[UDK] Prairie environment
polycounter lvl 7
after 3 weeks of work around it ( 3h per day everynight sometime more ) heres is the current result of my first real next gen environment. I decided to do it so i could have a bit more content for my portfolio ( hoping to get a job this year )
It's not even close to complete, there is still no skybox, i want to add a flow map on my river, some leaves particles falling from the tress etc....
please do criticize my work as it helps me improve it.
Update current progress:
It's not even close to complete, there is still no skybox, i want to add a flow map on my river, some leaves particles falling from the tress etc....
please do criticize my work as it helps me improve it.
Update current progress:
Replies
It really is a good start, you just need to push it and make it your own. And add something of interest besides the trees; maybe ruins or something. I don't know.
Just have fun with it, and separate yourself from everyone else who watched this tutorial.
Good luck!
The grass and the path is clashing, it looks like the grass is coming off a bit too bright. I also agree that you need some sort of focal point like an interesting rock formation or ruins or something.
Beautiful lighting in this scene and I do really like the trees you have in the scene so far. Keep it up!
so i'm definitly going to add some more tree variations along with some color variations for the canopee.
as fore the clash between the grass and the path, i was thinking in scale down the grass near the road will post picture later tonight so you can tell me what you think about it.
And basicaly i was planning on adding a lot more things to the scene, here is the list of things i'm planning to do for the final scene.
- Wood plank and some clothes as if kids were playing around in the river.
- leaves particles falling from the trees
- butterflies flying around
- flow mapping for the river
- an animated skybox
- adding somes more folliages assets near the river and maybe to break up the grass repetition.
once again thank you for the feedback keep it coming.
created an animated skybox ( it was bugging me somehow not seeing any clouds in the scene)
i'am currently modeling some wood fences similare to this ones
i am also making some color variations for the trees as well as for the grass.
i modified slightly my rock shader wich i though was a bit too " plastic like " added some more details on it.
I followed the advice of sybrix and decided to make a water cave thus creating a rock formation to serve as a focal point in my scene.
keep sending some feedback, it's good for me :P
I suppose this would be more of a personal nuisance than anything, but you have an orangish-glow around your grass blades. I'm not sure if that was done on purpose, but you may want to change your fill color to match the blades more closely, just to see how it changes the scene. Keep up the solid work!
- created some leaves particles colliding with the ground.
- desaturate the sky texture a bit
- added some color variations to the existing trees / grass ( planning to add some diferente trees)
- added and placed the wood fences assets ( it's position are not final , please give me some though about it )
well there still is a few things to do and i know i'm going slowly but i want it to be well done.
i need help on one thing, can someone tell me how i could make some butterfly flying around in the scene? Is it doablet via cascade or ...?
I've seen on countless forums many different ideas and thoughts on the subject.
Personally, I'd make a simple butterfly in Maya and render out a short looping flutter animation from above (so it's symmetrical). I'd put these frames into a Flipbook Texture then import it into UDK's Cascade as an animated sprite.
From there it's just a case of making it always face the direction of velocity and adding some noise to it's movement.
The Bird particle system from the Epic Citadel is a good starting point.
The reason each frame would need to be symmetrical is that, using a camera-facing sprite and a side-on butterfly would only look good from one direction.
When the player views from some angles, the sprite flips upside-down to face the camera.
Obviously this is only one method and I'm sure someone else on Polycount has another way
thanks again for the tips please keep them coming :P
River sound test
As you can ear in the video ,my problem here is the river sound, i can't make it sound from the location where the sound display icon is, i wanted to ear the river depending on the location of the player. If the river is located on the left side of the player, the sound should be proeminently heared on the left side of my headphone, yet i don't know how to do that. does somebody knows a solution?
so following reventius tip, i added a bridge to play as a central focal point along with the waterfall and decided to model a medieval tower up in the hill on the left side of the waterfall to act as a background focal point also, do tell me if it is a bad idea or not.
the tower i am thinking in modeling would be inspired of the exemples below
i like that last one with an exagonal shape and a roof. I will obviously add a flag at the tip of the roof to play with cloth modifier.
Adding some loose rocks into the scene could break up the areas where it transitions from grass meshes to the path
also in the 2nd shot the terrain is clipping through the bridge mesh, looks unnatural atm
this tower is quite old, maybe not ideal if you want to give the impression it's inhabitable with a flag but maybe some food for thought
@Tokusei thank you,i'll definitly think about ading some rock on the path to break the grass transition.
@switz Thank you but i'm sorry i don't understand what you meant by " richer "? more clouds? more contrast between the blue and the clouds? darker blue sky?
http://davidluong.net/subpages/images/mattepainting/sky-matte-painting-mp-2k.jpg
Also I think the grass is a bit too close to the river. Not sure if it's realistic but there is a need of some sort of transition, like a small beach or a steep edge or rock and sand.
You could try a decal that blends between the terrain material and an alpha - or maybe add the terrain material as a vertex-painted blend for the bridge
@switz Oh i see, I'll see what i can do with thos clouds.
@AimBIZ THank you, and yes i agree with you withe that rock texture, as for the grass close to the river, you are right again, but it's something i havn't finished yet, i'm thinking in adding more diferente grass to it to have that kind of transition
probably not that with that much density but in the end we shouldn't see the dirt that much.
@Sircalalot thank you, great idea with the decals, i'm going to try that out right away.
I think i'll be wroking on the tower now.
One thing that jumps out at me still though is the colour of the water.
It just doesn't look natural having that lightish-grey hue.
Maybe a darker green base colour with the reflection turned up would bring it out better - making it more of a blue overall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvYcyG4YzNQ&feature=youtu.be
[vv]44360979[/vv]
does anyone know why the video doesn't automaticaly embed it self ?
On the other hand ,the particles of water splashing, ripple surface and water fog were all done by my self.
My only crit is that the surroundings seem a bit empty. The showoff area is lush but between the trees you only see a sky. Would do this piece really well if you put in some mountains in the background. I guess it would be enough to place them in the skybox but still being meshes. I'd recommend looking up images of Switzerland for inspiration of the interplay between mountains and valleys.
Looking forward to the next update!
@AimBIZ i will do as you said for he background, it is true that we don't hae a proper view of what can be found behind those hills and some hills will definitly help . i'll work on it allong with the tower.
well I basicaly followed everything that R13 said on the other topic.( thanks again dude, )
I wish I could have given you the particle effect it self for you to look at it but unfortunatly I don't have this environment working correctly anymore ( BACKUP!!!!!!)
That sucks! I'm sorry you lost all that. Yeah I followed that tut but for some reason I can't get the flaps to happen fast enough. Everything comes to a halt at adding sine waves to the Z coordinate. I can either get one good timed flap, or a series of really slow ones.
I rendered this in scanline, then just added some fog and contrast in PS. The shading changes with lighting position. It only has 512x512 diffuse + alpha