[STAGE] The Last Blade - Yuki-Machi Stage (Earthquake damaged) - MarkD (Vig)
mod
I love the SNK games and this is probably the hardest I've had to dig up ref for anything, what a chore, wow. At first I was thinking Samuria Shodown, then I started hunting around and there wasn't much I could find of the stages that I loved so much when I would play it, SOOoo... I went with another favorite The Last Bade.
Here are my options:
1) The Last Blade: Fort Stage
The day before the battle, nicely lined up cannons, intact tower, maybe even a fruit or fish cart where the dogs are... and of course some happy little clouds in the distance.
2) The Last Blade: Graveyard Stage
This would be converted to a summer day time scene. Tree in full bloom, green grass, and hut/temple not trashed but in good shape.
3) The Last Blade: Yuki-Machi's Stage
I would earthquake the hell out of this... I know I know I'm horrible but screw ya and your Political Correctness.
3) The Last Blade: Zantetsu's Stage (Picking this one, yes that #3)
Not sure what I would do to this one yet, maybe transform it into a sunken ship... dunno yet... but I really like it.
4) The Last Blade: Village Stage
Winterize it, probably add a village off in the distance or some other kind of focal point.
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Progress Images from oldest to newest. Check later pages for more info.
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Knocked together ref
Block out in 3dsmax
Into Source
Into UDK
UDK Progress
Finals
Beauty 1
Beauty 2
Construction
Materials
Here are my options:
1) The Last Blade: Fort Stage
The day before the battle, nicely lined up cannons, intact tower, maybe even a fruit or fish cart where the dogs are... and of course some happy little clouds in the distance.
2) The Last Blade: Graveyard Stage
This would be converted to a summer day time scene. Tree in full bloom, green grass, and hut/temple not trashed but in good shape.
3) The Last Blade: Yuki-Machi's Stage
I would earthquake the hell out of this... I know I know I'm horrible but screw ya and your Political Correctness.
3) The Last Blade: Zantetsu's Stage (Picking this one, yes that #3)
Not sure what I would do to this one yet, maybe transform it into a sunken ship... dunno yet... but I really like it.
4) The Last Blade: Village Stage
Winterize it, probably add a village off in the distance or some other kind of focal point.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Progress Images from oldest to newest. Check later pages for more info.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Knocked together ref
Block out in 3dsmax
Into Source
Into UDK
UDK Progress
Finals
Beauty 1
Beauty 2
Construction
Materials
Replies
Yea 3 and 3 are the ones I've been leaning toward. The Yuki-Machi Stage (village at night time) is the one I first thought about doing. It was just brought up that some people might have a severe reaction to earthquake damaged Japanese architecture...
Out of the two, the sunken ship seems more original. The earthquake could easily turn into yet another post apoc. scene, so the final product may come off contrived.
Ok, I'm starting to lean toward the sunken ship idea, but I'm not sure it would make much sense in a fighting game... but then again people fight on airplane wings all time so why not underwater? The fighting area might be inside a glass tank or the wreck is behind some ultra thick Plexiglas or something.
It seems like there is a lot I can do with the lighting and ambiance of the ship wreck idea.
3 it is... but I'll sleep on it and decide between the two. Thanks for the input guys!
I like pratus's idea of the ship half sunk, it does a good job of leaving it open to being a fighting stage without going super contrived to force it to make sense. But having it in the act of sinking means I miss out on things like barnacles and other encrusted bits of junk... It also stays a little too close to the source material (just add water?) so what if it ran aground a few years ago, partially submerged? I get to encrust things and it still works as a stage.
Super quick and nasty mock up, hopefully you get the point, water, encrusted stuff, caustics, god rays and old wood with a few misc props...
one of the best levels in any fighter, can't go wrong with this approach. maybe some of the crates and supplies can be floating?
Got up a little early this morning and started blocking stuff in and doing some preliminary lighting, work and life have been kicking my ass.
2D drawings don't always play by the same rules so the proportions are off, meh close enough I guess... Don't want to fall behind which I'm starting to do...
You should check out pirates of the caribbean some, might give you some ideas for the insides. I think there was a few "water" scenes in there.
Out of your ideas this is the best one. Go go power maaarkyyyy
PS: Are you planning on doing anything superawesome with the water?
I've been working:
- Water (A LOT of water work left to do).
- Some base lighting 3 lights plus some slight HDR from the skybox.
- Some tile textures just so I can do some lighting, 1 wood and 1 plank wood are applied to everything.
Probably good enough for now, need to jump back in and start modeling/detailing some of the final pieces.
With a bunch of water effects and some more debris and props this would be awesome. Are you planing something for the foreground?
And yeah, just an idea, some caustic reflections on the ceiling would look really cool.
