Leadwerks engine sample level design: The Zone
I was very tempted to add this to the chorus of "I have a job!" posts in General Discussion, but I decided to post it here so I can share my progress on this project and get some feedback. The subject matter is right up my alley, and I'm very excited about the project. 
Josh Klint, the developer of the Leadwerks 3D engine has hired me to create a AAA-game quality environment for the Leadwerks engine — one that really shows off what it's capable of.
For those of you that are interested, here are some Leadwerks Quick Facts:
This environment will be a fictional scene inspired by the real Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. For now it is titled simply "The Zone". For those of you that have been following my "Lab X2" level design thread for CryEngine 2, you may recognize some of my work that I will be adjusting for use in this project.
While I'm still getting the hang of Leadwerks and the Editor, I've found it pretty easy to just jump right in with only my experience in CryEngine 2 and some studying on the Leadwerks Wiki. I have drawn out a sketch for the environment, which you can see here:
I have also been collecting quite a few photographs from the internet for my "inspiration folder". These are images that I look over to maintain realism. I have uploaded some of them here so you can get an idea of what I'm drawing some inspiration from:
Inspiration Image Slideshow
Terrain textures were one of my first experiments in the Leadwerks editor. Each of these has a specular map (in the alpha of the diffuse) and a separate normal map. I also did a bit of experimentation with the vegetation painting system, which works great, especially the LOD levels and billboards.
After experimenting with some terrain elements in the editor, I dove into the 3dsMax > Leadwerks import process. I'm going to block everything out before I get into the nitty gritty detailing to make sure I match the sketch.
Below are some screenshots that show the early stages of the blocking out process with some of the unfinished models:
I also worked on getting one textured building in game so I could learn how 3dsMax's materials and Leadwerks interact. You can see my first (and rather simple) textured building, a portable military trailer, below.
That's it for this update. Any C&C would be greatly appreciated! I really want to push myself to create my best work here and learn and improve as much as possible as well. My posts here on PC are to thank for most of what I've learned over the last 6-8 months, so thank you for that! University of Polycount ftw.
Josh Klint, the developer of the Leadwerks 3D engine has hired me to create a AAA-game quality environment for the Leadwerks engine — one that really shows off what it's capable of.
For those of you that are interested, here are some Leadwerks Quick Facts:
- Current cost: $200 for single user license
- Evaluation version? Yes, download it here: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/page/BuyNow
- Features: Just about everything you would expect from an AAA engine (differed lighting with dynamic soft shadows, post processing like God rays and ambient occlusion, fully functional level editor, etc). Click here to see the full list.
This environment will be a fictional scene inspired by the real Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. For now it is titled simply "The Zone". For those of you that have been following my "Lab X2" level design thread for CryEngine 2, you may recognize some of my work that I will be adjusting for use in this project.
While I'm still getting the hang of Leadwerks and the Editor, I've found it pretty easy to just jump right in with only my experience in CryEngine 2 and some studying on the Leadwerks Wiki. I have drawn out a sketch for the environment, which you can see here:
I have also been collecting quite a few photographs from the internet for my "inspiration folder". These are images that I look over to maintain realism. I have uploaded some of them here so you can get an idea of what I'm drawing some inspiration from:
Inspiration Image Slideshow
Terrain textures were one of my first experiments in the Leadwerks editor. Each of these has a specular map (in the alpha of the diffuse) and a separate normal map. I also did a bit of experimentation with the vegetation painting system, which works great, especially the LOD levels and billboards.
After experimenting with some terrain elements in the editor, I dove into the 3dsMax > Leadwerks import process. I'm going to block everything out before I get into the nitty gritty detailing to make sure I match the sketch.
Below are some screenshots that show the early stages of the blocking out process with some of the unfinished models:
I also worked on getting one textured building in game so I could learn how 3dsMax's materials and Leadwerks interact. You can see my first (and rather simple) textured building, a portable military trailer, below.
