[UDK] Temple Entrance Environment
polycounter lvl 7
CURRENT PROGRESS:
THREAD:
Hello Polycounters,
I've been looking at everyone's amazing work for a couple of months already but never posted any of my artwork myself, so here I am now to do so. Really excited to form part of the community!
Beeing completely new to UDK, this project is helping me to understand how the engine works and day after day I learn a new thing.
The initial idea for this was a temple in a floating island, then it moved to be just a temple without a floating island and now im considering going back to the inital idea.
Anyway, enough babbling, here are some screenshots I took from the level:
Things I have noticed and need to be fixed:
- The face sculpture normal for some reason baked down showing the low poly object within the normal map, giving the mesh a very awkward look.
- The roof top thing is too clearly modular and can be seen where repeated, will have to look into that.
- Landscape looks terrible, i´m heavily considering making a Floating Island in Mudbox and then bring it into UDK.
- Need to revisit the base mesh for the stairs because they don´t match horizontaly (should be just a case of matching vertices, not a big deal
So, what I intend to do:
- Create a waterfall that will come out from the Face’s mouth (hence it being open), flow a bit and fall into nothingness from the border of the floating island.
- Create a particle system that mimics falling leaves
- Add veins to the whole thing?
As for the colour theme, does it look a bit monochromatic? I´ve mainly gone for yellow/brown/reddish colours and this might be a bit boring. Opinions?
So I hope I get good crit and advice from the community, please point out even the littlest detail: I want to learn and improve
Also i´m currently reading about matinee to set up a camera and all that, so i´ll post a vid of it as soon as possible.
Thanks!
THREAD:
Hello Polycounters,
I've been looking at everyone's amazing work for a couple of months already but never posted any of my artwork myself, so here I am now to do so. Really excited to form part of the community!
Beeing completely new to UDK, this project is helping me to understand how the engine works and day after day I learn a new thing.
The initial idea for this was a temple in a floating island, then it moved to be just a temple without a floating island and now im considering going back to the inital idea.
Anyway, enough babbling, here are some screenshots I took from the level:
Things I have noticed and need to be fixed:
- The face sculpture normal for some reason baked down showing the low poly object within the normal map, giving the mesh a very awkward look.
- The roof top thing is too clearly modular and can be seen where repeated, will have to look into that.
- Landscape looks terrible, i´m heavily considering making a Floating Island in Mudbox and then bring it into UDK.
- Need to revisit the base mesh for the stairs because they don´t match horizontaly (should be just a case of matching vertices, not a big deal
So, what I intend to do:
- Create a waterfall that will come out from the Face’s mouth (hence it being open), flow a bit and fall into nothingness from the border of the floating island.
- Create a particle system that mimics falling leaves
- Add veins to the whole thing?
As for the colour theme, does it look a bit monochromatic? I´ve mainly gone for yellow/brown/reddish colours and this might be a bit boring. Opinions?
So I hope I get good crit and advice from the community, please point out even the littlest detail: I want to learn and improve
Also i´m currently reading about matinee to set up a camera and all that, so i´ll post a vid of it as soon as possible.
Thanks!
Replies
1) Are these going to be ruins? Have they been there for hundreds of years? If so I would recommend taking a look at something like this.
http://cghub.com/files/Image/004001-005000/4855/691_realsize.jpg
Make sure the objects know each other. Right now everything looks separate like they don't belong together. If it is ruins make sure to show some rubble and some overgrowth. Make sure the landscape textures blend with the vegetation and stonework. I'm assuming there would be some sort of path way to the entrance that would look like it's been well used.
2) Try to do some research on creating some nice tileable textures.
3) I would recommend a complimentary color scheme.
4) Vegetation will be important to get that jungle/forest look if you are going for that. There are some great tutorials on youtube for speedtree.
The idea is that it will eventually look like ruins, problem is hand in is soon so atm im focusing on getting it looking solid and consistence and once that is done (I plan to continue this project after the submission) then Ill start making it look more like ruins by adding the overgrowth, blending together the environment (vertex painting I guess?)
Here´s a quick update:
I decided to ditch the Landscape as it was not giving me what I wanted and instead sculpted the terrain in Mudbox and painted it in there as well. Still need to build up a proper Shader for the terrain, atm its just the diffuse stuck to it.
I also tried to change the vegetation colour, back to how it was initially. I still need to play a bit more with the colours but it will probably stay in the greenish area. Plus Ive modeled some new plants to add some variation, creating also 2 diferent colours (I can create as many as I like, for its a material instance).
One thing that I forgot to mention is that the tree trunks are very wippy and don´t look at all jungle-ish. I will deffinately go back to them and sculpt proper trunks. I will probably use speedtree to get some more trees in it, but as a first start I wanted to learn how to model trees myself, and not rely on external packages.
