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WIP Asian Street

Hi everyone, I am choosing to do an environment of an outdoor city from mulitple angles, and it will be able to be walked around in, in UDK. I'm not planning on making it playable (unless there is a cool mod that would like to have it as a level). I started this about 1 month ago, not including the holidays. Right now I'm in the texturing phase, and then I will add more detail where I see fit once the textures are applied. Most of them will be tileable. This will be the second city I've tried, and I've got a lot better since the first one :thumbup:. This will be a test to push my own skill to the limit.

I am doing an asian city with a couple of ref images I've found online. The street section was so different than what I see daily here in Austin, that I felt urged to want to do something challenging. The images are pretty bland, so I'm only using them as a skeleton to get my work started, I'm planning on creating my own textures and lighting, so that it will have more mood.

Here are the ref images:

RefImage_01.jpg

RefImage_02.jpg

And here are some compositions I'm thinking about (3DS Max):

Cam1_01.jpg

Cam2_01.jpg

Cam3_01.jpg

Cam4_01.jpg

The colored checkers are placeholders for instanced submats I will be using in UDK to recolor similar surfaces. I'm going back and forth between max and UDK to make sure everything looks good in engine.

The UDK stuff with quick lighting:

Unreal1_01.jpg

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Unreal3_01.jpg

Unreal4_01.jpg

Let me know if you've got any ideas to make the scene more out-of-the-ordinary, or if you've got some tips on conserving textures and such. I'll update this when I've made some more progress.

Replies

  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 14
    its a good start! You may not want to jump straight into UDK... but it looks good so far!
  • JonathanArmstrong
    Update! Been doing a lot since the last update. I haven't really modeled too much more, but have been mostly texturing. I'm beginning to polish the central area and will probably stop this to start getting the farther sections up to the same level of completeness. I'm also including a truck, that I modeled in the last update, that needs some texture love. Let me know if you know, or can point me to, any good lighting references for UDK. I may be a little rusty :) (also, most of the geo is probably not worthy of being lightmapped, since the uvs are overlapping everywhere). I'd like to know if there is a good lightmapping solution for this.


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    Cam5_02.jpg

    Truck_01.jpg
  • LlamaJuice
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    LlamaJuice polycounter lvl 11
    if you have overlapping UVs and wish to use lightmaps you can create a second set of UVs and have the UDK use those instead. There's a setting in the static mesh window to set which UV channel it uses.
  • thevossman
    Looin nice. how many polygonals is this masterpiece?
    And i second the UV channel 2 idea. thats how it should have been done on the OOOVERRUN!
  • JonathanArmstrong
    Hah, thanks Voss! Nice to see you in the forums :).

    LlamaJuice
    Thanks for the tip. I knew that I could use a second set, but I thought that it had to be laid out the same as the first...so I was just copying and pasting uvs from channel 1 to 2 for the lightmap. I will definitely check that out!

    Right now the scene is around 100,000 tris and 80,000 verts. I think most games go by vert count now. I split it up into 7 major sections so it's easier to import.
  • whats_true
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    whats_true polycounter lvl 15
    I did something like this last year hehe :]

    I referenced Tekkonkreet a LOT. Remember to put lots of vending machines, wires, and air vents :p. Also, it helps if you build the buildings modularly. Saves time in having to re-UV and retexture everything. Its looking good so far dude! Keep at it!
  • JonathanArmstrong
    @ whats_true
    Thanks for the advice :). I decided to not go with a vending machine, but I do have a photo booth in there. Before I did this piece, I was planning on making a whole environment in 3ds max -- so most of the geometry is not modular, although some of the smaller objects are.
  • JonathanArmstrong
    Been refining some more. I was doing some textures with masks for erosion and damage decals, until I found out vertex painting! I've been blending textures like crazy now, and experiment with new combinations while trying to be resourceful and use existing textures from my library. I also added a post process, and am going for a hot day look (hence, the red filter). I noticed that some of my metal shaders were reminding me of that clean pixar look, so I decided to go with a clean sky.

    Cam1_03.jpg

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    Tree.jpg




    I didn't want that default cloud texture taking away from the actual silhouette of the objects on the ground. I will be finishing the textures pretty soon, and adding some low poly buildings in the background so that it's not just empty space. Lately, I have been catching myself observing real-life objects a lot more, gazing lovingly into chipped paint and scratched metal whenever I go out somewhere :).

    Any suggestions to make the lighting more interesting? I'm thinking of doing a night shot too, so that way I can experiment with some more moody lighting. Comments welcome!

