working out scale of a concpet

passerby

hey just got a few questions and what approach people would think is best to work scale out on a scene.

im want to start a udk scene based on this concept by Thierry Doizon


but im not sure if im better off starting with the geometry of the room, or starting with a prop like the chair in the bottom right corner and using it to measure.

im think blocking the chair out could help since i know the half-wall is only slightly taller than the chair and that the area between the door and the half wall is about 3 chain widths wide.

anyone got suggestions on how they go about getting the scale down for scenes

CheeseOnToast

Use a human reference model in the scene. Do a blockout of the environment and get it into the target engine ASAP so you can get a player's eye view. Dependent on the game camera, you may need to overscale some items so they don;t appear tiny. For example, the scale of everyday furniture in Max Payne is about 1/3 bigger than it is in reality in order for it to look right in the third person camera. Doors often have to be a bit more generous than in real life too.

Mark Dygert

I'm a max user so I tend to use a biped scaled to whatever the default character height is for the engine/game. Source it's 72 units, Unreal tends to be 72-96.

I wouldn't build a prop and use it to scale the room, rather work the other way build the room get it right and scale the props to it, like cheese suggested. If I was to use anything for a scale marker I would use the door.

I can a pretty good sense of the room in max and get pretty close by running around in walk through mode with the safe frame turned on the render output size set to the default resolution of the engine/game. You can also link a camera to the human/biped measuring sticks head and and set one of your viewports to look out of it, this helps get a feel for the camera offset also. Wherever your measuring stick goes, there is your camera.

But nothing is quite like getting a sense of it in game with some pretty good temp lighting. It even helps to solid color fill a temp material to the pieces so you can dial in the lighting a little better. This helps later on because your then refreshing meshes and materials and just making tweaks to the lighting. Having pretty good temp lighting will help you dial in your materials as you create them.

tokidokizenzen

I agree with Cheese and Mark. Only part I disagree on is scaling to a door. Generally in games, doors are usually larger than reality.

CheeseOnToast

Only part I disagree on is scaling to a door. Generally in games, doors are usually larger than reality.

Yeah, but to make things feel right, you often have to make things bigger than they are in reality, especially if it's a third person camera.

In addition, I'd get some tiling materials in there quickly too, even if they're just crappy placeholders. Bricks/tiles etc. A simple greybox level tends to feel bigger than it does when textured. You know when you move house and empty all the human-scale crap out of it and are just left with the empty room? It always seems bigger, and not just because of all the junk you've moved out

passerby

ya i quickly made it in shitty bsp for now and already made a hardwood floor and tile materials.

will work on the wall next which will give a good idea of scale since it has that paneling which in real life should come up to almost waist height.