Congrats on the job, I've been following this thread for who knows how long. It's really one of the things that to me distinguishes polycount from a lot of other similar communities--sharing knowledge and practical information with works-in-progress that may be slightly less impressive than big shiny show-off pieces but are a lot more informative. And there's a greater sense of respect for the work that went into the finished project when we saw all the steps along the way.
This is looking great man. I think you could push the lighting abit more as the white light is kinda bland and unnatural. STALKER had some great sky-boxes, those dull, apathetic skies really added to the atmosphere of the game.
Also the textures could do with abit more surface definition in the diffuse maps. Stuff like flaked paint and heavy rust are a great way of getting that awesome weathered, stalker look.
Also i think the transitions between the ground textures, mainly the concrete to grass looks a little weird. Maybe going from grass to dirt/soil and then to concrete will add abit more variation?
@gauss - Thanks! Yep, Polycount is great for getting breakdowns. I'm hoping to really refine my workflow with this project.
@Ark - That book sits next to my desk, it's great. The lighting is still a WIP for sure. More rust and wear are also on the way (along with better transitions) with decals later on in the project.
Here are a few WIP shots of the road bridge. I'm still working on the texture and on fixing some mapping errors and other misc. problems including better transitions at the edges. There will be a modular version as well that will help make up the longer destroyed bridge near the railroad bridge. For this smaller single bridge piece I'm going to have the correct end sections on the guard rails.
Josh Rice, 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.
Just figured I'd point this out, but his name isn't Josh Rice, it's Josh Klint. Also, I developed the Lua interop layer used by his engine. How's the speed on that holding up for you in practice?
Thanks Noel! I actually work with a Josh Rice as well, so I must have gotten some wires crossed when I posted that. I haven't had much time to dig into LUA yet, but from what I've seen it works well.
I've finished the smaller road bridge, barring any unforeseen issues. My only regret is not optimizing the guard rails more, but they do look nice and smooth. Final poly count is 3,998 polys. Wires & in-game:
(Note that the area around the bridge is not finished or detailed yet)
EDIT: Oh, and here's the main texture at 1024x1024. There are 6 maps total, only two of them being unique to this asset.
from what I can tell you aren't using the same road texture on the bridge and the roads. Is that right? If so you should change that. 80% of that bridge texture is waste.
They are different textures, because the bridge section has more dirt and grime built up on it (hence the small plants). I used alpha'd decals on each end of the bridge for the transition. Maybe I should take advantage of the unique texture and add more detail?
The other reason I decided to go with a unique texture is I'm not sure if the engine can pull a road texture onto a model, although it probably can.
I'd do exactly the opposite. Tile the same road texture over the bride as well, and use those decals to put in cracks and grime etc. You could reuse them on other parts of the road that way too. The decals/alphas you have right now look pretty bad btw, it's easy to see where it ends, doesn't blend well.
You're only using 1 plant type there. Bring in some planes and models you used elsewhere, like a subtle plane of grass etc.
It's been a busy week, but I don't have a lot of stuff to show on here. I've been working on lots of behind the scenes stuff like optimization and fixing random mesh errors.
I do have a few things, including an update to the road bridge. I managed to use the road texture for the bridge as well (after breaking every paved road texture in the engine at one point), so I dedicated the extra room on the bridge texture to 4 decals: the dirt next to the sidewalk and 3 rough pavement decals. I also added one more plant type:
As you can see here I've also expanded the small bridge version into a 5-section modular bridge. Once I'm 100% satisfied with the main design of it, I'll be making a few destroyed sections.
Over the weekend I put together a small mountain scene outside of the actual Zone level design to try and get a save-render script working and render some beauty shots. It's a bit rough, but I may use it for showcasing models here and there. Big renders can be found at the bottom of this post.
Once again, all vegetation and nature props are by Pure3D as well as some of the smaller assets like the bright yellow oil barrels and roadside reflectors.
I put together some railroad crossing gates, but I'm not 100% satisfied with them.
As you can see I'm also working on getting my Bober warehouse model in the engine. It's mostly finished (I got alpha blended decals working finally) - just a few more mesh errors to hunt down.
Finally, here are some of the results I managed to get from the save-render script. These are a few days old so they're missing the most up-to-date versions of some stuff like the road bridges.
