WIP_UDK Environment - 1776

Oniram

Ok everyone. Ive just started an exciting new project. In concept for about a year or so (with no actual concept work done), i am finally starting a project i have been waiting to do. Over the next 11 weeks i am going to be creating assets and bringing you back to Colonial Boston. This is a class assignment, for which i am required to have 30 fully modeled and textured meshes (within 6 weeks from now), and the rest of the time will be spent (catching up on the work that is not completed in 6 weeks and...) doing lighting, particles, kismet, etc, and layout in udk. I hope i can get a lot of good feedback from anyone who is willing to give it, and im really pushing for this one to be a good portfolio piece.. so here we go.

basic workflow for this will be high poly - low poly - texture - and then anything extra
and here are a few renders so far.









also any reference that anyone could possibly have or find would be a great addition to my collection (any time between 1770 and 1786 - Boston MA)

Feel free to comment.

uneditablepoly

That cannon looks really sweet. Love the detail! What's the layout of the map going to be like? I love the time period and the location!

Oniram

thanks. im not entirely sure about the layout yet. i want the main focus to be the harbor, but im not sure how far into the city i will go. im going to be taking some time studying the level design in assassins creed.. seeing how they repeat each modular building over and over, and try to draw some ideas from there. i should have some sort of a layout concepted by the 7th or 8th week of this project.

roosterMAP

its a cool start! plz, dont use skylight for your renders from now on, its ugly. use omni's wth high specular.

Oniram

Haha. Will do. Thx

uneditablepoly

Yeah, definitely focus on the harbor. I wanna play this when it's done.

Oniram

Eltrex06

wow looking really good so far. excited to see where your gonna take this.

can we get some wireframe shots if your lows when ya get em?

also since you want to focus on the harbor are you gonna be creating any ships? i think that would be fantastic even if they were a background piece or something. when i think of colonial times i think of big clippers and and huge sails sitting in the harbor. or even being able to go onto one docked at port or soemthing

Oniram

i absolutely want to do a ship. ill make the attempt but we'll see where it goes. Ill get the low poly wires when i model them. my main focus is to get all the high poly's done first, but still do 1 or 2 low polys in between. so lets say i spend sunday-wednesday on the high, ill spend thursday and friday on the low.. saturday doing more high.

LlamaJuice

Lookin good sir, can't wait to see how this progresses :P

Mistry10

looking pretty sweet !

Nistrum

good luck man... its a nice start, be careful though. getting the hull shape on one of those big ships can be pain in the ass. bare in mind that SOME model companies will let you have blueprints of their models if you ask nice. i got a load off airfix for free from old models they stopped making.. but that was ww2 stuff.

roosterMAP

nice start!

Oniram

thanks for all the great feedback everyone

Ive just completed some modular windows which i will be able to put all over the buildings i make. ive got about 3 different variations of windows (so far), all which can be made with or without shutters. i think ill make one more, but instead of being the tall ones like in the picture below, ill make a wider one, something that would go in front of a shop or something like that.

Oniram

Ok. so as of now ive got 3 doors (only 1 shown), and 2 doorframes. Ill be making two textures and apply to each with their own AO baked in. Using RGB channels for AO in UDK ill be able to switch between the ambient occlusion, while keeping the texture the same.
so 3 doors
2 textures
2 frames..

essentially ill be able to make a max of 12 door combinations to be placed all over the level.

Oniram

well its safe to say i have not nor will not meet the 30 mesh requirement for week 6. though the class discussed the issue with our instructor, informing him that ut2004 work was not going to be given, that we would be submitting next gen, which requires a bit more. so ill have til week 11 to have everything finished. ive started texturing, and only thing left to model really is buildings and maybe a few more random props. but regardless, i havent updated in a while.. so heres just a small update:

WireFrame:


UDK:


Marmoset:

Tumerboy

nice sack.

