Sewer Tunnel W.I.P.

kkoontz17

Hey Polycount!

Would love to get feedback and advice. Here's what I've been working on...

I saw this concept image and wanted to re-imagine it in a steam punk world, playing on the ambient blues against the golden brass and fire reds. With the premise of a group of squatters looking for refuge, find it in a massive network of underground pipework. Eventually I want to use this scene to skin a level in Unreal. But the goal for this project is fine tuning my high polygon modeling and normal map generation. So any advice is very much welcomed!

Concept Sheet:



First Lighting and Geo Mock-Up:

Artist_in_a_box

Thats a pretty heavy duty mock up dude. I can't see anything to crit, it looks really interesting and busy. Once it's done I could imagine there being loads to look at.
I'm eager to see what you do with this as relates to your high poly and normal map skills, mechanical stuff is awesome. Are you gonna be using cogs like they have done in the first reference image?

re.wind

your homeless living picture with underground theme reminded me of the underground people in deus ex. Guess you're doing something right. Quite a bit of metro2033 vibes as well, but to a much lower intensity.

kkoontz17

@Artist, lol yea I'm eager to see how the high poly and normal maps come out too! I removed the cogs to implant some of the squatter assets, but nothing says steampunk like a bunch of cogs, lol. I'm contemplating using cogs attached underneath the platforms where they can be visible but not destructive to the composition.

@re.wind, thanks! yea the homeless living scene in my concept page was a screenshot from Deus Ex, I got the idea to use homeless in my scene playing through the sewers. Looking at Metro2033 now, BTW

Jessica Dinh

Block-in looks really great!

kkoontz17

Started modeling assets for the environment. The plan is still to eventually create a sewer level in UDK inspired by this scene. So I am creating each object as its own stand alone asset with a budget of no more than 5k triangles per. Here's the first, the furnace....





3DSMax, xNormal, Photoshop
4930 triangles

Will work on the platforms and adding the gears and cogs to them next
Thanks!!!

chrisradsby

Sweet! Looking forward to this one. I'd try to work a little bit more on the composition, you're well on your way but save that angle if you can and try some new ones with the same kind of style. Try to put a simple grid in there and work with the rule of thirds maybe.

Maybe something like this?


This could be really awesome!

kkoontz17

Funny how we can overlook the basics, lol. I think this composition will allow for a more intense color and value contrast b/w foreground and background. I'll still play with it as I add in more assets.



Thanks!!!

konstruct

Oh man I loooooove tube environments

Its looking really nice composition wise- The 6 sided pipes however are kind of an eye sore. If this if just intended as a portfolio piece I`d say crank your smoothing up a tad as its looking a little old school.

NordicNinja

konstruct wrote: »

Oh man I loooooove tube

Sorry I couldn't hep it! :poly136:

Sweet block-in. It looks like your getting some distortion in your normal maps. Looks like you've got a bit of wavy gravy similar to the nastiness talked about here. -> http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap?highlight=%28%5CbCategoryTexturing%5Cb%29#Solving_Wavy_Lines

Are all of the rivets supposed to be the same size and shape? They are looking a little distorted as well.

Orgoth02

Hey man the scene is coming along. I few things wanted to point out. I looks like some of your bolts are ob-longed shaped. This is due to your low poly uvs not being uniformed. Make sure you get good bevels on your highpoly objects. Right now vertical bands on your furnace are barley reading and once you put a diffused texture on, it is going to be even harder to see.

Go over the stuff in that Normal Map wiki that NordicNinja linked. I think a lot of the questions you had can be answered here.

Also take a look at this plugin shader for viewing your objects if you are working in Max.
http://www.3pointstudios.com/3pointshader_about.shtml

Keep at it!

kkoontz17

Sorry for the delay, but many thanks for all the feedback and the reading!!! (oh god the reading my eyes are bleeding!) But it all definitely helped in the end. Here's the rework with what I've picked up so far. Still haven't applied a normal detail pass to it yet (i.e. scratches and such) but it is on the plate.

Wanted to exaggerate the AO a bit as part of the overall art style in order to achieve the high value contrast look which I believe will help sell the narrative and the setting. I did an Occlusion pass and used the red channel of the Convexity map (XNormal) for both the assembled and exploded projections and combined all four to create the AO map.

Jessica Dinh

omgg I am in love with those stove-thingies - color, super intense ao, lighting, everything! I agree with konstruct about the blocky pipe/cables on the right side of the piece, I would give them some more loops. I love the composition in this piece!

Joseph Silverman

This is very cool! Makes NO SENSE how a person would nagivate it, but looks awesome. Reminds me a bit of Enslaved!

kkoontz17

Thanks a ton Jessica!!!, yea I upped the polys on the pipes on my rework, and as I start building out my assets I'll do the same with the rest of them.

@SupRore, yea looked at it from a composition point of view but I'm actually tackling the platforms next and how to make some sense out of it, lol. I just wanted to get a handle on my pipeline first. Thanks for the feedback.