It has been 200 years since the war began between the two great factions in the land, Aliteria and Hak'caeru. The reason for its beginning had been lost over the centuries, however as the historical hatred passed down the generations, it only grew as the fighting and brutality worsened. Both civilisations now so advanced and equal in power, that this futile war was only going to last longer.
The two great cities both towered into the skies, encompassed with powerful weapon systems and impenetrable shields. The only area separating them was a one hundred mile stretch of no man's land. Its was here that peaceful, and considerably less advanced villages and towns settled. Built on ancient ruins from a time these civilisations worked in harmony, the inhabitants used these areas as foundations for their villages and building infrastructure, continually scavenging older technologies, metals and raw materials from Aliteria and Hak'caeru, adapting these elements to their needs. But as the fighting between the factions grew stronger, they cared less and less for the innocent people residing between their cities, the battles raged and engulfed these small towns with fire and destruction. Even with a handful of defenses the innocent had no where to run and ultimately perished. Few of these towns still survived, and one in particular held a secret of hope, an artifact that contained the power to end the war forever.
But something was wrong, in the distance fleets of ships, troop transports and ground forces massed from both cities towards the town, the factions knew about the ancient artifact, travelling to claim their weapon and to finally destroy their enemies forever, the end was coming and no one would survive.
Please everyone feel free to comment, your thoughts good or bad are all welcome!
So, the image below shows my initial reference research that i put together on monday. The top left image was produced in photoshop by merging a load of reference material to get a really quick rough feel and layout, to help focus our ideas.
Over the past two days Fossman and myself have been reworking our ideas and focusing our research further. These following boards are our finalised research, together with our story and this inspiration, we plan to start designing the set straight away, rough design concepts, map layouts, etc!
Heres some concept designs that i produced 2day for the powerful ancient artefact weapon (see story). Just sillouettes to get a idea about shape, the size will be quite large, length of your forearm and has the ability to be plugged into a power/weapon source to use. The larger designs are probably what i'd like to go for, they will sit perfectly into the raised holder that fossman was designing last nite.
Ok heres some Artifact Protector concepts which is what the Artifact Jono is designing will hover above. Planning on a lot more detail to be added to this along with Jono's artifact because it will be part of the main focal area.
Our environment map ready to do the blockout and then paint over concept! Wot u guys think? i reckon it will change slightly when we do the blockout, jus to make sure its not too crowed or too sparse. Plus need to make sure that the artefact is the focus, while keeping elements of the attacked/wrecked settlement and downed enemy ships.
Ok blockout is finished by Jono and I have put this into Unreal minus vegetation to see how it looks and scale etc. Shadows seem a bit funny at the min but this could be due to the fact that none of this is Unwrapped so lightmaps mess up? (anyone know)
I have 3 directional lights lighting the scene with only one of them with shadows turned on as with just 1 directional light I had black shadows, is using multiple lights the right way of lighting darker areas that the main sunlight doest hit.
Help / Tips / Comments Greatly Appreciated
Updates will come faster now, lots of modelling now:poly121:
Here's a top down view of our environment blockout, above shows the blockout in the unreal engine with the sky box and lighting created by Andy! Really like the bloom from the sun appearing through the clouds! Cant wait till our models and normal maps r in there 2! We're going for a really beautiful/picturesque environment contrasted with destruction and wreckage from the aftermarth of the battle for the artifact!
Finished lowpoly in Maya, UV layout done, optimised texture space so going to overlay a few UVs, then put model into zBrush for some hard surface detailing! Scarey stuff as its my first time using zBrush! so different to just watching tutorials, but finally got there! going to add scratches, chips, dirt etc in photoshop, just wanted to do the main details in zBrush!
Hey ppl, jus and update on 2 of the 4 tree types that will feature in the woodland areas of the environment, my first organic sculpts in zbrush! First produced quite an exaggerated deep bark, then as i got used to the brushes and alphas the second tree came out alot more subtle! which i think i prefer!
Finished the trees now! the screen shots below are only maya views, but all textures and models have normal, AO and spec maps ready and complete for unreal engine! Cant wait to see what they look like!