I like the water rust idea, I'm going to try out a few techniques for that.
The brick rubble was just put there to fill some of the foreground, as if the debris had just been pushed aside there. It does kind of stand out though.
We do have some ivy that's been provided by Pure3D which will probably make its way onto several buildings in the final scene. As far as the bridge goes, I'm actually not sure why it hasn't rusted and decayed as much as other structures in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. I based it off of reference like this image: http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb134/EvilViking13/Leadwerks/The%20Zone/WIPs/10955338.jpg
Thanks for your comment! In other news, I've set up some very basic furniture to populate the building interiors, all wooden stuff for now. More are coming as well.
I think darkening the shadows for your scenes would help out immensely in bringing out the smaller details. Your textures might need a little more contrast as well. Looks great, keep it up.
My shadows do indeed need some darkening. I forgot to mention that I was aiming for possible prints with these renders, so everything was brightened more than was actually needed.
My shadows do indeed need some darkening. I forgot to mention that I was aiming for possible prints with these renders, so everything was brightened more than was actually needed.
You don't need to brighten things for print output if you have someone knowledgeable do the printing.
There will be an A and B version of the barracks that will make a pair to be placed side by side in the level. One will be close to what these reference images are - it will be partially gutted and abandoned, minus the large sections of missing floors. The second version will be one where "Explorers" (:poly121: ) have made camp and barricaded themselves in for protection from The Zone's night. It will be a bit more damaged, and all but once entrance will be boarded up. There may be furniture barricades and such as well.
Some of the texture work will be vertex painted blends, just as soon as I can figure out why I'm exporting my blended models incorrectly.
Here's the base model:
The radiators weigh in at 1,041 polys (before optimiztion), which is higher than I anticipated - but they are the primary props for the walls. There's still a good bit of modeling to be done as well, but you get the idea.
Believe it or not, many parts of the CEZ's infrastructure are still maintained by the Ukrainian government. Government and military workers still travel and work in areas of the Zone every day and bridges, roads etc are kept up to allow them to go where they need to. If I remember correctly, one or more of the reactors at the CNPP are (or were until very recently) even still active, if not actually linked into the country's electrical grid. So there's more activity and human presence in the area than you'd think at first. I'm guessing the bridge has probably either been maintained, repainted, or replaced, and there's likely some anticorrosion or weather sealant in the paint they used.
That, and who knows what steel getting bombarded with half the gamma rays on Earth will do to rust progression...
That's a great point GarageBay9 - the bridge that I referenced is right near where parts of the plant are still active and it's the same rail line that passes by the fuel storage depo. I think it may have still been in use up until a few years ago, so they probably tried to keep the bridge from decaying too much, haha.
I'm continuing to texture the barracks. Josh has created a new blend shader for the engine that supports vertex colors, so I'm working blended textures into my workflow for the first time.
There's still a good bit left to do, including door frames and stairs wells, vegetation, the heaters, damage modeling, more vertex blending, etc. Polycount is currently 16,471 (6,061 without radiators - those may need more optimization). Here are some (not so great) renders from 3ds Max:
Whoops, forgot to add the wooden board that covers the transition.
I'm still experimenting with the blend options. Is there a way to control the harshness of a blend? It's a very soft blend right now, but I'd like the edges to be harder if possible.
I've got an important question for those that are more versed in 3ds Max than I am: is there a function or downloadable Max Script that will scale an entire model by a decimal amount? My units in Max aren't translating correctly into Leadwerks (despite modeling in meters in Max), so I've been using the "Scale X: 0.01" function in the Leadwerks Max tools exporter to shrink my models on export. But, the tools don't support vertex colors (which this model uses), so I'm having to use the FBX exporter. My model is then quite a few powers off... :poly141: What's the best way to scale this sucker?
I've gotten a ton of work done on the Barracks, but it seems like I still have ages to go until it's finished. Left to do:
- Locker, bed, mattresses, toilets and sinks, gun racks, shelves
- Decals (wear, missing radiator wall spots, military posters and murals)
- ???
- PROFIT
Here are more so-so renders from 3ds Max, but you get the idea:
Does anyone have any ideas about the scale problem? I'm really stumped here, and tons of searching on Google hasn't helped (although I know how to scale Maya models now, heh).
