Kamina City , AKA Gurren Lagann UDK tech scene!

seforin

Hey guys, alot of you have seen me working on this for some time, im kicking my portfolio into Overdrift!

And im planning on kicking my portfolio with tons of scenes and unreal tech work as I have fallen in love with all the bells and whistles unreal can do! PLUS I figured that it was a chance to showcase all my new 3d Skills I have acquired these last 2 years of pushing myself and working for some cool companies! (crate entertainment and liquid big props!)

with that said my 1st project was a bit of a ambitious one with my own take of one of my favorite show's made into full 3D "Gurren Lagann"

As for many of you who have no idea what that show is I suggest you go and watch this quite manly of manliest series ever made!


With that all said lets get down to the business here! I decided to create both a scene and alot of tech work that kinda gave a feeling of the scale of the city and a few key things that happened in the show I am also showcasing in this scene, from teplin becoming activated, the moon showing its true form , and the overall bright almost neon glow the city gives at night. I am also trying to give a sense of focal points in order of importance based on a DOF settings. soooooooooooo enough explaining lets show some cool stuff!

First a few shots of the ref and concepts!



and my initial (godawful) concept I drew up)

[img]http://seforin.com/misc/Env_Concept copy.jpg[/img]

Now for some of the steak and potatoes, here's a youtube video link to the current scenes progress. (I still dont like how youtube compresses my videos..)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX44m7AdaJE[/ame]
(remember to hit 720p to see wtf is going on)


And here's a higher rez still shot








There's still a ton of things I need to do

*finish ground mesh//rock wall distance meshes
*fix overall color balance of glowing bits between city + road+head guys
*fix overall timing of camera's DOF + teplin opening its mouth
*create explosion particle for moon explosion (bright flash)
*Create steam particle for mouth when it opens
*actually put in real lights into the scene and do a lighting/lightmass bake

*go get a bottle of rum and enjoy

Snader

Your skull building's proportions are off by a long shot

seforin

Hey snader, well in all honesty that teplin model based on all the different ref's made not a whole bunch of sense proportionally so I went with a middle ground based off some of the other ref's you see in the Show.

Anywho I took some feedback given to me and changed up the city layout and the buildings some more.

I still have alot to do//fix before I can do a lighting pass on this

Gonna add in some more modular buildings to break it up a bit more with some intresting shapes.

Then off to particles and fixing the overall timing of the transitions//DOF //glows etc.

Anywho progress

seforin

ok well a few things were addressed this update


mainly :Lights , there in there now (still 70% complete at this point)

spot lights where put in.

day to night transition lights from day time fade to night time lights (night time lights are still not all placed//properly lite yet)

Currently day time has the spot lights on, I have to disable them for there static mesh and light component.

Overall closer to being done with this guy, just a few more tweaks with kismet and then a overall pass on the kismet timers and then particles

anywho here's a screen !







EDIT: F on a pickle I just realized my moon is reacting weird with my current lighting setup based on the screenshots..gonna have to play with him some...

Melonman

I think that you need to pay a little more attention to the reference shots that you have.
I kind of get that this is based of the anime that you have chosen and is not supposed to be a replica but there is still allot you can take from those images.

The pics are allot more atmospheric aswell and have softer colours. In your render shots the atmosphere is quite harsh and heavy.

The buildings and colour schemes are also totally different. The head is nearly there model wise I would widen the upper portion so it's more like your reference.

The dof effect that your going for sounds awesome but think you need to tighten your scene up allot more and you have great reference photos to do just that.

Keep it up dude.

praetus

hey man it's looking good but one thing that stands out to me is the city in the ref looks like there are tiers to it as if there are varying plateaus that the buildings are placed on. Your shot however makes it seem like the buildings are just taller the closer they get to the middle. More of a slope I suppose as opposed to drastic height differences below.

bugo

I think its s a bit dark, you could add somewhat an ambient, the first concept reference you posted gives you a night shot with a lot of gradients, I wish to see these gradients a bit better on your lighting somehow.

seforin

I'll see what I can do about relaying out the city to feel bigger and more like layers. Luckly my roads and buildings are all modular or unique buildings I can just shift around with no real issues.

currently theres over 100 + buildings there to make it feel as it does now...though since im not baking lighting anymore I can probably add in another 200 with no real issues (Had to do it that way sicne there dynamic day to night shift wont allow me to bake lights//gradiet the night to day lights correctly )

Anywho the night time scene is NOT lite all it is right now is just glow maps and one point light at the moment.

I will do another pass on the day time lighting.

A part of me wants to be lazy and use steam and explosion effects already in UDK for this scene..but ive gone this far to make everything from scratch that I feel its just cheating to not make it new....pressed on time with this guy though. Has to be finished by this month , I have another more important project I need to start next month asap!

Anyway thanks for the advice guys I'll do what I can!

pior

I've seen that scene for a while and yet I still dont know what you want to achieve. Sure you are saying that things are not finished yet, but what is your visual target ? Take a few screenshots, then work on them in 2D to get the EXACT target that you want to hit. Then, edit your scene accordingly.