Anyway, here is the update:
Regarding tillable textures I watched and learned from the 3Dmotive Tilable Textures by Ryan Smith. The wall behind the face statue has one of those textures, but the mesh is still from the blockout and needs to be revisited. Here is the texture for the wall:
And here it is for the floor:
With this one i´m planning to set up a shader to vertex paint a mixture of it with sand blening onto a geometry or second option is learn how to apply height maps in my shader and then vertex paint sand on top of that geometry, as opposed to painting sand and the texture in one.
Once achieved I will make the path towards the temple entrance eroded by sand and partally covered by it.
Again thanks for the crit mate, really helpful
I'll have a look at why it isn´t working and try replacing the plants with the foliage mode! Thanks!
I managed to set up a vertex paint for the path that leads to the temple entrance, this is what it looks like:
Also changed the terrain shader so that i could also vertex paint on it so that the path static mesh and the terrain blend in together properly (although at the moment you can see the geometry edge, but it was just a test, i'll go in a model a proper path)
You have the right attitude - eager to learn and constantly pushing yourself by critiquing your own work
With regards to foliage, I think you are much better off modelling it yourself and trying to stay away from Speedtree because:
a) You'll learn more.
b) It will look better.
c) You have far more control over your objects.
d) I can't find any advantages of Speedtree that outweigh points a,b and c
The Foliage mode in UDK is also great for placing plants (and any other objects) because it instances meshes and ultimately saves time and draw calls.
Keep up the good work, I'll hold off critiques until you've come a bit further.
I can't wait to see more!
Edit: Although, I'd say take out the stock UDK 'Rock Mesa' meshes as I can spot them a mile off :P
@SirCalalot - Yes, im also pro-do-stuff yourself, the only reason i was planing to go to Speedtree was to get in as much foliage variation in the fastest possible time, just to show it in the hand in and once that time pressure is gone go back and model the tree's myself.
Atm all foliage has been modeled and textured by me. I'm quite happy with the canopy but there is so much room for improvement. When i did this i used Maya to model everything and then took it to Max and used the RTT feature, which in Maya i couldn't get to work properly. Moving around from packages gave me some problems and i think thats where my erros came in.
Oh yeah, i forgot to mention that the big background rocks are placeholders :P Another thing on the list of things to do!
I also figured why I couldn't place Foliage in my Static Mesh. Basically the island doesn't have a collision defined and therefore the Foliage Mode will refuse to place foliage there. I tried to use the auto convey colision box but because I have two rocks at the sides it doesn't make a proper col box, because the mesh has like a concave shape.
What i'll probably do is separate the mesh and have the rocks as separate, that way i should be able to get a proper col.box.
Thanks for the input both of you!
I modeled some bricks which I, for now, scattered randomly in the path. The position of these hasnt been though logically (as in, I havent questioned myself why is there a brick there? when I positioned them), but I will think of something to create a story to the environment, suggestions welcome!
Aside from that, Ive been playing around with vertex paint, applying it to probably all of my materials :P I have a question regarding this subject for all you guys:
-Is it possible to change the colour of what you are vertex painting?
I tried moving the colour wheel in the VPaint menu but didn´t work hehe, so Im assuming that if its possible it must be done in the material editor. Will experiment with that
Anyway, here are the new pics:
This one is of the entrance, the back stairs need to be vertex painted.
So yeah, after adding the vertex paint I kind of broke a bit the amount of tiling meshes in the scene, now I just need to add colour variation to the vertex paint to make it even less tillable.
I also discovered why the static meshes where showing the low res geometry even though they had a normal map. Well, when baking in xNormal under Smooth Normals i had selected "Use exported normals", when i changed it to "Average" the whole map looked much nicer. That plus Softening the normals in Maya. Everything looks nicer now
I think modeling some rocks comes next, those default ones are just tooo obvious
With regards to ground collision, you can make your own collision mesh for your terrain. As long as the terrain isn't too dense as it is, you can probably just duplicate it in Maya and rename the copy exactly the same as the original but with "UCX_" in front of it.
I hope that's clear. I'm very tired :S
Just a quick one from me, remember grass can't grow (rarely anyway) in sand, so make sure you place the planes correctly!
Also try and keep the base of the grass texture the same (ish) colour as the ground that it is coming from, therefore blending in better. At the moment the grass planes stick out quite a lot.
Keep going! Already a huge improvement!
Why is Buddha's mouth wide open?
@Guy123 - Good input, had a similar one from a friend of mine.
I have given this some thought and probably I will remove all the sand where the patches of grass are. I kind of tried to imagine a situation in which there would be sand and grass.
The situation would be that very strong winds should blow in order to move around the sand but then A) I would need to create a strong particle system mimicking a sandstorm and
Will change the grass blade colour to match the ground, added to the must do things!
