[UDK] - St Pancras Church Environment

Skillmister

Latest Pic:

---

A list of what i plan to make:

-Church + bell tower + outhouses
-Graveyard (pic)
-An awesome tree growing in a circle of gravestones (pic)
-Side and rear gardens (pic)
-Field with trees and path (pic)

Things I am aiming to do/learn:

Will be adding to this list as I go…

-Foliage! Done very little of this in the past. Want to start from scratch, learn how to do it right and make some awesome bushes + trees. (3dmotive foliage tutorial?)
-Error free lightmaps (if only...)
-UDK day lighting


Updated to do list:

Church
-Improve concrete material
-Vertex paint around trim
-Vertex paint brick variation
-Finish front door + arch
-Stained glass window + brick surround
-Improved wall+roof brick trim models
-Fix light bleeding through tower
-Wall plaques/memorials
-Clocktower weather vane

Surroundings
-Grass meshes and better ground texture
-Dirt and foliage beneath fence
-Garden bushes (2-3 different types)
-Large graves (2-3 different)
-Small Gravestones
-Trees (1-2 different) *replace speedtree placeholders

Skillmister

Got some of the basics in udk to check the scale


Working on the entrance arch. Waiting till Wednesday to finish it off when i've got someone kindly taking a couple of pictures for me

Bart

It's a good start ! However I think you need to add something unique to the whole scene that will make it stand out and maby give a little background story. Maby set it during the blitz and instead of modeling larger outside model the inside of the church with a bomb inside it that didn't blow up. Just an idea... This way you could present outdoor and indoor lighting in one piece.

Will be starting my Final Major project also soon Where do you study and how much time you got for your Final project ?

Skillmister

Bart wrote: »

It's a good start ! However I think you need to add something unique to the whole scene that will make it stand out and maby give a little background story. Maby set it during the blitz and instead of modeling larger outside model the inside of the church with a bomb inside it that didn't blow up. Just an idea... This way you could present outdoor and indoor lighting in one piece.

Will be starting my Final Major project also soon Where do you study and how much time you got for your Final project ?

I was planning this as more of a realistic recreation and focussing on an outdoor environment, but thanks for the idea I'm at Staffs Uni and we have from September till the start of May, although the first half of that is supposed to be dissertation focus which i haven't really done enough of


Update-

Spent a few days trying to sculpt some bricks/stones in zbrush which has been quite a fail, but they are slowly improving.
Gone for a photo based texture approach for now, created using nDo2. I will create a more dirty version of the texture to mix with vertex painting for some variation. It's a bit burnt out because of the light, need to fix that.


Also almost completed the high poly for the archway. Bit more surface detail to add

cdevens

I like the stone texture for the outside of the church. Are you using ref for the archway? It has nice detail, but looks very art deco which doesn't really look like it belongs in an old church IMO. Looking forward to seeing more.

Skillmister

cdevens wrote: »

I like the stone texture for the outside of the church. Are you using ref for the archway? It has nice detail, but looks very art deco which doesn't really look like it belongs in an old church IMO. Looking forward to seeing more.

I am indeed. Some kind soul from another forum took this for me yesterday

Keg

The triangle section of the arch looks wrong compared to the reference. there doesn't appear to be gaps between each angular section in the reference were as in your high poly there's noticeable gaps

ladyknowles

Hi Skillmister, really lovely work.

I live in London and would have loved to have taken some pictures. I would offer to take some for you but the only time I'm going to be in that area is when I'm going back to uni at King's Cross on Sunday, and it'll be dark at that time I wish I'd seen this thread earlier because I was that area every day last week!!

If I get the opportunity I'll definitely take some pictures for you

Keep up the good work!

cdevens

Wow, I stand corrected. I still think it has a very art deco style for a church, but clearly it belongs in your model

Skillmister

Keg wrote: »

The triangle section of the arch looks wrong compared to the reference. there doesn't appear to be gaps between each angular section in the reference were as in your high poly there's noticeable gaps

You're right, i've pretty much fixed it now.

ladyknowles wrote: »

Hi Skillmister, really lovely work.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks No need for any photos now, i have everything but thanks for the offer.

cdevens wrote: »

Wow, I stand corrected. I still think it has a very art deco style for a church, but clearly it belongs in your model

Indeed the whole church has a bit of a mash up of styles, very interesting.

