Pipe Shrine Sewer UDK
sublime tool
I'm back already to begin a new project while I wait for replies from studio's I've applied to.
In my last project I kept the work hidden from everyone and only wanted to post progress when it was near completion. I now feel that was the wrong way of thinking and so I aim to make this next project more personal with you all.
I intend to learn from this project and have given myself 4 weeks to complete it. Therefore the deadline is 18th Febraury. (Well that didn't work out as planned.)
First of all are my aims:
* To learn the basics of Z-Brush and create custom brick textures using high poly bakes.
* To use modular pieces for quick planning and development.
* To improve my atmosphere and lighting techniques.
* And to create a scene that has been in my head for a long time. It wants out now.
Now for the level story:
The scene is set in a fictional world similar to ours only more futuristic. There are two factions: The Overlords and the Underlings. The Underlings are people who were destined to be executed due to public fear of what they were eventually going to transform into. A single Underling managed to take over the execution facility and free a large group of Underling prisoners.
They fled to the sewers and turned to terrorism in order to get the rights they felt they deserved. They infiltrated a section in the sewers that contained the Overlords drinking water and poisoned it using a rare flower. The Overlords sent in an infiltration team to assassinate the Underlings leader but failed.
After much struggle the Overlords eventually gave in and a treaty was signed to give the Underlings their own personal space on the planet away from contact of the Overlords.
A structure was created and placed in the spot where the Underlings lived during the war. My scene shows this room and the shrine left behind...It has overgrown a little.
Day One Progress:
* Moodboard and Rough Sketch created.
* Simple layout blocked out in 3DS using modular boxes.
Day Two Progress:
* Models ported over to UDK and a simple texture applied.
* Rough lighting and sun position decided.
* Decided that pipe shrine needs to be more interesting. Will change so that pipes are angled and have bolts and curves.
* Used UDK stock particle effects for water splashing out of pipes. Decided it moves too fast and doesn't look like it is coming out of pipes. May need to learn to create particles or at least edit current ones.
Day Three/Four/Five ETC Progress:
Real life took over most of my time but I was able to eventually sit down and get some work done. I created my first Zbrush brick texture and had memory issues when trying to render in Max so I tried Xnormal. Worked a treat.
I then combined the final renders with textures from cgtextures and pushed it all through crazybump for the final apperance.
At the moment nothing is properly UV mapped or scaled correctly. Lighting is at a stage where I'm comfortable at leaving for now.
Day Six/Seven Progress:
I've aligned most of the textures, made an arch for the entrance and exit, tweaked lighting, tried to sort out brick texture spec but rushed it and will have to go back to it. Finally I tried sculpting some details into the stairs but poor planning and a bad UV made the effort a waste. At least I learnt some new things. Going to start adding some detail to the ceiling such as extruded edges inbetween the seams. I also plan to have broken parts with mud in the middle. Also plan to add vegetation if possible although I've never tried it before and hope I can perhaps use speedtree.
Progress 08 (Forget the days):
So I promised to finish this on the 18th but events in real life pretty much wrecked that goal. I've spent the last few days working on it again and I've got this far. Textures are all still just temporary as I wanted to flesh out more of the the mesh detail. I took my time and researched sewers and I've now changed the design slightly to a "Storm Overflow System".
I quickly fleshed out a pipe shrine but it's way over the polygon limit at 20,000 tri's so I'll be sorting that out and UV'ing it, texturing etc. I also experimented with gold material but it didn't suit the grimey environment around it so I'm cutting that idea out. Instead I may add treasure or shrine gifts scattered around it. Next step is to make some bricks in Z brush and scatter them around the shrine since the ceiling is collapsed in the chamber above.
Finally I experimented with some lighting colours based on these pictures. I intend to add some man made lights with wires to explain the illumination in the room since they're normally pitch black.
Progress 09 (Final?)
It has been a while eh. I've been working on it for a while now and I believe I've come to the point where I'm calling it finished once I've received all feedback possible.
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywdoqb6dlP0[/ame]
I'll appreciate any advice you can give. My greatest conern is creating custom bricks for texturing and creating some of the arches going from floor to ceiling. This will be a fun challenge. Overall though my main inspirations are Oblivion and Half Life 2.
In my last project I kept the work hidden from everyone and only wanted to post progress when it was near completion. I now feel that was the wrong way of thinking and so I aim to make this next project more personal with you all.
