held up surprisingly well as I've had problems in the past with it when breaking meshes into sections, which has to be done normally for vis/overdraw reasons. UVWmaps islands work similar to UE3 in that they don't automatically cause vertex splits (which despite having worked with idtech for years, I always thought was the case - learnt something new in this project).



URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_phase12b.jpg"]larger[/URL r_showvertexcolor 0/1 showing the vertex painting that creates the texture blending on the mesh.




URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_phase12c.jpg"]larger[/URL Render preview, texture blend in real time. Initial light setup. Not happy with crystal pillars (as objects) so changing those and the lighting as a result. bleh.

MoP

Cool stuff, that render preview is really coming together pretty well!
I think some more moody lighting (more saturated brooding colours like the concept) would really help, and if you can do it, stick a global ambient fog in there with a green colour so that you get the nice atmospheric perspective that the concept has.

kat

It's a good job you said "fog" after "ambient" and not "light" ;o)

Agreed, I will be doing that re the lighting, just need to get some 'stuff' in place to do what I have in mind which should create some nice 'hot spots' and pools of light (contrast and brightness as well). There is an ambient fog in the level but it's pretty thin at the moment whilst I get every thing in place, so what's there just basically sets a baseline of sorts, I don't want to go any darker than that - which as you know is all too easy to do in this engine. The crystals aren't set up properly yet, no glow material and what have you, just in case anyone was wondering looking at the render preview.

Thanks for the comments btw

TomScholes

Oooooooooooooooh this is fun to see

g0th

Comming along nicly Kat. I really like the shapes of the rocks. Looking forward to see this with better lightning

kat

Better lighting *cough*

I was going for an 'eerie', 'ethereal' look for this rather than overtly evil, it's certainly not somewhere you'd want to be hanging around for too long. I had visions of 'fire sprites' emerging from the two cauldrons in the scene (approx where the pools of yellow light are) to attack the player as the enter/pass through the area. They would be killed by extinguishing the flames (which would restart after a time as they're "ye olde majic eva'lasting ouchie makers").

There's more I could probably do to this but I wanted to keep things uncluttered as well as making sure to get the level built within the original submission date; anything done now would be an addition to the scene rather than a missing/unfinished part of it. Left the player start point in view as a point of reference.

Editor Render URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_phase13a.jpg"]larger[/URL
Better

Light Count (shadow volumes/surface lighting) URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_phase13b.jpg"]larger[/URL


Tris (all polys in scene) URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_phase13c.jpg"]larger[/URL


I'll post a proper in game render soon as well as some lighting breakdowns.

Thefirston

this is pretty cool but you should add a focal point as well as a deeper contrast

kat

Almost done. Wanted to post these within the original time frame we had so could say that the project would have been finished on time. Just adding one of two little touches then I'll possibly see if I can add anything with the extra two weeks.

Possible alternative shot URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_final1a.jpg"]larger[/URL


Another possible alternative shot URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_final1b.jpg"]larger[/URL


Final shot will be something like this. URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_final1c.jpg"]larger[/URL

kat

Sketch sheet. Stuck to the main concept design, wanting to just add man-made items into the setting (rather than designing the setting around the manmade items), which feels like more of an organic process.



Most of the main textures are 1024x1024 tiling textures. Although Quake 4 can take 2048x2048 it was felt that tiling was sufficiant to reduce pixelation and keep texture density up. Eight [8] full custom textures sets of diffuse + normal + specular maps plus one 256x256 env map set (6 x 256x256).

Two in game particles emitters were used - fire and crystal 'motes' - as shipped with Quake 4.

All the normal maps used were created from 2D using CrazyBump


Assets shown over in game Quake 4 render with "showtris" active outlining total of 24631 triangles (dynamtic light volumes and other 'real time' data push that up to 150k in game when viewing the entire level)

TomScholes

Really nice work

kat

Just updated the asset sheet to include the sectioned cave mesh URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/final_assets_v2.jpg"]larger[/URL.

kat

Final shots, first one is the primary beauty, have to choose one from the others for the second. larger URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_final_shot1.jpg"]1[/URL URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_final_shot2.jpg"]2[/URL URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_final_shot3.jpg"]3[/URL URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_final_shot4.jpg"]4[/URL URL="http://www.katsbits.com/misc/unearthly_challenge_08/unearthly_final_shot5.jpg"]5[/URL

kat

Finals submitted:

Beauty 1


Beauty 2

Microneezia

I really like this entry, reminds me of Aht Urghan from FFXI.... spent a long time up in there...that place where you run by the 3 imps... the undead mindflayer zone with the black ship... thanks for ground lighting the rocks like that... i really like it.

PS: your blog is also a decent read! thanks for that too, i enjoyed the Conan interview!

kat

Heh, thanks

The Conan interview took ages to set up, mainly due to the developer being a bit 'slow' on feedback rather than the chap I chatted with.

Cody

Turned out pretty damn cool. Nice job!