[UDK] Environment Art - Lost Island WIP
polycounter lvl 7
Hi all, This is my first UDK Environment.
I have built everything from scketch using PS, Maya, Zbrush, Pixplant, and UDK.
The main goal has been to learn the basics that covers a playable environment with today´s quality estandards, or at least the most i could get from UDK with DX9.
Secondaries are to develop workflows that end in UDK content, undestand UDK and videogame art; and make something like a"decent" demo-reel.
The map itself is really small. One small island (the main) surrounded by other far islands.
To expand the island space, I designed a system of caverns that end at one small cenote.
This proyect still WIP but is in the final stage, this is why I decided to post some screenshots and get ideas on finishing touches.
The cool part is that in this proyect I used a lot Maya, PS, Zbrush, so I keep practicing and even I learn a lot of new stuff, while I were learning how to use UDK
So, commentaries and critics are all welcome.
Exteriors:
Into the cave ...
Going deep into ..
Arriving to the cave main room.
Cenote and water flows and other fx
General view from under waterfall
Hope you like it!, and it serves as inspiration, too.
And if you could help me with ideas (like: may need something here better, or a light there, .. or whatever), will be very apreciated !!
I have built everything from scketch using PS, Maya, Zbrush, Pixplant, and UDK.
The main goal has been to learn the basics that covers a playable environment with today´s quality estandards, or at least the most i could get from UDK with DX9.
Secondaries are to develop workflows that end in UDK content, undestand UDK and videogame art; and make something like a"decent" demo-reel.
The map itself is really small. One small island (the main) surrounded by other far islands.
To expand the island space, I designed a system of caverns that end at one small cenote.
This proyect still WIP but is in the final stage, this is why I decided to post some screenshots and get ideas on finishing touches.
The cool part is that in this proyect I used a lot Maya, PS, Zbrush, so I keep practicing and even I learn a lot of new stuff, while I were learning how to use UDK
So, commentaries and critics are all welcome.
Exteriors:
Into the cave ...
Going deep into ..
Arriving to the cave main room.
Cenote and water flows and other fx
General view from under waterfall
Hope you like it!, and it serves as inspiration, too.
And if you could help me with ideas (like: may need something here better, or a light there, .. or whatever), will be very apreciated !!
Replies
Fixed!
you don't have a matching ground texture blending with your grass meshes, or I think you should completely remove your current grass texture (to produce this look: http://www.capecodphotoalbum.com/swanriverdunes.jpg ). I also think the grass looks too dark and saturated, i'm not sure if you have reference you're following, but dune/sand grass is usually more desaturated/yellow toned.
Well it was done with the intention to add some extra feel of humidity into the cave, may I need to reduce gloss.
Yeap, May be for a warning importing the mesh into UDK, it tells me That the number of imported verted exceed 25% of the expected imported vertex It have a lot (I don´t know why), I check the original mesh in maya and the UV is OK, so that´s everything I got.
Yes my intention was to let the grass as in your picture, growing from the sand.
The grass material is a VTX pain shader wich manages also wind, so I can paint those grass clumps.
Overall the scene is a good start.
looks really great, especially impressed at the lighting
i agree, I was a little thrown off by the glossiness of the rocks inside the cave. Maybe they're wet from high tide?
To specify a bit more, it's the collumns that generally look too glossy. Right now they remind me more of strange, giant bones than rocks.
Inside looks really nice and interesting, but I'd like to echo the comments on the rocks looking too glossy.
If you look at other limestone caverns such as this...
... the micro detail and rough texture always give more of a matte finish. Even when wet, such rock would just become darker and possibly sparkle a bit, rather than full-blown glossy specular.
Currently, it looks like parts of the cave are melting or made from a viscous fluid - especially in this image:
Apart from that, the cave sections look very nice
Also how did you get the water to bend/flow around the rocks?
Well I have been buisy today,
This is what I did until now:
I lowered a lot the gloss from the cave walls, also from colums (stalactites and stalagmites). I may add some detail texture for the cave walls to help reduce the gloss.
Also lowered lights intensity and retouched Lmass propierties to get the same lightning but without burning stones in the pool, also retouched water shader to get better reflections on water.
Now rendering Lmass with production settings! more time consuming but it´s true that enhances the shadows.
And for the exteriors, I worked a lot more the sand around the cave and the texturing to blend the grass clumps with the soil. Also I retouched the grass shader to match colors with the ladscape.
I added more vegetation over the rocks to give the impresion that above the cave is full with plants and grass, and the isle has continuity.
I also changed the texture for the palm fronds, I didn´t like the one that comes with Speedtree, so I changed it by mine that is a lot better and more natual.
About the metal rings on the barrels, I can´t remember now How I did it, But I can promisse that I didn´t do anything too complicated.
The water shader is my own variant on flow maps with UDK, there are a discusion about this in TechnicalTalk>UDK; the flow map was painted in PS (nothing specially complicated).
I will continue tomorrow, I don´t have time to upload new screenshots, today has been an intense day of retouching and need to sleep.
I ran Lmass in production settings to see how is going on the scene with all the changes I did.
those are the updated screenshots that I take today:
I think the exteriors look more natural now, and interiors also, I´m thinking about adding a detail normal map for the rock walls, to add detail.