I intend to learn from this project and have given myself 4 weeks to complete it. Therefore the deadline is 18th Febraury. (Well that didn't work out as planned.)
First of all are my aims:
* To learn the basics of Z-Brush and create custom brick textures using high poly bakes.
* To use modular pieces for quick planning and development.
* To improve my atmosphere and lighting techniques.
* And to create a scene that has been in my head for a long time. It wants out now.
Now for the level story:
The scene is set in a fictional world similar to ours only more futuristic. There are two factions: The Overlords and the Underlings. The Underlings are people who were destined to be executed due to public fear of what they were eventually going to transform into. A single Underling managed to take over the execution facility and free a large group of Underling prisoners.
They fled to the sewers and turned to terrorism in order to get the rights they felt they deserved. They infiltrated a section in the sewers that contained the Overlords drinking water and poisoned it using a rare flower. The Overlords sent in an infiltration team to assassinate the Underlings leader but failed.
After much struggle the Overlords eventually gave in and a treaty was signed to give the Underlings their own personal space on the planet away from contact of the Overlords.
A structure was created and placed in the spot where the Underlings lived during the war. My scene shows this room and the shrine left behind...It has overgrown a little.
Day One Progress:
* Moodboard and Rough Sketch created.
* Simple layout blocked out in 3DS using modular boxes.
Day Two Progress:
* Models ported over to UDK and a simple texture applied.
* Rough lighting and sun position decided.
* Decided that pipe shrine needs to be more interesting. Will change so that pipes are angled and have bolts and curves.
* Used UDK stock particle effects for water splashing out of pipes. Decided it moves too fast and doesn't look like it is coming out of pipes. May need to learn to create particles or at least edit current ones.
Day Three/Four/Five ETC Progress:
Real life took over most of my time but I was able to eventually sit down and get some work done. I created my first Zbrush brick texture and had memory issues when trying to render in Max so I tried Xnormal. Worked a treat.
I then combined the final renders with textures from cgtextures and pushed it all through crazybump for the final apperance.
At the moment nothing is properly UV mapped or scaled correctly. Lighting is at a stage where I'm comfortable at leaving for now.
Day Six/Seven Progress:
I've aligned most of the textures, made an arch for the entrance and exit, tweaked lighting, tried to sort out brick texture spec but rushed it and will have to go back to it. Finally I tried sculpting some details into the stairs but poor planning and a bad UV made the effort a waste. At least I learnt some new things. Going to start adding some detail to the ceiling such as extruded edges inbetween the seams. I also plan to have broken parts with mud in the middle. Also plan to add vegetation if possible although I've never tried it before and hope I can perhaps use speedtree.
Progress 08 (Forget the days):
So I promised to finish this on the 18th but events in real life pretty much wrecked that goal. I've spent the last few days working on it again and I've got this far. Textures are all still just temporary as I wanted to flesh out more of the the mesh detail. I took my time and researched sewers and I've now changed the design slightly to a "Storm Overflow System".
I quickly fleshed out a pipe shrine but it's way over the polygon limit at 20,000 tri's so I'll be sorting that out and UV'ing it, texturing etc. I also experimented with gold material but it didn't suit the grimey environment around it so I'm cutting that idea out. Instead I may add treasure or shrine gifts scattered around it. Next step is to make some bricks in Z brush and scatter them around the shrine since the ceiling is collapsed in the chamber above.
Finally I experimented with some lighting colours based on these pictures. I intend to add some man made lights with wires to explain the illumination in the room since they're normally pitch black.
Progress 09 (Final?)
It has been a while eh. I've been working on it for a while now and I believe I've come to the point where I'm calling it finished once I've received all feedback possible.
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywdoqb6dlP0[/ame]I'll appreciate any advice you can give. My greatest conern is creating custom bricks for texturing and creating some of the arches going from floor to ceiling. This will be a fun challenge. Overall though my main inspirations are Oblivion and Half Life 2.
Replies
Until tommorow. Should be interesting trying to use Z-Brush properly.
One thing that might help with scenes like this is to start to kick around some interesting compositions. I'm not so sure the short through the arch is the best way to frame the shot... check this out it might spark some ideas.
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3275
Considering this might end up being a portfolio piece where a killer static shot is sort of key, it might be good to play up everything to a few camera angles.
Also thanks Mark for the link, it's most useful.