Things dont work in 'passes' to get things look better ; you have to take what you have, identify the problems, set goals, and work towards them.

If I understand correctly, you want to show a cool day/night cycle of the city. So, first thing is to fix the overall proportions of everything for the scene to look just as epic as the ref.

Then, you need to do 4 or 5 pieces of concept art paintovers, showing : Early morning, mid day, 5pm, evening party time, and pitch black sleepy night.
Then, work on these 4 states of the map, and the way they blend.

In short : give yourself precise goals, be accurate since you work from a famous epic reference, and dont stretch yourself thin.

(also : work on composition - again, in 2D thumbnails. And read up on it too...)

Good luck!

seforin

yeah I took what you said from last time and relayed out my city to feel a bit more like "your in it" or really small and made they eye follow to the center more..had a few people look over and give me some 2 cents on it as well. I also adjusted the lights overall for the day to night (took into account what your saying pior) And made it feel more like there is ambiet glow that projects to the tower more.


But I did make a clear list before I started this project with things I wanted to achieve which I believe I did.

-Day to night transition via kismet
-Exploding moon
-Opening of face/head(teplin tower)
-Animated texture sequences for roads and streets
-DAy to night lighting shift so it turns from night dusk (5-6pm?) to night time.
-Overall try to recreate a sense of scale of huge and overall big city feel (I still believe its not there but its closer then before)

anwyay enough talk here's some new screens, I will have a new video posted soon.

Overall the last things Im needing to do are a particle pass on teh exploding moon and the face when it opens and some extra lights for the faces at night time to have a nice suttle ambiet glow.

JasonLavoie

Looking nice remi, the cityscape is awesome.

edit: it would be cool if you could get more light pollution from the night scene, the reference has some cool colors as well which i think you could implement more of.

Robbyh

Duuuuuuuude ! i seriously have been missing out on this one ! Nice work mate !

Edit ! is there any AA on that shot ? it feels.. noizy..

KyleJensen

I'm liking the latest iterations.

Bal

Pretty cool, I still think your composition needs some work, here are a few things that bother me (ignore the whole post if you were still planning on changing it anywas ):

- The Head-Tunnel thing up front is cool, but what's up with the railway on the right looks like the exact symmetry of the one on the left? Looks really strange, feels like the trains would run into each other, and it's just too symmetrical. I do think you need something there in the foreground, but I'd try to find something else.

- The placement of the focal point (giant scary head) feels kind of off, should try moving your point of view around so it's at a stronger placement in the composition (like around the 1/3 or 2/3 horizontally of the image).

- Both left/right edges are very crowded up with stuff, the buildings, the moon etc, which kinda takes away from the openess of the image, makes things feel tigther than they should be I think. Maybe try opening up one of the sides a bit more like in your earlier images.

- The moon placmeent isn't great, right on the edge of the screen light that, probably not so great ot have it cut off both on the horizontal and vertical.

Looking forward to seeing the video of the day/night cycle!

seforin

hey so did some updates on this guy, but this time you dont get a simple screenshot. YOU GET YOUTUBES!!!

CLICK DA DAMN LINK YO!AT 720!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aT3Rt6Nulg[/ame]







Anyway to address a few things

Jason-Added a bit more ambiet light and I also added some fog layers in the far background to break up the depth distance


Robbyh- All my lights are dynamic right now (yeah im cheating but its for kismet to work correct for the day to night shift)

Bal: I took your advice the most, I moved the tunnel heads so they didnt feel so close//the same type connection as you mentioned (symmetrical)

I moved the main tower slightly to the left, and I also moved the moon to the left as well and further back

I also did a few other things in which the camera's d.O.F is shifting you to the focal points as they "activate"

I still need to fix the timing for the moon shift

my last things I need to do at this point

*final lighting pass
*final pass on kismet (set up all proper times on DOF/Lights transitions etc)
*particles of steam for tower when mouth opens and explosion for moon


Hopefully this week I can wrap this kismet crazy thing up...I never intended something that was all kismet learning to be a full blown scene...I really want to take these skills and showcase a nice art piece with the next project I have in mind...with alot of these technical aspects hinted in it

Anyway Enjoy!

JasonLavoie

Getting there man I think you're a bit too heavy handed with the DOF though (I know you're still messing around with it though). Defiantly an interesting scene man, keep it up.

Torrrtilla

Go Remi! That's lookin pretty slick! I agree about the super high dof kinda kills it. I don't know how easy it would be to add some atmospheric perspective, but I think a z depth pass for fog would be nice and help reduce the background contrast to give a better sense of scale.

seforin

to be honest im not a fan of the DOF right now...I think I might just nerf it completely, maybe keep it only for the end...other then that I think everything will be distance fog kinda stuff to make it feel further away

seforin

a wimpy update been so busy with work lately I havent had a chance to touch this at all.... but played with lighting, got rid of the DOF except during the moon explosion

added in some nicer "glowy ambient" lights (light balls?) And played with distance fog some

(Will upload a video later)

acapulco

Get some air in there! Meaning fog and atmosphere. The head does look pretty little to me, you can emphasize the size and that it is far away with a bit fo fog as it is implied by the spotlights showing into the sky.