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[CE3] Sci-Fi Server Room

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polycounter lvl 7
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Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
Hi everyone,

I thought I’d start a thread for a project I’ve recently started. The environment is based on a couple of pieces of concept art by RAZOR B. I’ve seen a few people tackle these environments but hopefully I can push some of my own personal touches into the mix. Unfortunatly I’m not able to work on it constantly as work work takes priority but I try to work on it during my lunch hour and a little bit at home when I get chance. I'll try to keep the thread as up to date as possible.

Goals of the project:

- Improve at asset creation and texture work in general (Unfortunatly Eutechnyx is a very outsource heavy studio so I don’t get to work on assets as much as I’d like)

- Tackle a style I’ve never tried before (As common as Sci-Fi stuff is here on polycount, I’ve never created anything Sci-Fi before ^_^)

- Post on polycount more

- Take on feedback and suggestions earlier rather than waiting till I’m 90% finished

- Further improve on my CryEngine knowledge

As always feedback and crit is welcome and thank you for your time

Current Progress:

ServerRoom1.jpg

Concept Art By RAZOR B

2denvironments01.jpg

2denvironments02.jpg

High Poly Models

000_HighPolyFloorTile.jpg

000_HighPolyRoofTile.jpg

Replies

  • theonebutcher
    Hey man, good luck with this! I like the high poly models you have so far!

    Im looking forward to seeing where this goes!
  • aajohnny
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    aajohnny polycounter lvl 13
    It's coming along pretty nicely, keep it up. The only thing I see that's got my attention is that the door seems shorter then the characters.
  • Low
    Yeah aajohnny is right, the proportions are off.

    The doors are too small which means the servers are too short which means ceiling is not high enough.
  • Neoncypher
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    Neoncypher polycounter lvl 9
    Looking good man! Might be the FOV or the scale being very slightly off but I agree with these guys, it looks just a little bit off - aside from that, awesome start mate
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @theonebutcher - Cheers mate, really liked your take on the corridor. Now that its finished or close to been finished, have you got any other projects in the works?

    @aajohnny &Low - Totally agree with the point about the door and the scale issues, thanks for pointing that out.

    @Neoncypher - Cheers mate, when are you going to start posting your Fifth Element scene? :D looking forward to seeing more progress on it.

    Quite a small update but I've been playing around with the proportion issues as well as some tweaks to the models. Also I've lightened up the scene as my setup at home versus my setup at work doesn't match calibration wise, therefore the images were coming out darker than intended.

    0004-2.jpg
  • A-N-P
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    A-N-P polycounter lvl 6
    Love that concept!

    - Block out looks fine so far.

    - High poly models look sweet!

    - I'm looking forward to seeing more :D
  • leleuxart
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    leleuxart polycounter lvl 10
    I like where this is heading! Subscribed
  • JackyBoy
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    JackyBoy polycounter lvl 10
    This is looking really good!

    Are you going to be doing the hologram style signs too?
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @A-N-P & leleuxart - Thank you

    @JackyBoy - Yeah I'll be doing the hologram style display but its likely to be a while away yet as I tend to work on the larger details first and work down to the smaller details. Therefore I'll be doing the walls, floor etc first
  • biofrost
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    biofrost polycounter lvl 12
    Nothing to crit yet, keep up the awesome work. Can't wait to see this when you get more done!
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @biofrost - Thank you

    Been doing a bit more work over lunch, mainly doing a little bit of texture work on the wall and getting the basic floor in place (its untextured at the moment, just flat colour with OCC, Cavity Map and Normal Map)

    0005-1.jpg
  • theonebutcher
    Hey man, looking great so far! glad you liked my corridor! yeah im gonna work on another scene very soon. In the process of finishing off some weapons and a tank for my folio. Think ill start a folio thread infact :)

    Looking great though mate! Keep it up!
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @theonebutcher Nice one, looking forward to seeing what your working on

    Another small update, currently I'm just blocking out all of the normal maps for the main interior shell and working out what resolution to make the textures. I'm creating the normal maps using NDO.

    Currently all the diffuse textures consist of is a flat grey colour, with an ambient occlusion map and cavity map. One I've got the textures blocked out I'll start working on the diffuse and spec maps and introduce all of the appropriate colours from the concept art

    0006-1.jpg
  • chrisradsby
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    chrisradsby polycounter lvl 14
    It feels like you've captured the scale of the room quite nicely. Really good work!
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @chrisradsby Thanks Chris, means a lot coming from you, been a keen follower of your work for a good few years now

    Another quick update, from my dinnertime work:

    Baked out the low poly version of the roof tile:
    LP_RoofTile_01.jpg

    Also been playing around with POM (Parallax Occlusion Mapping):
    I'm going to be using this method for all the walls and floor. I do however need to rework this one as I'd prefer the results to go outward instead of inward
    POM_Floor.gif

    0007-1.jpg
  • Neoncypher
  • Brygelsmack
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    Brygelsmack polycounter lvl 11
    Grimmstrom wrote: »
    Also been playing around with POM (Parallax Occlusion Mapping):
    I'm going to be using this method for all the walls and floor. I do however need to rework this one as I'd prefer the results to go outward instead of inward
    Great! Too few are using this.
  • leleuxart
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    leleuxart polycounter lvl 10
    The low poly bake for the roof tile is looking nice!
  • sltrOlsson
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    sltrOlsson polycounter lvl 14
    If I remember correctly you can change the bias in the POM settings, making it "stick out" instead :)

    Look really nice, looking forward for an update :)
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @Brygelsmack & @leleuxart Thanks guys

    @sltrOlsson Thanks, yeah found the height bias setting shortly after posting last time. doh

    Slow progress this week as I've been on holiday but I'm just starting to working on the height map for the middle floor tile as well as tweaking the POM settings:

    0008-1.jpg
  • Dazz3r
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    Dazz3r polycounter lvl 12
    So clean and yet so detailed, this is awesome. When I say clean I mean your normal maps are flawless!
  • Michael1
  • Razorb
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    Razorb polycounter lvl 15
    Ahhh you are kicking my concepts arse! :P really excited to see this finished mate!
  • airage
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    airage polycounter lvl 13
    Looking real good! Now get some diffuse textures in there :)
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @Dazz3r & @airage Thank You

    @Razorb Thanks mate, means alot coming from you, your concepts are awesome and I hope that I do them justice

    More lunchtime tweaking, I've put the finishing touches to the floor tile height map as well as add some base colour tones. I'll do renders of the high poly model whenever I go on my home computer next

    0009-1.jpg

    ServerRoomFloor.jpg
  • danpaz3d
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    danpaz3d polycounter lvl 7
    looking good. Nice clean mapping, good work on the floor so far.
    Are you just doing the server room or that little corridor as well?
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @danpaz3d Cheers man, I'm not too sure whether to do the corridor or not, I didn't intend to but seeing as most of the assets and textures will be reusable I might create it towards the end of the project. We'll see :D
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    Finished blocking in the center piece of the floor:

    0010-1.jpg

    ServerRoomFloorCenter.jpg

    I'm either going to finish up blocking out the rest of the room textures or I might just jump straight into some diffuse textures
  • PogoP
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    PogoP polycounter lvl 10
    What is that strange banding on the textures? Is that a lighting problem?
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @PogoP Yeah its a shadow problem, anyone any ideas how to fix it?
  • airage
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    airage polycounter lvl 13
    Try increasing ShadowBias in the light properties and/or set a higher number like 1024 or 2048 for e_ShadowsMaxTexRes.
  • Seaseme
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    Seaseme polycounter lvl 8
    Hi! This looks great!

    Here's a similar floor texture we made that may be of some use for reference!

    tumblr_m85cfk6LYS1rxyncno1_1280.jpg

    Keep going!
  • MaYdaY
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    MaYdaY polycounter lvl 8
    @PogoP Yeah its a shadow problem, anyone any ideas how to fix it?

    try those settings they are increasing the tex res to 4k. r_ShadowJittering is the blur amount for the shadows.
    r_DynTexMaxSize = 400
    e_ShadowsMaxTexRes = 4096
    r_ShadowJittering = 6
    e_ShadowsConstBias = 1
    e_ShadowsCastViewDistRatio = 1.5
  • Coridium
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    Coridium polycounter lvl 10
    Nice one mate! really cool to see you pushing ahead with this.

    Look forward to seeing more.
  • ae.
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    ae. polycounter lvl 12
    Seaseme wrote: »
    Hi! This looks great!

    Here's a similar floor texture we made that may be of some use for reference!

    tumblr_m85cfk6LYS1rxyncno1_1280.jpg

    Keep going!

    that texture is yummy! :poly121:
  • scotthomer
    This is coming together great! When the textures come in and the materials all defined, its going to be gorgeous :D

    One thing that's bugging me at the moment is that alot of the elements don't feel like they fit together, not in terms of style but literally "fit" into place. The whole scene is build up from interlocking panels, whereas the servers and the table etc are just placed on top of the panels. I think to make everything look alot more grounded and believable it would be great to see everything lock together, the servers fit into a specific panel and the table and chairs lock into a specific place, rather than just sitting on tom.

    If you look at this reference, all of the servers "fit" into the floor with the panels around them lining up perfectly with the edge of the server.

    2084311380_0906fd827d_o.jpg
    server-room-typical.jpg

    Great work!
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @airage & @MaYdaY Thanks guys, Them commands worked great at getting rid of the weird banding. However is there a way of setting them as default for the scene? They always reset when I reopen Cryengine

    @ae. Thanks mate, your texture looks great, I've added it to the reference folder

    @Coridium Cheers Chris. Hows it going anyway, working on anything at the moment? I miss seeing you always working on something cool

    @scotthomer Thanks Scott, really appreciate the feedback. I was thinking the same thing about grounding in the servers, it especially became apparent to me when I added POM to the floor, it stood out like a sore thumb. I'll definatly be doing something but I have yet to figure out a design for them. Btw keep up the awesome work on your Bioshock scene, its very inspiring and I can't wait to see what you move onto next
  • Wesley
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    Wesley polycounter lvl 13
    You can set those in the "user.cfg" in the CryENGINE directory. Dunno if it's there by default or you have to create it. But it's just a Notepad-editable document you can add those lines to.
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    Been working on the tread plate floor:

    0011-1.jpg

    FloorTexture0001.jpg
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    More WIP texture work:

    FloorTexture0002.jpg

    0012-1.jpg
  • Marchwarden
    Great details on the floor.
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    Sorry for the lack of updates, been super busy at work this week. Anyway I've managed to find a bit of time to do some more tweaking (created the wall textures, started making a trim texture in NDO and placed a few point lights to get a better sense of the final lighting:

    0014-1.jpg

    As always any feedback is very more appreciated
  • Mask_Salesman
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    Mask_Salesman polycounter lvl 13
    Dunno if you've ever been in a proper company server room, it's really cold lol. Huge air vents etc to keep the servers cool, so it could be good to take advantage of that to add some interesting vent network overhead.
  • maxivz
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    maxivz interpolator
    THis is comming along really nice! i am loving the progress you are making, whould you like telling me how you made those lights directional? point lights are bugging me xd
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @Mask_Salesman - Yeah totally agree, I'm actually on working on some vents at the moment and I plan to make the scene look cold by adding a cool blue tint at the end via colour grading.

    @maxivz - Hey mate sorry for not getting back to you sooner, basically all you have to do to turn a point light into a spot light in CryEngine is to add a texture in the light projector properties. I'm using a very simple gradient but you could add more detail to create torch lights etc. Hope that helps

    T_SpotlightProjection.jpg

    Unfortunatly I don't have much to update in the thread but I have been working on the scene quite abit. I have multiple assets in the works but there not quite ready to show yet. I've have created a few presentations boards showing a couple of the textures that have been done for the scene:

    FloorTileA.jpg

    FloorTileA_Maps.jpg

    FloorTextureA.jpg

    FloorTextureA_Maps.jpg
  • Neonknightcy
    This looks quite spot on to the concept you have done nice job so far cant wait too see more =]
    the textures are looking great so keep at it!
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    Hey everyone, I'm looking for a little bit of help at the moment. I'm fairly new to CryEngine and one thing I always seem to be fighting with in the engine is the Environment Probes and how they handle reflections. They seem fairly simple according to the documentation but I can never tell if I'm just setting things up wrong or if there's a problem with my SDK or if I'm being a complete noob.

    I didn't seem to be getting the results I wanted so I setup a little test consisting of a highly glossy floor and positioned 3 bright primary coloured balls above and then generated the cube map and this is the result I get. (I would have expected to be able to clearly see the reflections in the floor but all I seem to get reflected is the main room lights)

    RefProblem1.jpg

    When I preview the environment probe I get this almost pitch black sphere but I'd expect it too almost match the room that its rendering in terms of ambient colour.

    RefProblem2.jpg

    Below are some of the things I've tried in order to improve the cube map but none of these have made much impact:
      Deleted the light box
      Deleted the light propogation volume
      Increased the radius of the environment probe
      Increased the size of the cube map
      Lowered / Increased the current config of the engine
      Linked the environment probe to the light box
      Tried applying the cubemap manually
      Made the primary balls emmisive
      Moved the primary balls around the environment
      Played around with all the environment probe settings

    I'm running out of ideas now so I'm really hoping someone has some advice on what it might be

    Thanks in advance
  • maxivz
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    maxivz interpolator
    Thanks for the response! In order to fix those lighting errors you are getting on the last screen you need to add a light propagation volume and in the light options select the Irradiance Volumes option. Make sure the lights are inside the light propagation volume
  • Grimmstrom
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    Grimmstrom polycounter lvl 7
    @maxivz Thanks for the response, while it didn't directly fix my issue you've taught me something more about the engine so hopefully I'll be able to do more with my lighting.

    Basically I'm abit stumped at whats causing the problem, the images above were taken on my home PC but when I came into work today I opened the scene and the reflections were working fine.

    RefProblem3.jpg

    I have a few theories
      I have CryEngine running off Dropbox so maybes its causing problems if the file paths are different between the two computers I use?
      My home computer is average at best so maybes its a performance issue?

    Does anyone have any other ideas what it might be?
  • A-N-P
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    A-N-P polycounter lvl 6
    I've recently been playing around with CE3 and I've found that if I turn my 'system spec' to very high I start to get real time reflections on glossy surfaces.

    I'm not sure if this is what you're after, but it may help.
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