00Zero

sack looks great, but too dense. you dont need those 2 rings on the bit with the coffee texture.

the highpoly stuff is looking good

Oniram

Tumerboy: lol. i knew there'd be at least 1

00Zero: true, it can easily be removed.

Master_v12

Stuff looks solid man, looking forward to the finished piece

LlamaJuice

there's a TON of wasted polies in that... seed/coffee bag thing at the top... try to not make it all come to a point like that.

Other than that the stuff's lookin good. Rock it sir!

Oniram

as i was retopologizing, i tried many different methods to capture the silhouette, but it was necessary (mainly at the top rim) for me to put that many polys. i could agree maybe with there are a lot of sides (i think its in the high 20s), which could have been taken down, but i just did a quick 3dcoat retopo, and it fit the shape. total tri count is something like 1030 (a bit high, i know), but yeah, i seem to be getting a lot of negative feedback about the middle where the seeds are, ill fix it up and clean the topology and give it some more variation. now that it is textured ill try to fix some of the unneeded topology without ruining anything important.

BradMyers82

yeah man, the whole point of using normals is that you can fake everything and anything, that isn't part of a silhouette. So the inside seed area is ideal for normals because you will never see the edges or silhouette.
Another ideal object is the inside part of a tire for example.
Anyways, using a bunch of polys on the top edges is a good idea. You can cut down the poly's everywhere else though, and on the inside where the seeds are, I would simply use a flat plane.

Oniram

ok. i dont think i will keep it a flat plane, but i may do some topo so i can make it work a bit better (ive gotten other responses that the "flat plane" shape it has looks too flat and i should adjust some verts. i dunno, ill see what i can do. rather than having an entirely flat plane as you suggested, i can cut into it (since the plane will be converted to triangles in udk anyway), and maybe give some better shape.

thx for all the responses tho.

Oniram

slowly but surely. meshes are all done.. now time for placement in udk.. though i had a bit of a hault as i decided to scrap my building idea. originally i was going to make buildings within max and import to udk, though i think i can achieve more variation and quite frankly better results with bsp brushes in udk. also ive been going very material heavy as far as modularity is concerned.. so if i can take the materials i would make for the buildings (all ill need is tileable materials instead of worrying about UVs), and apply them to bsp brushes, ill be able to pull off the same effect.

and funny enough.. it was the first to be modeled, last to be textured.

r_fletch_r

the canon looks great in general, You might want to look at the planking effect on the wheels tho. as they are the whole assembly would collapse under its own weight.
The seperate elements of wood would usually be in a tapered block pattern like the stones of an arch way or long planks steamed and bent into a circle. a minor point but it stuck out to me.

Oniram

i agree with you 100%. ill fix it.

thx

roosterMAP

very nice job on the sack of beans!

SnowGhost

I like the cannon, except imo the barrel part looks a bit like stone to me.

Oniram

i had a feeling someone would say that.. due to my lack of knowledge of marmoset, i had to turn down the spec in order to get rid of a lot of the shine that came off of the barrel. when i have it in udk i will repost and show difference.

Matroskin

looks good so far, the texturing is tight

However, usually the metal that those cannons r cast of is quite dark (almost black), and they might have some strong spec as well.

Oniram

well its pretty much done.. here is the end result.






This was a fun project. Learned a lot from it. thx for all the help n support everyone.

Jesse Moody

No way this isn't done. Keep going. You can add so much more to this and really make it shine.

The ground is tiling like made, the buildings don't "connect" to the ground. They aren't well grounded/blended in. Add some decals and dirty this up. It looks too fake at the moment. Make it lived in.

You have a good base. So don't quit.

Oniram

Unfortunately i dont have any more time to spend on this one. I had A LOT more planned for it but just not enough time. Ive gotten the same crits, saying that i need more props and blending as you mentioned.. but im worked out on this piece.

maybe ill pick it up sometime later, but ive got a 1 week break (which ill be using to learn a few new things), and then its on to a new project.

thx for the input tho.