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UDK environment: The wizard's desk

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Hi everyone,
I feel ready to start a new project, I'm trying to keep things small. I'll be doing a small environment, not even a room... It will be a wizard desk full of books, scrolls, devices and creepy stuff and kind of a wall with a window and the ground for background. I'm starting today. Get ready for some images in a couple of days...

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  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 17
    do you at least have some sort of concept that you're going off of? anything to show?
  • A-N-P
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    A-N-P polycounter lvl 6
  • Alberto Rdrgz
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    Alberto Rdrgz polycounter lvl 15
    Oniram wrote: »
    do you at least have some sort of concept that you're going off of? anything to show?

    +1
  • zelldweller
    I created the thread just having a bunch of ideas in my mind. I was sure that its the kind of environment that would serve for my pourposes though, that's why I created it straight away :D

    I've been working this morning in this concept, I'm not a concept art specialist or anything but it's true that its so good to try always something and don't start out of nothing:

    the_wizard__s_desk_by_zelldweller-d4p8n9k.jpg
  • Seirei
    This looks realy promising! I'm especially exited for the glowy orb. I don't know why, but I love glowing orbs... :P
  • zelldweller
    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4pgwdz.jpg

    I started doing the background, a couple of textures and models, all loaded inside udk and lightmass...
  • zelldweller
    Hey everyone,
    I keep on going with this one, and have great new screnshots to show :)

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4pkkdm.jpg

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4ppxpo.jpg
  • Tokoya
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    Tokoya polycounter lvl 7
    Great work on the wall and skull bakes, it's looking really close to the concept so far
  • dissonance
    those circley-bits in the windows are just crying out for some distortion.
  • ayoub44
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    ayoub44 polycounter lvl 10
    Great work , i just want to khnow .. where that light is coming from ( yellow light ) in the
    second screenshot .. and a low grunge to your wood to add some variation :)

    good luck
  • zelldweller
    Thanks guys.
    Thanks for the tips
    @dissonance: I tried but I suppose the normal should be more accentuated. I'll try to correct it... because anyway, its not tiling perfectly :/, I screwed up something and the top and bottom parts of the texture doesnt match well...
    @ayoub44: Well, the blue light comes from the candle on top of the skull that I was about to add in the next update... Thanks for the sugestion it's true, some low grunge and it will look better seen close.
  • zelldweller
    So this is my source of light!
    And its so fucking late and I've worked so hard today!
    good nights!

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4pr9sa.jpg
  • SgtNasty
    Skull and candle look really nice.

    The stone wall (the window trim in particular) looks lower resolution than everything else though. The cracks between the stones are too dark, and the specular is too high.

    Are you going to get some candle wax running down the skull like you have in the concept? That was a nice touch, you should try to go for it.
  • Weirdboy
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    Weirdboy polycounter lvl 5
    Looking good so far.

    Is it just me or does something look off about the skull? I'm not sure, but I think the eyes might be too big.
  • zelldweller
    @SgtNasty: well, you are right I baked the window trim at a low resolution by mistake...
    Its material is a bit off too...
    I was going to add the wax but also wanted to have the candle and the skull as separated props. I'm going for it in the next update!

    @Weirdboy: Maybe, I didn't put that much care in the proportions or anything, just typed in skull in google images and left the gallery in my second screen to sculpt with the references, but I didn't care too much. I got something that looks good.

    Well, so I've not been caring about the details too much, I just was trying to get the more material the fastest... And leaving the polishing for a later stage. I use to do this most of the time... I suppose it's like painting a picture. Some people like to make out the details as soon as they can and other just jump giving a few strokes here and a few there, but like to go on with everything at the same time.

    I think today I'm trying to make some books and the potion bottle and them I'll go back over all the details you have been pointing out and fix everything one step at a time...

    Thanks for the feedback!
  • zelldweller
    I modeled a couple of books. I'm having a bit of a problem trying too make the golden carvings in the cover look right! But I thinks its just another thing I'll research when I get back fixing al the other things that you guys have pointed out... tomorrow I guess. Next stuff coming: potion bottle.

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4ptrqm.jpg
  • .morph3us
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    .morph3us polycounter lvl 14
    i really love it! keep it up!
    may i suggest to work on the candle's shader a little? it looks too solid for me.
    there should be more light shining through the candle from its inner outwards.
    (gosh, is that understandable at all??)
  • Seirei
    Yeah needs more SSS! :D

    But damn the skull looks nice. Looks kinda like it's just drawn in there. :)
  • Weirdboy
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    Weirdboy polycounter lvl 5
    Those books look really nice, can I see a wireframe render + textures? Been kind of curious about how to get this look ever since playing Skyrim.
  • zelldweller
    Nothing magic with the books...
    The normal map is a mix of bake from a high poly sculped in zbrush and some normals from images that I obtained using some base textures - leather, rusty metal, etc, plus some drawed by hand for the signs on the cover. I used occlusion cavity, normal, and height maps to help me compose the diffuse. A lot of photoshop and thats all. Both books share the same texture as you see.
    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4pv6br.jpg
  • zelldweller
    I still need to do the specular texture and tweak the others but I don't have more time until later in the day. Just made this render to see how was lightmass going to handle it, since is the first time I'm doing something like with glass and all that... and well, the results are surprising :O
    Don't look at the cork or your eyes will bleed with that specular lol.
    Shame on me for not trusting lightmass completely!

