[UDK] Ancient temple pond
Hello, I'm about to start working on a UDK environment, based on a concept from http://www.voidart.co.uk/ .
I hope this project will provide me with experience and a better work flow in many areas, such as creating a water shader, adding atmospheric effects, figuring out a good balance between solutions like tiling textures and mesh paint compared to using unique textures.
The budget I've been given is 4x 2048x2048 materials, 50k tris and trying to keep 256px/m.
My planned asset list is:
Modular wall straight,
modular wall corner,
floor tiles x3,
roof tile,
column,
broken column,
pillar x2,
stairs 2x,
round door,
lanterns,
statue,
vegetation,
and various small objects.
In the concept itself the cultural style of the architecture is rather vague, and I'm thinking about going towards a slightly more Mayan/Incan inspired style, so that I can find more references to help me in the detailing.
All kinds of feedback are highly appreciated and I intend to post progress almost every day so that I can get efficient feedback and thereby be able to include all your feedback.
The concept (used with permission from http://www.voidart.co.uk/ ):
Blockout in UDK:
My moodboard:
Thanks for reading and please give feedback!
I hope this project will provide me with experience and a better work flow in many areas, such as creating a water shader, adding atmospheric effects, figuring out a good balance between solutions like tiling textures and mesh paint compared to using unique textures.
The budget I've been given is 4x 2048x2048 materials, 50k tris and trying to keep 256px/m.
My planned asset list is:
Modular wall straight,
modular wall corner,
floor tiles x3,
roof tile,
column,
broken column,
pillar x2,
stairs 2x,
round door,
lanterns,
statue,
vegetation,
and various small objects.
In the concept itself the cultural style of the architecture is rather vague, and I'm thinking about going towards a slightly more Mayan/Incan inspired style, so that I can find more references to help me in the detailing.
All kinds of feedback are highly appreciated and I intend to post progress almost every day so that I can get efficient feedback and thereby be able to include all your feedback.
The concept (used with permission from http://www.voidart.co.uk/ ):
Blockout in UDK:
My moodboard:
Thanks for reading and please give feedback!
Replies
Don't worry, the current stone texture is just a random material that came with UDK, that I applied cause I was bored with the blue squares.
Looks like a good start to me, but something about the scale feels off. Maybe it's the camera being at a lower angle than the concept but the whole room and the size of the pool seems like it's too small.
Small update, hopefully much more to come soon. I've been busy with getting up to speed with UDK and finding a maya/mudbox work flow for materials. But now I feel I can focus more on actual content creation.
So first of here is a slightly adjusted blockout (changed the placeholdertexture ^^:
And a floor material:
I suggest continually comparing your work in Photoshop and making sure every shape is in the exact same position etc cause it'll help you out later. It's a nice piece to make, I kinda wish I found it before you.
I'll hold off criticisms as everyone has made the main points already, but I would ask why you've gone with an Mayan/Aztec theme?
The concept looks more eastern, like Tibetan, Indian or Thai and personally I'd find that much more interesting to look at than yet another South American ruin in UDK.
An i agree with SirCalalot on the theme. Go for the concepts actual theme and it will look a whole lot better.
Keep it up anyway!
Also it may be worth while, basing it off the scale of the steps, placing an average height person in the concept which you can then extrapolate some approx measurements of the scene.
Regarding what a lot of you say about the theme I agree; South America is out the window since some time back. It came quite naturally, I started to look more at the concept and more or less forgot my mood board, so don't worry.
I will look more into the scale and the camera FOV to see if I can get it closer, but now the deadline is drawing near and I need to get all stuff in there as well.
Just so that this post won't be no new images; here is a monkey-lamp. Update of the entire scene will come tonight.
And once again; thanks for all the feedback!
Feedback is as always very appreciated!
As @Jungsik mentioned though, your water shouldn't be rippling as it probably hasn't been disturbed for a very long time.
If you're looking to add some more movement in the screen, how about a couple Coy Carp swimming around in the pool? The intense colour of the water should obscure them nicely, with their silhouettes just about visible when they move beneath the surface.
Apart from that, you're pretty much on top of things or in the process of doing so
I'll put fish on my "to do if there is time list" for sure. It would add some nice interest.
Now for a small update. All major meshes are now more or less in. Next up is the roof and the final walls and floor, and then its time for proper lighting.
Small update with hopefully some improved lightning. I'm trying to get more contrast into it but so far I'm not achieving what I'd hoped for.
Tomorrow is deadline for this piece, but I will no doubt keep working on it when I get time, which hopefully should be in 2 weeks. Ill try to get lightning better before deadline, and adding the last few small props. And don't be shy to let me know what you think of the fog ^^.
And I must say thanks for all the feedback that helped me get to this point, hopefully I'll have time to look into all those suggestions that I have not had the time to try yet in the future.
Right, now to nitpick at some very minor details (as that's why we all post our work here) :P
Some points to consider if you fancy trying to mimic the concept a bit closer:
The contrast (as you have already mentioned yourself) in your scene is lower than that of the concept. Your scene has a fairly uniform lighting in comparison, where the original image has darker shadows and richer highlights.
Try lowering the diffuse bounce intensity of the light, so that the shadows are less illuminated (World Properties > Lightmass > Diffuse Boost, I believe). Then with this lowered, up the intensity of your main scene light.
Try also adding Bloom into your image to accentuate that contrast on the statue (World Properties > WorldInfo > DefaultPostProcessSettings).
Still on lighting, you appear to be using a fairly cold light for your scene, I'm guessing white or slightly blue. Try putting a slight hint of yellow in it to better imitate sunlight and warm up the environment.
Next, materials - your current stone shader is darker and slightly more blue/grey than the concept which uses more of a white/yellow grey. This is making your scene seem colder as the white light is picking up all these blues. There is also less grunge and chipped detail on the stone flooring in the original, leading to a more smooth appearance. To bring detail back into the area, try scattering some leaves about the place like in the original.
As mentioned by @Jungsik, the focal point of the scene is the statue, which is a different material to the stone, looking more ivory.
If you were worried about the water not actually reading as water, try adding in a SceneCaptureReflectActor and outputting that to a texture to be used as a reflection. There is plenty of documentation on that online.
Making the water more reflective and possibly adding more lilies should eliminate the need to have it so choppy and distorted.
I hope that is encouraging rather than cutting!
Also adding some of the larger damage detail into the floor tiles would break it up (like the damage at the bottom center of the concept). The ceiling could use some break up as well, make it a bit more interesting.
Definitely! I didnt look close enough on the statue and therefore made it rather marble-ish. Ill change it more towards ivory to fit the concept.
Thanks for the feedback, it's in no way cutting! But sadly, as mentioned before, deadline is a few hours away, so I sadly wont be able to make all the changes id wanted to. That being said I'll do as much as I have time for, and the rest I'll get to when I move back to the piece in the near future!
Ill see what I can do the light and I'll go looking for that bloom for sure. The textures I'll leave for now and then instead go though them all when I get time cause there is a lot of things needing tweaking. Same goes for the water shader, and I'll have a look at getting better reflections in it. About the floor I'll do my best to find time to model some small stones to get in there.
Good luck with your hand-in anyway
Here is the final version for now. Thanks for all the feedback, then things I have not fixed yet I hope t be able to fix when I get back to this piece again! And once again, thanks for all the great feedback, I would not have gotten anywhere near this level without it!
Really good job!