UC 2009 'END GAME' | Polycorn | 3D
polycounter lvl 10
Hi everybody!
I'm gonna go ahead and try successfully finishing this competition
| Current Concept |
| Old Concepts |
'Been cranking up some ideas and what I got myself into is "The birth of evil" kind of scene, where evil appears out of the depths of our very own planet. Here be the sketches I made so far, and while the idea is pretty much the same, the only thing the varies is the time (era) of the setting.
I thought it might be cool to do an ancient scene, where there is barely any technology at all, but magic still exists.. like so:
But then again, I've been wanting to make my own city ever since I was a kid (huh?) so I would also like to try that Urban PAD software.. kinda like this:
The second one is probably gonna be a lot harder to pull off, though. Anyway..
Good Luck to everyone!
PS: Team name... Yeah, word, I do suck at names. And btw "polycorn" as in corn made of polygons, not a unicorn with multiple horns.. :poly142:
I'm gonna go ahead and try successfully finishing this competition
| Current Concept |
| Old Concepts |
'Been cranking up some ideas and what I got myself into is "The birth of evil" kind of scene, where evil appears out of the depths of our very own planet. Here be the sketches I made so far, and while the idea is pretty much the same, the only thing the varies is the time (era) of the setting.
I thought it might be cool to do an ancient scene, where there is barely any technology at all, but magic still exists.. like so:
But then again, I've been wanting to make my own city ever since I was a kid (huh?) so I would also like to try that Urban PAD software.. kinda like this:
The second one is probably gonna be a lot harder to pull off, though. Anyway..
Good Luck to everyone!
PS: Team name... Yeah, word, I do suck at names. And btw "polycorn" as in corn made of polygons, not a unicorn with multiple horns.. :poly142:
Replies
Here is a (somewhat) procedural house material in UT3. Has the functionality of a 2048x map, but its about 512x total. It is a bit doubtful what the point of it really was, but it is kinda cool. :poly121:
Also, been testing the workflow with Urban PAD. Here is a result back in max viewport:
TychoVII > Its the two of them slightly modified (w/wout balcony, ect.). I think I'll compile the different variations together (to make my life easier), so they will turn out to be like 4-5 different meshes eventually..
I'm starting to think I should use photo textures instead of those, coz they look way too clean...
Anyway, here is the result of more contrast in the textures, a dirt map applied on the material, which tiles independently, and a lower res on the textures (128x128 now). It kinda works. As much as I worship unreal engine, I strongly disagree with how "foolproof" it is when it comes to handling textures. Darn, even truevision lets you assign negative lods... Anyhow:
And here is the simplified version of the material (I wonder if I should use normal maps as well :poly121:):
Special thanks to the Gamr7 team for helping me out with the software
Max viewport:
zortech > Does indeed
professorXXX > Thank you, professorZbrushMaster! :poly121:
Here are some of the city props I've been working on; textures are quite small on these (32, 64, 128 ), so they look kinda funky this close. Wish I didn't have other stuff that takes away my time.. Anyway:
All are max viewports again. Really not the best shots, but ...
Anyhow, here is the final (I really hope) mockup of the city. It really did take a while to finish, one of the reasons, unfortunately, was that my computer had a hard time dealing with large arrays of data (in other words, I've had about 30-40 crashes a day for the pas few days). The full scene includes some 20 000 objects. Also, I'm having the slight breeze of a feeling some those little props will not be starring in the scene, because they cost more than 100k tris.
Enough talk; max viewport, no lights (just a layout test):
Same stuff, real-time DOF enabled. Looks kinda funky, indeed.
Does anyone know how to import a camera into Unreal 3?
Some update: I've played with the idea of showing what the bomb actually does by having a section of the city already destroyed. The device itself would be some kind of strange semi-magical destructive mechanism... doesn't really "blow up", but digs a crater to the center of the Earth instead...
Here is a quick paint over:
Also, here is a closer shot of the city with some street lights:
And the same one, made to look like a toy city
I must admit, every time you show your final shot I think to myself...man...that city looks so much more impressive up close (like the last shot you posted). There's so much detail ... looks so awesome.
