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[UDK] Arcadia Moon Colony: Military Maintenance Bay

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  • Iciban
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    Iciban polycounter lvl 10
    Thanks for the explanation. I think I kinda get it. Floaters are just geo thats not intersecting, but just on top of the other geo?

    Could u explain how you did this? Cause your wf isn't connected to the holes and its going inside, so super curious on how you achieved this. Used ur wireframe pic and circled some of these spots. Yea sorry, should've just used ur pic instead of describing it. Much simpler. XD

    vw5l.jpg
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Yeah those are all seperate geo that's floating right ontop of the surface. They arent modeled into the geo.
  • Iciban
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    Iciban polycounter lvl 10
    hahah i'm lost. I need to see a recording of how you do it.
  • Yury
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    Yury polycounter lvl 8
    Iciban, there's nothing complicated here. You just model it as a separate geometry, position it slightly above the area you want this detail to be and then when you bake it to texture it will have the effect like this was modelled into geometry.
    http://eat3d.com/free/floating_geo

    wester, great environment. Totally disagree about low quality statemnet. Looks very HQ to me. Keep up a good work. Can't wait to see the final result :)
  • Iciban
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    Iciban polycounter lvl 10
    Big thanks yury for that vid. From that wf perspective, it looks like its actually modeled in. Learning stuff everyday.
    cool trick, totally applying this to my bakes now. save so much time
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Took some time to hit on the environment itself this weekend. I extended the "loading zone" space back to look like more of a loading zone and not so claustrophobic. I'm going to be filling the loading zone with props like bigger crates, tool boxes, machine parts...etc to help tell the story alittle more.

    I have those pillars just in blockout right now. The lighting is still WIP, but I played with it abit. I'm going to be adding a hanging crane on the ceiling as to help imply that this is a loading and unloading area.

    Arcadia_WIP01_zps8afb8a55.jpg
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Finished up those pillars that hold up the tracks for the loading arm. Also added alot more prop blockouts to help give some of the spaces context.

    Going to make those middle spaces an engine repair bay and a weapons repair bay. I'll have pieces of the mech laying around and stuff to look like it's being worked on.

    Arcadia_WIP02_zps074015c2.jpg

    Below the left side will have some mech weapon/ammo stuff and the right side will have some engine parts.

    Arcadia_WIP03_zpsf5d796e3.jpg
  • spetch
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    spetch polycounter lvl 11
    I like the overall composition of these scene. I don't know how I missed your thread, scribed....:)
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Thanks a ton spetch I still have a ton to do but I've scheduled myself to finish it by the end of september. :D
  • BI0PREDAT0R
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    BI0PREDAT0R polycounter lvl 5
    Looks amazing man Good Job!!
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    This looks really great man!
    I really dig the hot and cold lighting you got here!
    Also love the high poly of the mech! Can't wait to see it in there!

    However, maybe its just me, but for some reason everything looks a bit dull at the moment instead of having this "high tech/sci-fi-shinyness" you would expect in such an environment.
    Could also be due to the stage of it.

    Just my two cents. :)

    Looking forward to see this progressing!
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    AkiRa : Thanks for the feedback! Yeah the materials definitely need a pass. I'll probably go through and do alot of retexturing once I've finished all of the assets. Right now my main goal is to finish the environment assets, and props that fill the scene so I can give a good amount of focus on materials and lighting.


    Finished the back delivery door and frames on the ground for the crates to be delivered to the maintenance bay. You can see the blockout for the robotic arm that grabs the crates and places them at the top of the image.

    I also simplified the ground that leads to the delivery door since it was just a bunch of nonsensical designs before. This way it helps to both read as a pathway, and doesnt busy up the scene with too much design noise.

    Next up I'm going to try to crunch through the mech this week and finish him up!

    Arcadia_WIP03_zpsf1f65ac4.jpg

    Arcadia_WIP02_zps3550ef0d.jpg
  • RaPtoR_v9600
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    RaPtoR_v9600 polycounter lvl 4
    so so great love your work so much bud, mech is very interesting and this project is just huge
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Mech bake! Starting on the texturing next!

