[Unity] Post Rain Street Scene

WetWired

So after my Unity Sci Fi Bridge Scene I was keen to create something new in Unity. I decided on creating a street scene in Unity set at night just after a rain storm has passed. The plan is to have everything slick and shiny, steam rising from vents, trickles of water running down walls and puddles of water in the street.

I'm not used to sharing work in progress publicly but I've been pushed by a few people into it :P Bear with me here...

I'm keen to try and create something a bit different from most game scenes, it's going to be pretty clean and modern. I'm taking a lot of inspiration from the city set scenes in The Matrix, the nighttime streets scenes in The Dark Knight Chicago post modern design and one building in particular.


State Law Building, Brisbane by Oriolus84, on Flickr

This building is my main inspiration, it's called the "State Law Building" but local Brisbane people will probably recognize it as the "Batman Building" or "Gotham Tower"

Depending on how I go for time I may end up just doing this one building and variations of it...but we'll see.

Another main goal of mine with the buildings is to try get away from the flat empty facades of buildings many games have, while some of them look bloody awesome, most of them feel empty and unlived in with either dark textured windows that you can't see in to or if it's night time a generic bright glow coming from within.

So to begin with here's my surfacing and facade\interior test video

I recommend watching these in HD

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGlwbnjQGAs"]25/10/11 Work In Progress 1: Facade and Surfacing Test[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLO3u21AzT0"]31/10/11 Work In Progress 2: Road Decals and Wet Surfaces[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFtsXfUv58"]6/11/11 Work In Progress 3: City Skyline and FX Tests[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWnPG-zn2dw"]13/11/11 Work In Progress 4: Minor Polish and Camera Tests[/ame]

Nothing is final yet so I'm open to suggestions, critiques and if anyone has any tutorials or workflows to point me towards that they think is useful it would be much appreciated.

In particular I'm interested in any techniques for wet surface (water streams, puddles etc) texturing and road creation (at the moment I've done a few tests with decals which are briefly visible in the video above.

Minos

That looks fantastic!

felipefrango

This is indeed very cool, wanna see more.

WetWired

That's all I've got for the time being, my next step is to work on the road treatment

WetWired

A brief update, I've been working on the wet road textures along with decals for road lines\symbols and sewer grates etc. Pretty happy with the result so far, I need work on the gutters and little ramps at pedestrian crossings as well as laying out the decals for the roads themselves.

This is just a shot of the grating decal page, I've half laid out the road lines one in the distance.



If enough people are interested I'll take another little video clip of it in motion.

ES_139

yes definitely continue posting updates, it looks great!
(if you wanted to add any breakdown images of your models etc that would be cool)

explodingseashells

haha instantly recognized that building! I went to uni a few blocks from there :P Looking great cant wait to see more

Mr_Drayton

Everything looks fantastic. Keep up the work!

Skibur

Hehe, the Batman building. I drive past it every day

felipefrango

I assume the grates decal is just an alpha blended/sorted plane? Looks great. And that reflection is awesome too, you're using a cubemap or is it something fancier?

WetWired

Yeah it's just an Alpha Test plane.

It's a cubemap with a few other bits and pieces thrown on it, I'm actually using a shader pack from the Unity Asset Store called "Hard Surface Shader Pack"

It's mainly meant for metals etc but I repurposed it for the wet road effects. it's got a cubemap reflection as well as a fresnel reflection to accentuate the effect at a distance.

When I find some time and I'm don't feel like making anything I will breakdown some of the models and textures.

dinfet

WetWired wrote: »

A brief update, I've been working on the wet road textures along with decals for road lines\symbols and sewer grates etc. Pretty happy with the result so far, I need work on the gutters and little ramps at pedestrian crossings as well as laying out the decals for the roads themselves.

This is just a shot of the grating decal page, I've half laid out the road lines one in the distance.



If enough people are interested I'll take another little video clip of it in motion.

Sorry I have a newbish question, how are the street lines done? Are they just a flat plane with an opacity map? Or some other way?

WetWired

Here's an example of the decal texture pages, the road markings one just uses the same normal map as the road. They're both alpha test/cutout. I did have some good results with decal cracks and damage states for the road as a test but I may have to hold off on those for the time being and come back to them later if I feel it needs it, still got soooo much work to do on this scene.

Electro

Lookn good!

Best way I've found to do damage/puddles etc. on roads, is to blend between 4 vertex colours for the 4 textures. Line markings as floating geometry is definitely the way to go too.

Good job so far, moremore!

WetWired

Another video update, Week 2. I'm gonna try and do these weekly as a way of mini milestones, try and have something new to show off each week. I imagine as I near completion these will die off though.

