Mm, not quite like that. There's a grass model (single quad, texture) tied to a material. So when I paint that specific material, then the quad is placed. (Density, falloff, etc are all adjustable).
Yeah, it's quite easy in the Unreal editor now. You basically go to your generic window which will then have terrain under info or something like that and then you just click on your scene and "Add terrain here" you can then scale it and such. You can go into the terrain editting mode where you can change the density and even paint the terrain and stuff like that (it's alot of fun)
You can apply a matterial to the terrain when you are done. You also have the option too add foliage, which as adam said, is a single qaud texture which you can paint and change the LOD or and such.
hmm I don't really like that color concept, it lacks color variation on the individual objects, and becomes hard to read. Feel like everything is just desaturated and then overlayed with red. Rather add just some red touches where the fires are, and maybe the sky glowing red
Ya, its just an update on the colours, nothing final. He's aware its pretty monochromatic and will be updating it as we go.
holy crap...nice work man! My only thought (too late now for such a major change) was that the big swooping parts on the lower portion seem a little low res compared to the geo you put into the little cylinders on the sides. There's a real hard almost horizontal shadow line my eye keeps shooting to. I know none of that came out right lol....
Seriourly....this entry is coming out fantastic. Keep up the hard work!
flora kinda bugs me still, I'm sure a lot of this is still a work in progress, but it's just too stretched vertically, a little too fuzzy on the edges and shoots straight up too much, maybe use a larger map size? For such a repeated asset a 512 on that grass flora wouldn't be out of the question, even a 256 should look pretty good.
A little more definition in the flora would go a long way, you can actually have a normal map on translucent materials, i'll usually just use the opacity mask with the xnormals plugin in 'shop to generate it, might look nice. You wont see it working in the material editor, but when you bake the lighting you'll see the normals pop out. Might look good, might not, but worth a try .
I like concept and the idea, I feel that the scene should be made on a grandeur scale. You have everything that says yes, the overpass cuts it down somewhat.
Looking spiffy, though I think when something as big as a pod hits the ground, the plants around it wouldn't look clean and perfect but I suppose it's part of WIP.
It'd be neat to have some objects scattered around the pod like wrecked cars with fire bursting out.
Maybe have some wires dangling where the bridge is taken out?
With this kind of sky maybe you can let the sunlight leak through here and there, add godrays (cheesy but always makes people go "ooh") and light up some key parts of the environment
I need to figure out how to get specular to work on translucent surfaces (re: my grass isn't catching the directional lighting
are you using a dynamic light?
you can have lit (baked lighting)translucencys but not, I dont think, realtime lit translucencys. For baked, just change lighting model to phong and resave it. It'll look borked until you build lighting though, which can make authoring the lighting a little painful. its also more expensive.
For a dynamically lit scene ( ) in the shader you could try a dot product of light vector and reflection/camera vector maybe
this is all off the top of my head
maybe that'd look alright. change the lighting model to something other than unlit though. you might want to make your own custom lighting for it.
then clamp it, power it up, whatever you want your spec hotspot to look like. I'm not sure it'll work
This is coming out great! The way you color keyed the last shot (with the "fog") also works better, imo, than the concept: binds the foreground and background together.
I need to figure out how to get specular to work on translucent surfaces (re: my grass isn't catching the directional lighting
I believe I have the same problem. In fact the only way I can get a light on a translucent material is using a point light for the given object. Baked lights, not dynamic. I've tried the phong shading thingie too, no effect...
i like this much better, the thing is the ship thats the main focus seems too pristine since it just crashed, there should be a cratter or something, and if it sits there for a long time maybe an open hatch or signs of vegetation dunno .
The other thing that bothers me is that 1/3 of the image is practically black and not interesting at all , like trying to act like a frame but seeming just random ( the pillar and the structure it is holding )
The update looks really great. The one thing our team is missing is someone who's really really experienced with Unreal mats and lighting in particular.
haha, I knew that when I wrote my reply. The shader is there, the lighting to support it is not. :P
Well, if u mean "the lighting" in order to make the effect work, u don't need one. Just plug Fresnel into emissive. Just make sure u mix it with correct color and brightness so that it visually makes sense.
I would say that the right part of capsule does not need rim because it is already having enough contrast with background being way darker than the BG.
However, the left side could have some Fresnel. In order to control where Fresnel appears u can use vertex color as mask.
