Vertical Farm Environment (large image)

Dim

So, starting a new project now. This time I will be creating a vertical hydroponic farm environment in UDK. Vertical farming is a theoretical way to farm in urban areas by essentially creating farm skyscrapers. Mine will be done hydroponically (no soil), so all it will need a lot of water piping. My goal here is to be as modular as possible so that the project can scale up as far as it needs to go. I'm a little uncertain about how this will turn out since I'm largely unfamiliar with UDK.

Moodboard:



Let me know what you think! I'm not sure what to do about a centerpiece so far either, so suggestions for that are welcome.

michi.be

Great idea. I like vertical levels a lot. And the theme is new too. More people should use some kind of Arch.viz renders as inspiration for game stuff.

Swizzle

Toobs!!!

arrangemonk

this is fraud! (even thouh its a great idea)
but this is only simple stacked horizontal farming

id recomend some biodome for entrance

danshewan

Love the idea, and it looks like you've got some good reference.

My advice would be to plan this out thoroughly beforehand. Like, plan like an evil genius. A patient evil genius. More time planning = less time fixing / redesigning.

Also, once you've got some rough geometry to work with, get your meshes into UDK as soon as possible to make sure you nail down the scale and composition. You don't even necessarily need to UV your assets before getting it into UDK when you're blocking out the scene, so there's no excuse not to. Again, this will save you a lot of time and work in the long run.

Dim

Thanks for the replies, little update here. Also, to be clear, creating an entire skyscraper is WAY out of my scope, so I'm sticking to just a single room. Here's what I have so far, but I think it's really boring. Don't mind the artifacts, they are very quick renders.

All those tracks lead back into a room behind the walls, then down to the base of the skyscraper, so that production can be almost entirely automated. Everything would end up near the bottom of the skyscraper where they can be processed by hand and shipped. However, I'd like to make this idea more visually interesting.







What I think I'll do is get rid of the current windows and ceiling and opt for something a little closer to this pic:



Overall, I'd like to get more organic shapes in there, but I still need to make them modular (hair pull).

danshewan: thanks a lot for the advice, you've confirmed, in cocrete detail, the general direction I was headed. I really appreciate the advice

Dim

Little update. This any better?

Rayph

Looking great so far, love the idea you got going. Hopefully I didn't miss any prior comments on this but the only thing I might add is some more support beams for the piping/structure in general. At the moment it's all coming acrossed a lil thin and sparse.

Will keep an eye on this

Dim

Thanks for the reply Rayph.

I definitely agree with your support comment. I was thinking of trying out guy-wires or some sort of suspension to maintain the futuristic look. Failing that, I'll just go back to beams.

Also, I just finally got my Wacom drivers working again, so I'll try some paintovers.

Alberto Rdrgz

looks nice and clean so far!

gammaslam

yep, gonna follow this thread for sure. looking good. keep truckin'

Dim

Added a new roof variation. Liking the look of it. Working on a paintover.

Dim

Gross little paintover here. Trying to figure out a way to add a little more foliage.



Also thinking of adding a flag here in the middle with some large slogan that fits with the universe. "Vegetables are for the Elite" or some such. Also, in this image you can see the guy-wires I added.

SHEPEIRO

love the roof- would be ace to see glass structures or spires and some sort of balcony out front with a futuristic vista behind

acapulco

I'm curious about that one and how it will turn out! Kepp it up.

And Shepeiro, I love your avatar!

Dim

Thanks Shepeiro, which roof type do you prefer? And yeah, I think I'll add a balcony to limit the view. I'll add some simple buildings as well.

Here's my first crack at a palette:



Edit: does UDK have support for SSS? If not, is there a way to fake it?

itsmadman

Uhh what kind of plants u growing....lol

Dim

Heh...

Little backstory for the environment.

