[WIP] [UDK] Futuristic Arctic Research Lab
UPDATED 6th October 2012
Hi, I've been messing around with UDK for a while now, but have never created anything that I could be proud of, so I'm hoping with a lot of feedback I can get something great together with this scene.
Project Objectives
The project will be used to help improve my 3DS Max, Photoshop, Crazy Bump and UDK skills.
The aim of this project is to create a small real time interactive environment using modular pieces. The environment will consist of multiple rooms that can be explored and interacted with. (doors opening, switches etc.)
The scene will be created using no baked normal maps from 3DS max, everything will be created in texture and normal maps will be created in Crazy Bump.
The majority of environment will share one material, barring certain props that require their own materials (windows, holographic screens etc.)
NEWEST IMAGE
Hallway
Some progress pics of the hallway (Click to enlarge)
Hi, I've been messing around with UDK for a while now, but have never created anything that I could be proud of, so I'm hoping with a lot of feedback I can get something great together with this scene.
Project Objectives
The project will be used to help improve my 3DS Max, Photoshop, Crazy Bump and UDK skills.
The aim of this project is to create a small real time interactive environment using modular pieces. The environment will consist of multiple rooms that can be explored and interacted with. (doors opening, switches etc.)
The scene will be created using no baked normal maps from 3DS max, everything will be created in texture and normal maps will be created in Crazy Bump.
The majority of environment will share one material, barring certain props that require their own materials (windows, holographic screens etc.)
NEWEST IMAGE
Hallway
Some progress pics of the hallway (Click to enlarge)
Replies
Also, maybe the lighting is a little too bright? It just looks like it will blind everyone who enters.
Absolutely.
Maybe you can make some kind of control panel on that empty wall. In the future...there are hologram control panels at every turn
Seriously though...looks cool, your off to a good start. So...those cubes...are they supposed to be glowing? It looks as if they are the light source.
@JamieRIOT I'll definitely consider the story of the place more, hopefully once I do ideas will come flooding to me.
The idea was originally to create a scene in the style of Mirrors Edge, with bright, high contrast, shiny colours, I suppose the lighting is still reflecting that and it will probably get toned down a little once I re-design it.
@gsokol how could I forget the hologram control panels!
And yeah, the cubes are the light source, they're supposed to look similar to this.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/crazy4u2/2792730838/sizes/l/in/photostream/
It's certainly acting as a really nice piece to learn from.
Here's a quick comparison, old windows on the left, new on the right.
Oh and a quick screen of the floor reflection, it still needs some tinkering to fit with the rest of the scene, but I can't quite put my finger on what it needs. So feedback would really be appreciated.
Also remember, feedback on ANYTHING is very much appreciated
I tried to make the new lighting give the scene moree oomph and help it just 'pop' more, hopefully I've achieved that.
Screenie of the scratches...
I was thinking a giant hole in the ice, that people have been sent in to to explore. So there will be winches, cables, research equipment, computers, and all that fancy rubbish.
Though I'm really going to need to figure out how to make some nice snow/ice shaders, as of now they are just some texture from cgtextures whipped together to give an initial impression.
Hopefully I can make a tilable section of ice for the hole in mudbox, so any tuts on tilable sculpts would be nice if anyone has them.
Hopefully someone's got some good tips, as it's a vital area and without it, the scene just won't work.
Anyway, here's the rough design, really hoping someone's got some snowy/icy tips.
The four large non-snowy areas will be metal and have all of the equipment on them.
Really need help with this, I have no idea whatsoever what could be causing this.
EDIT: Problem sorted, images deleted.
I like the reflection on the floor but I agree with you, something is not right. I think it currently looks too perfect. Maybe you can make it look blurrier or break up the reflection somehow. Or like make it so it doesn't reflect the entire wall/pillar. How exactly you'd do that, I'm not entirely sure.
This page seems to have some ice shaders.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89925
The last guy, hellfire, has a really cool looking one but the matree image is small and hard to see. Still, maybe its helpful. Also, this.
http://www.terrymatthes.com/unreal-2/materials/icy-material/
Regarding you lightmap problems, I'm not sure what's happening there. MAybe upping the lightmap resolution will go away. Do you have faces underneath and in-between where one floor piece hits another floor piece. Deleting those faces might remove that lightmap issue.
There's really nothing special going on with the textures, the walls are just a bunch of faces using the same area of the texture.
The floor and walls are using separate textures at the minute, but that's getting sorted asap.
Thanks for the ice stuff, should prove useful.
Oh one more thing, the light maps are getting sorted again, I've decided to make the scene use larger modular pieces, which means putting them together in 3DS Max and re making light map UVs, thanks anyway.
I've figured out my new focal point instead of the window, an energy extractor smack bang in the center of the room, with energy flowing from the hole in to a huge extraction device in the ceiling, it looks great in my mind...:)
EDIT: Very rough extractor added to first post.
It's quite hard to follow your progression without them.