I redid the radiators, getting them down to 603 polys each. The texture is 99% complete, I just need to fix some color issues. The normal map that I baked isn't visible here:
I've finished the military bed and mattress. In my workflow for this prop I opened Mudbox for the first time ever and attempted to make a high poly for the mattress. It's... kind of horrifying to look at and my final bake down in Max didn't want to project correctly, but the final results aren't bad I think. I also did a Max-only high poly bake for the springs. One 1024x1024 texture, one 512x256 texture and 390 polys total (with the mattress, 356 without).
The barracks is ingame and 95% done. I'm going to be making some pipes and fuse box props that I'll arrange on the outside to pimp it a bit, but other than that it's finished.
I'm going to be showing it off in a blog post this weekend, so any comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
One final update on the barracks. Since the last update:
- Created 3 separate fuse box props to be used on all of the buildings and added them to the barracks
- Added many more signs to the barracks
- Added dead cage light props
- Tweaked lighting
- Adjusted some texture's brightness and contrast
- Added and adjusted props
with the last row of screenshots i think what's really not compromising your hard work is the lighting of the scene. like omid3098 said, it looks rather saturated.
when i first saw it it reminded me of some unlit udk screenshots out of the editor (with light turned off). i don't know i just remember seeing scenes like that and then people turned lights on and everything fit together niceley and looked really atmospheric.
so i dare asking could it be, that the lighting part needs a lot lot lot of work ? because right now, i think you're well advised to go over the lighting phase again sometime soon, before posting these screenshots in the end. it just doesn't click with it, to me
sry to say it that harsh
@omid3098 It turns out that the Leadwerks tools exporter I've been using (because it has a Scale on X axis = function I've been using to scale my models) supports vertex colors in the latest version. The answer was right there the whole time, heh-heh.
The lighting comments weren't harsh at all, rather extremely helpful. Looking back on those shots makes me cringe - I didn't even notice how washed out everything was! The AO in Leadwerks is completely dynamic, and initially I tried tweaking that but everything was still mostly washed out and my FPS took a massive hit when I cranked the AO up.
It turns out, my problem was two fold. #1 was my lighting setup (1.32 power directional sunlight with orange-yellow color, and 1.52 power blue-gray ambient light). I turned the ambient light down to 0.85. I also turned the scene's contrast from 1.4 to 1.2 and lowered the saturation a notch as well.
Finally, my #2 (and main) problem was one that made me face-palm a bit. I had turned Bloom on by accident, and it was completely blowing out my lighting.
I have some new in-game material to show soon from a milestone I reached in the last week of May. Until I can get some images from that though, here are some WIP images of the train station from 3ds Max and some small (and very rough) in game images:
I have some new updates on the train station coming down the pipes, but for now here are some screenshots from a milestone during the last week of May:
I really like the lighting now. Interiours looking good too.
You ever considered to bake lighting so you can render a GI solution?
Contact Josh about it. I think its possible in Leadwerks to have a second UV-Channel for a lightmap.
Thanks guys! I'm still tweaking the lighting and contrast, trying to strike a balance between the indoor and the outdoor lighting. I hadn't tried baking any lighting, but that may be something I'll look into.
I have a truck load of screenshots of the complete train station and nearby areas. I'll start off with some 3ds max captures, some of which have wires:
Although this is by far the largest building I have completed for this project, it probably doesn't have the most time sunk into it. I think the barracks required more time as it needed more unique and new assets while I was able to reuse parts from several of the other buildings for the train station.
I also did a few things differently. All of the light fixtures for this model were placed in the Leadwerks editor, as were all of the "trash pile" debris props. I figured this would make the building more flexible, and these details are automatically culled at distance.
I also have several rooms blocked off for this building, which saves time and resources (how many closed doors did STALKER have, haha).
______
Here are some new props that were created for the station, including several wall lamps and 3 variants of an old bench (a high poly was created for the end supports of the bench for creating the normal map):
Apologies for the heavy depth of field - I'm having trouble with objects disappearing at distance right now.
________
And my favorite in-game image:
________
And now the rest of 'em (as always, feedback and critiques are very helpful!):
I forgot to add these samples of the diffuse and normal maps for the old benches:
The only main assets remaining are the abandoned house and the graves. From there, it's a matter of getting all of the assets to 100%, getting physics working and finishing the level design.
new shots looks very good.
the only thing I can point is that your scene is not abandoned enough! its very clean..
