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[UDK] Helms Deep & Fort HornBurg

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polycounter lvl 9
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ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
Final Daytime Images:



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And bonus: the flats (used a bit more texture space than what I wanted, but meh).

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Today I'm starting a new thread that I hope to keep up to date during all the production of a new map I wanted to do for a long time now.

I'm about to start a UDK portfolio map that will be a realistic reproduction of Helms Deep and fort HornBurg from Tolkien's saga before the battle. I've been searching the book, the films and the web (even the games released with the films) to gather a good amount of data from the fort.

I searched for people that modelled it for realtime gaming but didn't find anything except game screenshots (that are really inaccurate to me:)).

Still it's gonna be a hard time getting all the fort details in at the right scale considering amount of work. I expect this project to take around two months if I'm able to work -almost- every day on it.

Topics like adam's environment inspired a lot of people, and I will inspire myself too putting some goals here and the main features I'd like to explore, discover through this project:

So, in other words my goals are:


-Do an accurate reproduction of the fort and valley
-Create a level of detail equal to a FPS game standard (you'd be able to play it at human scale)
-Use the advanced terrain tools of UDK to push the detail limits texturing wise
-If terrain does not suit well, model the land by hand and use advanced blendings per vertex.
-Get a good lighting. Not yet decided about day or night.
-Try to make a bit of modularity in that pretty unique shaped fort.
-Push the details, push it more.
-Add the inside rooms?

Here's little top view I've been doing with splines in 3Dsmax:

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And a very very early block out of the thing to experiment with the verticality and check every thing's scaled all right.

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There might be a lot of LOTR fans on the board so if you see errors punish me with paintovers and criticism, before I go forward.

Ah and yeah, here's a part of my moodboard/inspiration:

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Replies

  • jyandel
    Ambitious! Can't wait to see how it turns out. As far as lighting, you have to do night! Throw some torches in there, as well as lightning and rain :D
  • danshewan
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    danshewan polycounter lvl 8
    Great idea for a project - ballsy and ambitious! Will be following this closely.

    I agree with the night-time lighting suggestion - acres of potential.

    Go go go!
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    if i remember rightly, they said on the extended edition stuff that all the keeps and things in the movies were built to a 1:5 scale or something. so actually yours could do with being "more epic". as in, take those concepts, and scale it to that ratio, and THEN fill it in with bodies to get the true scale of it.
  • kjell
    subscribing to this one! good luck mate!
  • Zack Fowler
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    Zack Fowler polycounter lvl 11
    Ooh, great choice of project man. Looking forward to seeing how you tackle the mountains in particular.
  • Visceral
    I have allways wanted to do this. Im thinking of doing Balind Tomb, a smaller project but would fit the UDk perfectly.
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks everyone ! 'Makes me want to continue, I did more blocking yesterday, started the wall layout and height, the path to the keep inside.

    dcbfdab8ef4d09c78dc061bb82075.jpg


    It still lack a tremendous amount of details everywhere but soon enough it'll be enough detailed to decide what parts are going modular and what not.

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    Night lighting is really tempting and it would be a challenge for me since I almost never made any. If you have any advice on this !


    almighty_gir: Yeah it was indeed that way for the film, I remember in that DVD the dummy of Minas Tirith at that scale. And good idea, i'll go for a first pass of details that are close to that one, and then a second pass with human scale details.

    Zack Fowler: I have some paths to explore for the mountains, like this one for example:

    -Sculpt the terrain completely on low frequency details
    -Bake an heightmap from it (and eventually normal map)
    -Apply HM to terrain actor in unreal (and see if the quality is there for vertical cliffs
    -Set the terrain textures tiling
    -paint 'super'masks in an app like 3Dcoat directly on the mesh for each terrain material and that way have the terrain transitions done in one material, texture for masks could be around 4096 to have a good detail/m² and avoid linear blends. And why not add more details to the supermasks using smaller tiling masks :)

    Now it's a new approach for me to the terrain editor so it's gonna be try and fail until I get it to work.

    Visceral: Oh if you do it i'll follow you for sure! I wanted some time ago to start a Moria Cave like map but quickly stopped in the idea because of light sources being problematic. But AFAIK Balind's tomb room has a strong ray of light coming from the outside so it would work well.
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    1c3d62d304ef13613bee792530885.jpg

    I was not sure about the set of arches and doors inside the fort corridor/alley to the keep, so I created them based on the film shots.