It's looking nice so far though
@heyguy posted some really helpful links too.
I've added some images of the hallway and a link to the album where all of the images are stored, should be good enough if anyone is interested enough to see the development.
Also, just realised I was at Uni the same time as you, I remember watching your presentation about the BBC screen ship game.
Was it one of the times when I was running backwards and forwards like a loon? (Most times, tbh.)
Regarding your hallway, the atmospherics have come along leaps and bounds from your first iteration.
Do you plan on having some light ground-fog or low-lying mist? As I reckon that'll really sell the cold feel you've got going on. A fog volume would work well here (such as FogVolumeLinearHalfspaceDensityInfo) or a particle-based method.
In fact, a mixture of the two would look even better
I still have the ceiling and general props to make, but I think the space I have left should be more than enough.
EDIT: Oh and SirCalalot, LOVE the idea about the ground fog, won't be adding it until it's more finished though
I'm still slightly stumped about what to put in the hallway to make it a bit more exciting, I'm thinking seats, control panels, signs and maybe a tool trolley.
Isn't lit with the right lighting and isnt scratched up yet, but I feel it's already much more interesting than the previous one.
Oh, also, the wall panels and energy extractor have been re-designed and I've made a start on the ceiling in the lab.(See original post)
Lighting is now harsher, allowing for better defined shadow and a higher contrast environment, closer to what I wanted all along (found out my environment colour was a really light blue making darker areas nowhere near as dark as they should have been) It's a bit blue right now, but that's something that can be tweaked at a later point.
The hallway has undergone a fairly large re-design, which I feel gives off the futuristic vibe far better, also the support structures aren't currently fully textured.
With regards to the overall scene colour and balance, you could try checking out @Oniram's mini tutorial on Colour Lookup Tables in UDK - essentially tweaking your level's colour values in Photoshop.
Can't wait to see more!
Thanks man, should prove useful, and as always, the support is very much appreciated.
I started fiddling about with colours some more and decided to see what the scene looks like using mainly vertex lighting and i'm liking the result, it makes it look a LOT cleaner.
To the lower right of the door is a backup generator I'm working on.
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*Watch in youtube 720p to actually be able to see the particles.
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To the lower right is a tablet type device that will be the focus of my next (very far off) project.
It's hard to portray the heat effect in an image, so here's a video.
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EDIT: Changed the blue pulse to an orange, the contrast between the colours needs some work, but I think it adds to the scene, the lights no longer turn off between pulses.
I think it would look awesome to see that same sort of style in other areas of the scene
I've added the obligatory strip of colour to the environment.
This could look better, but it would require me creating another texture, which I'm trying to avoid at the moment.
And massively tweaked the oh so necessary dangling cables.
And just to give a bit more variation, some stairs. (with an unfinished screen on the right)
I've also reworked extraction device it has had a fairly large redesign. (no screenshots at the moment since that area is so WIP that it's hard to even tell what's going on)
I think I'll add some freezer curtains to my door too, should look pretty cool.
You might do well to have a better concentration of complimentary lighting in your scene to balance out the colours. Much like in one of your previous shots:
A similar sort of intense lighting scene to yours can be seen in The Empire Strikes Back at the Carbonite Freezing Chamber:
See how background and foreground elements are separated in colour?
A more intense orange/yellow light would also pick up the opposite texture colours than the blue, so red and yellow objects (colours without a hint of blue in them) wouldn't appear black.
Hope it helps, and keep up the good work!
My CPU started overheating, but it's fixed now, so back to work I get...
Here's some screenies of what I was in the process of working on before my PC threw a wobbly.
Added some depth of field effects (needs to be tweaked more, but I can't get it spot on until I've added the snow outside)
I fiddled with the texture and pumped up the bloom too.
I've also added a watch room/control room type area that looks over the extractor. (The floor is waaaaaayyyyyy too reflective from this angle, but that should be an easy fix)
EDIT: Totally forgot, I'm probably going to give the control room a warmer colour, something like orange, yellows and reds to work as a nice contrast for looking over the cold blue extraction area.
Also a more detailed couloured 'sector A' strip.
And as I've posted in the original post:
'Originally, the scene was to be created using a single set of 1024x10244 textures, diffuse, specular and normal.
The scene has expanded since then and a single set of texture is no longer an option.
Textures (other than normals) are now greyscale and use one of the RGB or Alpha channels.
As it stands now, I am using 4 textures (not including particle textures).
Texture 1 - Diffuse for general environment, Specular for general environment and an image used to effect colour of areas.
Texture 2 - an image used to control emissive flash, an image used to control reflective areas, emissive for lights and opacity for fan grates.
Texture 3 - Emissive for screens, Opacity for screen distortion, Diffuse for coloured strips and opacity for coloured strips.
Texture 4 - Normal for general environment.'
There's a bit of snow falling outside too now, but no actual snowy environment...
JUST realised that the walls are a little plain, gonna need some pipes/cables etc. to break up the blandness a bit.