I mean there should be more and more of junk objects over the scene.. or on the train..
I even suggest you to put the train off the rails! to make it much like a old left place!
Awesome links there omid3098, thanks man! I was definitely lacking in the "Debris" department, as I had been rushing to try and finish all of the main buildings first. In the last week I've been focusing on lots of little things, including many many debris props, some of which I'm going to show below.
First up, I've created a classic Soviet Hammer & Sickle statue. The A version is just old and rusted, while the B version has been vandalized and the hammer head has been knocked off and the sickle twisted half off of the base:
I also got one of my other signs in game, which some of you may recognize from my Lab X2 project. It says "Picking mushrooms and berries prohibited!"
Here's a look at some of the new debris and other props just laid out in the open:
And finally, here are some shots from around the map as I've been placing more new props:
I've finally finished the last full building! From here, it's all LOD modeling, tweaks, and then just level design. The end is in sight!
The final building was finished it about a day and a half, with me crunching a good bit of time in yesterday to do most of it. I had a few other ideas for it, but I think this works.
It's a derelict/abandoned house. I've placed some props inside and around it, but I haven't really started detailing it yet. It will be situated in the middle of a thick forest.
It is PC based. I think console compatibility is on the road-map, and it's written in BlitzMax I believe. I'm no programmer, so I'm mainly familiar with the art pipeline.
this is very nice...but one thing i would say is look at your composition of objects...they often seam spread around to cover the most space...visually it would be alot more interesting if you clumped the objects together in nice arrangements (wee little compositions) with contrasting space between...it allows the eye to travel across the scene better and read it instead of getting lost in the jumble
My new i7 system is now rebuilt, and I'm getting ready to dive back into the level design after having to get some errors with the Leadwerks editor patched.
For now, I have a few overview images of how things are looking at the moment, and some updated images of Bober Station. I went back and changed some textures, added some signs and props, and roughed up the concrete on the platforms.
Hey again folks. This project is rapidly coming to an end. I'm currently working on the last few LODs for buildings, asset LUA and INI files, final level design/prop placement and lighting all at the same time.
I think that lighting can be one of my weakest areas, so I'm looking to get some advice from some other artists on this. I had been using a 95% overcast skybox, but I didn't work well with the brighter, less washed out lighting that I wanted.
I've updated the skybox to a cloudy sunset that still looks kind of ominous. What do you you all think?
...requires a huge font, right? I've been spending an insane amount of time on this project this week as I wrap up all of the (many) loose ends, squish bugs and finish up the level design.
Rather than double-post all of the images that I've uploaded today, I'm going to direct you all to the Zone project blog over on the Leadwerks website. That way, you can have thumbnails, heh. Click here to view the update.
Well, at long last, this project is coming to an end. I have created a lab area that the player starts in, which helps explain why all of the surface roads are blocked.
This is what the player sees on loading the map:
And here are some other views of the inside of the lab entrance/exit:
It looks like I forgot to take some images of the other inner areas of the lab, so I might post those later. Here's a look out of the outer door of the lab area:
I was browsing through my images and found this shot from the beginning of March when the project began. I thought I would throw it up here for comparison:
Here are some final overview images with fog disabled:
Finally, it's time for the beauty shots!
Creek bed above the swamp in the forest:
Border of the map near the railroad station and graveyard:
I'm going to post a selection of images from the final version of the map, but I also have them all in the gallery that you can lick through here if you would like to see them all: Click here to view the final image gallery.
Marshland near the train station:
Highway bridge from the side, next to the railroad bridge:
Edge of the map at the guard outpost near the military base:
Forest path leading to the derelict house in the woods, around back of the military barracks:
Heading up the path towards the house:
The back of the house:
And the front area:
Graves near the house:
The remains of the dirt road leading to the house:
Well, that's it for now! I'd like to send a big thank you out to everyone who critiqued, criticized and gave suggestions - you all helped me improve my work and I'm really quite happy with how this turned out. I look forward to continuing to push myself on future projects.
Replies
Also the textures could do with abit more surface definition in the diffuse maps. Stuff like flaked paint and heavy rust are a great way of getting that awesome weathered, stalker look.