Vertical farm environment
===========================


Background

---

These skyscrapers are created in an urban area in the near future to add automated farming to cities. Arable land has been vastly reduced, and environmental conditions are no longer conducive to healthy plant growth. As much of the farming process as possible is automated, so most of the plants are on tracks to be taken down to a processing floor to be shipped. The tracks also assist with rotating all plants into sunlight. They are grown hydroponically so no soil needs to be used. As long as a filtration system is used, they will grow. This actual environment is set at the very top of a "farm skyscaper", a very tall buildings built with floor after floor of farmland. Accordingly, only the very top of the skyline and sky are visible.

The world that exists at this time has seen globalism cause massive consolidation of industry such that it has superseceded the authority of most nations. A single corporation has dominated agribusiness (NORCO), and that is who owns the skyscraper. Because of the consolidation, the populace has been split into one very large poor population, and one very small wealthy population. The workers in the skyscraper are reminded by the large flag at the centerpiece that the vegetables being grown are specifically not for them, as their diet is based largely on corn and corn products.


Asset List

---

Tomato plant (2 variations)
Lettuce plant (2 variations)
Tomato track (straight and corner)
Lettuce track (straight and corner)
Track cieling attachments
Track floor supports
Railing and glass pane
Stairs
Polished Concrete wall sections
Single modular cieling section (truss, glass, pane dividers, and supports)
Banner
Guy wires
Guy wire anchors
Hydroponic hoses
Light fixtures
NORCO text
Sign mount
Plastic "ribbing" for walls
Background buildings
Plasitic trim pieces (straights and corners)

itsmadman

oh u didn't get the joke. but thats alright. i think this idea is awesome. make sure u finish. its cool to see innovations in architecture in our field.

Dim

Well, I think I got it, if it has anything to do with this.

Dim

Getting some of this into Unreal and trying some lighting.

cholden

I like where this is going.

SHEPEIRO

the new roof varient is a little too heavy... but i think it could still be of use if you had a section of it down each side and the middle 6 using the lighter diamond pattern...
cool stuffs

Dim

Not completely sure what you mean Shep, but I can lighten it overall. Perhaps nixing most of the support matrixish stuff would work and constraining it to two columns and maybe on horizontal cross piece?

Mio

agree with SHEPEIRO about the heavy roof..but it's looks great with unreal lighting

Jedah

Looks nice but how many polys is it?

Barnstable

What I interpreted Shepeiro meaning was that there are too many polys going into making all those curved support rods on the roof.

I wonder if you could just bake those cylinders into the texture, and have the spaces between the cylinders be transparent (alpha channel). Keep the thicker support beams, then just pace that alpha texture onto curved faces between the support beams. You would lose some of the detail, but it would be much less expensive.

But I also wanted to say to keep up the good work. It's looking great.

Dim

So far the roof is about 30k tris, but I'm cutting out a lot of sections (trying to make it less uniform), and hopefully I can get it down between 20-25k. Overall, I have a 150k budget for this, so I'd rather keep the supports polygonal. If however later it seems too heavy, I can always go with Barnstable's suggestion.

SHEPEIRO

no i wasnt talking polys... with a load of plants in the env i would not want to make half the screen multiple alpha passes...polys are the way to go imo...

by heavy i was meaning they looked too beefy... too strong... glass houses, habitat domes are nice and light in construction giving them that ethereal quality that i think your diamond patttern had

Dim

Shep: gotcha, I'll lighten it up. Not sure whether I'll do the diagonal one though. I would like to, because I think it looks cooler, but I had a really tough time modularizing it.

Here's some references for the roof support I used:






These are from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, in the contemporary building.

SHEPEIRO

some more refs for you

eden project

moar

que gardens

Dim

Thanks Shep, I really like the first two. Seems I may have to revisit this. The modeling is getting really tricky!

Dim

So a few weeks back my Mobo failed, so I've been set back. However, I have managed to continue to work. Here are some recent shots.As you can see the roof has been completely redone, following one of Shepiero's images (loosely). All textures are currently placeholders, and I'm having some were green bugs with my cubemap. Never really used UDK before, so it's been realy fun to explore the materials etc. Anyways, this is the direction I'm headed.

michi.be

I really don't like the new roof. It looks wired and unnaturally bended.