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4pxec1.jpg

    and the fast concept I did thinking how would I model the bottle.

    crappy_concept_of_a_potion_bottle_xd_by_zelldweller-d4pxezr.jpg
  • zelldweller
    Erm, by the way I discovered why I couldnt get the golden of the letters in the cover of the green book to shine. I needed to push the golden part of the spec texture over 1...
  • Jarm
    Part of your issue with getting the gold letters to shine well is probably also that the diffuse is so bright. Gold generally has an extremely dark diffuse and a bright spec. Its the contrast between the two that sells the material definition more than either or.
  • zelldweller
    Yep, but might be a combination of both stuff... I tried with darker diffuses before but wasn't enought either...
  • XRevan23
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    XRevan23 polycounter lvl 15
    this piece is coming together nicely, i especially love the skull and candies.
  • zelldweller
    I've been working in fixing a lot of issues and details
    -I finished the bottle specular texture
    -I found the fix for normal map seams... (an issue that was driving me mad, not too much info out there on how to do it!!) and lightning sseams for the skulls
    - Re-baked the rocks around the window in higher res - in the end I think I'll have to polish that rocks much more and make a harder edge on the border...
    -fixed the mat of the book to make the golden part look shinny
    -made some new normals for the windows and tweaked the material (now they look soooooo much better, I just needed to learn some new things about materials to make those cristals shine!)
    Added some dust all over the desk top...

    So even though I can still think of a couple of things I'm leaving behind, I'll leave all for the next week's "fix-stuff-and bugs-day"
    Tomorrow I'm doing the piece of table cloth, the oppened scroll laying on it, and the big oppened book. And if I have time a key, or a little chest, or the dagger

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4q2dsy.jpg
  • GragGunslinger
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    GragGunslinger polycounter lvl 7
    Great work so far!

    I almost couldn't tell for a second if you had done another peice of concept art or if it was a 3D object!

    I really dig the transition from warm to cool light, it's something that always makes me really get into a piece.

    For some reason though the persepective on the window keeps changing depending on what direction i'm scrolling from! it's quite the trip actually, great work!
  • zelldweller
    Wow, I see what you are talking about. Lol great optical illusion.
    The other day I almost go crazy with a heightmap I was working with that looked pretty much like this
    http://files.sharenator.com/black_dots_optical_illusion_Optical_illusions-s390x325-13679-580.gif

    Well, to be honest it was far less extreme, but also disgusting...
  • Zpanzer
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    Zpanzer polycounter lvl 8
    This is looking great! If I had to point out one thing at this moment, I would love to see some more interaction between the candle on the skull, it seems to be pretty burned down, however there are no trails of stearin on it. Would be cool if you did it like this:
    http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/media/artwork/?keywords=&view#/artwork-0078
    See the stearin trails running down the skull? I think it would add some cool believabillity to the scene :) Also I would make the SSS effect that the candle has even more obvious for contrasts sake; see the start of this Diablo 3 cinematic:
    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlhWqmVeDno"]Diablo III Black Soulstone Cinematic - YouTube[/ame]
  • zelldweller
    Yes, candle stearing trails its going to be one of the things I'm fixing this week. I didn't had the time to do it yet :)
  • zelldweller
    I didn't planned to expend the whole evening only with this but suddenly got some inspiration and thought that it would be interesting to come out with a custom zodiac inspired decoration for the table cloth.
    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4q64dz.jpg
  • zelldweller
    Today I made a knife and an open book...
    The knife's handle is carved as a cobra snake. I still need to do some work in the material.

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4qad40.jpg
  • yodude87
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    yodude87 polycounter lvl 5
    whoa, no crits so far, keep it up! this is coming along nicely :D
  • zelldweller
    Made some papers and scattered around the desk top, also a chest, and an ink bottle with a feather

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4qjey9.jpg
    This is whats going to be the support for the orb emiting blue light in my scene. In the begining I was going to model some kind of plant motif but couldn't resist and added this kind of little sculpt. I sculpted this with radial simetry x4 and it's quite funny because with the orb in place it looks like every figure is hiding a bit behind of the ball and peering at the next one in a cicle that turns around over and over...

