UDK Environment - The Great Viking Forge - Crits wanted
polycounter lvl 13
Dang, forgot WIP in the title... oh well.
Working on a new interior environment (UDK). Primary goal (besides the usual "good portfolio piece") is lighting practice and zbrush fine-detailing practice, since I want to zbrush fine carving and engraving onto just about everything. Viking / Norse art was very notable in not having a lot of "art for art sake", and instead taking everyday objects (boats, tools, weapons, etc) and decorating the living hell out of them. Good examples:
Original concept was much smaller with a long-house type structure, a large hooded furnace, carved anvil, carved stone wall fountain, and work benches down the sides of the walls.
Then I realized it was looking very cramped and the space wasn't actually too interesting. I wanted to increase the size of the forge, which meant a bigger back wall that needed something above the forge. I figured it would be cool to have a dragon skull mounted above the forge. Then I thought "wait a second... I have a much more badass idea..."
So we get to this (UDK blockout meshes plus quick paintover):
The glob of stones and the waterfall on the right side are something I'm thinking about but may toss out. It would be neat to have that kind of practical / aesthetic element, but I'm worried it's making the scene too busy and pulling from the forge focal point (plus it's a fourth light source to deal with).
I'm trying to map out some more details and arrangement before I start modeling and zbrushing in earnest. I've got some notes on this version, and I'd love some feedback about how to flesh out the rest of the scene and eliminate strange empty spaces, but without making it feel disorganized or blocking the focal points of the forge and anvil.
One thing I'm fighting right now are the column groups on either side. I want to have the columns and supported beams above them so I can zbrush them and show them decorated and engraved. But right now they're breaking up the sides of the space kind of awkwardly and I'm trying to figure out how I can rearrange them or change their footprint to help improve that.
Here's an empty top-down, you can see the columns sort of muck up the side-corner areas:
Here's one with more arrangement tinkering. Not everything sketched in on this version is in the same spot as the paintover, I'm still playing with locations and sizes and proportions.
I'm still trying to get the lighting tuned up in the UDK to match what I'm hoping for... I want a lot of light coming from the fire in the forge itself, but I also want a shaft of daylight from the hole at the top of the roof, and there's an arched double-door (the main door) opposite the forge that I want to cast some bluish daylight from the opposite direction - the brown of the wood columns, benches, tools etc. should look really nice with some blue lighting saturation opposite the orange-red glow from the forge.
Here's light ref for the light from the forge:
Light ref for the daylight pouring in at the other end of the hall has been harder to find. I've been scouring screencaps of Return of the King, The 13th Warrior, and recreation Viking structures looking for something close. I think there might have been a shot from How To Train Your Dragon that had something close.
This pic actually has almost exactly what I'm looking for in the upper left corner, but it's just that little area. It does show the blue-saturated daylight on this type of architecture, though. Also has a hint of the red firelight in the rest of the picture (nowhere near strong enough, though).
Working palette (layout shamelessly lifted from Dim's Vertical Farm thread). Will probably end up switching the purple of the lighter forged iron color, it's not working so much for me. Will also look into heavily desaturating the red and blue 'paint' colors, although those will only be in small spots so it may not be as much of an issue.
Suggestions? Crits? Feedback?
Working on a new interior environment (UDK). Primary goal (besides the usual "good portfolio piece") is lighting practice and zbrush fine-detailing practice, since I want to zbrush fine carving and engraving onto just about everything. Viking / Norse art was very notable in not having a lot of "art for art sake", and instead taking everyday objects (boats, tools, weapons, etc) and decorating the living hell out of them. Good examples:
Original concept was much smaller with a long-house type structure, a large hooded furnace, carved anvil, carved stone wall fountain, and work benches down the sides of the walls.
Then I realized it was looking very cramped and the space wasn't actually too interesting. I wanted to increase the size of the forge, which meant a bigger back wall that needed something above the forge. I figured it would be cool to have a dragon skull mounted above the forge. Then I thought "wait a second... I have a much more badass idea..."
So we get to this (UDK blockout meshes plus quick paintover):
The glob of stones and the waterfall on the right side are something I'm thinking about but may toss out. It would be neat to have that kind of practical / aesthetic element, but I'm worried it's making the scene too busy and pulling from the forge focal point (plus it's a fourth light source to deal with).
I'm trying to map out some more details and arrangement before I start modeling and zbrushing in earnest. I've got some notes on this version, and I'd love some feedback about how to flesh out the rest of the scene and eliminate strange empty spaces, but without making it feel disorganized or blocking the focal points of the forge and anvil.
One thing I'm fighting right now are the column groups on either side. I want to have the columns and supported beams above them so I can zbrush them and show them decorated and engraved. But right now they're breaking up the sides of the space kind of awkwardly and I'm trying to figure out how I can rearrange them or change their footprint to help improve that.
Here's an empty top-down, you can see the columns sort of muck up the side-corner areas:
Here's one with more arrangement tinkering. Not everything sketched in on this version is in the same spot as the paintover, I'm still playing with locations and sizes and proportions.
I'm still trying to get the lighting tuned up in the UDK to match what I'm hoping for... I want a lot of light coming from the fire in the forge itself, but I also want a shaft of daylight from the hole at the top of the roof, and there's an arched double-door (the main door) opposite the forge that I want to cast some bluish daylight from the opposite direction - the brown of the wood columns, benches, tools etc. should look really nice with some blue lighting saturation opposite the orange-red glow from the forge.
Here's light ref for the light from the forge:
Light ref for the daylight pouring in at the other end of the hall has been harder to find. I've been scouring screencaps of Return of the King, The 13th Warrior, and recreation Viking structures looking for something close. I think there might have been a shot from How To Train Your Dragon that had something close.
This pic actually has almost exactly what I'm looking for in the upper left corner, but it's just that little area. It does show the blue-saturated daylight on this type of architecture, though. Also has a hint of the red firelight in the rest of the picture (nowhere near strong enough, though).
Working palette (layout shamelessly lifted from Dim's Vertical Farm thread). Will probably end up switching the purple of the lighter forged iron color, it's not working so much for me. Will also look into heavily desaturating the red and blue 'paint' colors, although those will only be in small spots so it may not be as much of an issue.
Suggestions? Crits? Feedback?
Replies
New floorplan - better than the column rows at the sides, provides a better scene when viewing from the central area, not quite as perfect from the main doorway but that's secondary.
Quick UDK shot with the redone posts. I need to work on the lighting still, it's not matching the yellow-to-red color shift in my lighting ref and the overall light has gotten far too red. Is there a way to have a light color shift depending on distance?
(Still working on getting the terrain objects that make up the floor to cooperate... Looking for better terrain tutorials somewhere on the net, all of the ones I've found are very basic)