Colony Environment, Need Help!!

kodiak

Ok so the concept for my environment is that there is this ancient set of sci-fi buildings that have been there forever, and then the current people that live there are more at a medieval level - previous civilization wiped out yadda yadda. So there are these cool urban sci-fi buildings but also lots of stuff made from wood, cloth such as tents and crates and walk ways. Here is the initial concept drawing:







I'm trying to go for a relatively low poly feel with really nice hand-painted textures with interesting and somewhat cartoony proportions (TF2, Prince of Persia, WoW) With lots of cloth, rope, wear and tear, and wood and metal.

I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what needs to be individual models, what needs more detail in topology (rather than in textures later)

I've never really modeled buildings before and so far its just kind of a mish mash of pieces so i can make different buildings with the same pieces later, but I don't really know what direction to go from here.

I need to make the ground look like its made of wood beams and planks, which I'm not sure how to do (like modular pieces or just one flat texture like in WoW or low poly games like that.)

I basically just lack direction from this point! Help!

crazyfingers

Start small dude. But i gotta say the overall scene is looking great right now. I love the character you've got without using many polys.

Start with a small area. Might i suggest a single tent?

As you work on that single tent think of the story of the tent, maybe it's used to sell stuff. Maybe that stuff came from nearby flora that you can see in the scene.

Once you start on a small section and think about everything else as you work on it, you'll have tons of ideas coming to you, just keep a file on your desktop that you keep all your ideas and assets on. You'll be changing this constantly as you work on a small area.

Also, the look is paramount. Don't just add things because that's what would be there, add things because they make the scene actually look better. One of the most important things to think about is how your assets will transition into the ground for example, makes a big difference when you don't have expensive lighting setups in UT3. Think of your building and the ground, and come up with some flora and small objects that are a combination of both of them. Or work some of your ground texture into your buildings at the base.

Anyway, i'm probably going on a bit, just start small, everything will fall into place from there. And make assets that look good when repeated a lot. You'll find that once you're done with your small scene, you can just repeat the heck out of those objects in creative ways and get an even bigger scene. Then work on a mid sized area. The vast ammount of work isn't the large scene, it's the making of the objects. So just work your way up, throwing away your mini compositions as you go. Don't worry about the big picture, it'll only drag you down.

If i had to give you a formula, every time you do a new scene do like 75% stuff you're going to repeate and 25% stuff that's unique to that mini comp.

kodiak

Thanks man, that is really helpful! I've got some ideas brewing to focus on the tent section.

Zack Fowler

You should use solid color materials (so UVs won't matter) and hard edges on your blockout models so that the scene will be readable in engine. Right now the in-editor visuals are very confusing to look at.

crazyfingers' advice to start small is a good idea. Once you do get to the large sci-fi structures eventually, be sure to consider the modularity of your pieces. If you split them up on a grid with each other, they will be much easier to work with. Deconstruct the shapes you have roughed out in your concept into pieces. If you have difficulty doing that from the concept piece by piece, consider quickly modeling out a one-off blockout of one of those entire structures (at that level of detail it shouldn't be too hard) and then figuring out your grid and pieces by dividing that model up. Try to get the whole set of pieces for one building fairly well blocked in as a group before you start detailing up any one piece.

I'd recommend looking through the whole process that Peris went through to make his awesome environment for last year's Unearthly Challenge if you haven't already. You might find a bit of visual inspiration too, since it seems like a similar scene. Also look up Kevin Johnstone's description of the process they use at Epic to construct environments.

If you find yourself running out of ideas for stuff, take some time to dig up more reference art to recharge. Look up references of shanty towns, marketplaces, abandoned sci-fi architecture, and so on -- there's tons of great stuff out there, and nothing wrong with borrowing a few visual cues to flesh things out.

edit: Also, since you're using UE3, load up several of the Unreal Tournament maps and spend time pulling them apart to see where they split up the pieces of buildings and how they reused assets.

kodiak

Thank you so much for the tips, guys! Of course keep them coming and I'll have some progress to show you very soon.

update: A little look at the tent: Where to go from here?

SHEPEIRO

i disagree with starting small, an environment is like painting, approach it in the same way

-sketch it out

-work on the major forms and composition

-start to fill it with base colours.

-rough the lighting in

-add detail to the large forms

-get a small brush out and add surface details

-fill the scene with props and life

too many times i see environments started with a prop or two......WRONG.... if the scope is too large then pick one of the buildings and create a new setting for it where it can be more independant.

ignore props till you have an environment to put them in.

right strop over