    Also one thing bugs me, it's how the tunnel that starts at the outside wall intersection goes trough the wall of the fort.

    At the moment I made it follow the curvature of the walls and meet the fort entrance arch but I have a total lack of image support there.

    I'll post more pics of the inside walls parts so you can crit, Because you'll hardly ever see anything on today's update:

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  • Av7xrocker97
    Looks good now. Can't wait to see how it goes in future updates.
  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 12
    dude, if you can pull this off..... OMG.
  • Dani
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    Dani polycounter lvl 9
    If you can capture that epic feeling that no LOTR game has been able to so far imo then that would be a great achievement, litle bit early for critique though.
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks for the motivators dudes!

    I didn't work a lot last two days, but have a small update:

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    Mostly added details to the wall, added stairs to visualize vertical distribution of space. Revised distance between some objects, and captured with more precision the lower part of the walls.

    Still have to add the main entrance small door that Gimli and Aragorn use to go outside and jump on the bridge in the film for example.

    I'm not too far away from the 'think modular' step I guess.
  • n88tr
    Nice! Looks like a fun project. Good ref images selection too.
  • mortalhuman
    looks pretty incredible as usual ParoXum, keep that up!
  • Grobi
    Subscribing to this, I can't wait to see this complete!
  • Visceral
    Man this is looking great! And yeah i have begun with the tomb. Making the acctual tomb as we speak.
  • SnakeDoctor
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    SnakeDoctor keyframe
    Going to follow this one.
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks everyone, yeah not much to crit on this blockout. But I consider it done now, time to move forward into texture and modular assets creation:

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    Visceral
    : Great, looking forward to seeing stuff from that tomb.


    Skullburn: Helm's deep is already a really hard time to block out, so Minas Tirith would be like trying to model hell without the help of Weta guys. But yeah, I remember seeing guys doing it in the past.
  • JostVice
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    JostVice polycounter lvl 12
    this is looking promising. I'm following this, can't wait to see how you put textures on it :)
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Started and almost finished the bottom wall texture. I will use it on the lateral wall and the bottom of the keep.

    I decided to bake from the raw highpoly since the destination texture was 2048*2048. Computer was struggling but the result is there.


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    Should I do a specular map for it?:poly121:
  • mortalhuman
    Looking really awesome, but I long for those staggered bricks to have their real silhouette! You're so good man.
  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 12
    beautiful. but this is an old structure. add moss or some stuff.
  • pliang
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    pliang polycounter lvl 17
    Looking good.

    Bricks sure look fresh cut though, it should be rather windswept, chipped, burnt and blown up.
  • Visceral
    Hurrm im having problems making my Balins Tomb scene look decent. Problem is im not used to texturing AT ALL. And i set a personal goal to make all the textures myself. I thought to myself, maybe i could come to this thread and get some inspiration.

    I have tried sculpting normals in mudbox now to be moore fancy, but it ends up looking messy. Cant figure out what im doing wrong.

    Sorry dude dont wanna thread jack but im kinda worried as a complete texture noob.
  • divi
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    divi polycounter lvl 12
    is there a reason that the bricks get smaller the higher up it goes?
    looks good but i hope you'll somehow break up the tiling a bit or make it less obvious.
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    divi: Yeah, that is because that texture is going to tile horizontally only, and it'll act as a strong basement for the wall masonry.

    I tried to break the tiling, and think it works well on rounded geometry which is what you're going to see almost all the time in the piece.

    Visceral: dont know if it helps, but the stone bricks I sculpted in Zbrush used only claytubes and planar brushes. Stock alphas too. I don't know for mudbox tho.

    pliang,roosterMAP: Thanks! I added more overlays on the texture since your post, and also added some dead moss (white/black) at some places. Cant go too far with damage on the texture itself, the rest should be done into the shader using vertex color and masks.

    I did one more tiling texture that to complete that set. I'm not really happy with it in the way the crevices in that one are different to the first one, but would like to hear your comments about it.

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    Some UDK tests with parallax to get off 3dsmax a bit tonight..
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    That's looking great in the UDK! The parallax is pretty subtle but seems to be working quite well.

