[UDK] Beaconsfield Pub building

salacious_Crumb

Been working on this building. A London Pub.
Its getting near the end. I have a few things to finish off. The pavement needs a bit more work. The windows need to have something done (any suggestions or links on how to make windows is welcome!)



Having a few problems.
-thought I would display it at night, then the lights could cast some shadows etc.
-does anyone know how to change the Background colour in UDK? I dont like the black and would prefer grey
-having trouble with my alphas. I've set them to softmask, but the alpha is coming out either solid or transparent. On or off. How do i get a semi-transparent alpha for stains etc?
-Not sure what to do with the windows. I dont want to make an interior. I just want something vague. I could put blinds in the upper windows? But that would still leave the ground floor windows. Any suggestions or tutorials on windows?

any other crits and comments welcome!

-also, what site should I use to upload images? I've been using photobucket, and notice it is scaling my images to a max of 1024. Is there somewhere better to upload them?

aaronaton

i know its meant to be beaconsfield but...
i would like to see the brickwork plastered over and painted magnolia/white. Alot of London pubs now are turniung into bars unless you're in the East end. I think it would look tons better, give it that 'Notting Hill' look, quite a quick job also, try it out.

SaferDan

That brick texture is really noisey? Are the bricks too small as well?

You could use cube maps on the windows? Get some nice subtle reflections on them?

The only way that I know how to do get a grey background is to put a plane behind your building and render that. But there are probably a lot better ways of doing it!

Looking good though!

myles

A night version would be awesome, you could sell the look of the pub better in that lighting probably, be sure to put the lights on
- Change background colour, closest thing to do is add some fog and change some of its settings, this will give you a solid colour. Otherwise created a proper skybox, whack a little gradient on it.
- For your decals set the blending mode to transparent and put the node into Transparency rather than Mask.
- For the windows do a set of textures with curtains/ blinds/ newspaper/ boards/ lights on and then create a basic cubemap with spots of light to add fake reflection of light.

For other crits -
Top half looks unlit and painterly compared to bottom half. The red bricks are too small, too saturated and too bright. The window trims are too bright and too desaturated, I can't tell what material they are made out of. You may also want to add some more subtle decals around the bottom of the windows. The columns of bricks should probably stand out from the rest of the bricks to give the building better sense of form. Try just darkening them in the material/ vertex colours.
Most of your textures seem to have painted/ spongey grime passes on them, try using a little photo ref with localized details.

Look forward to seeing your progress on this

salacious_Crumb

aaronaton-thanks but I've gone too far to change it now. It is based on a real pub in shepherds bush, though its been renovated now.

saferdan-yeah, looks like I over tiled the bricks and made the spec noisey. Hopefully fixed it now. Going to do cubemaps soon. Need to find some tutorials to refresh my memory! Changed the window textures. Put a cube in the BG which seems to help.

Myles- thanks, the lamp lights are on casting a yellowy light, but i've brightened it for now so people can see what I'm doing. Might do a night scene, bit might leave it in daylight as everything I seem to do on my portfolio ends up dark and dreary! Fix a few of the things you mentioned, still need to sort a quite a few textures though, the trim and wall at the top for instance.


Quick update. Still a work in progress. Lots to do! Textures eg: Doors, Ground floor windows, pavement, sort out normal maps that have too much noise etc
(where should I upload my images to?- photobucket seems to crop them to 1024)

megalmn2000

There's too much noise on the windows. Also, would be good to add more shadows between the pillars. Also, darker the specular of the brick, it will looks more like the reference picture.

salacious_Crumb

Update. Got reflections on the windows. Fixing textures