I recommend watching in HD
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLO3u21AzT0"]31/10/11 Work In Progress 2: Road Decals and Wet Surfaces[/ame]

I've done a lot of work on the decals and wet road textures, also laid out a rough street in the composition I think I'll go for using the same building repeated. I've also blocked out the top of the building, I need to finish and texture it.

I threw in some lights and flares to simulate what it might look like when I eventually get some street lights made as well.

felipefrango

Bitchin'.

WetWired

Ok I wasn't going to post any new stuff for another week but I need some input, I've grabbed some free trees and a lamppost from the asset store to try and test a few ideas for composition of the scene, I want to replace them with my own models but I just wanted something temp to mess around with.

So the question is, Trees or no trees? (see the video I've already posted for the no tree version) I'm a bit torn myself as it does as some needed depth to the scene but does it lose some of it's mood and coldness by doing so?

explodingseashells

i like the trees, especially the rich green ones on the left.

WetWired

I was thinking maybe I could wrap lights (like fairy lights as they're called here in Australia) but I think that might conflict too much with the tone of the scene

WetWired

Watch in HD

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFtsXfUv58"]6/11/11 Work In Progress 3: City Skyline and FX Tests[/ame]

Week 3 progress update, not quite as happy with this one for some reason, maybe I've been staring at it too long, anyone got any suggestions?

aajohnny

For some reason that looks like GTA IV lol... It needs cars!. Keep up the good work.

kirtalvin

Wow! Very impressive my friend. I think I just gained some newly acquired respect for unity because of you

WetWired

I'd like to have cars but it's going to eat up all of what little time I have if I start modelling a couple of cars.

theStoff

really cool, I'm impressed

haiddasalami

Hey Wet. Nice stuff in here, quick question. Are the interior of the buildings modeled in or are you doing something shader wise like an interior mapping shader.

Gallows

Holy inspirational. This kind of stuff makes me want to fire Unity up and tinker around. You absolutely nailed the design of that building. I'm assuming the buildings around are just place holders? Are you planning on creating a few more detailed ones close by to give the viewer more of a variation and just use the place holders for the background?

WetWired

haiddasalami wrote: »

Hey Wet. Nice stuff in here, quick question. Are the interior of the buildings modeled in or are you doing something shader wise like an interior mapping shader.

They are modeled, super low poly (50-60 tris per room) with alpha test billboard chairs, plants, water coolers and really basically modeled desks and cubicals using the same textures on the walls. They're also completely unlit and I've painted some lighting into the wall, ceiling and floor textures

Gallows wrote: »

Holy inspirational. This kind of stuff makes me want to fire Unity up and tinker around. You absolutely nailed the design of that building. I'm assuming the buildings around are just place holders? Are you planning on creating a few more detailed ones close by to give the viewer more of a variation and just use the place holders for the background?

The ones around it are identical for the time being, I'd like to do completely unique ones but it depends how I go for time, I may end up leaving the current one as a the hero building and just knocking up some quick variations using the same textures.

I keep debating which way to go with it, on one hand I only really need 1 or 2 screenshots for my folio and enough to warrant a 1 minute video (I like to keep them short and punchy) so any extra work seems like a waste if it's not going to be seen much.

On the other hand a complete street with unique buildings would be nice to do over the long term.

But at the moment I'm leaning towards quick variations in the same scheme, I'm thinking I should probably do some mobile quality work next to fill a bit of a gap in my folio.

WetWired

I've been a bit slack this week, but I thought I'd show an small update, it's not finished but I figured this was decent enough to add to my folio so I've added it here as well.

Improved lighting, skydome and city framing, added some effects to the building top, some post effect tweaks.

Shogun3d

Fantastic work!

Keg

One thought I have is with the road and the reflections. The lane markers and such on the road normally don't show through rain puddles so well. Right now they look like they're sitting on top of the reflections.

WetWired

Well technically they are floating above the road at the moment, because they're decals. I should be able to fix that though, thanks for spotting it.

chrisavigni

Once again killer stuff!

Ehsan Gamer

Nice Job .

How did you made he glow light for lamppost ?

WetWired

Do you mean the glow around the bulb or the shaft of light projected from it?

The bulb is a standard unity lens flare type, with some slight modifications.

The shaft of light is actually a particle effect, large particles spawn at the ground level and shrink as they move up to make the cone\shaft shape. Not the cheapest of solutions but it was quick to knock up.

WetWired

This will probably be the last video update for a while, I need to stop spending so much time making videos and more time modelling and polishing. Only minor updates this week, plus a first pass at the camera and editing. I like to keep the final videos short at about 1 min.