    Front_zps5cbbe81c.jpg

    Back_zps63460ca6.jpg
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Finished up the mech! Moving onto his little housing area now and repair arm that comes down from the ceiling.

    Mech_Render_zpscd0f5e90.jpg

    Static Mesh Editor

    Mech_Render2_zpsc781bc27.jpg


    Higher rez here:
    http://cghub.com/images/view/619515/
  • R00
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    R00 polycounter lvl 12
    Love this thread Wester your work is so consistant! Keep up the great work man ;)
  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    Mech came out great Wes! Really love the amount of wear he has and now not overly busy/damaged it is as well as the addition of colors.

    Where is the top image rendered from? Is that in UDK? I know the bottom one is from the Static Mesh Editor and it feels quite flat there. Its losing a lot of material definition and separate that the top image has. Everything feels very flat and all more of one type of color.
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Yeah that top image is a marmoset render. I'm definitely noticing that my udk scene is overall pretty flat, and the specularity on my pieces arent popping like they should be. I need to take this weekend and troubleshoot why my reflections/specular hot spots aren't as prominent.

    Thanks guys :D
  • RobeOmega
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    RobeOmega polycounter lvl 10
    Feels very flat to me
    First image is what you have right now
    Second is contrast boost
    Third is saturation boost
    30dzp.gifvia Imgflip GIF Maker
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Awesome Robeomega thank you for taking the time to do that! I'll definitely address some of those issues!

    I did some material tweaking last night and found out that my reflections were getting really distorted (normal map import issue) which was making my scene look pretty flat and dull. Hopefully the next update will have some nicer material reads.
  • 3dflasher
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    3dflasher polycounter lvl 17
    So much goodness in this piece!!! Really awesome work. Be careful with that balance of contrast. The paintover Robeomega did is great. Definitely use squint mode in unreal to help out on this. It's a godsend to determine what the first visual read is for an environment.

    If I have any crits, it would have to be that you might be loosing scale in some areas. This is gonna seem pretty nit picky but if you slim down the caution cones a bit and get some angles from the viewers perspective near some panels. I think getting that viewer angle looking upward will really make this awesome piece have that grand scale. You probably just have the current angles to show the actual work and not to frame it just yet, but just thought I would throw that info nugget your way :)

    Solid work!
  • RobeOmega
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    RobeOmega polycounter lvl 10
    No problem just 5 min of my day using simple things on gimp to change it I like how in the saturation change the oranges pop out
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Quick update. Starting to detail up some of the mech cove pieces. SHould have the mech cove completely done by the end of the week then onto the crane arm in the loading area, then PROPS (and lighting)!

    Also excuse the low resolution lightmaps for now. A production build takes awhile and I try not to waste too much time building lights right now.

    Mech_Test_zps0399ace3.jpg
  • mats effect
    Mech looking pretty good. In general things look like they are coming together nicely. I really liked Robeomega's adjustments really helped the scene pop a lot more.
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Trying to give all of my shaders more of an aggressive spec and IBR. Still have some tweaking to do.


    ArcadiaWIP_zpscd0e7ff7.jpg

    Before I move on I'm running into this annoying normal map compression artifacting. Does anyone know any good normal map import settings that actually WORK? I've either never noticed this, or had this issue before but It's really obvious and it's why alot of my pieces arent catching specular highlights.

    also the error goes away when i check "defer compression" but then once I save the package, it unchecks the box and pixelates like that again.

    Error_zps03d5ddd5.jpg
  • SpeedyB
    This looks amazing!

    As for the normal maps, Have you tried saving the maps as .dds? I believe UDK uses .dds as its compression, so if you save it as that from Photoshop UDK might not compress them. Although it might just re-compress them and have no effect.
  • Razorb
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    Razorb polycounter lvl 15
    Looking lovely Wesley!

    Have you tried when importing, instead of selecting 'normalmap' select 'uncompressed_normalmap' ? its named something similar to that.
  • osman
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    osman polycounter lvl 18
    Razorb wrote: »
    Looking lovely Wesley!