Also i think the transitions between the ground textures, mainly the concrete to grass looks a little weird. Maybe going from grass to dirt/soil and then to concrete will add abit more variation?
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Zones-Exclusion-Chernobyl-Robert-Polidori/dp/3882439211[/ame]
This is also a great book that has tons of large pics of chernobyl and pripyat and the NPP, well worth the investment if your looking for some good reference.
Can't wait to see the finished product.
@Ark - That book sits next to my desk, it's great.
Here are a few WIP shots of the road bridge. I'm still working on the texture and on fixing some mapping errors and other misc. problems including better transitions at the edges. There will be a modular version as well that will help make up the longer destroyed bridge near the railroad bridge. For this smaller single bridge piece I'm going to have the correct end sections on the guard rails.
Just figured I'd point this out, but his name isn't Josh Rice, it's Josh Klint. Also, I developed the Lua interop layer used by his engine. How's the speed on that holding up for you in practice?
Aside from that, it all looks good.
I've finished the smaller road bridge, barring any unforeseen issues. My only regret is not optimizing the guard rails more, but they do look nice and smooth.
(Note that the area around the bridge is not finished or detailed yet)
EDIT: Oh, and here's the main texture at 1024x1024. There are 6 maps total, only two of them being unique to this asset.
The other reason I decided to go with a unique texture is I'm not sure if the engine can pull a road texture onto a model, although it probably can.
You're only using 1 plant type there. Bring in some planes and models you used elsewhere, like a subtle plane of grass etc.
I do have a few things, including an update to the road bridge. I managed to use the road texture for the bridge as well (after breaking every paved road texture in the engine at one point), so I dedicated the extra room on the bridge texture to 4 decals: the dirt next to the sidewalk and 3 rough pavement decals. I also added one more plant type:
As you can see here I've also expanded the small bridge version into a 5-section modular bridge. Once I'm 100% satisfied with the main design of it, I'll be making a few destroyed sections.
Over the weekend I put together a small mountain scene outside of the actual Zone level design to try and get a save-render script working and render some beauty shots. It's a bit rough, but I may use it for showcasing models here and there. Big renders can be found at the bottom of this post.
Once again, all vegetation and nature props are by Pure3D as well as some of the smaller assets like the bright yellow oil barrels and roadside reflectors.
I put together some railroad crossing gates, but I'm not 100% satisfied with them.
As you can see I'm also working on getting my Bober warehouse model in the engine. It's mostly finished (I got alpha blended decals working finally) - just a few more mesh errors to hunt down.
Finally, here are some of the results I managed to get from the save-render script. These are a few days old so they're missing the most up-to-date versions of some stuff like the road bridges.
I like the water rust idea, I'm going to try out a few techniques for that.
The brick rubble was just put there to fill some of the foreground, as if the debris had just been pushed aside there. It does kind of stand out though.
We do have some ivy that's been provided by Pure3D which will probably make its way onto several buildings in the final scene. As far as the bridge goes, I'm actually not sure why it hasn't rusted and decayed as much as other structures in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. I based it off of reference like this image: http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb134/EvilViking13/Leadwerks/The%20Zone/WIPs/10955338.jpg
Thanks for your comment! In other news, I've set up some very basic furniture to populate the building interiors, all wooden stuff for now. More are coming as well.
You don't need to brighten things for print output if you have someone knowledgeable do the printing.
There will be an A and B version of the barracks that will make a pair to be placed side by side in the level. One will be close to what these reference images are - it will be partially gutted and abandoned, minus the large sections of missing floors. The second version will be one where "Explorers" (:poly121: ) have made camp and barricaded themselves in for protection from The Zone's night. It will be a bit more damaged, and all but once entrance will be boarded up. There may be furniture barricades and such as well.
Some of the texture work will be vertex painted blends, just as soon as I can figure out why I'm exporting my blended models incorrectly.
Here's the base model:
The radiators weigh in at 1,041 polys (before optimiztion), which is higher than I anticipated - but they are the primary props for the walls. There's still a good bit of modeling to be done as well, but you get the idea.
Believe it or not, many parts of the CEZ's infrastructure are still maintained by the Ukrainian government. Government and military workers still travel and work in areas of the Zone every day and bridges, roads etc are kept up to allow them to go where they need to. If I remember correctly, one or more of the reactors at the CNPP are (or were until very recently) even still active, if not actually linked into the country's electrical grid. So there's more activity and human presence in the area than you'd think at first. I'm guessing the bridge has probably either been maintained, repainted, or replaced, and there's likely some anticorrosion or weather sealant in the paint they used.
That, and who knows what steel getting bombarded with half the gamma rays on Earth will do to rust progression...
There's still a good bit left to do, including door frames and stairs wells, vegetation, the heaters, damage modeling, more vertex blending, etc. Polycount is currently 16,471 (6,061 without radiators - those may need more optimization). Here are some (not so great) renders from 3ds Max:
The wood flooring looks off though, and what is happening with the hard divide in detail on the tile flooring in the 3rd shot?
I'm still experimenting with the blend options. Is there a way to control the harshness of a blend? It's a very soft blend right now, but I'd like the edges to be harder if possible.
I've gotten a ton of work done on the Barracks, but it seems like I still have ages to go until it's finished. Left to do:
- Locker, bed, mattresses, toilets and sinks, gun racks, shelves
- Decals (wear, missing radiator wall spots, military posters and murals)
- ???
- PROFIT
Here are more so-so renders from 3ds Max, but you get the idea:
I redid the radiators, getting them down to 603 polys each. The texture is 99% complete, I just need to fix some color issues. The normal map that I baked isn't visible here:
I've finished the military bed and mattress. In my workflow for this prop I opened Mudbox for the first time ever and attempted to make a high poly for the mattress. It's... kind of horrifying to look at and my final bake down in Max didn't want to project correctly, but the final results aren't bad I think. I also did a Max-only high poly bake for the springs. One 1024x1024 texture, one 512x256 texture and 390 polys total (with the mattress, 356 without).
1024 texture was resized for easier viewing:
I'm going to be showing it off in a blog post this weekend, so any comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Screenshots incoming:
-removed some older images
- Created 3 separate fuse box props to be used on all of the buildings and added them to the barracks
- Added many more signs to the barracks
- Added dead cage light props
- Tweaked lighting
- Adjusted some texture's brightness and contrast
- Added and adjusted props
I'm calling this one done finally!
-removed some older images
I just think your interior textures and colors are too saturated..
do you still have scaling problem?
when i first saw it it reminded me of some unlit udk screenshots out of the editor (with light turned off). i don't know i just remember seeing scenes like that and then people turned lights on and everything fit together niceley and looked really atmospheric.
so i dare asking could it be, that the lighting part needs a lot lot lot of work ? because right now, i think you're well advised to go over the lighting phase again sometime soon, before posting these screenshots in the end. it just doesn't click with it, to me
sry to say it that harsh
The lighting comments weren't harsh at all, rather extremely helpful. Looking back on those shots makes me cringe - I didn't even notice how washed out everything was! The AO in Leadwerks is completely dynamic, and initially I tried tweaking that but everything was still mostly washed out and my FPS took a massive hit when I cranked the AO up.
It turns out, my problem was two fold. #1 was my lighting setup (1.32 power directional sunlight with orange-yellow color, and 1.52 power blue-gray ambient light). I turned the ambient light down to 0.85. I also turned the scene's contrast from 1.4 to 1.2 and lowered the saturation a notch as well.
Finally, my #2 (and main) problem was one that made me face-palm a bit. I had turned Bloom on by accident, and it was completely blowing out my lighting.
Tweaked result screenshots are here: http://s209.photobucket.com/albums/bb134/EvilViking13/Leadwerks/The%20Zone/WIPs/06/
What do you guys think?
EDIT: I just realized I forgot to export the signs in that last update... heh.
http://s209.photobucket.com/albums/bb134/EvilViking13/Leadwerks/The%20Zone/WIPs/Bober%20Station/
You ever considered to bake lighting so you can render a GI solution?
Contact Josh about it. I think its possible in Leadwerks to have a second UV-Channel for a lightmap.
just in my eyes, contrast is a little stong..
I have a truck load of screenshots of the complete train station and nearby areas. I'll start off with some 3ds max captures, some of which have wires:
Although this is by far the largest building I have completed for this project, it probably doesn't have the most time sunk into it. I think the barracks required more time as it needed more unique and new assets while I was able to reuse parts from several of the other buildings for the train station.
I also did a few things differently. All of the light fixtures for this model were placed in the Leadwerks editor, as were all of the "trash pile" debris props. I figured this would make the building more flexible, and these details are automatically culled at distance.
I also have several rooms blocked off for this building, which saves time and resources (how many closed doors did STALKER have, haha).
______
Here are some new props that were created for the station, including several wall lamps and 3 variants of an old bench (a high poly was created for the end supports of the bench for creating the normal map):
Apologies for the heavy depth of field - I'm having trouble with objects disappearing at distance right now.
________
And my favorite in-game image:
________
And now the rest of 'em (as always, feedback and critiques are very helpful!):
more after the break
The only main assets remaining are the abandoned house and the graves. From there, it's a matter of getting all of the assets to 100%, getting physics working and finishing the level design.
the only thing I can point is that your scene is not abandoned enough! its very clean..
I mean there should be more and more of junk objects over the scene.. or on the train..
I even suggest you to put the train off the rails! to make it much like a old left place!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/slworking/4670248824/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/slworking/4670226496/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/slworking/4669606947/ (broken doors are great!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/slworking/4669612745/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7388762@N03/4543327442/
First up, I've created a classic Soviet Hammer & Sickle statue. The A version is just old and rusted, while the B version has been vandalized and the hammer head has been knocked off and the sickle twisted half off of the base:
I also got one of my other signs in game, which some of you may recognize from my Lab X2 project. It says "Picking mushrooms and berries prohibited!"
Here's a look at some of the new debris and other props just laid out in the open:
And finally, here are some shots from around the map as I've been placing more new props:
The final building was finished it about a day and a half, with me crunching a good bit of time in yesterday to do most of it. I had a few other ideas for it, but I think this works.
It's a derelict/abandoned house. I've placed some props inside and around it, but I haven't really started detailing it yet. It will be situated in the middle of a thick forest.
http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/page/products/_/tools/leadwerks-engine-r3
My new i7 system is now rebuilt, and I'm getting ready to dive back into the level design after having to get some errors with the Leadwerks editor patched.
For now, I have a few overview images of how things are looking at the moment, and some updated images of Bober Station. I went back and changed some textures, added some signs and props, and roughed up the concrete on the platforms.
I think that lighting can be one of my weakest areas, so I'm looking to get some advice from some other artists on this. I had been using a 95% overcast skybox, but I didn't work well with the brighter, less washed out lighting that I wanted.
I've updated the skybox to a cloudy sunset that still looks kind of ominous. What do you you all think?
Click here to see my lighting tests (6 images)
...requires a huge font, right? I've been spending an insane amount of time on this project this week as I wrap up all of the (many) loose ends, squish bugs and finish up the level design.
Rather than double-post all of the images that I've uploaded today, I'm going to direct you all to the Zone project blog over on the Leadwerks website. That way, you can have thumbnails, heh.
Click here to view the update.
This is what the player sees on loading the map:
And here are some other views of the inside of the lab entrance/exit:
It looks like I forgot to take some images of the other inner areas of the lab, so I might post those later. Here's a look out of the outer door of the lab area:
I was browsing through my images and found this shot from the beginning of March when the project began. I thought I would throw it up here for comparison:
Here are some final overview images with fog disabled:
Finally, it's time for the beauty shots!
Creek bed above the swamp in the forest:
Border of the map near the railroad station and graveyard:
... and more are coming.
Click here to view the final image gallery.
Marshland near the train station:
Highway bridge from the side, next to the railroad bridge:
Edge of the map at the guard outpost near the military base:
Forest path leading to the derelict house in the woods, around back of the military barracks:
Heading up the path towards the house:
The back of the house:
And the front area:
Graves near the house:
The remains of the dirt road leading to the house:
Well, that's it for now! I'd like to send a big thank you out to everyone who critiqued, criticized and gave suggestions - you all helped me improve my work and I'm really quite happy with how this turned out.
I also have a couple more images that I had forgotten to take yesterday.
Here is the area behind the military barracks where the lab entrance is:
Here is the outside of the lab where the player will emerge into the main part of the environment:
Here is part of the front area of the lab:
And here is a shot of some experiments with particle emitters in the swamp area: