[UDK] Sci-fi Hologram room
Hello again Polycount! A new week and a UDK new project. This time it's a Sci fi room with a fancy hologram ball in it.
The concept is used with permission from it's maker Juan Martinez Pinilla (http://kaizendesign.deviantart.com).
With this environment I hope to learn more about more advanced moving shaders (like the holo-ball), to learn to use simple particles for the dust by the lights and to get familiar with decals in UDK.
Budget is same as last time:
4x 2048x2048 materials in total max, 50 00 tris for the whole scene.
Now, without further ado, her is the concept and the first blockout:
Concept (by http://kaizendesign.deviantart.com/) :
My initial blockout:
The concept is used with permission from it's maker Juan Martinez Pinilla (http://kaizendesign.deviantart.com).
With this environment I hope to learn more about more advanced moving shaders (like the holo-ball), to learn to use simple particles for the dust by the lights and to get familiar with decals in UDK.
Budget is same as last time:
4x 2048x2048 materials in total max, 50 00 tris for the whole scene.
Now, without further ado, her is the concept and the first blockout:
Concept (by http://kaizendesign.deviantart.com/) :
My initial blockout:
Replies
also, 4 2048's is over kill in my opinion. You could probably try to fit all of this in one or 2(at most)?
Well thank you! And I'll work hard not to disappoint you!
I'll do my best to change those proportions tomorrow and I'll make sure to post a picture. Been struggling a tiny bit to match the perspective of the concept, mainly getting the right hand wall to show like in the concept. Texture budget is just the maximum usage. But yes, 2x 2k's sounds reasonable.
I might as well take the chance to ask a question I've been pondering a lot these last days; How to texture the walls in this scene. Cause the material looks very tilable, so I'm torn between either making unique texture for the whole wall section (one wall pice with trim and window) or if I should use smaller tiling textures. Few materials and unique details VS more materials but better resolution.
There will be cables, I promise!
It's an interesting concept, so I'm not surprised it's been done before. Although personally I'd like to stay away from other peoples versions of it for now, so that what I make will be truly my own take on it.
Now time for a small update: Most of the walls are in and UV'ed with place holder textures. Tomorrown will be adding the last few props (the lights and the doughnuts for the ball), followed by a quick lighting and then I'll start to fix the textures. Hopefully the scale is better now too, since before it was a bit too low.
I'm having a hard time getting the lighting to move in the right direction and would really appreciate any advice on the topic!
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*Deep breath*
With regards to the overall colouring of the scene, you've got it pretty close - with grungy greens and greys. Although your scene appears to have a fairly uniform value overall.
If you blur your vision and look at your render, aside from the globe and strip-lights, the rest of the scene blends into one.
Looking at the concept and doing the same thing, there is lots of information that you can still see - the lit up left wall, the projectors for the globe and the reflective floor, mainly. There is a lot more contrast between light and dark.
Try putting in the top and bottom hologram projector lights before moving on with lighting though, as adding two extra light actors in the middle of your scene will impact everything else.
Something that I noticed is that the ceiling is pretty damn dark in the concept, whereas your roof is picking up a lot of bounce light from things arout the scene.
Firstly, you could try lowering the diffuse bounce intensity of the light, much like in your last project (World Properties > Lightmass > Diffuse Boost). Then, again, with this lowered increase the intensity of your lights.
The main problem here is where the lights are actually projecting. It's hard to see initially, but the strip-lights in the concept are actually acting more like spotlights than tubes emitting in all directions.
This is evident in how the ones on the ceiling are aimed at the centre of the floor yet don't give much light to the ceiling. Similarly, the lights on the floor only seem to be illuminating the walls, rather than pointing straight up.
Perhaps covering the top and bottom of your tubes to blinker them a bit more - like in the original image - would help (make sure to have the Material two-sided). You could try angling them a bit more towards the centre of the floor too, as well as making the ones lower down aim at the walls.
(You might still run into a problem with this though, as Emissive lighting from Static Mesh objects currently only acts like a point light - but we'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it
Next, while I think your bloom on the tube-lights is pretty close to the original, the concept also has a subtle greeny lens-flare effect on every light source. This is most prominent on the hologram projectors in the centre. As well as this, it seems that a lot of the concept's bloom brightness is from particles and mist reflecting a lot of the light around the fixtures. Just something to keep in mind.
Lastly, materials in the concept appear to have higher Specular values than yours. It doesn't appear that you have any specular set on your objects - or if you have, the lighting build is washing it out.
If this is the case, it might be that your Normal Maps are being undersold by the bounce lighting. To increase the intensity of Normals after a lighting build, increase the 'Indirect Normal Influence' (World Properties > Lightmass > Indirect Normal Influence) from its default of 0.3 to about 0.7 or 0.8.
Be careful not to push this too high though, as it can start to look a bit unrealistic.
I'll hold off any other critiques until you get further as I'm well aware that this is a WIP
I hope that's helpful!
Edit: Also, that's pretty impressive @darthwilson!
Especially the Cascade implementation.
@darthwilson: I'll check out your hologram as soon as I've tested the idea I have for my own or when I get stuck.
Small update this time; Half decent materials on everything, except the glass in front of the weapons, but that will hopefully get better. Hot my first version of hologram shader up. Will start lighting it tomorrow so hopefully can get a better resemblance then.
I think that it might help you out before lighting if you brighten the materials up a touch too.
The walls in the original image aren't naturally that dark - it's the shadows and lighting that bring their overall colour down. Remember that a Diffuse texture is essentially what colour the material will look when fully lit.
Tell me if I cease being helpful and start being annoying!
@SirCalalot: No worries, you are far from annoying!
@Sandro: I have reflection maps on most materials, but currently not showing so much. And I'll look into your other suggestion.
Another update. Made some progress with the lighting and played around a bit in Cascade for the first time. Next up: decals, then more light.
Also I don't know if white is the best choice for those lights with all the bloom. Giving them a slight greenish tint (in the bloom falloff) might make for a better vibe.
*cough*
@Sorken?