Just assign black vertex color to the whole mesh, then paint any single color channel (red, green or blue) on the side that needs Fresnel to appear.
then, in UE u can use that vertex color as mask in Linear interpolate to mix rim effect with pure black (black = no emissive)
I'm feeling really confined with the overpass in the foreground. I want my eye to travel around the image because everything looks really cool; however, I keep getting brought back to the overpass. It really is taking up alot of the image real estate. My suggestion would perhaps be to break it a bit and allow for the sky and light to shine through broken bits of rebar and hanging debris. Looking really good though, can't wait to see more.
Adam it's looking great. The grass up front seems odd. I can't really figure out what it is specifically. It just doesn't match the same detail as the rest of it. Also the pod being stuck into the ground is off. You need some dirt mounds, broken stuff around it like a crater there.
Lighting is really nice I think. Color scheme is good too. The pod color you might want to tweak a bit or add little emissive glowy bits on it.
Thanks - everything you've mentioned I've brought up already for things I need to do. The grass, right now, is my biggest pain in the ass with the other stuff being completed already. I'll post more tonight.
Curious, Bbox85 did you read the rest of the thread?
LMAO! Haha! Nope, I skipped right to the end and commented... hehe, my bad. Well... Then in that case, I'm glad we're on the same page... It's nice we had this talk. :P Lol. I'm just gonna go back to my unearthly now... *whistles away in shame
BTW, I had this great idea for your entry... You should fill the scene with these hi tech drop pods... and make the city feel like buildings are no good anymore and just use shanty towns... Yeah!? Awesome, you guys should do it! I'm glad we had this talk. Oh and there's something about that overpass... :P
Replies
What about trying something like this?
You can apply a matterial to the terrain when you are done. You also have the option too add foliage, which as adam said, is a single qaud texture which you can paint and change the LOD or and such.
Ya, its just an update on the colours, nothing final. He's aware its pretty monochromatic and will be updating it as we go.
Seriourly....this entry is coming out fantastic. Keep up the hard work!
A little more definition in the flora would go a long way, you can actually have a normal map on translucent materials, i'll usually just use the opacity mask with the xnormals plugin in 'shop to generate it, might look nice. You wont see it working in the material editor, but when you bake the lighting you'll see the normals pop out. Might look good, might not, but worth a try
It'd be neat to have some objects scattered around the pod like wrecked cars with fire bursting out.
Maybe have some wires dangling where the bridge is taken out?
Looking pretty awesome fellas.
Notes:
With this kind of sky maybe you can let the sunlight leak through here and there, add godrays (cheesy but always makes people go "ooh") and light up some key parts of the environment
you can have lit (baked lighting)translucencys but not, I dont think, realtime lit translucencys. For baked, just change lighting model to phong and resave it. It'll look borked until you build lighting though, which can make authoring the lighting a little painful. its also more expensive.
For a dynamically lit scene (
this is all off the top of my head
maybe that'd look alright. change the lighting model to something other than unlit though. you might want to make your own custom lighting for it.
then clamp it, power it up, whatever you want your spec hotspot to look like. I'm not sure it'll work
Nice work.
By the way,
I believe I have the same problem. In fact the only way I can get a light on a translucent material is using a point light for the given object. Baked lights, not dynamic. I've tried the phong shading thingie too, no effect...
Background buildings are in there for Carlo to see how we'll be doing them, they are not final.
The other thing that bothers me is that 1/3 of the image is practically black and not interesting at all , like trying to act like a frame but seeming just random ( the pillar and the structure it is holding )
Keep at it you nutsos ! looking good
I think whats_true meant some sort of Fresnel shader to kinda have the outline defined better. If i am not mistaken...
Well, if u mean "the lighting" in order to make the effect work, u don't need one. Just plug Fresnel into emissive. Just make sure u mix it with correct color and brightness so that it visually makes sense.
I would say that the right part of capsule does not need rim because it is already having enough contrast with background being way darker than the BG.
However, the left side could have some Fresnel. In order to control where Fresnel appears u can use vertex color as mask.
Just assign black vertex color to the whole mesh, then paint any single color channel (red, green or blue) on the side that needs Fresnel to appear.
then, in UE u can use that vertex color as mask in Linear interpolate to mix rim effect with pure black (black = no emissive)
Lighting is really nice I think. Color scheme is good too. The pod color you might want to tweak a bit or add little emissive glowy bits on it.
Keep up the good work man!
Relax doodz, you guys are doing awesome work, keep it up.
But seriously this is looking great and the overpass doesn't really bother me.
Ok I'm done.
LMAO! Haha! Nope, I skipped right to the end and commented... hehe, my bad. Well... Then in that case, I'm glad we're on the same page... It's nice we had this talk. :P Lol. I'm just gonna go back to my unearthly now... *whistles away in shame
no but seriously, great work as usual
-Tyler
Everyone - How do I get the triangle count of my grass when its tied to my terrain?