UDK - modular wip
polycounter lvl 5
hello you guys, its me again 
modular time! ive seen way many modular works on portfolios around, so i thought it would be a good idea to work my skills out with the tech. first approach to it (as i had mostly modelled internal scenes, with no need for modular more than some bsp's with seamless tileable textures).
so, as always, cnc's are more than welcome. feel free to shoot
remember its still very early wip, its only the fa
modular time! ive seen way many modular works on portfolios around, so i thought it would be a good idea to work my skills out with the tech. first approach to it (as i had mostly modelled internal scenes, with no need for modular more than some bsp's with seamless tileable textures).
so, as always, cnc's are more than welcome. feel free to shoot
remember its still very early wip, its only the fa
Replies
Also I can see some places where geo doesn't meet, so make sure you use snaps in max when you are making this, and keep grid snaping on in UDK most of the time on to avoid those .
the uv's ill post later on.
next time i do it i will do it with blender. best uv mapping tool out there in my opinion.
i was using pixplant, a freeware similar to crazybump, but as i discovered now that i downloaded the demo version of crazy bump, so much inferior to it as regards output quality.
made some changes to texture and materials, as soon as i get a satisfactory result ill be updating the topic. as of now im modelling some props for the scene, guessing ill be making a full scene out of this test. hopefully something good comes out
But crazybump it's a powerful tool also.
It's going pretty cool mate! Keep it up!
Cheers!
updating. skydome texture still a placeholder, guess that will be the last thing ill add, as some sort of final touch. sidewalk is a placeholder too, as i want everything in the scene to be modelled and textured by me (the sidewalk is an Epic mesh).
crits are more than welcome
edit: how i hate Zfighting...:shifty:
i thought about doing it that way, but the workflow i was following wouldnt allow me to do that any easy(i started off from the diffuse texture - which were some reference pictures - tweaked it as i wanted, made the diffuse map and extruded/modelled/detached pieces from it in max).
next time i guess ill be going for the high poly normals. way better details
sure, will do it and post a screengrab here. hang on.
there it goes, the front grab with human references for size:
Also, running your diffuse through whatever to get the normals/spec is giving a very poor result that, just by me seeing it, employers can tell you don't have a hireable command of current generation materials.
The scene's not bad, but getting a better handled on these materials is either going to destroy everything you make until you learn it or you can get it right now.
goodness, hadnt noticed it was that evident the tiling :poly102: now that i looked, indeed its terrible...
about the normal/spec maps, will change it. lets see what comes out
edit: turns out that if im to get better mats, it would be easier to start from scratch with the project. well, better having a good project in a long term than a bad project in a short time. will update ASAP, with everything done properly
You can also think about decals (dirt, graffiti,...) for the bricks, it's a cool way to avoid the tiling.
I got an example of modular building on my website (made with painted bricks from CGtexture, google, my camera...)
http://www.wix.com/victorsantos3d/portfolio#!__portfolio---gallery
It's something I learned from the modular building training from 3D motive, I strongly recommend this video-tutorial, it's cheap and efective.
Keep it up buddy!!
Indeed Victor, i was think of adding it all AFTER having built the whole structure. thats why it might have this tiled look for now.
but nevermind, i started from scratch, changing the direction of the scene a bit. as soon as i get something solid, ill update the thread. this time with no crazybump maps
as regards the 3dmotive tuto, you read my mind, thats what im using hahaha
i recommend it too, its perfect.
PS: wonderful portfolio, congratulations on it
indeed visceral, you got the point. as i said, im redoing it all. normal and spec all redone, by hand. as soon as i get the model ready i post it here
whoa, thats really helpful, thanks!
got it all done, new modular assets, good normals and spec (at least i think theyre good hahaha), all done and imported to UDK.
and it was then that my pc decided to give up :S whenever i try to turn it on, i get a SVChost message, and it freezes.
managed to save everything i wanted in a folder, will pass it to an external HD and reformat my system
guess its gonna take a bit longer for me to update the thread... but i will. as soon as i get back to work, will update you guys, cant wait to receive all those heartwarm drits from you all hahahah
until then, keep up the good work you all
since it is a svchost error message it is prolly a bad system service.
