I havent read through most of the criteques, but I belive your world needs more color. Even in the mostly monotone levels, their was a strong sence of mood with strong colors. Nothing completely very desaturated. Start by getting away from those white lights. Looks good man.
What do you know, Do you work on Bioshock?! Oh wait..
Its pretty trippy to have someone working on Bioshock commenting on a homage to bioshock..
I definitely see what you're saying, the image does have colour in it (obviously) but at present it is either blue or grey pretty much. From what I can tell from looking at the game It appears that the majority of the art is fairly de saturated and the lighting is super saturated with rich pools of colour created by the neon lights. (I wonder if that's why Neon lights are used so much...?).
Looking at my scene I think I can maybe bring some of this into the composition by increasing the saturation of some of the key lights to create a similar effect. I keep feeling myself pulling towards realism which is why I keep going back to more neutral tones.
Great scene developing here Scott. If you are intending on making the atlantic express train the real world reference was the Hudson 490 streamliner. Streamliners are a great source of reference for the art deco style.
I'm currently in the middle of producing a streamliner that's pretty much the Hudson 490 with a few minor tweaks.
@Megalmn2000 - Thanks man, will hopefully get some updates towards the end of the week! super busy all round atm.
@Nathdevlin - Cheers man, its wierd but I actually started work on one of the trains last night. I was struggling to get reference so I booted up the game and managed to find one and take some screens (ill upload them later) so I could make a high poly and use it for some posters im working on. Ill then bake it down for the vista/background too. Thanks for the link dude, they do look striking similar.. without you know, wheels or tracks.
@Benji - Thanks man, glad you like where its going! I hope you wont be too .
Even down to the logo they are very similar, indeed except the wheels. With the model I'm producing now the wheels and metal paneling were the most interesting bits.
There are a few trains on the atlantic express level in Bioshock 2. Took me a while to get back to the main one that you travel in.
Sooooooo, sorry for the lack of updates, ive been working furiously on the scene, but the progress is slow, especially with a full time job.
Enough excuses.. pictures!
So ive been fixing bits and bobs as they come up and ive got a list of things to address in the coming weeks. I took on board what whats_true said about colour variation and saturation and spent some time trying to introduce some more color into the scene. Hopefully its getting there, however I still think it might need to be pushed some more as we go on.
Close up wip details ive been putting together. I spent most of the week working on some Art Deco style advertising (which included making a high poly model of the Atlantic Express!) and also worked on an art deco frame that I can reuse around the scene.
I also worked on the balcony area, baking out the floor, supports and railings. They're not textured yet so they're just test fit at the moment. Going forward Im going to make some effort to make sure that wherever the metal areas meet the walls I have a build up of rust, but at the moment im just working to try and get everything in the scene and re-evaluating as I go.
Critique welcome, hope my ramblings make sense, its been a long weekend.
I love it Scott, you're really nailing the art deco feel. the extra saturated lights around the scene should really help too and I can't wait to see the Atlantic express in the scene
Cheers man Well hopefully you'll see the Atlantic express passing by the building occassionally, im going to set up a little train network around the roof so you'll get the impression of gentle movement and something going on outside the scene
Looking good, perhaps some more art nouveau (I can never spell that one right, jeez) in there would look good. Also some indication of a thicker frame/glass for the ceiling would be nice.
Lastly, if you really want to push that BioShock feel, then lots of contrast and reflection!
Martin emailed me this, he said he is doing a higher rez version and he wanted to get the caustics better before he posted but as I am evil I am posting it now.
@Adam l gray - Thanks man! I don't know if its wise to incorporate Art Nouveau into the scene simply because the likelihood is that if it isn't done right, it will make me look as though I don't understand the differences between the styles and will probably end up looking like some kind of hybrid mongrel. I definitely see what you mean about the thickness of the window supports, Im hoping to do a roof structure pass of some kinda further down the line! Cheers for the critique man.
@Littleclaude (Neil!) - Thank Martin for me, this is super useful. I was discussing with my art director the same thing at work, (perhaps not this extreme) today and the gist of it was that the eye level stuff needs more saturation and the shadows from above need to be emphasized. ^ exactly as above really. Im not sure i want to incorporate caustics of this level into the scene, however a faint hint in the blue light would be good. This is mainly because at these kind of depths the light becomes alot more diffuse and the caustic effect stops.
I guess this is caustic depth (snorkel diving depth)
And rapture is more
or
I will definately get that movement into the blue light though, I think that will help sell the underwater feel loads.
Sooooo! Things have been super busy recently and after a pretty severe virus was discovered on my pc I had to spend most of last week/+weekend cleaning my computer and salvaging all of my portfolio work. Lukily, its all sorted now and im back up and running.
I did however manage to get "some" work done, but progress is very slow at the moment unfortunately. Anyway, less talking more screenies. Still very WIP, but hit meh with yo thoughts! Got a big backlog of critique at the moment, so when appropriate ill be implementing each bit of crit as I work in passes.
Thanks everyone, apologies for the lack of updates!
@Tidus - Thanks dude! (Its great fun!) @RiotForQuiet - I hope so man! I'm hoping that I can properly capture the atmosphere through the Ambient Story telling around the scene and the vista work Ive got tonnes more zbrush sculpts from the scene and ill render them out at some point for you guys to poke fun at! @Fomori - Thanks man! I think it might need some more work, the brush marks where Ive sculpted the damage is quite obvious on reflection so I may go back to it and clean it up later on
I haven't had much time to work on the Bioshock scene this weekend after being away from my PC on Friday night, so I cracked open 3dsmax tonight and started work on the focal point of the scene. No points for guessing what it is :P
@dudealan - Thanks man! I fully intend to get the level finished off, very very busy with work at the moment so the project only gets a few hours a week and a day or so on the weekend, so progress is quite slow at the moment, but it will get there!
@Teaandcigarettes - Thanks man! Really enjoyed your Foliage tutorial btw, I actually paid for a 3dmotive subscription for a month to check it out. Glad you like the lighting, still think its going to be revised a few times as the level comes together.
@Stromberg90 - Thanks man! Can you guess what it is yet? Ahah, it was Battlefield 3's fault, I disabled my firewall thinking id get a better connection to the game and my pc became ravaged by the virus like a cheap hooker. It's all fixed now and luckily I've got backups of backups so I didnt lose any work.
@urgaffel - Thanks man, check back every 6months to a year for updates :P! Hopefully will have some decent progress this weekend.
@Kennyties - Thanks for checking back in man, glad you like how its going.
@Gheromo - Hmm, its not easy to know this side of baking, ive kept them in proportion to the size of the Drill for now, and if they don't come out properly in the bakes then Ill pump them up and re-bake the drill. (Ill let you know how it goes!)
@tidus - Yeah definately, alot of the textures atm are first pass, ive generally been baking things out to make sure they work and then moving on to get everything in. Ill go back and polish and present each element as the project goes on. (2020 at this rate!). I agree they're super flat, ill add that to the list of critique.
- So yeah, updates. Another lonngg week with minimal progress. Ive managed to sneak a few hours in here and there in the last week and ive made a start on the Focal point of the scene. The Big Daddy. Im unsure if ill have him dead in the middle of the scene, or perhaps animated walking up the stairs. Either way, ive been throwing polies around to try and get something that works. Crit me up, im no Character artist!
Did a quick test bake today, alot of the edges are quite sharp at the moment, but ive been softening them up/damaging them in zbrush anyway, so they seem to bake out okay. (512 base texture + 256 normal)
You're welcome to post whenever dude (the spambots seem to!). Hmm, its a concern, I dont want to model the whole thing really "soft" but at the moment to ensure that the bakes come out the way I want them to, and to achieve the "Bioshock style" ive been taking as many of the tighter edges out in zbrush and adding general edge-wear. The normals baked from the tank "seem" to hold up at the moment, but time will tell (I dont wanna drop a huge 4k texture on the model!)
Im sure ill be proving you right in the next few weeks
@Nathdevlin - cheers man, well personally Im of the opinion that diffuse quality is much more important than normals, especially considering the fact that the Big Daddy has quite alot of detail and visual noise in the metals, lowering the quality of the diffuse is just going to give me a blurry mess. If it was a clean object with little detail I might consider it. (loving the train btw!)
Some more progress on the Big Daddy model, the whole thing is quite outside of my comfort zone (which is awesome!) so im still in a trial and error stage, particularly with the heavy rubber fabric areas and I could definitely use some guidance if anything is glaringly wrong.
Once its baked and in game, Im going to either pose him like this,
or Rig and Animate him
@Zelenkov - You're too kind man, I think I got about another 10 years before I can even clean the pools of guys like Ian. Big fan of your stuff btw dude, been following you for some time!
@Alex Pointer - Ahaha yeah, im a big fan of his! Cheers man, I hope you arent holding your breath, seems I get less and less time to post these days....
@Chriss1988green - Thanks dude, gotta give a shout out to ma homiez here at PC. Bros fo lyf. cough..
@Brygelsmack - Thanks man, well by out of my comfort zone meaning I dont typically do "characters" so to speak. Ive managed to gather a tonne of awesome feedback at work today to crack on with. Mainly issues with the fabric, weighting of the character, general pose and the feasibility of getting a human into the suit. Going to address them over the course of the week.
Thanks for the techniques you shared.
Your work give me confidence that CryEngine can also produce natural looking indoor scenes. I kind hesitate to use CryEngine for my next environment piece because we kind have to create bounce lights manually. For complex indoor lighting environments bad bounce lights simulation may ruin the sense of realism. If you can give me any advise on that subject I can't thanks you enough for it.
I'm a massive BioShock fanatic & I'm actually playing through the first game on PC for the 7th time, and I can confidently say you absolutely nailed Irrational's style in terms of "art deco." Absolutely incredible man & inspiring! :thumbup:
My apologizes for being so late to the party, just wanted to say this environment looks great! I like your attention to details, especially for the big door. Nice job. Looking forward to more updates.
@D-boy - No worries dude!
I'm not the most knowledgeable on the subject, but Cryengine has some great solutions to indoor light. Bare in mind that I only have a working knowledge of this stuff, so I may be VERY wrong.. :P
TECHNICAL STUFF THAT MAY BE WRONG -
Firstly alot of the ambient lighting is done using "vis areas" a solid area that allow the artist to set the ambient colour of the scene and avoid light leaks from the sun. Portals are used to bridge the gaps between vis areas and the also the gap between inside and outside.
Cubemaps work to enhance the specular and also push the overall lighting in the scene, they generate a box map of the scene then project it as a light around a radius to great effect, they can be used to fake reflection and cryengine allows you to specify resolution of your cubemap and increase the quality/precision of your specular reflections.
Global illuminate comes out of the box too, Cryengine has a built in global illuminate render pass that works great. I have no idea what it does, or how it does it, but all I can say is that it look great!
Cryengine also allows you to see the bounce colour of each object. For example if you set the bounce colour of a red object to red, when light hits it, it will cast a red bounce light off the object, which will be received by objects around it, great for adding that extra realism to the scene.
All I can say is, Cryengine blows my mind (Im biased) but look at Crysis 2!
Glad your liking the scene dude! Drop me a PM if you need any help Cryengine-wise!
@Rapture - Thanks dude! Im a pretty big fan too (who'd have guessed!), Irrational really did an amazing Job, im very daunted trying to recreate it in my own way. Hopefully it looks like Bioshock with a hint of realism thrown in
@MystiqueX - Thanks man, Im glad you're liking the scene, those late nights haven't been for nothing after-all... I really love the street lamp in your portfolio man, amazing work!
UPDATEZ -
Had a few crazy weeks at work and been tied up with none-3d things (including people breaking into my car! and my landlord wanting to move back into my flat..)!
I treated myself to a 4 day weekend and pounded the scene like it owed me money. I managed to rework the Big Daddy (again!) and fixed alot of issues based on some really good feedback. He's all baked out now and waiting to be rigged/posed/animated further down the line.
The scene as it stands-
Ive tweaked loads of the shaders and added alot of detail to some of the textures too. I've altered some of the lighting, and resolved a couple of the most unresolved areas. Obvious additions, Big Daddy model is in the scene, unposed and ive added some carpet to the stairs. Still got tonnes of work to left to do on the scene, but its getting there...
The Big Daddy high poly -
- Had to redo the fabric numerous times due to just generally missing the mark with fabric. This time I tried (and possibly failed) get to as much weight into the rubber material as possible. I also altered his stance and general proportions to make it feel alittle more realistic.
Replies
What do you know, Do you work on Bioshock?! Oh wait..
Its pretty trippy to have someone working on Bioshock commenting on a homage to bioshock..
I definitely see what you're saying, the image does have colour in it (obviously) but at present it is either blue or grey pretty much. From what I can tell from looking at the game It appears that the majority of the art is fairly de saturated and the lighting is super saturated with rich pools of colour created by the neon lights. (I wonder if that's why Neon lights are used so much...?).
Looking at my scene I think I can maybe bring some of this into the composition by increasing the saturation of some of the key lights to create a similar effect. I keep feeling myself pulling towards realism which is why I keep going back to more neutral tones.