(Angle of latest picture is not final and is for progress purposes.)
Someone said the grate in the ceiling didn't make a lot of sense since there's a shrine below it. Would it make sense if the shrine was added after it was built? Perhaps I need to research sewers more because I'm not even sure what a drain like that is for. I just thought it'd look eye catching and cast a neat shadow on the shrine itself.
Your thoughts?
Also it maybe you should try out a different stone/concrete texture for the floor. It looks a bit strange having the walls, floor and ceiling made out of the same bricks at the same scale for the most part. If you used the bricks in a bit more of an interesting way such as having the top of those circular parts have a slightly extruded circular section with the textures matching the bricks below to make it look like they're laid out in a ring it might not be as awkward.
Also, why are you never on Steam anymore! You have not been on in 22 days.
You said you got problems with bakeing. There's two things you can do. One, download decimation master for zbrush. It''s a great plugin that lets you cut the tris down but still maintain pretty much all detail. And two, if you have a CUDA card (read nvidia) you can use the Optix renderer in xnormal. It renders AO in like 2 secs..
Good luck, and looking forward for an update!
[EDIT] If you don't like deciamtion master, you can use meshlab.. Not as fast but gives you pretty much the same result.
Also thank you for the list of plugins as it'll save me time!
Zip, long time no see. I'm planning on adding extruded...curves if you will on the seams of each mesh that goes from the floor to the ceiling. Kind of like a cathedral ceiling. I'm having trouble figuring out what type of textures to use besides brick but from my moodboard it seems plain old concrete works wonders. They also break up the floor with more detailed extrusions which is something I also plan to do.
I'm also thinking of moving the grating at the back to allow sunlight to light up the back area and add a destroyed hole above the shrine to add more detail such as broken bricks and so on. This is thanks to someone over at TWHL who suggested the grating made no sense. I think I'll have to research sewers more before I continue.
As for why I'm never on Steam. Well, there's nothing on Steam at this moment that I need. I can't game since I have to work on my skills and chatting only gets in the way. Besides you and Wales boy are the only people I talk to on Steam anyway. How's Pipe Dream? This idea was originally for that mod.
The metal trim was just a suggestion I was making. Doing it all concrete could be fine, but if you're going to do it all concrete then I definitely think you should at least experiment with some different brick textures and styles for areas of the walls or the floor. Maybe it won't be as noticeable once you do those damage/dirt/moss blends you mentioned though.
Also I thought that the main pipe shrine had something to do with that idea you had. Should fit better in here than in the current version Pipe Dream. As for Pipe Dream itself, other than being completely restarted about 4 times since 2009 it's been on hold for a few months. I have some big plans for it in the coming months though.
I think what the scene is missing is some caustic projection on the roof, this can be achieved using a projection map (i cant think what they are called in udk) or even a custom decal if you are only using stills, but i found some software some time ago to generate caustic images for use as projection maps.
http://www.dualheights.se/caustics/
If you can achieve an effect like this:
minus the foot, (although, i dunno, some huge toes would probably look pretty bitchin)
Youve got a great foundation, the final little bits to finish it off would look awesome. Well done dude.
Point is, I think I can do it, thanks for the idea, it totally slipped my mind. Ah I didn't see your link. Totally awesome!
I think lighting is the biggest weak point at the moment, it's just not interesting enough. The giant pipe just seems a bit plain! I think a thick chunky model with some greeble art would be worth the effort :P
I like the scene, I think it needs a final push though!
Any idea how I can improve the lighting? I used these as reference for lighting ideas since sewers are normally pitch black. I made a collapsed ceiling in the chamber above to allow sunlight to shine down on to the shrine.
As for the giant pipe, I based it on this and tried to keep it in the same style as my bricks.
I added minor things like currency that the Underlings would throw on to the shrine for prayer and the symbols on the walls represent the life they once lived, the life they must live and the life they were forced to live. Each shape represents something. I'll have to do a diagram about it sometime.
Perhaps I can do some damage to one of the ceiling modular pieces and add some form of dirt to break up the samey textures. But I'm out of ideas? Any more suggestions?
Can't help much with lighting, still getting to grips with that sort of stuff :B
[ame]
Maybe that makes it a little better?
One last crit! XD I promise!
Those lights! the lightshafts are very dull, but prominent. They really catch the eye and draw attention away from the fountain!
Ace stuff!