Good luck!
edit:
http://wn.com/water_caustics_in_source
found this, just in case:)
I'm thinking of transforming it a bit, from a sunken ship to a sunken ship that was converted into a pirate base or at least a place they would stash supplies.
The stage would travel left and right and include beach/dock to the left and to the right would lead into the pirate base.
Whats left:
Unwraping and materials
Caustic effects on everything (still using just 3 place holder tiles)
Model, crows nest on a small rocky out cropping out in the water.
Model barrel (ooo thats a hard one heh)
Model cargo netting/ropes/rigging
Model light and other misc props to fill things out.
Sun Rays.
If time permits a foliage pass.
Gannon, heh thanks, hopefully I'll have time and talent to push it farther.
Going back to UDK, just can't get Source to do what I needed, and with some time spent leaning some more about UDK materials I think I might be able to finish this off in time.
I have some misc props I've modeled and textured but haven't placed yet and the crows net is all placeholder, the spec on the wood is a mess too.
Also I think I'll push the lighting more to be like what I had in source, a bit more day time, not so much orange/purple and a lot more white/light yellow.
I've learned a lot of UDK over the last few days, I'm starting to feel like I've got a better grasp on it, still so much to learn... But at least I don't have to eat up my tri budget sub-dividing meshes because the pretty lighting in Source, on imported meshes is vertex lit, only bsp brushes have lightmaps... Also I think I would rather throw myself in front of a bus than have to work with Source materials, custom water... forget it, caustics nearly impossible...
I really hope they upgraded everything for Portal2 or Half Life3 and they release a new SDK. Valve I love ya guys and I really hope you have better tools than what you've released, if not you guys deserve a lot more credit...
sculpted a quick rock in mudbox, then used object paint, to scatter one tiny 5 sided barnacle over the surface. If you saw it more up close I would probably re-unwrap and re-bake it.
Used cloth + gravity to drape the canvas over some boxes.
Changes:
- Replaced the placeholder rocks by creating a high poly rock, covering it in barnacles using object paint then baked it down.
- Did the materials for the cannon, water, sand and wood/metal tiles.
- Created the water material from scratch (still not happy with it...)
- Re-did the lighting
- Painted a new skybox (yea clouds brushes!)
- Added caustic effect, this was probably one of the easiest things to do in UDK but nearly impossible in Source...
What's left:
- Figure out why bloom/fog isn't showing up in game (only in editor right now?)
- Figure out post processing and final tri count
- Crows nest final model/mats mostly silhouette work.
- Rough up more of the broken open edges in the hull.
- String thick heavy rope along the stage between the pilings.
- Ladder & other misc props.
- Maybe a few plants ...
Looks like you're going for low poly, but if you threw a few of that higher poly version of the rock on the left foreground it would look pretty sweet.
Just a couple ideas for you, if I may:
- You could introduce more color and color contrast. Right now it looks like your light is close to white and your shadows to black.
Just in case in the view->world properties->light mass there's the environment color parameter that controls the non-direct light color tint - could be useful.
- Light contrast - for a half interior scene your environment strangely has no stark shadows, just ambient ones, which seems kind of unrealistic. If you would allows yourself some shadows and maybe place some torches around(no pirate hideout can live without 'em) it could make the scene even more interesting. Maybe even change the time of day to dusk or dawn to do play with this light/contrast and justify some strong colors.
Anyway, it's your call, buddy, looking forward to what you've got cooking!
@Hboybowen, I agree it looks like ass close up and its just barely holding up at a distance, there are a few easy tweaks I can make that will really help it along, especially if I use it up close.
@d1ver, great pointers about the lighting. It is very monochromatic right now.
I'm not sure about open torches, maybe enclosed oil lamps.
I did a quick paint over based on the feedback and I'll probably shoot for something a bit like this...
- Add a yellow/orange light for dominant sun, (so far its just ambient blue sky for the ambient light).
- Close things off a bit on the right create rock bridge from foreground over the stage, to background/crows nest.
- Add separate lighting for the inside.
Changes:
- The water was emitting light which was flooding the scene so I tweaked it and changed it but now it looks like ass and it's not catching shadows like it should.
- I added some more blocked out props (will be fleshing these out more this week).
I'm going to focus on modeling and materials for the next few days then come back to UDK and lighting. Can't do much else until I get the torches/oil lamps in place so I think those are up next.
Overall I think your foreground could stand a bit more lighting, but looking good so far!
For my first UDK scene that I did on my own, from scratch it's not too bad, for an animator... I've never really stopped loving environment art and now having a better handle on UDK I'll be doing a lot more with it.
Yeah, your knowledge is your ultimate prize.
And I'm really happy that you're gonna do more enviro stuff now.:) Looking forward to it!
d1ver thanks and I totally agree.
Since this is open again I'll post the submitted final images.
Finals
Beauty 1
Beauty 2
Construction
Materials