BOOM, I see what you did there Rich.
I'm currently in the middle of producing a streamliner that's pretty much the Hudson 490 with a few minor tweaks.
http://cruiselinehistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/stream1.jpg
@Nathdevlin - Cheers man, its wierd but I actually started work on one of the trains last night. I was struggling to get reference so I booted up the game and managed to find one and take some screens (ill upload them later) so I could make a high poly and use it for some posters im working on. Ill then bake it down for the vista/background too. Thanks for the link dude, they do look striking similar.. without you know, wheels or tracks.
@Benji - Thanks man, glad you like where its going! I hope you wont be too
There are a few trains on the atlantic express level in Bioshock 2. Took me a while to get back to the main one that you travel in.
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110815063513/bioshock/images/9/9d/Ss_preview_bio216.jpg
Enough excuses.. pictures!
So ive been fixing bits and bobs as they come up and ive got a list of things to address in the coming weeks. I took on board what whats_true said about colour variation and saturation and spent some time trying to introduce some more color into the scene. Hopefully its getting there, however I still think it might need to be pushed some more as we go on.
Close up wip details ive been putting together. I spent most of the week working on some Art Deco style advertising (which included making a high poly model of the Atlantic Express!) and also worked on an art deco frame that I can reuse around the scene.
I also worked on the balcony area, baking out the floor, supports and railings. They're not textured yet so they're just test fit at the moment. Going forward Im going to make some effort to make sure that wherever the metal areas meet the walls I have a build up of rust, but at the moment im just working to try and get everything in the scene and re-evaluating as I go.
Critique welcome, hope my ramblings make sense, its been a long weekend.
Lastly, if you really want to push that BioShock feel, then lots of contrast and reflection!
Martin emailed me this, he said he is doing a higher rez version and he wanted to get the caustics better before he posted but as I am evil I am posting it now.
Cheers, Neil
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
@Littleclaude (Neil!) - Thank Martin for me, this is super useful. I was discussing with my art director the same thing at work, (perhaps not this extreme) today and the gist of it was that the eye level stuff needs more saturation and the shadows from above need to be emphasized. ^ exactly as above really. Im not sure i want to incorporate caustics of this level into the scene, however a faint hint in the blue light would be good. This is mainly because at these kind of depths the light becomes alot more diffuse and the caustic effect stops.
I guess this is caustic depth (snorkel diving depth)
And rapture is more
or
I will definately get that movement into the blue light though, I think that will help sell the underwater feel loads.
I think Martin was doing anything to avoid marking.
See you on film day
However, I do agree that the scene could do with a bit more of a focal point!
I did however manage to get "some" work done, but progress is very slow at the moment unfortunately. Anyway, less talking more screenies. Still very WIP, but hit meh with yo thoughts! Got a big backlog of critique at the moment, so when appropriate ill be implementing each bit of crit as I work in passes.
Thanks everyone, apologies for the lack of updates!
@RiotForQuiet - I hope so man! I'm hoping that I can properly capture the atmosphere through the Ambient Story telling around the scene and the vista work
@Fomori - Thanks man! I think it might need some more work, the brush marks where Ive sculpted the damage is quite obvious on reflection so I may go back to it and clean it up later on
I haven't had much time to work on the Bioshock scene this weekend after being away from my PC on Friday night, so I cracked open 3dsmax tonight and started work on the focal point of the scene. No points for guessing what it is :P
Looking forward to seeing the hero piece, to bad you got a virus, porn sites tend to be unreliable like that
Get more on msn :poly136:
@Teaandcigarettes - Thanks man! Really enjoyed your Foliage tutorial btw, I actually paid for a 3dmotive subscription for a month to check it out. Glad you like the lighting, still think its going to be revised a few times as the level comes together.
@Stromberg90 - Thanks man! Can you guess what it is yet?
@urgaffel - Thanks man, check back every 6months to a year for updates :P! Hopefully will have some decent progress this weekend.
@Kennyties - Thanks for checking back in man, glad you like how its going.
@Gheromo - Hmm, its not easy to know this side of baking, ive kept them in proportion to the size of the Drill for now, and if they don't come out properly in the bakes then Ill pump them up and re-bake the drill. (Ill let you know how it goes!)