That's it for this update. Any C&C would be greatly appreciated! I really want to push myself to create my best work here and learn and improve as much as possible as well. My posts here on PC are to thank for most of what I've learned over the last 6-8 months, so thank you for that! University of Polycount ftw.
Replies
I've been working on setting up the major terrain features as laid out in the planning sketch. Below are screenshots of some of the roads with WIP textures, the swamp next to the military camp, the military camp itself, the creek and graveyard area, the thick woods and house, the two edges of the map with guard towers, the Bober railroad station area, and the destroyed main road bridge among other areas. There are quite a few placeholder trees on the map right now, so don't panic! I'll be optimizing the forests later.
While I'm still sorting out some issues with some of the normal maps, here are a few screenshots of the derelict guard outpost in the engine:
No game is complete without some crates, and I've been creating a few to populate this level. These are the base models, and I plan on using decals to add different labels to them. More versions and texture varieties are also in the works.
And here they are in the interior of the guard outpost:
Last weekend I went out to a local abandoned rail depot to take reference images. These will mainly be used to create the railroad beds, rails, ties, and other sections, but I thought you all might find some of them interesting:
View part of the railroad depot reference photo shoot.
Here is a WIP image of the new railroad bed that I'm working on based off of some of those images:
Here is a quickie concrete bunker background building that I put together this week as well:
And, finally, here is the final result in the Editor:
Any C&C would be great!
The only criticism would be that some of the textures look slightly washed out, and could do with being a bit richer/more contrasty. The trees are fine, but the buildings and terrain textures could certainly do with a slightly boost in contrast/colour.
I have some WIPs that I would love to get some feedback on, as well as a few technical questions.
First off, a simple small wooden/concrete rural bridge. This will be on the dirt road that leads to the abandoned house in the woods. Any thoughts?
Next up, I have created a 12 meter section of railway that can lock together in the Leadwerks Editor.
What I'm struggling with is how to create the curved sections of rail. MY original plan was to make them lock onto the 12m sections, but after weeks of experimenting with arrays and the spacing tool, nothing was coming out correctly. I finally got this result using the spacing tool (WIP) and spline sweeps, but it requires careful non-grid alignment by hand in the editor. Does anyone know of a better method for this?
More after the break:
Nothing too special, but I like how it came out.
Finally, I'm working on the railroad bridge based off of this ref:
I'm building it in 12m sections to match the 12m rail sections. There will be 2-3 versions of the "middle" sections and then two unique end sections. This will allow level designs to create modular bridges in the editor as they need to. I may be using this myself to add another small rail bridge.
WIPs:
I'm having a weird problem with some of the elements of the bridge in the Editor that I used the mirror tool on though:
Something really important you need to keep up with when it comes to rail tracks: in one shot you have your rails on a hard surface (the train station). This can't be. Rails always have to be bedded in "loose" crest / stones so the rails wouldn't be moved in case water freezes in the ground. Just a small point... ^^ keep it up!
Keep the good work.
There is a big improvement since LabX scene, congrats
EDIT: btw, 3DLee since u r so excited about stalker why dont apply to GSC, i heard they will be working on stalker 2...
1) Guard outpost.
Note: letters correspond to ones on the image attached.
a - metal window frames are too thick. They are thicker than the wall which is wrong since window frames don't have same thickness as the wall, unless the wall is like 10 cm...
And usually there is a metal cover or concrete beam on the bottom of the window in order to protect wall from rain
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3664/3502705576_85046d5fb3_o.jpg
b - Your guard outpost walls r made of concrete right?
In such a case metal beams/pillars don't belong there. Makes no sence since they won't be needed in this case.
Same for the roof. No one would place metal beams along the edges of the roof.
Also would be good to extend the edge of the roof beyond the wall surface. Roof should be made in such a way to avoid water dripping right on the basement line.