--

Progress has been slow recently had a couple of other pieces to work on and had to do some dissertation writing.
Here is a first pass at baking the arch, i think it's come out quite well except for a few errors although it doesn't hold up so good from too much of a side angle.

cptSwing

them's high polies!

Skillmister

Soooooo bump time

Not made such a huge amount of visual progress, been doing a lot of small scale testing and just general research etc over the past weeks, along with working on other uni projects.

So i've got the full church pretty much sorted, fixed some scale issues and just have the smaller details to model. New WIP brick texture also and obviously i've not split up the clock tower into it's separate materials fully yet.

Also made a tree today for the first time. Reasonably happy with it but going to give it another crack tomorrow. I think it's a little too dense at the moment and a few of the planes are clearly visible. Not bad for a first try though eh? I followed the 3d motive tutorial and used the provided textures from that so next one i'll create all my own stuff this was just to get the workflow nailed.

/walloftext


(lol floating models all over the place)



and some blockout out of the main grave



-Actually going down to london on saturday to meet a friend so will be taking some extra ref pictures myself which should be good. Nice to actually see the place in person also

StuButler

Looking good...

The tree as you've highlighted has some obvious planes which need refining, I'd also look at the base of the tree, I'd expect a lot more variation in the shape as it meets the ground, consider a slightly higher poly approach with it being at such a key visual level.

Good to see you moving things along well, the extra ref will help as we've discussed before.

Keep it up!

Skillmister

And update Uni over, time to finish this off and join the job hunt. Updated the OP with a list of things to get done. Any and all crits appreciated.

Vio

Hi mate, cheers for the update on FB. Here is the paint over I told you about.
This is just to give you some ideas of what areas to look at in order to apply some weathering and decay to the church.

Just remember dirt,moss and all that love cracks and recesses. Think about cause and effect, if ice could have accumulated, where will cracks have occurred and damp stains in the brick. There are lots of really cool features on the tower where rain would run off in tracks like the sides of the clocks, where the main roof meets the tower. Those parts would be very stained.

Keep up the great work mate, its really looking sweet.

Skillmister

Thanks for the paintover Started doing a bit of that today with lighter bricks and also some mossy/dirty ones. Not hugely obvious at the moment, working on it.

Also had another attempt at grass, still looks pants imo. 2 different ones i've made now that came out completely differently, look terrible on their own and slightly better mixed together. Needs far too many meshes though to get any kind of decent coverage... I think it's the ground material to grass blending that i'm struggling with

Also added a better window cage/wire effect using a second mesh just behind the window rather than all in one.



Yes it looks straight copy of the 3dmotive tutorial, because it is Once i can get results that look decent i'll work on some variations.

Chimp

looking very good chris! I think the biggest thing that sticks out currently is that the grass is very bright, it draws the eye too much. Generally I think the lighting might want some work but the assets themselves are nice. Keep it up!

yodude87

coming along nicely chris the new tree feels a lot better, looks more natural, and the planes arent noticeable.

as regards the grass, you could add some variation to the color, get some yellow blended to that green. will help making it more natural-looking. the way it looks right now doesnt help it pop, at least i think so.

Skillmister

This morning i've been having a go at creating the ground with landscape rather than as a static mesh so i have better texture blending and can edit the height in UDK properly. Seems easy enough to create a new landscape but i cannot figure out how to get a high enough density to paint properly.

I just want the dirt to just run under the fence about player width but at the moment this is the best i can come up with


Any ideas how to get a more dense landscape?

BenHenry

I suggest to play with the lighting a bit more. Right now it seems very bland.
Great work!

Skillmister

Fixed the landscape problem by making a larger one and scaling it down. Seems like a such a dirty fix but can't find any info about another way.

Changed the lighting a bit and now working on some grass.. Might be a little long at the moment although i do want it to be a little wild rather than a nice kept garden.

AlexCatMasterSupreme

Looks too clean, that paintover was a good one. Do it OP!

Skillmister

AlexCatMasterSupreme wrote: »

Looks too clean, that paintover was a good one. Do it OP!

Done some on the wall Working on one for the concrete now.

Also added some flowers, tweaked the grass and worked on the landscape a bit. Still isnt quite tesselated enough to get the mud where i want it under the fence. Might think about using an additional mesh that blends into the landscape instead



edit: ignore the floating grave :poly118: