Deus Ex - Lab Stairwell (WIP)

NickGW

This is a scene I've been working on in order to learn normal mapping and modular level design. Its based off an old piece of concept art for Deus Ex: Human Revolution So far I've been using Modo to model the HP and LP and Maya/xNormal for the normal/AO baking as well as unity free for the real time engine.





I took a few of the in engine shots as well as textures sheets with me to GDC and got some excellent critiques from Wyeth Johnson (Thanks Wyeth!) during the portfolio review session on Friday. Here's the rundown on some of what he said...

• Add details you would normally see in an interior space (trim along floor and ceiling, handrails at stairs, etc...)
• Better/Brighter lighting and composition
• Push the modularity further (better use of UV's)
• Make the transitions between surfaces more seamless and natural

I'd love to hear any other comments, critiques, suggestions or requests any of you may have. As of right now I'm taking a step back and rethinking my approach.

NickGW

Here are a few pieces of concept art I'll be using to develop the scene further. I don't plan on copying any of the elements too directly, instead they will be used to get an idea of the types and sizes of the pieces I'll use to create the scene as well as the elements I'll need in my textures. Things like walls, floor, ceiling, doorways etc.





However, before I get that far I'll be making a list of the pieces that will be needed to flesh out the core of the space. I'll start with simple shapes bringing them into unity and making sure they work well together and can create the size and type of space I'm going for. After that I'll think about how the textures will be laid out and which pieces can share the same UV's to make the best use of textures space.

I've been looking into whether several large textures (1024x1024) is better than many smaller ones (512x512) in terms of memory usage and loading. So far it seems like its more about a balance between the two.

If you anyone has any suggestions I'd be interested in hearing them.

NickGW

It's been a while but here's where I'm at so far.



The hallway feels very tall but I plan on adding other props and such that will hang from the ceiling and the walls that will reduce that. I may also reduce the height of some of the modules to help with that as well. Nothing fancy so far with the textures, just a diffuse and normal.

I'm also still figuring out how to set the lighting up correctly and why the lightmaps look so muddy even when I increase their size. However there will be a few light sources in the scene that will emit light so I may hold off on doing anything else with that till those are in the scene.

Looking for any thoughts or suggestions.

Minos

I believe your normals are inverted :P

NickGW

Minos wrote: »

I believe your normals are inverted :P

Thanks, they are fixed now.

NickGW

An update, Put some colors on the diffuse, not final and as I look at it I may change the normal map again because I don't like some of the paneling I made for the walls. Cant seem to get rid of the dirty look in the lightmap and I can seem to find an answer as to why this is happening.

I may also mess with the height of some of the upper wall pieces again but other than that I'll start moving onto creating the modular variants and reworking some of the texture sets.

As always any suggestions, ideas or crits would be awesome!

NickGW

After a month of not working on this I've been able to get back into this scene. I wasn't really satisfied with how things were turning out so I spent the past few days reworking the the texture layout and creating new modular bits. As always im interested to hear any thoughts or critiques that any of you may have.

NickGW

It's been a while but here's another update. I spent a lot of time going back and forth with the lighting, and I feel that it's pretty close to where it should be. Created a lot of the props from the concept and I'll be spending the next few hours fixing all the mirror issues on several of the meshes as well as creating the decals for the red signs,ground, and glass. After that I think I'm done with this environment.

While a definitely learned a lot about the UDK, I spent way too much time making huge changes on ideas that should have been better planned from the beginning. Something I'll be working on for the next scene. I'm interested to hear any thoughts or critiques you all may have.



Here's the final concept I went with. (from the collectors edition guide)

Cap

I really like what this changed into, especially this last update here. I would urge you not to be finished with this yet though, if you pushed it further you'd have a really great looking piece. The things that stick out to me most are:

The lack of detail on the floor. The concept has more signs, lines, painted stripes, text, etc etc. Without this detail breaking it up, its just a large flat surface that takes up a lot of the image. If this is an industrial/lab area there would be warnings, arrows, path markers and other stuff on the floor.

The silhouette of the room is essentially a box. The hallway you had in your 4-29 update at least had a somewhat more interesting shape to look at. The concept has the right side wall SEEMING like its slanted slightly, giving the room a bit of subtle variation from just a box. I would attempt to get some of that business in there.

The concept has some really cool lights and shadows casting from inside those rooms, as well as some shadows from the rafters and other junk on the ceiling. That sort of thing can add a lot to a scene, and in the concept the contrast between those rooms and the larger area work really well.

I think with a bit more work you could polish this scene into a really great piece. Hope this helps!

NickGW

@Cap
Thanks for the Crits!

I went ahead and added the decals to the floor and everywhere else that they appear in the concept. While this isn't an industrial environment (it's a concept based off the first part of Deus Ex Human Revolution) you were right with how well the details on the floor served to break it up and make it look more interesting.

I also agree that the silhouette of the room is rather bland because it is just a box. I'll see what I can do regarding changing the silhouette to make it a little more interesting. I did really like the slanted wall in my 4-29 update so I'll use that as a starting point.

Thanks again for all the feedback Cap! Here are a few new screenshots with the changes I mentioned in my previous post.

Stromberg90

Looks quite solid on how you have done everything
The only problem I have is I don't even like the concept cause it's so empty and uninteresting(loved the game though)

I tried my hand at doing some sort of paintover, you decide if you want to follow that direction.

NickGW

Thanks for the paintover Stromberg, and I agree with you about the concept being rather bland. That's part of the reason why I want to move onto something else. Changing the color of those beams stretching across the hallway was something I had been thinking about doing for a while, and your paintover makes it clear that the way you have it painted looks much better

I'll also see what I can do about making the lights in the side room on the left have that glow to them. I also like the vent in the back, I still have some room on the texture set I'm using so I can certainly add that in. In fact I can probably just use what I already have to get something just as good.

Thanks a ton for the paintover!

Cap

Nice updates! That paintover is cool and I agree with it for the most part, except for changing the color of the beams. The beams being yellow breaks up the grey and adds a splash of color across the middle of the composition. You could try changing it to another color, but I definitely would avoid more grey since there is so much of it in the image already. The other thing is I would darken those side rooms quite a bit (so they contrast the brightness of the larger area). I'd make those point lights in there way less bright (maybe even change em to spot lights) and add in some volumetric beams to break up the darkness. With the volumetric beams you still get that "glow" youre after without having to bloom the lights out too much.

NickGW

Here's another update with some of Strombergs suggestions. Funny that you mentioned volumetric beams, because I happened to be in the process of implementing them when I checked back and saw your post Cap. I'm currently just using the material that comes with the UDK, but I plan to go ahead and make my own just to see how it all works. I also darkened up the rooms too. Thanks again guys for all your help!

Stromberg90

Looks nice, glad I could be of some help
I wish you slanted the right wall even more though, like I tried to do in my paintover.
I wonder if you should find some more objects to add, stray away from the concept some, cause right now the whole middle of the hallway is empty.

NickGW

Yeah, I was thinking about adding more props and stuff on the lower section to help with that. One idea I had was to create some sort of maintenance shaft that would go down through the floor, add some tools scattered around maybe some wires going down into it. If I did that I'd probably also want to create some props to go into the side rooms, because other than the lights they are pretty empty as well.