Abandoned Cathedral
polycounter lvl 12
Well, I believe that this i my first WIP thread here...not entirely sure about that though. But I've been working on an environment of an Abandoned Cathedral which is sitting on an eroding cliff.
I am putting this in In UE3 (which I am also trying to learn) and really need some critique, help/advice and anything else.
Here are a couple of the High Poly Models:
And here is what I have in UE3 so far:
I am putting this in In UE3 (which I am also trying to learn) and really need some critique, help/advice and anything else.
Here are a couple of the High Poly Models:
And here is what I have in UE3 so far:
Replies
This is a common mistake, making single assets look really cool by increasing contrast and bumping up saturation, but if you want the lighting and shadows to look better in the scene, you're going to want a more muted tonal range in the textures. This will allow your shadows and lighting to really shine. You may notice when you look at your assets in lighting only mode you see a well lit scene, but when you put your texturing back on it overpowers the lighting.
A good way to adjust these in UDK without having to deal with photoshop is to use a saturation node in your material editor, multiply it by a constant under 1 till you have the desired result. As for the contrast plug your texture into a power node and use a value under 1, this will serve to reduce the contrast while brightening the texture (you're going to have to play with it). From there just multiply it down to bring it back in line.
Hope that helps. Honestly the scene's looking really good as is, i wouldn't go overboard adjusting things.
@sXe Seany - Ya, breaking up the colour scheme is definitely something I will be doing with a couple assets as it is getting boring.
@crazyfingers - Thanks a lot for the help - Will definitely try this out in Unreal. I'm really enjoying the Material editor in it but do have a question - when editing materials is it better to do it in Unreal itself or try doing most of that work in Photoshop. By better, I mean 'cheaper'.
I'd highly reccomend opening base packages within the editor to see just how crazy each and every material in the Unreal Tournament 3 was. Just get in there and get your hands dirts, play with textures as much as you can. There's plenty to learn and there's really no point to worrying about performance at all right now, if you're curious you can view your shader complexity in your level using one of the view modes.
If you go for a historical look of your scene you should change that.
Agreed on the pillar textures, the rebar looks a bit strange but still compliments the high poly somehow, though the way your scene is developing texture wise they probably wouldn't work very well. One thing I'm not a fan of is the wooden roof, stone and plaster would be much nicer and give more freedom in design imo.
The choice of red brick looks out of place... wouldn't stone slab be more fitting?
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@crazyfingers - Thanks a lot for that. Took a look around some of the levels and packages in Unreal and will continue to do so. I'm really enjoying the engine.
@SlaveZero and GCMP - I totally agree on the pillar. I am going for a Gothic Revival style Church and at the time had thought that some concrete could have been used which looking back, was not the smartest of conclusions. It will be absent in the final.
@G3L - When I began this project I didn't plan ahead very well and therefore 'doodled' around too much and made a lot of mistakes which slowed down the process. Once I began and had my mind set on the piece I wanted it went a lot quicker (for me) and each piece was finished in less than a day ( can't quite say the exact time, sorry)
@Tim Deneau I chose brick mainly because of the time period (Gothic Revival) and personal preference - right now I'm not exactly liking the brick texture myself (mainly the saturation and colour) and will try to update that.
-Once again, I am really sorry for the lack of updates. Communication is something I definitely need to improve and will try to post more frequently.
For the update:
I toned down some of the diffuse (still may need to be done more) and am trying to work on getting everything at least textured at this point.
I appreciate any comments, critiques (please, tear this thing apart for me).
Anyways - here is the setup breakdown
keep it up !
I'd say to try and mess around with the scene a little bit more, go ahead and tweak the lighting (it would help having some kind of concept art pic, to 'rip' the lighting and mood from) try and get the mood of the scene to a decent state, and then tweak your materials.
I'm saying this because, if you start tweaking your textures and materials now, and only after that tweak the scene (lights) you'll probably come up with weird results and assets standing out more than they should, everything must fall under an even harmony.
Oh and yeah, get rid of that rebar, lol.
gl man!
Great beginnings on this!
@Helder Pinto: Thank you and agreed. I am going to go back in and tweak the lighting. There seems to be quite a difference from the screens I'm taking in UE3 and the actual in game look, but I think this is mainly because of my monitor calibration for UE3. But I do see how the lighting is not working well and will probably start over with it. (and the rebar is gone
@cycloverid: I'm actually hoping to do two versions of this lighting-wise and hopefully one of them will have much cooler lighting.
@Jordan W: Thanks a lot for that useful info and critique - I agree with you completely - I'm currently working in UE3 and not UDK for school reasons and as far as I know, lightmass is not there. I'm planning on moving it over regardless and will definitely do what you suggested.
For now, I'll go back and redo the lighting. A quick question, and I understand this may be difficult to answer as it may vary, but when you are lighting you're scene, for a fully naturally lit scene, how many omni lights are you using if any at all to generate some bounce?
Once again, thanks a lot for the comments - will keep working on this and hopefully make some improvements
i agree, i think the lighting doesnt have enough contrast just yet but i'm sure that'll come with time. its hard to make out the pillars and other assets in the scene when everything kinda looks the same but maybe some changes in the lighting would benefit your scene instead of changing the materials and colors on your assets.
You should certainly jump on UDK when you get the chance, there's a lot of improvements in there that'll help you create your scene
I've Made some progress - not much in the past few days. Been working on the lighting trying to add a bit more interest and contrast and fix some of the issues I was having. I'm not entirely loving the current light scheme but I think it is working better than the last one.
As for the lack of colour I'm hoping that adding some broken stained glass windows will help out some.
As always - your critique is a huge help and is greatly appreciated.
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@PhattyEwok - I'll try to start some shots of the wires individually as taking shots of the wires of your entire scene is a mess.
@JordanW - Thank you so much for all you help. When this class is over (Which is soon) I'll take this into UDK and work in there.
@doseph - Each texture really varies on how long it takes and I really don't have any solid answer...sorry! If you haven't already take a look at some of the Speed Texturing Challenges and check out the quality of work people can produce in a short amount of time (in particualr - here
@snakes23: My workflow is pretty standard. I'm making each asset in Maya and taking some of them into Zbrush for further detailing. I'm then assembling all the assets inside of Unreal trying to break them up as much as possible. I read somewhere that the engine reads each piece in 400 poly bunches so obviously the more broken up your level is the better - You can then instance all these assets and place them where ever. If you take a look at some of the Unreal maps its really crazy how much each asset is broken up and then instanced.
Then I'm just baking out normal and AO maps and texturing the assets and bringing those textures into Unreal. For Normals I usually am overlaying a general bumpy concrete like normal map over each one to add detail (Which is something I've overdone on a bunch of pieces).
@Sliterin - Thanks man - I'll start breaking the roof up more.
From one of your prospective, if you see it. There is no lens flare. Adding that would be a nice contribution! Also adding some more colourful map to the upper parts of the wall would be nice too!
Very amazing work none the less though. I want to play the game this would be in!! And stare at it...
I think you should fix the broken pillar. Those pillars are there for a reason, without them the structure they support falls down so having it knocked out looks unrealistic to me. You should also consider removing the Classical decoration on the pillars as these look odd in an environment with so many gothic credentials. Great stuff overall
Thanks a lot for the comments - As always, they help a lot.
@ Flave-Fly - Thanks for the suggestion - I've moved the windows around and put the original ones in the Transept as that area felt empty.
@ Rurouni Strife - Thanks a lot - I'll hopefully get thos banners in soon. Those are on the top of my 'priority' list for the moment.
@Kylen - my AO and normal maps are baked in either Maya or I have started to use Xnormal (as it's pretty fast and generates some nice looking maps)
Here are some updated shots:
It would help add some colour to your scene as well as some visual interest. I know I saw a tutorial for this effect somewhere.. If I come across it, I will post the link.
Another thing that is puzzling me is bringing my low poly geometry into Zbrush for sculpting. When I subdivide the Geo it quickly blobs out of form, and when I crease all edges the geo builds up too quickly around every low poly edge. It also seems when I double up edges on the low poly they don't hold form very well when zbrush subdivides. Do you mind sharing your expiriences and or workarounds with these issues? Thanks!
@Kylen - For bringing low poly stuff into Zbrush, well, I tend not to do that. I usually start out and build geometry which is very high not worrying at all about the polycount and building it out with a smooth modifier (in max) or pressing 3 to view the final result (in Maya - and then afterwards, converting it into the smooth geometry by going to Modify>Convert>Convert to smooth mesh Preview). Build out the geometry in it's low poly version but always be checking what it looks like smooth. When you are satisfied with the result, add in edges to evenly divide the mesh (ie. Try to make all your polygons as square as possible) and then put it into Zbrush - this will make it so that when you sculpt, each area will be evenly detailed as each are has the same amount of vertices(or polys) which can be moved/modified.
If this isn't clear, tell me and I'll try to make a more visual explanation.
scroll down to Light Functions
I'm actually doing this in my level, probably going to post some questions about it in the udk thread. It's perfect for stained glass windows.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/Lightmass.html - Scroll down to "Translucent Shadows"
Good luck
*Edit - I'm gonna post this in support instead, don't wanna hijack your fine art thread!