@Ambershee When I started creating this project I wanted to have the architectural style but not the geographical setting. So i´m not trying to replicate Cambodian ruins but replicate ruins with a Cambodian style. And as Calalot says i´m planning to add water pouring from the mouth and flowing down the river bed (the concave shape) and fall from the precipice.
Here´s the update:
I finally got rid of the default rocks (oh my, my scene just got worse :P ) and modeled my own ones. Im not too happy with them so for now (deadline close) Ill leave them as they are, probably work a bit more into the material itself, and when I have more time then re-do them.
Thanks for all the inputs guys, really appreciate them!
Maybe a nice hand-painted one? Or something mimicking the style of @choco's skies?
You could also look into Colour Look-up Tables to recolour your scene using Photoshop
Oh, and I also handed in this project, so now comes the good part where I dont have anything else to do except this
I have played around with LUTs briefly before handing in but I couldnt find one that suited what I wanted, so im guessing I didnt play around enough. I´ll deffinately give it another go as im sure I can improve my scene drastically with it! Thanks for that vid, will give it a watch right now!
About the skys, I had completely forgotten it was default and that it had to be replaced haha.
Yeah, Chocos thread is like pure gold, probably gone through it so many times Not sure whether to go that hand painterly style, might not fit with the architecture in the scene.
So ok, now that Ive handed in this Id like to do a recap of what I intend to do:
- Water pouring out of the statues mouth, creating a river which ends in waterfall.
- Sculpt the trees properly (they have no normal maps atm)
- Get specular maps on anything which hasnt got one
- Add particle effects (dust, falling leaves, glowing bugs maybe?)
- Improve the blending between ground and grass
- Get a collision box on the terrain that works
- Create vines
This would be for the entrance area. Once this is done I will attempt to build something on top, well see.
Thanks
I played around a bit with the LUTs and this is what I came up with:
I personally like the LUT2 but I do think it makes the sky look too blue? Alhtough if Im eventually replacing that it shouldnt be a problem
Opinions? Suggestions as to what could look good?
I have also done a quick setup for the water movement and so, pay no mind to the diffuse, just wacked in a random colour to see how it looked.
Atm it looks horrendous, but its just a start and ill build up from here. You also get to see the grass and trees moving
http://youtu.be/0Gzcedsnq70
Sorry about the link, couldn't get the embeding working? :S
Too many games / scenes use desaturated or brown tones these days :P
... So why did I put LUT1 in my post?
@Amber/Ev/David - Thanks guys, I kind of knew straight away LUT2 was working best, just needed 3rd eye's opinion
I also prefer LUT2, the video I linked showing the water is actually already the LUT2 so I guess from a start I was already inclined to use that one
Ok, animations are out of the way, I have finished my first year and now comes the good no pressure learning period. I'll give myself a couple of resting days and as soon as they are over i'll start working again.
I'll start by fixing everything that has been pointed out and then ill move on doing some vines and sculpt the trees.
I'm not sure what to do with the top section (where the stairs lead to). Atm its going upwards but I was thinking I could have them descending, leading to a temple which is underground(Bad planification, wish I'd had more time to do so).
More to come soon!
I modeled some vines, generated normal map for the tree and adjusted the water to make it more muddy.
For those materials that lacked a specular I created that specular.
Also played around with DOF and Bloom, so any critique regarding that would be appreciated.
I still need to correct the blending of the grass with the ground as its one thing that still stands out quite a lot.
Here is what I have so far:
Aside of whats already been mentioned does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could add to improve my scene?
Ill probably tweak a couple of things and then call this one done
Thanks!
Thanks!
sorry
Have you tried a more translucent material with some nice animated distortion effects going on?
@SirCalalot Hheheh I did try to replicate water but didnt get a good result, hence me trying another thing. Probably didnt spend enough time at it, Ill go back and try and see if I can get something similar to water that works better
Ok, so regarding the Colour washed scene I got rid of the Bloom and DoF, changed a bit the colours of the scene, desaturated the plants a bit (to make them less eye-catching). This is the result:
After that I played around a bit in Photoshop,in my opinion it looks already better than the previous ones. The difference is maybe barely visible at first glance, but when you flicker between the two images it stands out quite a lot:
Any opinions, suggestions?
I've re-uploaded in the previous post the images in big size, easier to see
Yes, there is vertex painting nearly everywhere, wherever there's moss and sand (pretty much all the architecture bits.
Got rid of the mud river and went back to water, this is a first attempt to it:
I also added a particle effect trying to mimic the particles that appear when a waterfall hits the river beneath it, maybe a bit too exaggerated given this isnt a proper waterfall?
Thanks!
For the sheer volume of water coming out of the statue I think that the amount of particles looks good.
You might want to tone down the blue a bit and add some animated refraction. There is a 'Distortion' channel in the Material Editor that you could simply plug your Normal map or a Height Map into after multiplying it by something like 5.
You should also check out Hourences Indoor Water Tutorial - a first port of call for any water-obsessed UDKer