What engine should I use to create backgrounds?

Matellis

Hey guys!

First post in these forums, how is everyone doing?

I have a question and I hope someone can help me out. I do matte paintings and I plan on transfering those skills into games, I want to create 2.5D backgrounds in the same vain as the reference I posted below and I am wondering what would be the best game engine to test them out in?

I know most around can probably do it but I want something with a not so steap learning curve and ease of use. I downloading the new UDK and cry engine but rather then trying to learn both I am hoping that someone with experience could let me know.

Thanks!

Dan!

hey man, welcome! Are you interested more in the movement of the piece or the 3d objects in the scene? your skills are great enough that I feel you could use a program like aftereffects or flash to create a parallax effect. Similar to how some companies create teasers/trailers like guildwars

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjXoEUYrN3A[/ame]

Matellis

Thanks for the comment Dan! and thank you for taking the time to look at my work, glad you like it *edit* I just took a look at your work, nice stuff! I am just starting to really get into 3D now so it is nice to see some more work, I look forward to being apart of this community.

Sorry I may have not made sense with my original post. Actually what my plan is, is to create backgrounds people would see during gameplay. For example what I plan on doing for one mod is to create just a basic rooftop that you can walk on in the game engine and while you are their walking around you will be able to see the hopefully epic background. I plan on sending these small mods to game developers.

Ghostscape

Personally I'd spend more time learning UDK, as both of these engines have relatively steep learning curves, but Unreal is much more widely adopted.

Once you've learned the concepts behind each, you'll be able to learn additional engines more easily, but in the interim I think it is most beneficial to learn UDK so you can get up to speed on something that is more widely adopted, so you'll be more likely to move directly into a studio using the engine you're familiar with.

I'm personally unfamiliar with the amount of documentation available for CE, but UDK has a tremendous amount and a much larger user base creating additional tutorials, etc - learning a piece of software on your own, especially at the conceptual stage rather than the button-pushing stage (ie, learning to model vs. learning Maya), going with the more heavily adopted one is going to result in more people and more documentation to refer to for learning.

Matellis

Thanks Ghostscape,

You sold me, I will start reading up on UDK asap and I look forward to getting input from you guys once I get started and something to post. Busy with freelance right now so it might be a while.

Thanks again for your help guys!!

ndchristie

Are you looking to create backdrops, such as skies, distant landscapes and such? If so, you can experiment with how things like skyboxes/skydomes are projected, and you'll be ready to start painting in no time. Skyboxes are much much easier to wrap your head around, but skydomes are becoming more prevalent. google for tutorials on baking them, and experiment with how your painting translates to a 3D object.

Xoliul

Oh man, cool that you want to try this. I "sort of" did something in this sense with my GZ81 spaceship environment: http://www.laurenscorijn.com/portfolio/gz81
Tried to copy Halo Reach's space level a bit (if you haven't played that game yet, do so, it's got amazing backdrops). I felt limited by my painting skills though, so should be cool to see what you can come up with as a skilled painter!

and regarding UDK or Cryegnine: I'd go for UDK. While there's less of an "instant awesome" going on there, it does allow for more customization (shaders specifically) which should be helpful when doing special backgrounds.

Ask ahead if you have any more questions!

Matellis

ndchristie: That is exactly what I want to do, just added checking out how to create sky boxes on the list. Thanks you for the information, really looking forward to learning this.

Xoliul: Just checked out your work, great stuff man, I would like to pick your brain a bit about how you did it sometime, if you use google+ let me know.

I have been playing halo ever since it was released, its actually the reason I got interested in creating work for games, just created a matte painting for the halo fan film Operation Chastity and I think the matte might be in this months xbox mag, didnt read it yet though.

I did make one multiplayer map for Reach if you want to check it out [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cWyENjEXXw"]here[/ame]. Ingor the video quality haha But I have made some changes to the map and hope to repost it soon.

Thanks again guys! very helpful

Xoliul

Hey man, I looked for your site in your profile but it's down atm? Your work did show up on some other sites, pretty impressive! Really makes me excited to see what you can do
Sure you can contact me, msn, gtalk, google+, it's all bound to my one, single email address; you can find it on my website. Always nice to talk to quality people
And hah, pointing out Halo Reach to you while you do fan-work of that calibre, durrr :P