so if you can start in safe mode than run services.msc and disable the problem causer it should get you back up and running.
might be a solution, gonna give it a shot
posting from a cyber cafe, just to say that i tried the safe mode thing, but it didnt work.
well actually it was a bit of my fault, as i couldnt find the svc process among so may of them lol :S
so im reformatting it all. saved the folders i wanted to (30 giga of 3D lol), and will be back in action as soon as the dude is done with the service.
be talking (and posting) here again soon, until then, rock on :P
well actually a other good thing to do now that your doing a reinstall is on the partition with the OS only keep things like applications that things you can easily reinstall later and keep all of your projects and data on a different drive or partition.
been doing that for years it is makes things go smoother when windows is bugging out on you since i can just formate the windows drive an not have to worry about doing big backups or data loss.
CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE, GOTTA MODEL SOMETHING, AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH xD
me needs it
your going to be fighting obvious tiling on a larger mod scene enough when all your texture space contains unique textures, so have repeats in the textures in your texture flat will just make that worse.
also a other way to add better normal information between the grout and the bricks is to use select co lour range to try to isolate the grout in your selection, than filling that selection with black on a white BG and fixing any errors with a normal brush. after you got that you can blur it a bit to get some gradient info into it and than use a normal filter like NDO or crazybump on that.
if you wanted too after you made the the image i explained you could fill certain bricks with differnt shades of grey than do a normal filter to make height difference between bricks.
i cant believe im fully back at work
anyway, as i said im back, whats better than posting the so promised revamped work. its the same modular thing, so i decided to use this same thread. but i decided to change the theme, and went for something nicer. will be posting the maps tomorrow so you guys can tell if they're good (nothing done using crazybump: all handmade by me. normals extracted from hi-polies in zbrush).
well, enough rambling, there you go the first screengrab so far. as always, crits, opinions, comments, yadda-yadda and whatever are more than welcome
cheers y'all
scale:
will be posting the tex maps and some stand-alone props as soon as i can. rock on
edit: the black grainy stain on the bottom of the first pic is udk related, nothing to do with texturing. and oh, the sky and the sidewalk will be replaced by something made by me, as well as the tiled textures on the building walls will have more decals covering them so to avoid the tiling effect.
still have to add some buildings, decals and some variation... and some post process obviously.
crits are more than welcome, mainly at this point where i getting out of ideas of what to place in the scene (looking just for the environment, so no organic modelling).
cheers
still adding fog and some other stuff on plans.
zebra crossing, sewer lids, lighting improved, shadows, posters, texture love :poly128:, and some other stuff i might've forgotten.
crits are appreciated
im just over with my exams today, so ill be dedicating more time to this project. hope something good comes out of it
crits are welcome
trying to give the scene some variety, getting out of the "cubic buildings and flat street". next things are some wires, electricity panels, building numbers, and (if i manage to, always had problems modelling them) cars. crits are mostly appreciated. fire at will :P
thanks for making me notice it
still to fix the stretching bricks. will be doing it tonight
when im done with ps, i import the sheet to 3dsmax, and extract the meshes from the textures (extruding, adding geometry, lines, etc)
when its all set, i export the meshes and the texture sheets (diff, spec and normal, usually) into udk. there i create the material with all the expressions, adding the necessay extras to it.
thats basically it.
fixing lighting
cola wall ad, random props, fillers, and stuff.
using june 11 udk's skysphere with procedural mixed with my old tweaked skydome texture. moving clouds really, REALLY rock. haha
tried to improve the lighting too, guess its coming a lot better than before.
plans:
1) add wires to those utility poles
2) add something in the area where the cola ad is (a parking lot? children stuff, like swings etc? an abbandoned construction site? what do you guys thinkn would fit better?)
3) MOAR BUILDINGS
crits at will
to do's:
electric cables
random graffiti and sticks/posters
buildings in the background (still thinking if adding them in the skysphere as a texture, or modelling something simple and fogging it).