    Maybe it'd work even better if those stones looked a bit deeper and more worn (as someone mentioned earlier). They do look very clean-cut right now which is contributing to them looking a little flatter than they perhaps should.
  • Taylor Hood
    Indeed the parallax looks just right.
    Keep it up!
  • Visceral
    Looks sweet, people tend to really overdo the parallax effect but you are keeping it subtile and it really sells the effect great!
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Really quick update today:

    Did a modular top tower asset, 1024*1024 as planned. Under 1k tris.

    b414e417cb2bfa0d89d833badfac6.jpg
    Searching a way to fix the bent bricks on the walls corners as it doesnt look so realistic. I thought of using alpha masked overlays, but i'm unsure about the quality of the results.

    If you have any idea other than sculpting every brick at it's very position tell me ! :)
  • whats_true
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    whats_true polycounter lvl 15
    Stone trim will solve that (image on left)

    IMAG008.GIF

    Just make a mesh of it and use it on all corners if you want. Keep it suttle so it doesnt stand out.
  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 15
    what sort of lighting setup are u using for those udk shots.. they actually look really sweet for just a "hey look what i got" sort of thing.
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    whats_true: Yap, pretty much what I thought. Thanks for the help!

    Oniram: Thanks, well the lighting is dead simple actually: it's one dominant directionnal and one skylight. (I think the skylight is still white color with that), here's some setups:

    4824cc54c167ef2c3eab3a8e82898.jpg

    Did the stairs today, but I'd like to show the asset within the walls so closups might wait a bit :)
  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 15
    ok great thx. for whatever reason i seem to be having issues with lighting in the newer versions of udk.. i take it you are using either june or july? the issue im getting is the shadows from a dominant directional light dont show up when i bake.. they seem more like just a mess of bad shadowing, though im sure it has something to do with the lightmap settings. ill take a look into the settings youve got and see if it helps. thx
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Very small update of the lateral wall, before I start the Keep!


    aec370f50bbd4da3eb78f4b7dbb99.jpg
    This part is like 10% of the whole thing.

    Been a bit lazy last few days.
  • Visceral
    Lookin sharp ;) How is the terrain coming, i would love to see some really muddy textures here. Are you doing it with a single big mesh or terrain setups?
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    i feel the need to model a skateboarding elf...
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    almighty_gir: Haha go for it, maybe I can feature that!

    Visceral: Thanks, I will start on terrain when I have most of the Fort done, maybe in one week from today, as my current rhythm for assets is one per day.

    Two new picies, with top wall meshes and stairs around. Lots of UVs to fix, with stretches here and there.

    Terrain is a proxy mesh, with a shader from Epic Games. Didn't work on it since day one.


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  • James9475
    Looks like it's shaping up into a beautiful portfolio piece :) keep going!
  • Taylor Hood
    Coming along very nicley!
    Is it just me or does the way it's being rendered in UDK right now look a tad Bordelands-ish?
    With all the deep shadows on the edges and stuff. But that's fine, I like that style =]

    Nice work.
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Yeah, the default SSAO does this. I got it fixed now by modding the DefaultPostProcess chain file.
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Quick update of the day:

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  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 15
    gusta!

    so how much of these are meshes, and how much are BSPs?
  • Alberto Rdrgz
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    Alberto Rdrgz polycounter lvl 9
    looking good so far man.
  • EVIL
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    EVIL polycounter lvl 18
    looks cool! does still look a tad new, might use a bit more debris and damage.
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks everyone, more done, approaching terrain milestone.

    EVIL: Yeah, it does look new indeed. I'm going to have to do some destruction passes using decals, overlays, broken stone models around, and vertex color blending.

    I will try with those destruction passes to make it look unique at each meter.

    Oniram: Zero BSPs, all the block-out was done in meshes, and now all the assets are meshes.

    Picies time :) Crits always welcome

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  • mortalhuman
    ♫ it just keeps gettin better ♫
  • Visceral
    fantastic update. But i sure do hope you wont stick with that grass covered rock you have, well it really depends what you are going for, an exact 1:1 replica of the film scenery or are you doing this a bit freestyle?

    haha im probably going ahead of myself here :D i realize you are working on the keep right now. great job anyhow!

    -Use the advanced terrain tools of UDK to push the detail limits texturing wise

    I assume you are going for something like this then.
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
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