- So yeah, updates. Another lonngg week with minimal progress. Ive managed to sneak a few hours in here and there in the last week and ive made a start on the Focal point of the scene. The Big Daddy. Im unsure if ill have him dead in the middle of the scene, or perhaps animated walking up the stairs. Either way, ive been throwing polies around to try and get something that works. Crit me up, im no Character artist!
Did a quick test bake today, alot of the edges are quite sharp at the moment, but ive been softening them up/damaging them in zbrush anyway, so they seem to bake out okay. (512 base texture + 256 normal)
looks great so far tho, i'm still thinking those normalmap edges will start jagging up from far.
Im sure ill be proving you right in the next few weeks
So instead of 512 base texture + 256 normal do 256 base texture + 512 normal
Some more progress on the Big Daddy model, the whole thing is quite outside of my comfort zone (which is awesome!) so im still in a trial and error stage, particularly with the heavy rubber fabric areas and I could definitely use some guidance if anything is glaringly wrong.
Once its baked and in game, Im going to either pose him like this,
or Rig and Animate him
@Alex Pointer - Ahaha yeah, im a big fan of his! Cheers man, I hope you arent holding your breath, seems I get less and less time to post these days....
@Raul -
Looking forward seeing more. The scene looks fantastic.
@Brygelsmack - Thanks man, well by out of my comfort zone meaning I dont typically do "characters" so to speak. Ive managed to gather a tonne of awesome feedback at work today to crack on with. Mainly issues with the fabric, weighting of the character, general pose and the feasibility of getting a human into the suit. Going to address them over the course of the week.
Thanks for the comments fellas.
Your work give me confidence that CryEngine can also produce natural looking indoor scenes. I kind hesitate to use CryEngine for my next environment piece because we kind have to create bounce lights manually. For complex indoor lighting environments bad bounce lights simulation may ruin the sense of realism. If you can give me any advise on that subject I can't thanks you enough for it.
I'm not the most knowledgeable on the subject, but Cryengine has some great solutions to indoor light. Bare in mind that I only have a working knowledge of this stuff, so I may be VERY wrong.. :P
TECHNICAL STUFF THAT MAY BE WRONG -
Firstly alot of the ambient lighting is done using "vis areas" a solid area that allow the artist to set the ambient colour of the scene and avoid light leaks from the sun. Portals are used to bridge the gaps between vis areas and the also the gap between inside and outside.
Cubemaps work to enhance the specular and also push the overall lighting in the scene, they generate a box map of the scene then project it as a light around a radius to great effect, they can be used to fake reflection and cryengine allows you to specify resolution of your cubemap and increase the quality/precision of your specular reflections.
Global illuminate comes out of the box too, Cryengine has a built in global illuminate render pass that works great. I have no idea what it does, or how it does it, but all I can say is that it look great!
Cryengine also allows you to see the bounce colour of each object. For example if you set the bounce colour of a red object to red, when light hits it, it will cast a red bounce light off the object, which will be received by objects around it, great for adding that extra realism to the scene.
All I can say is, Cryengine blows my mind (Im biased) but look at Crysis 2!
Glad your liking the scene dude! Drop me a PM if you need any help Cryengine-wise!
@Rapture - Thanks dude! Im a pretty big fan too (who'd have guessed!), Irrational really did an amazing Job, im very daunted trying to recreate it in my own way. Hopefully it looks like Bioshock with a hint of realism thrown in
@MystiqueX - Thanks man, Im glad you're liking the scene, those late nights haven't been for nothing after-all... I really love the street lamp in your portfolio man, amazing work!
Had a few crazy weeks at work and been tied up with none-3d things (including people breaking into my car! and my landlord wanting to move back into my flat..)!
I treated myself to a 4 day weekend and pounded the scene like it owed me money. I managed to rework the Big Daddy (again!) and fixed alot of issues based on some really good feedback. He's all baked out now and waiting to be rigged/posed/animated further down the line.
The scene as it stands-
Ive tweaked loads of the shaders and added alot of detail to some of the textures too. I've altered some of the lighting, and resolved a couple of the most unresolved areas. Obvious additions, Big Daddy model is in the scene, unposed and ive added some carpet to the stairs. Still got tonnes of work to left to do on the scene, but its getting there...
The Big Daddy high poly -
- Had to redo the fabric numerous times due to just generally missing the mark with fabric. This time I tried (and possibly failed) get to as much weight into the rubber material as possible. I also altered his stance and general proportions to make it feel alittle more realistic.
Phew, an essay!
big daddy should do too once he's got a more final texture on him