Maybe using not curves but edged windows. Would be easier to model and look better.
Can't find a good reference at the moment sorry.

Dim

Little update here. Michci.be: I've tried it both ways, and I think I'll continue this way. I don't necessarily disagree with what you said though. The roof looks best when you can move around in the scene because it doesn't read too well from a single angle. Not really sure what to do about it. Anyone else care to weigh in?

As is, I have most of the meshes in, but all of the textures are still just placeholders from CG textures. The post effects are supposed to make the atmosphere look humid and thick.

jimmypopali

I was going to say, there are the angled parts of the support beams holding the roof which I didn't 'get'. Couldn't see what angle they were on. But seeing the updated pictures, I can see that the section comes in quite a bit.

How much more plant coverage is planned? Looking good so far. Thinking out loud here (which I usually do here), would there be more floor drains in an area like this?

Dim

I'm glad the roof is reading better now, I've been pretty worried about that. I plan to increase the density of the tomatoes and add rows of lettuce in the two central open sections. Totally agree with you about the drainage, I think that'd really make the floor look a lot cooler. I still need to add a lot of the tubes and piping.

Edit: I may also add a second layer of plants on the top story.

duxun

this is coming right along..

Dim

Few updates here. Mostly added balcony and lettuce. The structure for the lettuce hasn't actually been made yet.

jeremiah_bigley

Digging what you have so far man! It is hard to critique because there is so much going on... but I think maybe you should tone down those greens a bit. They are looking pretty unrealistic.
Keep it up though!

Dim

Definitely agree there. I would like to get some browns and yellows into the leaves as well. Currently my transmission textures are hyper-saturating things, so I'll need to fix that first.

fearian

My biggest crit of this environment has to be the shadows. You've created a great open and bright space with these impressive beams and it's naturally going to give you a ton of complicated light and shadow across the scene. These shadows are everywhere and are further broken up by the noisy (silhouette wise) plants. Add in the low resolution of these shadows and you get alot of blurry jagged black marks all over the place which make or break the scene. If you can get them sharp and well defined, play with the colour and strength a bit, I think you could turn this from good to great. Along these lines you've got very bright highlights on the sign and the bars compared to very dark shadows.

In short, Lighting. Everything's to noisy! :P

Dim

Definitely agree with you fearian. Honestly, at this point, I really don't know how to increase shadow resolution, or how to reduce their strength/change their color. I'll see what I can come up with.

Harry

get some blue or something in those shadows and drop their intensity a bit imo, its kind of disrupting the forms in the actual scene.
This is pretty legit. Another thing to consider is putting some more love into the foliage. Theyre totally monochrome atm and it gives a bit of a cartoon look

Dim

Update here. Hopefully I've considered most critique. Couldn't actually figure out how to change shadow color on this though, and that was the main thing I wanted.

n88tr

It looks nice but I'm wondering is going to be a playable level where people get their frag on or just a decorative level for your portfolio?

ParoXum

The overall is looking nice, but the textures look quite rushed here and there, add to that the not-so-believable structure and it's just good enough for folio but it'll clearly not be a level you play

n88tr

I'm guessing you could play it but the building parts wouldn't be destructible then. Or if they were, you could make the physics not work and bring the building down.

It seems a rather odd place to get your frag on to be honest.

Dim

n88tr: yeah this is a purely decorative piece, so no running around, fragging, etc.

ParoXum: can't argue with your texture comment, but I'm wondering why the structure looks unbelievable to you? Could you give me a little more info about that?

Thanks guys.

ParoXum

I don't know, it looks like it's going to collapse. The glass structure is looking weak by its deformations, but it's only me tho

SHEPEIRO

lamp looks oversized and the electricity box looks a bit simplified maybe use a bit more ref on these things ;-)