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4qjfrj.jpg
  • Seirei
    Yay, the orb! :3

    I love the socket you've made, the idea with the figures is pretty cool. The overall scene is coming together nicley.
    Keep it up! :)
  • zelldweller
    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4qlu3e.jpg

    I finished the socket and made an orb with a simple sphere and an emissive material
  • supefranky
    Excellent work. How did you made textures for this (especially wall)? Using zbrush polypaint or photoshop? Thanks.
  • zelldweller
    Well I just bought a month pass for 3d motive and there was a tutorial on doing a stone wall like that so this texture is just the result from watching it. It was very useful.
    To sum up you make a tiling low poly pattern in 3ds max or maya or whatever, takeit into zbrush, sculpt it, back to your 3d app, duplicate the objects you need to fill up your tiling completely, render to a plane, and compose in photoshop... Some people also do it directly in zbrush, I had also tried to do some textures like that but, I found easier to do al the set up of the base you are going to sculpt in max. It was much quicker.

    http://www.3dmotive.com/training/zbrush/tileable-zbrush-video/?follow=true
  • MostlyGhostly
    I'm really like the lighting in these shots, looking forward to see more :> The skull looks great, too
  • supefranky
    Well I just bought a month pass for 3d motive and there was a tutorial on doing a stone wall like that so this texture is just the result from watching it. It was very useful.
    To sum up you make a tiling low poly pattern in 3ds max or maya or whatever, takeit into zbrush, sculpt it, back to your 3d app, duplicate the objects you need to fill up your tiling completely, render to a plane, and compose in photoshop... Some people also do it directly in zbrush, I had also tried to do some textures like that but, I found easier to do al the set up of the base you are going to sculpt in max. It was much quicker.

    http://www.3dmotive.com/training/zbrush/tileable-zbrush-video/?follow=true
    Thanks a lot. And i wanted to ask, did you prefer hand paint all your textures or using photo-based ones instead?
  • zelldweller
    supefranky wrote: »
    Thanks a lot. And i wanted to ask, did you prefer hand paint all your textures or using photo-based ones instead?

    Well, if you really want to enhance the detail of your high polys you'll never want to hand paint your textures directly. You use your occlusion, normal, heightmaps, cavity or vertex color baked from your high polys as a base, then to add some additional fine grain and photorealistic feel, you mix those maps in photoshop with some base material textures from photographs.

    You can use your baked maps to create masks. For example use your heightmaps or occlusion to add a lighter tone to your specular textures in areas that are going to stick out from the overall surface of your model.

    The only things I paint sometimes is masks... in the end almost everything is more like mixing layers, playing with levels, curves, and masks made up from baked maps in photoshop.

    Try to get that tutorial dude. It will help you a lot to understand better how it goes.
  • SirCalalot
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    SirCalalot polycounter lvl 10
    This scene is looking wonderful!

    Have you had a look at this (very simple) Sub Surface Scattering example on the UDN?

    It would really be nice to see the light scattering in the candle decrease as it gets lower :)
  • zelldweller
    Hey, I made some tests yesterday with sss, but only simple ones, and honestly after tweaking my current setup I got a much better looking effect... Check it out. I've also been doing some more new stuff... a purse full of coins and also some of them spare, a rock with a fossil to be used as some kind of paperweight and some stuff for making potions, a little store for ingredients and I'm still working in some pots full of magic ingredients...

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4quug8.jpg

    So up to now this is how far I could manage to get:

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4quus5.jpg
  • lincolnhughes
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    lincolnhughes polycounter lvl 10
    looks fuckin awesome :)

    the close shots are my favorites, especially the composition of the shot at the top of the 2nd page. If you can get a shot like that with all of your most recent additions that'd look money
  • zelldweller
    Thanks!
    Well, this is more than everything something I'm doing for my portfolio, also learning and practicing, but more than everything is for that. Currently I'm unemployed. So for sure, a key thing I have to achieve is get a few shots that get to sell my stuff the better I can for the next time I make a round sending CVs and all that... Up to now what I've been told everywhere is that I had good stuff but like too scattered and diverse, so by doing this I'm trying to focus on one area: environments and props.
    Well, so I better keep working on this...

    Thanks for your suggestions!
  • zelldweller
    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4r9juu.jpg

    At last I made the skull with the wax running all over, and you were right it was something I needed to do, looks so cool :O
  • Jarm
    Nice update!

    Loving this little environment... I think you could increase the appeal x10 by adjusting the composition a bit. I get that you are going for a messy wizard desk, but having one major point of focus (and only one) would help it a lot as the scene. The magic orb would probably be more prominently placed and more isolated. If for no other reason then it is heavy and could break if it fell, it feels weird pushed to the edge like that.

    TLDR version: Now that you have a bunch of cool stuff, it would probably be worth doing a pass on visual hierarchy.
  • zelldweller
    Thanks Jarnm, I've been trying to play with composition to get a focus and all that.
    I suppose I still would have to add some sort of cool effect to the orb, but for sure it's better now...

    udk_environment_the_wizard__s_desk_wip_by_zelldweller-d4rasw9.jpg
  • Jarm
    Nice update! Desk is feeling pretty solid now.

    Do you have other plans for the surrounding space? It might be cool to situate the desk within an alcove http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_De_cpyyLtGM/TCBMLos-yiI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/84gzLTtuUM8/s1600/Toppole+(9).JPG
  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 17
    wow! that candle and skull is looking NIIIICE. the scene is coming together very well!
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