    Have you tried when importing, instead of selecting 'normalmap' select 'uncompressed_normalmap' ? its named something similar to that.

    Yeah try this, and I think it will reduce the resolution to half of your original normal map, so if you really want to keep the same resolution make sure you import at twice the resolution ( usually half resolution, uncompressed works good enough, but you never know )
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Yup you guys were right! Excellent thanks so much! That was driving me crazy!


    Added some spec and IBR

    ArcadiaWIP2_zps0a97f7ed.jpg

    ArcadiaWIP3_zps0f661db7.jpg

    Some seems are present now so I'm going to go through and fix them next. Then onto finishing this mech cove tonight!
  • osman
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    osman polycounter lvl 18
    Glad it worked, about the seems. I noticed that a lot of the times it's the lightmapper. So if you have one that you can't seem to fix try out a production bake for your lighting( you can bake a single asset if you want )
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Finished the mech cove, robotic maintenance arm and maintenance platform. Going to be moving onto props, signs and just filling out those two little mechanic areas.

    For this first shot, I'm going to put something like an airport monitor at the top right in that empty space, that shows a graphic topdown on the mechs and some digital readouts. Going to see how that works. It could be too busy. Then onto the signage.

    Griffith_ArcadiaWIP_03_zps615673df.jpg

    Griffith_ArcadiaWIP_02_zps647d781a.jpg

    Griffith_ArcadiaWIP_01_zps66b417a1.jpg

    Higher resolution on my site.
  • sprunghunt
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    sprunghunt polycounter
    wester wrote: »
    Before I move on I'm running into this annoying normal map compression artifacting. Does anyone know any good normal map import settings that actually WORK? I've either never noticed this, or had this issue before but It's really obvious and it's why alot of my pieces arent catching specular highlights.

    also the error goes away when i check "defer compression" but then once I save the package, it unchecks the box and pixelates like that again.

    What you need to do to fix this is to use the TC_NormalmapUncompressed setting on your normalmaps when you import them. This will (automatically) lower the texture resolution but remove any kind of banding or DXT artifacts you might see. Uncompressed normalmaps are good for objects with lots smooth detail and low noise in the normalmap.

    here's more info:
    http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/NormalMapFormats.html
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    sprunghunt wrote: »
    What you need to do to fix this is to use the TC_NormalmapUncompressed setting on your normalmaps when you import them. This will (automatically) lower the texture resolution but remove any kind of banding or DXT artifacts you might see. Uncompressed normalmaps are good for objects with lots smooth detail and low noise in the normalmap.

    here's more info:
    http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/NormalMapFormats.html


    Yup already did that thanks man! :D
  • moof
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    moof polycounter lvl 7
    this is sick stuff man! I'd love to run around this area with ma oculus rift on.

    If I had one crit it would be that area seems a little too dark and blue. in the lighting. Your color comp is that you are using this orange and then using blue lighting which as the complimentary color will make the orange read grey.

    I'd switch it up and using closer to grey/white lighting, and then using hits of blue lights as emmissives or in certain areas to make things pop.
  • Paul Pepera
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    Paul Pepera polycounter lvl 9
    Some sweet hard surface work here!
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    moof Ah man that is such a compliment haha. To have someone say they want to run around in a space I've made is pretty much the ultimate compliment :D So thank you!

    Paul Pepera Thanks Paul! I'm a huge fan of your work and the cryo opening you did in halo 4 inspired this scene. So I really appreciate it :D
  • Clark Coots
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    Clark Coots polycounter lvl 12
    i was just thinking about this scene the other day and couldn't remember the name of the thread or who made it :( sorry wester, I won't forget next time. Glad I noticed bumped into it again! Looking awesome.
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    The home stretch! Just have a few props to do then spend some good time nailing down the lighting I'm going to call it done.

    First off here is an engine part with a brace as if it were extracted from a mech and being worked on. You can also see the tool cart prop that I made as well as the new crate texture. The textures and materials on the crates were looking pretty bad.