The aim this week is to get all the natural pieces done and polished so that our environment looks full and believeable as a forest area. Going for a really late summer just going into autumn look. When trees are in engine, il tweak the leaf colours then.
Replies
The two great cities both towered into the skies, encompassed with powerful weapon systems and impenetrable shields. The only area separating them was a one hundred mile stretch of no man's land. Its was here that peaceful, and considerably less advanced villages and towns settled. Built on ancient ruins from a time these civilisations worked in harmony, the inhabitants used these areas as foundations for their villages and building infrastructure, continually scavenging older technologies, metals and raw materials from Aliteria and Hak'caeru, adapting these elements to their needs. But as the fighting between the factions grew stronger, they cared less and less for the innocent people residing between their cities, the battles raged and engulfed these small towns with fire and destruction. Even with a handful of defenses the innocent had no where to run and ultimately perished. Few of these towns still survived, and one in particular held a secret of hope, an artifact that contained the power to end the war forever.
But something was wrong, in the distance fleets of ships, troop transports and ground forces massed from both cities towards the town, the factions knew about the ancient artifact, travelling to claim their weapon and to finally destroy their enemies forever, the end was coming and no one would survive.
Please everyone feel free to comment, your thoughts good or bad are all welcome!
Thanks and goodluck to everyone entering!
Jono
Finally worked out how to attch this image! lol
So, the image below shows my initial reference research that i put together on monday. The top left image was produced in photoshop by merging a load of reference material to get a really quick rough feel and layout, to help focus our ideas.
Thanks TeriyakiStyle for the help!
Lets do this thing!
Jono
BUILDING/SETTLEMENT INSPIRATION
looking forward to what you make of it
Heres some concept designs that i produced 2day for the powerful ancient artefact weapon (see story). Just sillouettes to get a idea about shape, the size will be quite large, length of your forearm and has the ability to be plugged into a power/weapon source to use. The larger designs are probably what i'd like to go for, they will sit perfectly into the raised holder that fossman was designing last nite.
Jono
3 Texture Styles >
Protector Paint Over >
Our environment map ready to do the blockout and then paint over concept! Wot u guys think? i reckon it will change slightly when we do the blockout, jus to make sure its not too crowed or too sparse. Plus need to make sure that the artefact is the focus, while keeping elements of the attacked/wrecked settlement and downed enemy ships.
Jono
I have 3 directional lights lighting the scene with only one of them with shadows turned on as with just 1 directional light I had black shadows, is using multiple lights the right way of lighting darker areas that the main sunlight doest hit.
Help / Tips / Comments Greatly Appreciated
Updates will come faster now, lots of modelling now:poly121:
ARTIFACT AREA
LAYOUT SKETCH
BLOCKOUT FINAL - TOP VIEW
BLOCKOUT 3/4 VIEW
Shots taken from Unreal, and if anyone knows how to make certain materials receive reflection please let me know.
Thanks
Fossman
Finished lowpoly in Maya, UV layout done, optimised texture space so going to overlay a few UVs, then put model into zBrush for some hard surface detailing! Scarey stuff as its my first time using zBrush! so different to just watching tutorials, but finally got there! going to add scratches, chips, dirt etc in photoshop, just wanted to do the main details in zBrush!
Comments always welcome!
LOWPOLY ARTEFACT
HIGHPOLY zBRUSH ARTEFACT
Jono
Heres a shot from the engine testing a few materials and shadows etc.
Just have to overlay back a few UVs so that the rest of the model is complete and duplicate to produce bottom half. then done!
Crit loads!
Jono
ARTEFACT TOP SECTION - IN GAME VIEW
Jono
Comment away!
Jono
TREE ONE - zBrush Sculpt
TREE TWO - zBrush Sculpt
Jono
CLIFF TEXTUE FINAL
Finished the trees now! the screen shots below are only maya views, but all textures and models have normal, AO and spec maps ready and complete for unreal engine! Cant wait to see what they look like!
The aim this week is to get all the natural pieces done and polished so that our environment looks full and believeable as a forest area. Going for a really late summer just going into autumn look. When trees are in engine, il tweak the leaf colours then.
Wot u guys think?
Jono
TREE ONE - MAYA VIEW
TREE TWO - MAYA VIEW