I tinkered with both the lighting and my specular maps.
This seems to have given me a better colour variation, helped to show normals and given a better overall variation between the greys in the environment.
Quick image to show what I mean, started working on a painted panels look, most panels will be white, but with a blue strip running through.
haha, yeah the scene is still very blue, I had f.lux enabled when I uploaded the latest screenshot, which made it look less blue to me...
But yeah, in short there is a lot of lighting work to do, heck there's a lot of work to do full stop, since I've done a bit of a 360 texture wise.
There's going to be some stuff sent back to the drawing board.
Hopefully I'll achieve a more subtle blue lighting, which will allow me to use colours more effectively.
I'm going to pick up a new sketchbook tomorrow and start to re-design a few things just to look more impressive and realistic.
Just an image of the hallway as an update on the new colour scheme before I re-design a few things.
I'm going to start looking at some whiter, brighter lighting, as it's still pretty dark.
I'm still messing around with the colour of the pipes.
I personally much prefer this look, as it's more in line with my original vision and more in line with the scene that I've always wanted to create.
I'm messing around with the colour of the strip that runs either side, looks fairly nice in orange, but that's something that is incredibly easy now that I've started to set my materials as instances.
There's a bit of grunge on the textures now that for now I've nabbed from CGTextures.
I also started looking at colour lookup tables some more, as SirCal suggested, they seem much more powerful than I first thought, so I'll probably be making use of on at a later date.
Heaters are going to have to be modified, as they're the wrong shape for the trim now.
But back on topic, I think that the white textures open up a helluva lot more options for you lighting-wise.
I didn't realise that your textures were blue as well as your lighting earlier.
9/10 times, if your need something blue you change the lighting OR the texture, not both - otherwise you lose a lot of information from the two aspects.
I personally prefer the shapes and styles of the older scene, but with the textures and lighting ideas from the newer iteration.
But that's just me! Either way it's looking much more better now
Edit: Did I really just say, "much more better"?
The textures were all grey , they were just picking up the incredibly blue lighting really well also my environment colour was a dark blue, which didn't help...
I TOTALLY hear you on this, but when I was re-designing the colour scheme to be more modern scifi, I just didn't feel that It was matching the almost 90's scifi style I had going.
I might aswell take this opportunity to explain the change.
Since playing mirrors edge years ago I have been fascinated by that style of bright whites and vibrant colours.
While browsing polycount and sites alike, I am always drawn in by scenes with this clean style.
I suppose part of the interest is to do with the fact that I've always found creating bright, clean and colourful so incredibly difficult to perfect and with this sort of scene perfection is key.
So when I started my scene I almost immediately changed from the bright whites and colours of the scenes I loved, to a grimier, darker scene that I thought would be easier to achieve.
However, the experience that I have gained in 3DS Max, Photoshop and most importantly UDK, has given me the confidence that I needed to attempt this clean style of scene and as it stands now I am pleased with the change.
I much happier with my new door, the unlocked text disappears in an incredibly cheap way at the moment (It flies off at the speed of sound, hopefully un noticable to the player) So if anyone knows how to make it fizzle out that'd be appreciated
I'm loving the freedom to add new colours to the scene, as with the door, I'm liking my ceiling a lot more than I was with the old style.
Critz:
Spec on some materials need tweaking-
In the first shot tone down the spec for the blue and bump up the spec for the grey. Make it look like a matte blue and an aluminium (grey) metal.
IMO I'd make the ceiling white, just so it blends in a bit more.
That orange and black griddle thing on the sides of the walkway are out of place (too distracting). You can keep the orange but I think you should make the black/metal part white.
Finally, I don't think the floor lights would look like that. From what I can see, they are level with the floor, so there would bo no lighting from them onto the floor.
Example
But you've made a big improvement so far. Keep going!
The floor lights wouldn't light like that, but shhhhhh, keep it between us...on a serious note I'll probably bump the lights out to make it make more sense.
Boxes can now be coloured, I'm using white just to show the idea really.
Got a new chair, DEFINITELY the comfiest looking thing I've ever made, as with the boxes it can be couloured any colour.
Aaaaand the control room is a lot larger now, much more room for fancy bits and bobs.
I've put a cube map of the environment on everything, seems to work fairly well, giving the environment a more clean and polished look.
The extractor is very much on its way to being finished, the idea is that rocks are drawn up from the hole in the ice, they float up to the green area and are disintegrated, wehere they become energy particles and are drawn upwards and absorbed in to the machine, they are then pumped to storage areas either side of the extractor.
(The black things are temporary untextured rocks.
Edit, Not featured in the first image in this post, I just made the lights on the floor stick out a bit so the lighting makes more sense now.
Some new snow, It's not the greatest snow material in the world and could do with some tweaking, but I'm pretty pleased with how it looks considering I've managed to re-use my snowflakes texture and got a fairly snowy result.
It's really going to be down to the props to make the scene sparkle, so here's a plant