    ToolTable_WIP_zps12aec0a4.jpg

    ToolTable_zpsc6cb97f9.jpg

    Crate_zps13eabc24.jpg

    Next up going to model out those big crates in the back with some cool mesh laid over them to give some organic contrast in the scene. Then the big mechanical arm for moving the crates around, some tools, the little chair, another table.....that's all I can think of right now ha.
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Starting to populate the little mechanic bays with small props.

    ToolTable_WIP2_zps4761adcb.jpg
  • mbischof
    textures on teh crate are sick.
  • HyPer128
    Amazing, wow!! I really dig this, the end result is great, but the HP mesh is really impressive. great work!
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Alllmost there. I finished all of the props and am now moving onto the signs which should be the last piece of asset creation. Some of the signs higher up in the rafters are temp and just put in there for composition purposes. After the signs I move onto focusing on the lighting!

    Arcadia_WIP01_zps52025e83.jpg

    Arcadia_WIP02_zps524ec892.jpg

    Arcadia_WIP03_zps7a18ac8f.jpg
  • Theodoric
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    Theodoric polycounter lvl 10
    Man, this is my favorite topic so far. Awesome work!

    The lighting is great! Is everything static mesh in this scene with lightmap?

    I want to learn make proper lightning in UDK, could you recommend a page/tutorial beside the UDK online docs about the technical details/tip'n'tricks?
  • Rhoutermans
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    Rhoutermans polycounter lvl 12
    Awesome work man, mad props :P
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Theodoric Yeah everything in the scene has lightmaps. Some objects are pretty badly uv'd on the lightmap, so when I do my final production light bake I'll probably readdress them.

    Honestly the best way to learn how to light, is to take a screenshot on a game you want your lighting to look like, and do what they did, and try to understand why they did what they did as to pick up on the technique.


    Theodoric Thanks! :D
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Looks really awesome man! Slowly gets more of the great sci-fi shininess! I really love the amazing level of detail you got in there!

    Really keen to see how this turns out!
    Keep it up!
  • Clark Coots
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    Clark Coots polycounter lvl 12
    i'm kinda a noob to UDK so i was wondering if there is anything you do to your textures while importing so UDK doesn't compress the living hell out of them? i know the defer compression but thats only for iterating on your textures, once the package is saved bam compressed. I haven't tried any textures of 1K but they seem to be lower quality than I'd like compared to Marmoset which look uncompressed.

    oh scene is looking amazing of course
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Finally going to call this one finished. I could tweak and tweak since it's pretty big but I think this is a good stopping point. I'll be uploading bigger images on my site once I get back from vacation tomorrow, and possibly putting together a video of the space.

    I set out to put together a sci fi space using halo as my inspiration and am very happy with how it turned out. I think this is a pretty good example of what I can do with a scifi hardsurface environment, and need to try to do something with more organics and textures next.

    Hope you guys enjoy!

    ArcadiaMoonColony_10_zpscc3ecab2.jpg

    ArcadiaMoonColony_11_zpsb922f5d9.jpg

    ArcadiaMoonColony_09_zpsb6be83f1.jpg

    ArcadiaMoonColony_08_zpsd60477ad.jpg

    ArcadiaMoonColony_07_zps320ca27f.jpg

    ArcadiaMoonColony_06_zps2e787c31.jpg

    ArcadiaMoonColony_05_zps7eef8e7b.jpg

    ArcadiaMoonColony_04_zpsfb6ad7aa.jpg

    ArcadiaMoonColony_03_zps4f1cddb7.jpg

    ArcadiaMoonColony_02_zps4f6fbf6d.jpg

    ArcadiaMoonColony_01_zps8fd93744.jpg
  • vemadesign
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    vemadesign polycounter lvl 12
    Awesome!! That is all...:)
  • JasonLavoie
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    JasonLavoie polycounter lvl 18
    I posted this in the WAYWO thread but i'll copy it over here -

    Hey Wesley, that is nuts buddy! Super awesome job... one thing I would REALLY focus on though is your material definition... more so the spec / roughness, your robots (and most of your metal) look incredibly "soft". That's my only cirt good sir
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