City Parking lot scene
Ok, i've been messing around recently in UDK thinking of something to do, so far i've made some jungle planets etc and a small jungle scene but i've always had this idea of a city scape scene during a conflict thats been at the back of my mind.
So far i've got the basic layout done just using brushes in UDK, with 2 props made that are finished quality.
The influences i've had for this are all the modern wartime games, MW2/BO/Crisis 2/Battlefield 3 etc.
I had actually made the tank first about a year back in 3DS max, but now decided to give it a more larger home and to practice environment modelling on a more real scale.
here are the props and the layout so far:
So far i've got the basic layout done just using brushes in UDK, with 2 props made that are finished quality.
The influences i've had for this are all the modern wartime games, MW2/BO/Crisis 2/Battlefield 3 etc.
I had actually made the tank first about a year back in 3DS max, but now decided to give it a more larger home and to practice environment modelling on a more real scale.
here are the props and the layout so far:
Replies
Drop a robot skeletal mesh in the game without scaling it, or make a box about 36x36x96. This will give you an idea on what to base everything off of when you place props in the scene and model your items. You can also export your BSP brushes as .OBJ to bring a reference into Maya, Max, or whatever you use.
Last thing I would recommend is go into a little more detail with your block out before you model more objects, cut out the inside of your car garage to get an idea of the size you need to make your props. Nothing worse then making a cool prop only to realize that it is way to small or way to big.
Oh and a little tip, instead of dropping lights in your scene and fighting lighting in your early stages, if you go to world properties you can set the shadow color to something other then black so you can see you scene even with no lights.
Good luck.
keep on, might become something really good.
The base layout is just a firsrt crude idea of the area. I'll make a mock-up of the area and post it up later tonight with alot more placeholder props etc.
I also hate using the brush blocks for modelling i know some people use them (also kind of new to UDK, been using it for the past few months now, are those blocks called BSPs?) so i'll be making the buildings using modular meshes and other parts to give me better control of how i want things to work and also keeps the workflow familiar.
I've looked at a few examples around new york city to incoprate certain aspects and parts into the scene, the main things i'm aiming to include are dumpsters, the lamp posts, possibly a fire escape aswell as perhaps a trashed car. The staircase on the side of the building is simply a place holder at the moment, it will be replaced by a static mesh iron steps with a hand rail.
I'm also going to be adding a few fences and maybe a power transformer close by with plenty of piping and probably some hanging wires to give it a bit more detail.
The theming i've got my eyes set on for the surrounding areas are mainly grey concrete with painted sections, pale green/red paint etc with it falling/chipping off the walls. Another part to give more authenticity will be vandalism which will include graffiti (these will most likely be through decals) and also rubble and damaged property since its set in a conflict.
The position of the tanks isn't final at the moment, as well as the fence at the back being a place holder until i create a propper referenced fence to match the setting.
I've now started work on the main sections of the environment, the first building is nearly complete, the roof and walls are done with the steps almost finished aswell (just need to add a custom collision mesh to them) and make some air ducts to run across the roof to give it a bit more variation.
I'm wondering how i'm gonig to go about texturing the ground plane, my first thought was to have multiple tiling textures in the material with overlays coupled with alot of decals to for various props such as manhole covers, oil, tire marks and of course the parking spaces which gives me alot of free roam where i want to place those.
Nifty tank by the way.
Now that i think of it, the terrain will work very nicely if i can get the blending working right.
Also i think the tank still needs a bit more work, the rear area of it is still a bit too brigh, needs more oily/black blotches on the grates, their a bit clean at the moment compared to the dirt on the rest of it.
the first building is only missing a door now and a few roof top accessories so i've moved onto creating another building before i get too carried away with the smaller stuff.
This building so far is only 2 objects, the window and a wall unit. I'm also going to create a square pillar for the corners and use the same asset to create some beams running horizontally acrros the side of the same building. still need to look at more reference material to figure out what else can make it better, i'm thinking some kind of wall mounted machine/fan or something like that, as well as more decals for signs, graffiti, damage etc.
The windows are refcleting the scene using a cube map, hence the overly blue reflections.
I've also gone with the terrain approach for the ground, it uses 3 textures, 2 new concrete ones and the 3rd is the same material used for the roof of the first building. the parking spaces have come out nicely, using decals and a custom brush i made a while ago. I've also made a manhole cover using the NY covers as a reference, currently their spec might be a bit high.
the main adition now is some grass (already made that a few weeks ago) and the dumpster which i've just finished after a couple of hours building that up:
I did think about creating some graffiti decals too that could be duplicated around the scene however i've shunned that idea as graffiti tends to stick in your mind once you see it and with it being a relatively small scene, seeing the same graffiti art twice won't look good.
I've updated the dumpsters, although the front scuff marks are still part of the main diffuse texture, i've added a decal to the front to help mix it up a bit. I've also removed all of the signs from the dumpster diffuse map, and made 3 decal materials using the textures i think they're 128 in size, can't remember will have to check. This has given me more variation in their placement, and also i can add them to various other dumpsters if i get round to making different kinds in another area.
The door on the smaller building is now in, most of this is reused textures from other concrete sections, but i've done it in a way that makes it diffuclt to spot the similarities, except for the door frame which uses the same concrete as the wall its on. Quite pleased with the way this has come out.
the grass i've changed to be flat planes and added alot more so that i can give it a bit more depth, i've also made some more decals for some paper lying around, will be making some carboard boxes soon aswell.
The main addition for this one though is the new building. Th bottom concrete slabs are just duplicates of the large building already present, but the new building uses a tiling brick texture that i spent most of today on. To aid in hiding the seems of the tiled bricks, i've made a large decal to cover the whole wall with white grunge marks which have worked a treat, the lighting also helps to add variation. It still far from finished though, still have windows to add and some other accessories, probably wires, a fuse box/thing and most probably some guttering.
Here are some more updates. I have a fence in place now aswell as the windows on the brick building. These windows dont have their own texture yet, so stay tuned.
The lamps are also in, they do seem a bit too "nice" for a place such as this so i'll either make them a bit more rusty or damaged in appearance or i'll have the overall scene a bit more "nicer" still got alot left to do so time will tell.
I've also made another building again i'm unsure wether to have windows in this one or not. With them it'll look like some kind of commercial business building or possibly the back end of a bank, without them it appears more like a multi-story carpark.