Also remeber to give some thickness to your roof
The place where roof is damaged look odd as well. Looks like your roof consists of solid layers which is not correct. There r layers of criss-crossing beams normally used.
http://www.coolflatroof.com/flat-roofing-blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/metal-roof-eliminate-ice-dams.jpg
http://www.btubusters.com/rafters.gif
c - what material is that? Looks like rusty metal... That should be concrete
d - the concrete beam seems melted :P
Also those dark holes seem to have too strong cotrast and look like rivets, which breaks impression that those r concrete beams and not metal ones. I would remove them.
e - brick wall is damaged but somehow u have concrete texture there. That should be same color but damaged brick texture.
Overall - watchout cauz your concrete texture color/brightness is very close to metal texture. It took me some time to understand that wall r made of concrete and not metal plates.
Crates r cool except for the biggest red one. It won''t be inside since it is larger that the door
Red color with skratches seems like a metal to me.
I suggest avoiding textures/materials that r not clear what they r. Or maybe changing them to make it more clear.
Normal map on the walls could be sharper because now it looks like stucco is some king of blob. It lacks sharper layer differences between wall and stucco.
Door frame looks like made of bricks? It would be wooden normally, not even metal
Look great to me overall.
I suggest that u make better transition between pebbels and terrain texture. Simply overlay the grass texture where pebbels touch the ground
@mr.sin - Good point about the rails. I'll add a small gravel base for the tracks in the station. Thanks!
@mathes - Indeed, STALKER-like is exactly what I'm aiming for. It's pretty ambitious, but I already have a good bit of the assets completed (see my Lab X2 thread). Michael Betke is also going to be producing the vegetation for this level, which besides saving a lot of time should produce results far better than what I could come up with fast, heh-heh.
@Wayfa - Josh may be creating a custom water shader for this project. More grit is coming as well, thanks!
@Matroskin - I'm glad you like 'em! I'm always trying to learn more and improve my workflow, so if you have any suggestions don't hesitate to educate me, heh-heh. I am a huge fan of STALKER (got the Roadside picnic book, the Stalker movie, posters, patches, all 3 Collector's Editions of the games, etc)... I may just have to see if GSC is looking for contractors.
@MikeF - Thanks man!
RE: Matroskin's detailed feedback:
a - Good call, I really should revisit those windows and improve 'em a bit.
b - The metal beams were a mix of looking at how the building might be created and artistic liberty. My initial thoughts were that this building would have been hastily constructed to help secure the borders of the contaminated Zone. I planned it out as if they had brought in pre-made concrete sections to place around the metal framework of the main building.
I probably should extend the roof over the edge somehow. The rusted metal under the roof tiles is there mainly because I couldn't think of anything else to put under them.
c - Yep, it's the rusted metal. I think you're right, concrete would make more sense there.
d - Not quite... XD That's the edge of the metal roof, which I warped a bit:
The little dark spots are rebar holes, I think.
e - That texture is a strange one. It's a mix of destroyed brick, old brick, old mortar, new mortar and concrete. It's basically a wall that's been patched like crazy:
I'm working on tweaking the contrast and brightness of a lot of my textures as well.
2) Yeah, the red crate is faaaar too big haha. I just wanted to group them for the screenshot.
+1 for tweaking the inside wall normal maps
The door frame looks like bricks because the .mat file is pulling in the wrong normal map, heh. It's definitely bricks right now, and it's driving me nuts!
3) Thanks! I may use terrain decals to help cover the edge, along with grass and vegetation. I'm still puzzling that one over a bit.
I appreciate the detailed feedback!
Well, that brick wall would not be damaged the way u did because bricks once put together won't fall appart unless u fire an RPG
What they could have though is not perfectly flat and slightly damaged surface due to weather conditions when small portion of bricks fall from the wall:
http://thumb1.shutterstock.com.edgesuite.net/display_pic_with_logo/279553/279553,1253778656,6/stock-photo-historical-red-brickwall-damaged-background-37655566.jpg
As u see, u could do that as a decal or blend 2 textures.
Because now your bricks lok like stucco layer.
Those square concrete pathes look strange as well, i never saw those. Anyways they won't help to prevent a brick wall to keep falling appart :P
Keep it up.