Here are a few shots form unreal editor (finally):
The good old top view:
The close view:
And the new direction I was talking about. The idea is the lives of people are always in the hands of politicians, who often compare their job with a game of... ummm war. So the lives of the people living in this little city (as well as the lives of all of us) depend on the outcome of the game. I think it would be to cool to make the city look like a toy city and yet like a real one as well. Something like this:
r4ptur3 > Aye, close view it is! My hope is to try and pull off both views (for the two final shots), meaning I'd have to put consistent detail throughout the whole city. :smokin:
I am a bit confused with how this whole thing is gonna work, though..
Meanwhile I tested some variations of the key light 'n stuff:
can you do a 1680 x 1050 render of that? I'd love to use that as a wallpaper.
The new lighting is cool, I like the highlights on the roof tops. Maybe you could fake in some bigger buildings like a church or cathedral in the background/skybox to get a more interesting skyline.
crazyfingers > Thanks! You are right. I toned it down, guess I've developed a reflex to add spec to just about anything :poly121:
zortech > Thank you! The final shots will look down at the city, thus I'm not actually planning to use a skybox. I am planning, however to add some bigger buildings to make it more interesting. Actually, you know what, it wouldn't hurt to try a skybox on this so I'll see what I can do.
snakeeaterjns > Thank you!
Update... with no pic. I wasn't very happy with the way the street lights were working so I went on and made a custom light function for them, which turned out rather nicely. Then I found that UDK release and transferred over to run tests :poly124: which is what I'm still doing. Building the light for the whole city takes an hour or so. Unfortunately, I lost a day in tests, I hope it was worth it.. Results coming soon..
ZacD> Screens added below (still not final, though).
Well, time for the pics I mentioned in the last post. Still having troubles with the new lighting system.. and it takes much longer to see the results. Also, I had to switch off the custom light function, as it was also giving me troubles with the GI.. And yes, I still have to place a few hundred lights around the scene :poly121: Anyway:
The good old top view (yeah I know... again):
The side view:
ZacD > Here are the screenshots from the same angle as before. I made a quick sky sphere, which is quite crappy, I know, but time is running fast. I'll post an update once I get more lights in there. Uploaded two color versions, coz I just couldn't decide..
www.hpetrov.com/images/UC_Screenshot_2.bmp
www.hpetrov.com/images/UC_Screenshot_1.bmp
Here is a smaller preview of the screenies:
great progress nontheless!
divi > Good idea! I was planning to put some of the lights out, but now that I think of it, I was actually going to make all of them pretty much identical...
Update; the dice is now in the scene (one of them at least):
watch the shadow on the left -- it makes the dice look SUPER close to the house. If you intended the dice to be so close you might want to try to get some of that red hot dice light to cast on the closest house.
awesome work, as usual!
Well, here is an update. I tried making the dice cast some light like R4ptur3 said, but apparently it didn't work right. Problem is, with GI it now takes about 1-2 hours to see the results and every little click reflects on the final scene. It is very hard for me to predict how the changes I make will turn out once I hit the rebuild button. It's gonna take some tweaking I guess...
Anyhow, side view:
And yet another random shot:
Looking forward to seeing what the debris looks like!
ZacD > You're right; I will fix that once I finalize the lighting and the dice a bit more.
Update. Made the impact area a bit more... pronounced. Not exactly what I had in mind, but not bad. I'd have to make the street lights blasted as well and move the nearby props.
Ark > Thanks! I like that game a lot (third one the most) so I take that as a really, really good thing
Some update. I've been working on rather small issues such as light map artifacts, optimizations and so on. I also put lights throughout the city and made the lamp posts switchable (on/off depending on the vertex color). Those point lights do have varying properties, as a matter of fact, but it's hard to notice, meaning I'd have to make the difference more apparent.
Side view:
Top view:
Side:
Top:
Also, I'm really trying to stay away from rebuilding the light, coz it takes some 11 hours... I hope particles will do the job.. Turns out I also have to re-render my concept image in a higher res, which takes about 5 hours as well.
Soo I'm just sitting here, thinking if I'm looking at it, it will render faster... apparently that's not helping though..
Spacial thanks to everyone for the feedback! And Good Luck to everyone participating in The Challenge!
killingpeople > Man, where were you earlier? :poly122: If that would help, I'd have never known those existed if I didn't accidentally find one... seriously. Never ever. In fact, I've never played a dnd (well except baldur's gate, but I didn't know I was playing a dnd, because I didn't know what a dnd was). I just though it looks cooler... cool.. kinda cool, you know.. you do know, right? /silly excuses mode now off