Watch in HD
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWnPG-zn2dw"]13/11/11 Work In Progress 4: Minor Polish and Camera Tests[/ame]


Here's a small todo list of things I want to try and get done for this:

- Fix dodgy mapping on the front of the building (water running sideways, upside down)
- Create new trees (current ones are unity standard issue)
- Metal grates around the base of the trees
- Light fixtures on the building, sidewalk (lights come from nowhere currently)
- Remake all street and traffic lights (the current ones I didn't make and are placeholder)
- Create trashcans, bus stops, rubbish piles.
- Possibly make a blowing newspaper particle effect
- improve end cityscape, fill gaps, low poly streets below, better low poly building models
- Tone back either the amount of street lights or their cone effect, I think I may have overdone it (Yes\No?)
- Some different high detail buildings for the street, they're currently the same one duplicated.
- Fix Z-Fighting inside of interior office rooms (noticeable on the last shot)
- Improved bottom floor facade, possible even make a low poly interior inside like the office rooms (thoughts?)
- *Maybe* buy a unity shader pack that will allow me to have realtime reflections instead of cubemaps on the road.
-*Maybe* add some cars off in the distance, going around corners, nothing close up. I have a couple of cars a friend gave me from a model pack, I'm iffy about using them though so if I do I won't be focusing on them as I want my work to be the focus of this scene.
-*Maybe* wait for Unity 3.5 to be released with directional lightmaps, a big gap in it's current features. If you want to see your normal maps you need to use realtime lights. Everything just goes flat if it's baked currently.


I've probably forgotten a ton of things but if anyone has feedback now is the time to let me know of any dodgy stuff I have on show here, as well as thoughts of the current cut\edit of the scene.

Neox

nice work so far! but what i feel is somewhat sad is, the super harsh break between the lit rooms and the unlit ones, open some doors to let the light walk through the building!

WetWired

I could knock up darker, but still lit room to help break it up fairly easily. I may even be able to use the current ones but have it lit rather than full bright unlit like the current ones.

Neox

yeah its just about slight variations, not everyone cloeses all doors, not every floor is built the same the interiours might be different as might be the walls, so one story could be just one room lit, another could be one with an openeded door beside it, maybe even the next room beside that room with an open door, the next one could just be made with cubicles. right now it just feels a bit too artificial and staged with those super hard bright and dark defined areas.

Rick_D

Neox wrote: »

nice work so far! but what i feel is somewhat sad is, the super harsh break between the lit rooms and the unlit ones, open some doors to let the light walk through the building!

this is a great idea.

also, about the trees, why not have some leafless trees instead, or a very few orange/brown/red leaves

WetWired

Yeah the light spilling in from another room may not be feesible, since they're full bright and unlit...I'll look into it though, it's just going to kill performance if I have to fully light the interiors, but maybe I can get away with it for some of the lower down hero rooms.

I have to do some research into what type of trees to use actually, something frequently seen in US cities like Chicago and New York.

Neox

hm unlit should not be a huge problem, would it? you could just bake the lighting down, even into vertexcolours might work well enough

WetWired

There's not enough verts to bake light spilling in from a door way (the rooms are literally cubes) but I think I can figure something out to get a bit more variety, have some back lit rooms with the verts on different sides paint and fading away. That on top of a few actually lit hero rooms and hopefully that should be enough to break the binary nature of the current ones

AuntieJamima

Hey WetWired it looks fantastic! Do you have any advice on how you UV'ed/Textured your buildings? Im working on a city for a student senior project (using unity, maya, photoshop) and have a lot of questions of how people make their textures modular, or how you laid out the patterns in your buildings so that they didn't look so "patterned". This whole texturing for games is somewhat throwing me for a loop because Im constantly thinking I need to keep the smallest size texture for the most amount of objects in order for it to run smoothly for our game, and where is the line of quality vs efficiency... What do you suggest as a resource for such questions?... sorry to come off as all noobish and such

WetWired

I'd show you my main texture page but it's not full at the moment, but basically I have the windows as one tiled texture which only has 2 window panels on it. This is because it has the cubemapped reflection on it. The main texture page is an assortment of all the panels (the greeny\blue bits) on the facade, mapped to quads.

It's a very particular style of building I'm doing though and I don't know if that way would work with a more traditional building with less glass.

Thegodzero

Sick man! Looks a lot like something i worked on a few years ago.

WetWired

Nothing exciting to add today, just some tests for some water beading using a refraction shader.



Have 2 lots of big news regarding this scene coming up though.

MrHobo

This really looks amazing. A good compromise on the trees would be adding tress with no leaves. It would still feel foreboding but retain the depth.

WetWired

So here's some of the news I said was coming, this work-in-progress scene is now featured on the Unity 3D Engine Pro features page, both in screenshot form and in the "Brilliant artwork made easy" post effects demonstration video at the bottom.

Unity Pro Features: Quality