Yeah, that damage is more from a firefight of some kind rather than just age or the usual weather wear. I'm going to keep tweaking it though.
I based the concrete/re-bar supports off of this image:
@ArticaNova83 - That's one of the default trees that comes with the Leadwerks engine. They're just placeholders while I wait for the final vegetation sets.
I've pretty much finished the bridge model; next up is UV mapping and texturing. There are 4 sections: 12m middle section, 12m middle section with support, End A and End B. These are place together as modular pieces in the Leadwerks Editor.
I also fixed the problem with mirrored objects. Checking "Reset Axis" in the exporter plugin that I'm using fixed it... doh!
Here it is in game:
And finally some random stuff. I made a small railroad bridge based off of the other wooden road bridge, and a "railroad rock bed" end piece to help with transitions:
First section of the barbed wire border fence is ingame:
New cliff texture (diffuse, spec, normal):
And finally, a basic brick wall (_A, _B, and _damaged):
I also have another screenshot... but I can't seem to remember what it is. Anyway, here it is:
Comments, critiques and hate mail are appreciated!
The problem is that it looks a lot like a cgtexture dump and crazybump show to me. Okay it's pretty fast to come up with something using that process but every eye in the industry will see it and call it 'cheap'.
The textures need more love, and those normal maps need some sculpts, for instance, those rocks clearly havn't got enough depth. And it's not crazybump that'll give you that. The end result is something looking cool from far away and pretty cheap at close range (still about the texture work).
The modelling is quite ok, but still, quite generic.
I know this is a work in progress so feel free to not take into account my critique.
The last screenshot makes no sense. A fence right across the road? You should also try to blend in the pebbles with the environment a bit more, maybe an alpha'd plane hovering over the edge?
That modular wall looks great, but you should add some loose bricks in the ground, and some dust/dirt. I'm thinking the fence could use a lot of optimization, it sort of seems like the wires together are 1 poly? how about having 1-3 polies per wire? This would save a ton of texturespace/improve resolution and allow you to bend the wires a bit.
Some of the things look really bust up, while other things (such as the train tracks and bridges) seem to be in pristine state? You also seem to have some odd polycount distribution at times, for instance in http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb134/EvilViking13/Leadwerks/The%20Zone/Blog01/trailer01.jpg where you have beveled all the corners of the supporting concrete etc, but the roof is really angular.
And sometimes you leave buildings really, really simple: http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb134/EvilViking13/Leadwerks/The%20Zone/Blog02/bunkerig02.jpg where you have onty textured the door, green supports and the vents (though the vents get away with it pretty well. It could also use some cuts here and there to get rid of the perfectly rectangular silhouette. Here too it looks like you chamfered the concrete foundation, while the rest could use the polies better (IMO).
I also see on the inside of the guard hut, that you polymodeled a lot of damage which could easily, and prettier, be handled by blending materials. Something like this: [ame]
Yes, for the most part I am using photo sourced textures. Some I have taken myself, others are from texture site subscriptions or collections, and others are partially Photoshopped as well. The normal maps are mainly heavily modified Crazybump normals along with Photoshop painted heightmaps and occasionally some baked high polys (although nothing in this thread yet, I think).
The reason that I've gone this route is three fold. First, I have a lot of assets to create in a short amount of time (restricted by project budget). I would love to do a high poly for everything, but I would be working on this for far too long.
Second, the visual style I'm aiming for is the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series where most textures are photo-sourced. I may be influenced a bit too much by this though.
Finally, I'm still rather new to the high-poly to low poly modeling and baking process. I can do it, but not very efficiently yet.
I definitely get what you're saying about the textures and modeling though. If you were to suggest a few assets to give some sculpting love to, what would you suggest focusing on? Thanks for your critiques and suggestions, I appreciate it!
@Snader
Would you suggest aligning the support plates more then? Good call too, my texture has been resized it looks like. I'll look into fixing that.
Yep, I'm not sure what's going on in that last screenshot. I may have placed the fence before deciding to put the road there...maybe? I really do need to do something about the rail bed as well, but I'm still trying to figure out decals.