    Jonathan
  • ajr2764
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    ajr2764 polycounter lvl 10
    Very nice work so far. I have a question so your using vertex painting to put dirt and damage on your existing wall texturs? Im interested in the idea of that, Im working on a environment for school. I have the main tiled wall textures and want to create dirt, splatters and such without creating different versions. I was going to explore using decals?
  • Rojo
    Maybe go with sunrise or sunset, use a clash of warm and cool lighting with hard shadows. This gives you more to experiment with in a corridor setting, because noon is going to make it look flat.
  • Shogun3d
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    Shogun3d polycounter lvl 12
    Just in time for Chinese New Years ;) Should throw a dragon float in there somewhere. Work up your zbrush skills haha.

    You seem to know what you're doing modeling and texture wise. Just keep pushing and show love for the other maps, especially the spec/gloss/reflection if you use a lot. Push the materials and polish it off with lighting. You'll be golden, just like my noodle i'm eating right now.
  • Bruno Afonseca
    I really like the direction you're going right now, love the colors. Reminds me of the movie Tekkon Kinkreet, which has the most amazing background work I've ever seen.

    I'd just get rid of the fog. Hot days with clear skies have a higher visibility, so right now the fog looks n64-ish. You could use less-saturated textures for those buildings far away.

    I like the lighting. You could make some really saturated signs so lightmass can bounce their color around. Make some see-through drapes, colored glass bottles, stuff like that
  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 14
    everything but the plants is good. also, u may wanna have more elaborate lighting.
  • JonathanArmstrong
    @ ajr2764
    If you want a good tutorial on vertex painting, I would refer you to this: http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/UDK_Advanced_Vertex_Painting.html. I have done a pretty good deal of work with shaders so it was pretty easy to pick up, it may be harder if your a beginner with the unreal shader setup. Mainly, you have your diff, spec and norm for 2 or more textures (like usual), then you set up a lerp to blend each of the two diffs, specs, and norms using a vertex color modifier. Just use one color from that into the alpha of the lerps, and paint away! There's a tool called mesh painter in unreal for that. Good luck :)

    @ Tim Deneau
    I understand what your saying with the noon setting. They are pretty hard to make interesting. The shadows will be better, I have just not lightmapped anything yet and it's solely relying on the realtime ao. The street is the only part I have experimented with lightmapping so far. I will see how a different lighting setup will work, but I am growing to like the color palette.

    kaburan

    I have been trying to go all out with refletion and parallax maps anywhere I see fit. I believe that good environments use a combination of glossy/reflective materials juxtaposed next to matte objects (Fallout 3 comes to mind). The shaders are a little subtle, though, and are more noticeable when running around in game. I'm planning on releasing a video when this is finished of me running around :).

    fonfa

    Thanks! Yes, the fog I am still playing with. It's hard because I don't want to be able to see too far into the distance. I will most likely put a big building at the end of that street and I will decrease the fog. I am trying to simulate some atmospheric perspective, and I can probably play with the colors of those distant buildings. Thanks for the tip.

    roosterMAP

    What would you suggest I do to make the tree look better? I have tried to make it low poly and keep it pretty detailed with those leaves. There are mini-trees all over the place and they can't be too high poly.
  • ajr2764
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    ajr2764 polycounter lvl 10
    Thanks for the link to those tutorials, looks like some great stuff on his website.
  • JonathanArmstrong
    I've got sunlight shadows up and running, and I added more buildings to the background. I have also been making sure everything has a texture on it and played around with the post processing a tad. I also added a new plant :). There is an aerial view thrown in to show off the roof texture.

    I've got a scene capture reflect actor and a TextureRenderTarget2D, because I am planning on having real-time reflections for the water. The only problem is that the scene capture does not fill the whole texture space, and ends up with a lot of that bright green border. Does anyone know how to fix this (or a better way to do real-time water in UDK)?

    Cam1_04.jpg

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    Cam5_04.jpg


    Plant_04.jpg

    Cam6_04.jpg
  • hydzior
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    hydzior polycounter lvl 11
    Looks really nice so far .
  • Daniel Doerksen
    curious to know, where are you referencing your asian signs from, ? i have somthing similar going and i need to find more reference
  • rumblesushi
    Very very impressive. Reminds me a bit of Shenmue 2. You should send these to Sega as prototype scenes for Shenmue 3 ;)
  • JonathanArmstrong
    Thanks everyone for the feedback and suggestions! I have reached the point where I am satisfied with the environment. I have included the final screenshots and a video. For some reason, the video didn't load all the way from my site, so I also uploaded one on youtube.

    I've created a material out of existing normals for the lanterns and added a faked subsurface scattering. I also added new lightmaps for all the sections for the global illumination. I finished vertex painting everything as well. It would be difficult for me to make any further alterations, since the vertex painting is destroyed when you add or remove geometry from the objects. Realtime reflections are also working now in the water... I just had to reload UDK and that green was gone :). The images are less compressed than the previous, so enjoy!

    AsianStreet_01.jpg

    AsianStreet_03.jpg

    AsianStreet_04.jpg

    AsianStreet_05.jpg

    AsianStreet_02.jpg


    Here's a link to a flythrough:
    http://jonarm.com/Downloads/AsianStreet_Flythrough.mov

    youtube version (just in case :poly124:):
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP3MTM4pmbg[/ame]


    Thanks for looking,

    Jonathan

    P.S. That crazy looking building (with the square cutouts in the roof) in the background is a skyscraper I did from memory that resembles this cool building in downtown Austin.
  • JonathanArmstrong
    rumblesushi
    Thanks :). Shenmue was THE game for sweet graphics growing up. That would be pretty cool if I could collaborate with SEGA somehow!

    Daniel Doerksen

    For the signs, I hand-drew those large characters from looking at those reference pictures I have and random asian font online. I mixed and matched the colors and sizes to get different results. For the one's with custom pictures and logos, I pretty much made up all those or got inspiration from everyday signs, but I hand painted them from scratch in Photoshop (I even have an Irish-Pub-esque chalk sign that doesn't have any asian characters ;)) There was also a way to enable asian characters as a font, but it overrides the whole computer keyboard. It was pretty convoluted trying to research how that worked, though. good luck!
  • divi
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    divi polycounter lvl 12
    great scene :D
    only thing i'd change is the rock texture overlay on the sky :>
  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 14
    i love the improvment. however, things are too bridge in the shadows. make them darker. I like it all much better when its all higher contrast.
  • thevossman
    First i would like to say that this thuruly kicks ass and you did a good job creating an atmosphere of an overcrowded downtown street. My favorite part has to be the room that you can see into with the blinds in disarray, HOT.

    Also, I agree with the rocky sky comment, it confuses me but does add an interesting feel. I would like to see the video set to this song:
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmijZEpV1_A&feature=related[/ame]
    And lastly i think that the rock texture in the 2nd image of this last post looks to tiled and out of place for that piece of architecture. it seems more like walkway stone. i would like to see plates of sheet rock or maybe some rounded cement lattus work to offset the linear geometry.

    But if you take anything away from this, take the song.
  • JonathanArmstrong
    diviroosterMAP

    Thanks for the compliment divi! This is a screenshot taken directly from game with the same compression as the last uploaded images.

    thevossman

    Thanks for the suggestions. I do agree that the stone could probably be of a better variety, those are all useful suggestions. It's such a small area and the stone is only used there. I have seen the video you sent me but don't think that song would highlight the work.

    What does everyone think? Is this one better than the one in the last post? I'd like to know your opinion :).


    Cam1_05x.jpg
  • StefanH
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    StefanH polycounter lvl 12
    looks really nice. I think this came along a long way.
  • JonathanArmstrong
    StefanH

    Thanks, Stefan, I agree that it indeed has come a long way. It was great fun!
  • JonathanArmstrong
    Higher-Res Screen! I also decided to eliminate most of the DOF blur. I put a fog plane in the back to create some more accurate atmospheric perspective. Then, I "dirtied" up the ledges on the closest building on the left. I also changed the name of the work to Be Water instead of the generic Asian Street.



    Old

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    New

    JonathanArmstrong_BeWater.jpg
  • gsokol
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    gsokol polycounter lvl 14
    nice. Very inspiring. Glad to see you got rid of the DOF, looks much better without.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    really nice finish to this one :)
  • anoon
    Sorry, haven't read the whole thread...

    ...will this be released? I would love to walk through it and check it out, even if there is no game play.

    Looks amazing.
  • JonathanArmstrong
    gsokol

    Thanks. Yes, I agree that the DOF was holding it back. I actually was inspired driving near downtown Austin one morning and noticed how the buildings looked from a distance. :)

    Ged

    Thanks!

    anoon

    I have got a couple of offers to take this into a mod or small project but they have not been that serious. Some have been saying that they'd like to see it playable. I'm still thinking about it. :) Maybe when I get another quick piece under my belt.
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