Loose bricks are almost finished and should be in-engine soon. The wires are indeed 1 poly, but I do plan on having sections with torn/bent wires as well. The differing wear comes from what people have had access to (IE, guard tower has been attacked before while the railroad bridge is still occasionally used).
I have no excuse for my poly distribution other than that was my first FPS model from way back.
I'm going to look into blending materials as well - that would be a huge help. Thanks for all the advice!
I'm also doing a quasi-high poly - I'm baking important stuff like the bolts and compositing the normals in Photoshop:
WIP shot with the base metal and a few bolts:
I made some changes if you compare this to the original ref. I roughed the metal up more, and added white railings. For some reason my alpha isn't working in the engine yet, so the top girders are missing the transparent sections that you see highlighted on the texture.
if you continue to post as many pictures you might want to consider saving them as progressive and not baseline since it takes forever just to wait till all of the pictures are loaded before one can start scrolling down
@verybad - Good eye!
IF you do a unique texture for the bridge put some more worn parts and stains into your texture. Or just use a tiling 1k texture with some decals for the details.
I spent a bunch of my time today redoing 2-ish hours of work I lost in a corrupted .max file. I did have time to tweak my textures too. I removed some rust, added other ruse, made some of the support stained with a general rust color (it may be too orange now though) and I also redid my normal and spec maps:
(Oh, and I got the alphas working finally.)
Final in-game uber screenshots:
And in the map (WIP):
All vegetation/rock/nature assets seen below this post are by Michael Betke of Pure3D.
Picture, 1000 words etc:
and maybe don't post 10 pictures of every new asset but instead 1 dev/breakdown/render and 1 ingame shot in the future ?
i know, i know, you wanna get into detail about your process and i'm having a hell of a good time when following your thread, and i'm checking every day but it's just hard to scroll to the thread with all the huuuuuuuge images loading everywhere.
or at least, if you want to keep the detailled insight, make thumbnails so people (like me) can decide which pictures they wanna get in full glory.
i know that sounds rather harsh, i just felt i should post some honest critique cause i really love where your journey is heading, i just think you could push even more to really improve. often it helps to concentrate on 1-2 pieces and then use the new workflow/detail on the next models with the same speed but with better attention to detail right from the start
allinall, you're doing a great great job and i hope to see the progress bar raising and raising
keep it up !!
Anyways here's an example of what Acumen said:
You do realise that the placement of those /dont know english term/ elements makes no sense at all? Unless you have some weird wall setup/structure inside for those to support it but still.
More research and thought and you will be fine.
Also i still stand behind the idea of not putting normal maps/paralax on every texture which does not really needed it.
@Acumen - Not harsh at all, I appreciate all feedback! I completely agree, and I'm trying not to rush these assets; yet I can't spend the weeks that I want to on them. I think after this project ends I might start on a very small-scale project and really focus on the extra detail. I'm going to try and use thumbnails more as well, heh-heh. If you have any suggestions on areas that I could focus my time on to improve, I'm open to suggestions too.
@|Buddy| - Well hello there friend.
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=67283
That was my first full-detail FPS building, and I think it needs some re-working now. Oh, and which assets do you think don't need the normals? Anywhere I can save some memory would be great.
Thanks dudes!
Accomplished:
- Removed placeholder trees and replaced them with Micheal's vegetation sets.
- Used the "Fill texture" option to fill all slopes above 12 degrees with the rock texture (this can be overridden with any other ground texture)
- Did a ton 'o vegetation and ground texture painting
- Painted background forests (these will be billboards at the distance they are from the play area)
- Imported some background buildings
- Redid paved road texture and created dirt road texture
- Imported some random small props and some of Micheal's non-vegetation props
- Created concrete barriers (A & B, damaged models to come)
- Other stuff (I'm tired
The goods (with thumbnails!):
But it still looks good : http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb134/EvilViking13/Leadwerks/The%20Zone/WIPs/03/Editor-2010-04-07-00-16-25-77.jpg
this one is my fav shot.
or
But I agree in most cases. Some of the assets need work but polishing will do the job. Dave is still learning (as everyone) and I think he'll do the job nice in the end and the final product.
@michi.be - Indeed, I'm always trying to learn new things.
@Ged - I brightened the tree textures a bit, which helped a lot. The reason I'm doing an outdoor environment versus an indoor one is Josh already contracted an artist to create an indoor environment: http://www.leadwerks.com/screenshots/screenshot01.jpg There will be indoor sections inside of buildings though.
@AlecMoody - Thanks for your insight, I concur! I've tweaked the lighting now, see below.
@Apophis3d - Good call, some of the textures are kinda soft.
Thanks folks, I'm going to work on this stuff.
This is a very cool thread to watch that is full of insight.
Good stuff!
The other shot doesnt look much improved. The fog is too intense and the wrong color. Make the fog lighter and slightly cold.
No negative emotions intended in my previous post sorry. That sort of thing usually motivates anyway so pricks of my kind would have nothing to pick on
The first shot with improved lighting looks good, the second looks bland. I suppose its because of large fields of 'flat' terrain and no shadows. Im not sure if its intentional or the shadows just have rendering distance that culls them.
I think the grass meshes would help here a lot. Despite the grass i think the trees could use random slight bend (like the bend modifier in max) so they're not all perfectly upstraight, it would break down some of the | | | | | kind of look.
I also think that some other tree types would help a lot.
You could use some rocks here and there. More bushes/ground level plants so that you dont have the empty space under trees. Propably obvious things.
For the overpass in the earlier shots i suppose this would look interesting:
@Ged - Gracias!
@AlecMoody - I'm still definitely tweaking the color of the lights, and I probably will be for a while. Great tip on the fog too; a dark gray-purple seems to work well.
@|Buddy| - No negative emotions received man.
I meant to mention that that second shot was an unfinished section of the map, but I think the lack of terrain shadows may be a problem in the future. I'll see if there's a way to break it up some. +1 on the slightly bent trees too. Leadwerk's vegetation system actually has a "Tilt" modifier for each layer, so I'll add a few degrees to the pine trees. Oh, and more rocks and underbrush are on the way as soon as Josh ups the vegetation layers from 16 to 32. The STALKER series especially always had nice thick underbrush, so I'm going to try and replicate that.
Regarding the overpass, you read my mind haha, that's one of several images I'm using as reference (it's the famed "Bridge of Death"):
you REALLY should use a tileable texture for this instead !
here is whats wrong with this texture:
-the black empty areas will add mipmap artifacts to the prop in the distance it should be grey blue all over
-lots of the little dirt specals appear multiple times on the texture (also with mirror artifacts) clearly you didn't have enough PHOTO to actually fill the whole size so using the same image multiple times in a texture is wasteful if you want to reuse some texture area overlap the uvs !
-the entire thing is just way too large i don't think and unimportant prop like that deserves this amount of memory make it a 512x512 !
-because of its laoyut and theb lack stuff you wont be able to reuse this texture on any other props and reusing is KEY in game development
-the unique bolts can also be put into a tileable texture just make it tile horizontally and than reserve a strip on top or bottom for all the unique details ... personally though id model out those bolts hardly any game these days is transform bound believe me you can afford a lot of verts these days ! and if you have to you could make the bolds disappear in a very close lod bottom lien is that would look much better !
/edit i see you are on the case already as far as this texture is concerned even though you didn't choose to go with a tiling one thats the problem with reading a thread form the beginning and stumbling over somethign that is worth a comment and quoting/replaying right away without reading the rest ! ^^
overall i like what i see and good progress all around !
@warby - No problem, great points all around!
I also updated the first post with some general info on Leadwerks for those of you that are interested in trying it out.
Finally, although you all of seen most of what's in here I have a new blog post up over in the Leadwerks blog section with some new beauty shots and tweaked lighting. Check it out here: "The Zone" Blog 04: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters