Home Contests & Challenges Archives Allegorithmic's 'the THRONE ROOM'

THRONE ROOM - Iron Forge Clan - Xit Woundz

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polygon
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Atokal polygon
Howdy

I am entering this Throne room contest with my friend Tylerhoward

We are both environment artist that are passionate about completing this project because of how fun and challenging it will be.

The current concept for the Throne is going to be an overturned kingdom of Dwarves.
basically.... but with something cool if we can get to it in the timeframe we have.





First days block out. :D
iYoc5II.jpg

we are looking forward to participating in this wonderful event, I hope you guys have as much as a fun time that we have.

glhf

Replies

  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy again, so I have been looking up a ton of reference for dwarf stuff. Going by touch and feel to see if this is the right direction to go with.

    My partners polycount account is not operational at this time so he is unable to update the thread So I will as of right now.

    In terms of deadlines and goals, this upcoming saturday is when we both hope to complete the block out of the scene in our engine of choice, unreal 4.2.1


    Some technical difficulties that we recently overcame is being able to have unreal synced to a google drive so that we both have access to the files and can modify it. since their is no way to check out and stop someone from overriding a file we have decided to just let each other know when we are working on unreal and what we are doing.

    Brainstorming of having more story driven environment, were planning on doing a ransacked throne with the king murdered by the throne. Trying to give some story to the artwork.

    A lot of work is going to have to be done, and with both of us employed its something that we don't have a ton of time to sink into but were confident that we can do it with the right amount of planning and discipline.


    With that being said its time to look at some cool reference I found.
    Want to play around with the blue/orange contrast a lot in the throne room itself, planning on doing something cool, we'll share more once we have a more definitive idea of what were doing.
    xhdmEaV.jpg
    HVXbWSO.jpg
    dyQVGBp.jpg
    Stay awesome guys!
  • EpicBeardMan
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    EpicBeardMan polycounter lvl 8
    Oh, I like this. I like Dwarwen architecture in fantasy. I'm looking forward to the completion of this.
    Good luck you two.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Good news everybody, I started working!

    I am thinking of a giant skull by the throne, might wing it and trying to nail down the ascetic direction of the project. Thinking of adding shamanistic elements.


    So a direction we were thinking of going is to have the king impaled on his throne.

    The story that this artwork should tell by the end of this project should be that these dwarves were slaughtered by something. thinking of going with ice elementals because of the work we can do with materials and effects.
    iYoc5II.jpg


    My partners still having some technical difficulties and I will doing tonights update, we hope that he will be able to use his account soon.

    Setup organization for everything on my end, creating folder structures and being organized with my work.

    Began the block out in unreal. basic rough in of the general shapes, placed some cameras around and began the 1st pass at lighting. going to need to meet up with my partner soon to discuss the general direction of the project and to assure ourselves were heading in the right direction.

    Took a poll among my peers to see about adding more originality to the project. Might go with shamanistic elements to the dwarfs (no pun intended) to break away from the tolkien style of dwarfs that seems common because of the lord of the rings.

    Going to search up some reference for that and hopefully share it with everybody once I get some good one’s.



    IMPORTANT BUT NOT REALLY
    Oh and thank you for your post here EpicBeardMan, I hope your desert themed throne turns out awesome too, I like your block out so far :)
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    ok so Today what I did was add in the more basic block out of the scene and the direction that we want to move in, the story were trying to tell is that this throne room was recently attacked, maybe by ice elementals or something else pretty cool.
    So I had a crazy thing going on where I could not bake lighting or modify my cameras or modify lighting or anything, but restarting
    We found a neat ice material tutorial that we’ll use as reference moving forward.

    I took some screenshots of what I have been doing

    qXSZVy1.jpg
    eotSymT.jpg
    rhyCykY.jpg

    Looking forward to working more on this, going to go add in more medium and large scale props and level building stuff that will make an appealing scene that would be cool.

    ba da ba dum ba da ta da…. :poly004:
  • scslover
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    scslover polycounter lvl 6
    Looking good so far :D
  • Shiv
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    Shiv polycounter lvl 15
    Just to save you some time with the character stuff -
    Jerc wrote: »
    No character is allowed, dead or alive, sorry guys. Allowing dead character opens up to too much potential abuse of this rule. The focus is on environment.
    I guess bones and skeletons are allowed as long as they are an actual part of the environment.
    I like the idea! Get some skeletons in there or something :)
  • Lilith
    I love that blue concept art. Human staked above the throne looks funny, but somehow cool at the same time :) You should consider leave him there ))))
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Shiv wrote: »
    Just to save you some time with the character stuff -

    I like the idea! Get some skeletons in there or something :)

    Thanks for bringing that up! we can do skeletons as long as that would make sense. (and that would be less work to do which would be easier)

    I wanted to do the bodies to help sell the scene that this battle recently happened, but with the skeletons it would imply that this battle would of happened a long time ago... so my partner and I need to find a nice alternative.
    >.<

    Thanks for all of your interest! My partner and I don't have work this friday so were planning on getting a ton of work done this weekend!
    Im looking forward to keeping you guys updated!
    :)
  • TylerHoward
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    I am slowly loosing my sanity while working on some of these, I feel as though I should take more breaks….

    So I added the grates that will keep the dwarves from falling into the lava, and I began the lava material, so far so good, the modeling took the longest today, it was difficult to really try to nail down the style that I wanted to go in, I found a lot more reference for the models but I ultimately fell back on layering it up to make it look the coolest… well I hope it looks cool :P

    The material is going to need a lot of work but it gets the job done for now.


    CQbeJTr.jpg

    lK4VAIu.png

    looking forward to more population, than uv’s! :D
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    So today was not as productive as I’d hope it would be. I tried to do a first pass on the walls and ceiling but I decided to scrap what I had because it did not look right, so im going back, finding more reference then trying again. But I did get some good ruble rocks as well as crystal rock stuff so thats neat.

    kLdqxCF.jpg
    ssrARZE.jpg


    Tomorrow my partner and I are meeting up to get some work done so im hoping to get a lot done that day.

    Nothing else new, just keeping on working on this project. Its fun but it gets you down when you work for a while then decide to scrap an idea, but the end result will be better so I got that going which is always something nice to have.

    Looking forward to seeing what everybody else will be posting this weekend!
  • TylerHoward
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Worked on a bridge really quick today, after implementing it into the scene I am thinking the quantity of scales seems off, because there's not enough room to fit those tables in their… so why would they be in their.

    Weird bug thing we had, when my partner worked on some files it failed to upload the assets so when I went to work on the scene we had some issues, its resolved for now but were keeping an eye on it to make sure it does not come back up.

    i0aCRCr.jpg

    Gonna chill out for a bit and play some video games now, getting hype from this contest.
  • EpicBeardMan
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    EpicBeardMan polycounter lvl 8
    So far, this blockout is great. The overall style really suits the Dwarwen architecture (culture). I see that there is some influence form Toliken's Dwarfes (this is just an assumption), which is awesome. Debris layout gives a "flavor" to the room. It's not empty.

    Lava seems kinda cartoony (it's spot on if you're going for the cartoony look).
    And the last thing is that the area around the throne and the throne itself is kinda boring or too empty. If you were planning to add some relief on the walls behind the thorne then that's alright (e.g. some inscriptions, etc.; similar to what I'm planning to do with my throne itself).
    But, overall, this is very promising, and since I love Tolkien dwarfs, I am looking forward to the progress of this project.

    Cheers. :D
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    So today I was not able to work on as much as i'd hope. I did do floating rocks because im scared of the planning that I am going to have to do with all these large props and block out rework stuff for the environment.

    Did some lighting adjustment as well, wanted it to be darker and more falloff stuff... but lighting will be its own monster in due time.

    Rocks came out to smooth, they were correctly jagged when I exported them but that just something else to keep in mind moving forward :P


    5NJ2OvT.jpg

    its scary and I don't want to do it but I really want to do it... so im excited. I just need more time :P

    Thinking about taking away a few tables, shrinking the ones that remain, and reworking the upper level to incorporate some system like a catacomb and archways that allows the dwarves to travel through the throne room easier. so I am building up more stuff and I need to have it all planned out and kinda logical...

    then its moving onto the throne and the floor.

    then its time for texturing and medium and small props!


    anyway

    Kinda important but not really

    Howdy EpicBeardMan, thanks for posting again.
    the lava is just a placeholder until the texturing phase arises,
    So for the throne I am planning on having a large skull around the throne, like a giant the dwarf king has slain in combat or something cool like that.

    I want to add more stuff to have the dwarves be more shamanistic as well so im going to wing it and if it looks cool i'll keep it and make it work, and if not then i'll scrap it :P
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    So a majority of the time that I spent today was arranging the block out and aligning stuff to make sure everything fit right. it feels a lot better now and I added the ceiling! :D
    Quick note, I decided to just use regular preview lighting instead of baking, it ruins how the floating rocks look and it would just do me a disservice considering my lightmaps are just placeholder :P

    6i2ZYmA.jpg

    So now that the room is bigger its going to need more population, but I am so close to the end of this block out stage I can taste it....
    But seriously, I am really looking forward to texturing and uv'ing all these guys. I am going to get around to getting my substance license soon so I can do some mad textures.
    I am planning on just using series of tiling materials for a majority of this project, and not having or having very few hero pieces that would be in the 0-1.
    With that said, I think I did a good enough job to get the block out back to a point where it makes sense, it seems void in the areas off to the side but those will be done during the next stages,
    it WILL BE POPULATED later.

    81VxoSH.jpg


    I wanted to add in floating rock stuff because its neat and I want to take the ascetic in a direction away from tolken and make it more shamanistic and mystical.

    B7jxePW.jpg

    I might as well put it out their now, I am planning on those rock things behind the throne to be something interesting... no idea what yet. Might go with frost crystals because of the whole ice elemental attack but it would not make sense for them to hit everything besides the throne, so I might make them valuable minerals or something.

    The only logical way those would be their behind the throne and a dwarf wall be behind those is the event of a cave in, which I may setup their to be one which would be kinda cool but it would require more planning. Worth it to keep it more interesting rather than having an empty throne :P

    This went through my head when thinking about the mineral stuff, thought I might share.
    10417707_10203786117754151_6923487189444654679_n.jpg

    Really quick
    Important but not really
    so I want to have your guys feedback on the walls of the room, on one side I have some with the grates and some without the grates, I want to ask whats more appealing to you?
  • Lawrence Preston
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    Lawrence Preston polycounter lvl 5
    I like the side without the grates. Maybe I would change my mind it they were textured. But. as it is, I think the grates make it look too busy.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    So I got some feedback from my peers and decided to go in an interesting direction.


    Anyway so I decided to add the large dwarf statue that is being sculpted out of the stone surrounded the throne, for the throne itself I threw something together really quick. I will go back later and work on the throne but I am pushing to get done the blockout by this weekend :P

    tlgycss.jpg

    I have another close up of the throne, this is the direction that I am thinking of going in, but nothing is set in stone ( no pun intended)

    U6boz6g.jpg


    Coming up I want to tackel the floor or just move forward and start to actually texture everything. once all the large shapes and blockout stuff is textured and bakes properly, then I can move onto scene population which will be fun.

    Unreal did not crash today, so thats nice.

    Important but not really


    Thank you Lawrence, I think right now i'll leave both sides as they are and continue onto the next stage of the project, go back and take a look at how much they appeal once they are textured then make a decision.

    I wish their was more time in the day to work on this project, having a ton a fun.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    So good news, its almost the time to begin texturing. Most if not all of the blockout stuff is done which means I can start to move on and texture each major piece of the block out and make it awesome,

    Here is the newest screenshot from unreal.

    EOewz1u.jpg

    Floor is Uv'ed :)


    currently messing around with some normal map stuff. basic for now but its setting up to dig into it later and really start working.

    z9p1ch1.jpg

    I decided to throw the texture on the wall and I might go with something else, im not to sure right now but its just something to test out.

    dwNgPBH.jpg

    its weird... being done the first major step, I feel like I should go back in model something because I have been doing that for a week and a half now. but its time to move on and take the next step on the project. I know my workflow, I can thank my teachers for that, but its weird getting back into that mindset after working on other stuff for a while.

    Important but not really


    I am getting a temp license for substance, so I am looking forward to learning its workflow this weekend hopefully, if not I need to decided on what major color scheme to go with for the room. I want to take my time and really nail down what direction to go in before starting to go ham texturing.

    Material stuff and Population is going to be hella fun, can't wait for that. But im going to have to get through like a majority of this project before I can get to the remaining stuff but its going to be soooooo much fun, im super excited for it.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    So I began the block out stage for texturing, with the basic colors layed out for the general direction that I want to go in.
    Lighting 1

    mOHxqKO.jpg
    Lighting 2

    d0dfUZn.jpg

    More lighting


    2xHV4No.jpg

    I recently got a hold of the substance painter and designer pack and I will be using that this weekend to texture my meshes that I currently have in the scene.

    Planning on UV'ing as I go and doing the lightmaps as well for each major piece of geo that I work on. going to start on the floor and work my way around the room hitting the core pieces first then moving on to the other props that I have laying around.

    Hope to wrap up this stage in the upcoming week or two, I want to move onto more scene population and props with their own textures to make the scene feel real.

    Some pieces of geo need a lot of work done to them to make them more appeal, like the tables and the pillars ect. so I am planning on finishing the modeling for them when I get to them respectively.

    Important but not really


    Would love to hear feedback on lighting and your opinion of mood and color for the scene.
  • Spoon
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    Spoon polycounter lvl 11
    I am really liking this so far :)
    Lighting 2 is imo in the right direction. I would expect the lightsources to be warm in this kind of environment.
    What did you have in mind? :)
  • EpicBeardMan
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    EpicBeardMan polycounter lvl 8
    I would also take lighting 2, because it has natural light color (because there is lava and torches everywhere).
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Spoon wrote: »
    I am really liking this so far :)
    Lighting 2 is imo in the right direction. I would expect the lightsources to be warm in this kind of environment.
    What did you have in mind? :)

    Howdy
    Thank you for your feedback, I am not to sure what I am doing with lighting at the moment but I plan to have contrast with cool ice and warm lava.

    I would also take lighting 2, because it has natural light color (because there is lava and torches everywhere).

    oh Hai,
    Thanks for your input dude, I may be leaning towards lighting 1 but i'll go and do more tests when I get far enough to be concerned with Lighting.

    Anyway I got some base work for textures done, I got substance painter and designer and they seem awesome and I will definitely use them... later once I know how >.<

    SGQ4GN0.jpg

    May go back a little more heavy handed and block out major breakup spots more. that and I need to get some variants ready for texture blending.

    For now I am sticking to my comfortable workflow of texturing with photoshop

    One thing is bothering me, the harsh edge of the steps leading up to the throne, I may go back in and modify the topology to allow for a smoother transition. Lines don't look that gagged in real life so I need to fix it >.<
    Important but not really
    Going to put in more work tonight with my partner hopefully so I am looking forward to updating you guys then.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Kinda tired but going to update my stuff. updated the walls and began the uv process, still trying to get the lightmaps working as efficiently as possible, so more tweaking needs to be done, but the major parts of the floors and walls in terms of texturing blockout are completed.

    aAdEWxq.jpg

    I am going to continue to due diffuse only texturing for a majority of the scene untill its nice and plays together well, then i'll worry about specularity, roughness and normal maps.

    M2xX0YU.jpg

    Nothing to much else to add, just going to get this appealing then worry about the other important stuff instead of doing one thing from start to finish then moving onto the next one. going to take my sweet time and make is all work together from the beginning.

    I need more reference for this texturing, I have been winging it based off of appeal instead of reference so I think I should get some more reference ;P
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Oh hai and Howdy.

    Good news everybody, working again!

    so this update includes materials and uv's for floors walls and ceiling. Want to state now that more variation will be added in to the textures with vertex painting later, but I need to start bringing everything else up to a good level before moving forward.

    rZ5tQkO.jpg


    So I am liking that shot a lot but I spent most of my time today working on the roughness map for the floor. I am looking forward to any feedback you guys have.
    Might tone down the large scale color variation a bit more because it seems a bit to heavy handed right now but I thinks its close.

    skmUQM8.jpg


    Also, decided to go in a different direction fro the trim geo, thinking gold!

    tZS8PSf.jpg


    Here is a picture to let people see the uv's and texture of the ceiling stuff.

    xMF5UlT.jpg


    Alot more on the plate to do but it will look like this.

    Geo:
    re-do Pillars to make a more appealing ascetic. (Final)
    second pass at throne to see if I could do anything more appealing. (final)
    Create the statue dude (final)
    Create rocks (final)

    Texture:
    Trim pieces (anything I need for them)
    Gold
    Rocks / statue
    Metal
    Wood
    ice (blockout)

    I hope to knock out this list by the end of this week but the only thing that I can do is keep on working and if it does not get done in time it will get done when it gets done, but look awesomer.
    IMPORTANT BUT NOT REALLY
    I love this little section that I have, the important but not really to let people know some interesting stuff that is going on.

    But it is with a heavy heart that I must announce that my partner has backed down from the contest... which means

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwCMe4KJCkQ&quot;]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwCMe4KJCkQ[/ame]

    Yep. so I am now one man, alone. Betrayed by the country he loves, but not really.

    So yeah all work from this point forward is 100% mine,
    (which has been like 98% of it already *cough* *cough*)
    I wish him the best of luck and hope that he remains to be awesome. but i'll put in a few easter eggs for him so that will be nice when everything comes together.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Today was kinda short, I don't feel like I got a whole lot done, but I am worrying about doing to rocks next. so I am spending a considerable amount of time planning it out because I am now doing something I don't have a good amount of experience in.

    But I did pillars, and got the base of rock texture in, I have a few ideas on how to use substance to my benefit, which would be to create all the textures I would need and use it to paint all the materials onto the rock meshes to eliminate texture seams. I plan on the rocks having shiny gems and ore on them, to make them really pretty, I will do this with a combination of texturing and additional geometry.

    Like I said I am trying to find out a workflow for the rocks that I made, which means I will either recreate the scene in maya or work off the two rock reusables I created and try to get them looking like their final stage and fully uv and light map them.

    I want to complete the rocks before moving onto the statue, so that I will have a more accurate idea of what to do with the statue when I make it and texture it. if its going to made out of the same rock that surrounds the throne then it should look like those rocks. But if I don't know what those rocks look like then I don't really know what to shoot for.

    Not going to lie, kinda scared of this part right now but I am looking to spending a good days work on it and make it so awesome that it will be like "hey those rocks are awesome." That is my goal.

    U81bA9s.jpg


    dtZJwoO.jpg
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Good news everybody, I began messing around with lighting and I might be to heavy handed with the color but lightmaps are working! :D

    Ydkqn93.jpg

    HWF88ni.jpg


    So I put a good hour into lighting today and I am liking the direction I am going in, I feel as though its going to need a lot of adjustment before its gets to a really appealing point.
    I was putting off lighting until lightmaps were made so now that I have some decent light maps and I don't have super bad bleeding I am going to invest my time into preparing the lighting and setting the mood.

    Rocks!!!

    I got a new workflow for rocks. So I am going to assemble everything in a 3d software instead of building it in the world from a series of rock meshes because of what I want to do on the texturing side of things.

    I am blocking out the rocks right now and once I feel as though I have enough levels of detail I will move onto the next step.

    uP0vaCb.png

    lVxeA72.png

    wvt8Wbq.png

    Once I make the rocks I will take advantage of Zbrush to combine everything into one neat mesh so that I can have a solid chunk of rock to texture. I will uv that rock and begin to texture it using a series of textures made in maya and applied in substance.

    This is the first pass at this work flow that I am trying out.

    q0MRhDn.jpg

    I just planner mapped from a camera angle on the mesh and tried to relax it. I may try a few other things to lay out the uv's as flat as possible. I plan on just using an auto map as the lightmap considering how many harsh edges I have and the auto map will cut all the hard angles that I need cut for it.

    Important but not really


    Hype about rocks.

    ty ty

    Might try out a few other things or even try my hand at sculpting (if I can borrow a tablet) to finish up the rocks but i am still winging it.

    Might get a new partner, idk how the rules work so I am going to find out.
  • wvaughn409
    your recent shots are cool, especially the gold material on the three pointed things behind the throne, but I think the saturation of your lighting could be backed off a little. you've got the whole complimentary color thing going sweet with the warm (fire-light) contrasted with the cool blue tones but it feels a bit to vibrant causing the scene to look slightly artificial. hope that helps. also i sympathize with the whole losing your team mate situation. that is a rough deal. Looks like u r keeping your momentum tho :)
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    So in todays update, I worked on rocks and tweaked lighting more.

    I want to go in this general direction I think. but I got reference for rocks so thats nice. you can see all of the reference I have here
    I like the shape and I am going with that, I am going to put shiny stuff inside the rocks, but I am feeling a bit lazy today and its kinda weird but i'll put plenty of work in tomorrow on it. I hope to wrap up the rocks soon and begin creating the statue. then I can finally move onto population and more advance lighting and materials.

    anyway here is the latest update.

    UGGat9J.jpg

    7c6yxjz.jpg

    Feel as though their is to much contrast with the throne now so I am going to try to tweak that. Still don't feel 100% on board with the rocks so I am going to try a few more things before I feel satisfied with it.

    May just give in and just sculpt out all the awesomeness I want in it.

    Important but not really
    going to get feedback on these soon from some pretty good artists I know (sam and tj) and try to figure out what would be a nice way to move the rocks along to be as appealing as they can. so I am doing that, I have a few more ideas for rocks.

    Vertex blending different ore veins into it,
    Gems and crystals embedded in the rocks with extra geo I would place in unreal
    sculpting the rocks ? >.>

    Thats the game plan for now, as soon as the rocks are done I can move onto the statue dude and thats going to be fun!
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    So today I worked on the more advanced rock material. I got vertex blending to add in the different shiny things. I like the shapes I am getting so I decided to move onto the statue!

    Here is the face.

    qDVwIn9.jpg

    RebwDb5.jpg

    I never did a character before so I am very timid about this process, but I am using some base meshes that I just exported from zbrush as a base and building on top of that, so I basically built it from scratch with some nice 3d reference.

    Looking a lot at the new hobbit movies and getting reference from that, overall I like the direction the statue is going in, I might try something new that would be crazy awesome or just to much clutter and be annoying to the eyes. For now I am moving onto the rest of the statue. The other part I am looking forward to are the hands / gloves because of anatomy and stuff :P

    I found this reference that is super cool but I don't want to put that much detail into my statue because of its position in the scene.

    Erebor-Dwarf-head.jpg

    Important but not really


    want to finish up this statue by the end of this weekend, move onto the throne then begin the population stage! hype hype hype
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    I have been working on the statue, and I am almost done with him.

    HiaE7rG.jpg

    Shapes are coming along, the only thing left to do is the lower body, hips and legs. Then I can move onto uv'ing this guy.

    I have vertex blending setup on the rocks to allow me to place in the different ore's I want to inside the rocks to make them look pretty so thats nice.

    This guy and the throne remain, then some simple textures need to be made and then its off to medium and large scale population and scene building! I am so hype for that.

    In terms of scheduling I want to complete the small scale population by the end of this month so that I can move onto post effects, advanced lighting and functions in the scene along with volumetric stuff and particles.

    I hope to begin the population phase by the middle of this week and I am getting really excited about moving forward, but I know when I do stuff that I overlooked will need to be changed up, so I am going to have to deal with that in due time.

    Hype hype hype.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Good news, I finished up the statue dude, all the uv's and light map stuff!

    So for now the only thing that stands in my way to scene population is the throne itself, which is what I will be dealing with tomorrow.

    quick note, I tried brightening up the texture for the statue itself to try to have it be more noticeable from the rocks that surround it. But Lighting is backed onto this guy, was able to get the map down to 128 so I am happy with that.

    Now that I added the Hammers its more light tweaking and stuff that needs to be done, but its coming along and I may just do the texture in the zero to one to be able to add more AO to allow the different shapes I have in their read better, because now its not reading how I would like it to on the face. :P

    anyway here it is, I ended up staying up like an hour and a half later than normal working tonight, but I had a late start so it kinda balances out the time that I spent working today, I just really wanted to finish uv'ing this guy.

    rZc2Blc.jpg
  • cryhouse
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    cryhouse polycounter lvl 4
    really interesting! keep on the good work!
  • EpicBeardMan
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    EpicBeardMan polycounter lvl 8
    Hey, there.
    I really dig how the statue looks. Surrounding rock are also interesting, and their gold veins look cool. Nice detail right there.
    Only thing that catches my eye are too sharp edges that are on each side of the "catwalk" towards the throne. I would recommend you to bevel it just a bit. It will give some "life" to the environment itself.
    Cheers!
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Thanks for the reply Epic Beard Man, i'll work on it. (im planning on spacing them out wider as well to get them out of the foreground. )

    So... RAWKS.

    4Mvl9mS.jpg

    I recently had the privilege of borrowing a table from a friend of mine to be able to work on this project. so I began a pass at adding in rocks and I like the shapes that I am getting with the sculpt and everything.

    Their is another way I want to try this workflow that will allow me to use zbrush less and maya more by decimating the rock chunks and building them in maya to have them look like the base mesh of the rocks that I have, then it will be easier updating the rocks in unreal if they align to the blockout meshes that I already placed into unreal.

    I think I need to tweak the roughness value on the material but im planning on doing that after I finish the geo for the rocks. then its time to touch up and finalize the rock textures.

    Important but not really


    This time its red which means its important.

    So I decided to change the direction I am going with this project. I am going to ignore all the other stuff I did plan to do, like the rest of the room, and focus on the throne itself to make sure I can deliver by the end of this contest.

    The current plan is.

    Rocks - geo and texture using substance
    Statue - sculpt and texture using substance
    Throne - build it better and texture using substance
    build out an interesting scene with props with a population pass
    work on lighting

    So I am not going to worry about volumetric stuff and shaders until I get this list done. Either way I want to finish this project after the contest ends if its not where I want it to be by the end of it.
    I thought that my partner and I would be able to do the entire scene but without him I realized the limitation of having one person work on this project.
    but.... I do like being able to say 'i made dis' so it all works out.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    updated rocks, yeay.

    Im am starting to see a lot of really good work showing up now and its awesome.

    so I did a rock sculpt and got some game ready stuff and played a bit more with lighting today. its heading in the direction I want it to so I may work with population coming up and then getting everything else I need up to par and tweak it for what I need.

    Messing around with camera shots too. yeay.
    Shot 1
    PvxuWFm.jpg
    Shot 2
    AzSo6bR.jpg
    Shot 3
    3dWbSmK.jpg

    Important but not really

    Rocks need to be messed around with more but I feel like I should move onto something else in order to make sure that I finish by the end of this contest. which means its onto the throne and population. more texturing lighting and then tweaking.... tons and tons of tweaking.

    looking forward to populating everything and having fun doing stuff.

    hype hype hype
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Grrr.....

    Not doing to well today. I need to take a break from this soon or else I am going to go crazy and won't be able to do anything, the work that I am doing is not remaining on par with what I normally produce so I think I am going to take it easy for maybe a day or at least not work as much, I only did an hour or so of work today and I may tone it down so I don't get burned out.

    But! I updated the throne and messed around with lighting again so yeay. I am trying to make the ceiling darker so that the eye is lead towards the throne itself. It does not follow the principle that value holds weight but I hope to make it more interesting by breaking this rule so that people will immediately notice that this is somewhere where their is no sky, IE underground.

    a5lcYpA.jpg

    ureNqSh.jpg

    Important but not really


    I am starting to realize the deadline is quickly approaching for this contest so I want to try to work harder to be able to be in a position to finish strong, but I will be consumed with some business the entirety of next weekend so thats going to mean I will get no work done >.<

    grrr.....
    I am starting to feel the strain of doing this project for as long as I have now in addition to working full time at my current job so I may just need to take some time off in order to recharge and produce the best work that I possible can.

    anyway I think that I SHOULD be able to wrap up this project for the challenge by the deadline, I hope. I have seen some pretty amazing artwork produced by everybody else doing this contest and I am looking forward to seeing what people can do.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    So I decided to take most of this weekend to recharge, organize and prioritize what I need to do for this challenge.

    With that in mind, I will be adding all new geometry during the next two weeks, Then its a week for touching up the statue, a week for the throne, a week for lighting and then final tweaks before the submission of this throne room.

    With that said I am got the mojo following again and I started to mess around in unreal with some throne stuff, and more population and lighting.

    f2VtI5c.jpg

    Important but not really

    Now I get to add in a bunch of props that I will need for this thing, which may or may not include skeletons and the things needed to tell a story for this environment.
    So I am going to go back and really get the inspiration and reference together and build out everything I need and place it into unreal to allow the art to tell its own story.

    get hype, im going into maximum ogre-drive.
  • creamsodaser
    what a lovely job, loving the breakdown and workflow explanation
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    aww shucks, thanks Creamsodaser, your awesome.




    Anyway today I am messing around with rocks again, I am not going to stop until they are awesome or at least pretty good. I need more variation and stuff so I did a sculpt and a bake down to a low res mesh. I will be creating some textures for the rock in substance designer tomorrow and trying to use the texturing workflow in painter to get the textures I need for the rocks and then throw them into unreal.

    Here is a shot of stuff I was messing around with inside substance painter.

    typaPWC.jpg

    Sculpt in zbrush

    CDfoqAt.jpg

    Quick test in unreal, they are light and they kinda read I just need good textures for them and get them looking awesome... which is the hard part :P

    hN64USb.jpg


    I want to mess around more with the maps I can bake from the high res, I think I am loosing some appealing information from my sculpt to my low res which has me worried because the awesome work I put in won't be shown in my low res, and I need to fix that to make more appealing artwork.

    Important but not really


    I think my computer is going to die soon, I am pushing it to its limit with this project, I am planning on purchasing a new machine soon so hopefully the guy gets back to me soon so that I have a better machine to do art on.

    Feeling better about this project, just going to keep on keeping on. Some stuff is driving me crazy and I feel like I suck at this sometimes, but then I realize that their is nothing else to do except get better. I have seen some amazing work people have been doing and I hope that I can be someone that will be able to be "that guy"

    its not like I am going to give up ever in a million years, its just a struggle having such a limited amount of time to work on this project. I realize the really crazy stuff I want to do will be the stuff around the throne room itself. so I will work on this thing after the contest ends until it looks as awesome as I thought it would look during brainstorming.

    you guys have been awesome and I am looking forward to following this thing to the very end. And seeing what you guys have in store as well.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Good news, Rocks now look like rocks.
    CRtoQUd.jpg

    I did a highpass on the diffuse in addition to inverting the green channel on the normal map, so that fixed the problem. I also did a little lighting in unreal to just show off these guys.

    Almost done with the rocks as soon as I finish texturing.

    I wanted to texture these guys in substance, so I made a substance material in substance designer. I am now learning substance painter the same way I learned substance designer, Trial by, and on, fire.

    TIaU5Oe.jpg

    Gotta say, Designer is a very well thought out program, I have no training in the software and I was able to pick it up and roll with it in a few minutes once I figured out a few things the tools that they have available are very straight forward, its like 80% logic and I love it.

    Substance painter on the other hand, well I am not posting my progress today because of the software crashing, I am pretty sure I understand it now... maybe but I just plan on eliminating texture seams and using it to buff up the rocks, more variation in the texture and pop it out with a little more contrast with a little hand painted AO.
    Important but not really

    Not going to be able to work this weekend so thats going to suck, so I am going to try to finish up the rocks by this friday and add in a few more things that will help pull the scene together. Then its on to the Statue dude, and actually sculpting him and getting everything done all pretty and everything.
    Planning on spending a week on the statue dude
    a week on the throne
    Then worry a little about some misc modeling and population and other stuff to add more appeal to the scene.
    Then its a week of lighting on this scene and maybe making the meshes that would emit the light... maybe.
    Then its should be a week before turn in and I could do whatever I want to make it look pippin.
    Hype hype hype
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy

    Weird stuff going on with my computer, its almost like it can tell I am buying a new computer tomorrow.

    So good news, I am buying a new computer tomorrow so hopefully it will be able to handle all this better than the laptop I still use from college.

    With that being said I am not going to get to much work done for a few days, Setting up the computer and trying to work, but this weekend I will be preoccupied for the entire weekend so no work will get done :P

    So basically, my laptop thinks the tablet I am using is its all mighty and only mouse it can use ever. So my regular mouse would not function with unreal or any other application.... I am going to restart my computer now but I wanted to share work I have been doing.

    Textures not final


    4sYLXDH.jpg
    FkLQpiO.jpg


    Important but not really

    Weird stuff is happening and I don't like it. But soon I will be able to use a nice piece of machinery actually designed to do this stuff! yeay.
    really glad I am getting a new computer, I think I ran this one into the ground.

    But I am going to make adjustments to rocks and stuff. shrink down the rocks and place them properly in unreal and mess around with the textures as well.

    Learned the substance painter workflow now I just have to fine tune it to make sure everything reads correctly in unreal 4.

    Going to sculpt out geod stuff and crystals and place them in then work on the statue dude or the throne itself. Thats my game plan moving forward into next week.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    So I got the new computer and I was able to get a majority of all my things working on it. little concerned because its will only use a wireless connection instead of my wired connection. I just does not have a LAN driver I think... anyway i'll take care of that later. And its like laggy for no damn reason.

    But I was able to bake lights in unreal and fiddle around with stuff. Small update and I plan on actually doing more work tomorrow for a bit. then hitting next week hard.

    FEtKZFY.jpg
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Quick update before the weekend begins.

    more rocks!

    teExYKX.jpg

    62acrle.jpg

    Gonna tackle the throne or statue next.
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Im back, yes.

    quick update today, working on blocking out large and medium shapes on the break away parts on the throne and stuff. Planning on working up until Wednesday on the sculpt and then working to a low res on everything that I can.

    Might do another pass on blocking out medium shapes and chunks missing. but I need to finish this guy soon so I can work on the rest of the throne. I got a schedule and I am keeping to it so I can finish this contest with something that still looks awesome.
    I am liking the direction I am going in and i'm looking forward to finishing the sculpt for this guy.

    ybg2oEb.jpg

    Hype hype hype
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy

    More throne stuff. Messing around with the first pass at the bake, might redo some high res sculpt stuff but I got a nice chunk done, still on track to finish up.

    going to work on this guy more and do the actual throne and steps next, should be done by this weekend then its moving on to the statue.
    5WUTRrW.jpg
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Did more throne stuff, going to keep on keeping on.

    Starting to feel like my work is not as good as it should be because I of my schedule, Might take time this weekend to go back and actually texture the throne piece properly and add more color variation into it or at least interesting sculpt stuff. I want to just spend a good three to four hours texturing and getting it down right before moving forward. but I will have time to do that after this contest when I decided to push the rest of the the room to the level of quality that I want it to be.
    Kinda sucks working full time, I wish I had the time to be able to but into this project but its still out for another month or so and I am grateful for that, and income helps too I guess.

    K1FnUta.jpg

    I meed to just keep on keeping on. because this thing will get better with more time I sink into it. hype hype hype
  • EpicBeardMan
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    EpicBeardMan polycounter lvl 8
    Nice. Your throne, right now, looks pretty good. Yes, you can add some color variations as you said, but overall, it does it's job.
    Just one question: What's the polycount of the object.

    Cheers!
  • Atokal
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    Atokal polygon
    Howdy Howdy,

    Hey EpicBeardMan, I took a look at your thread and in case you come back here I wanna wish you good luck.
    And in response to your question, they polycount is enough/a little to high. I shotgunned it through to be able to get it in unreal as fast as possible.

    Anyway I worked more on the stuff leading up to the throne room. getting closer and closer to where I want to be, I tried sculpting on the new details I added but it did not turn out well... it looked awful so I scraped it and I am going with a bad lower res instead for now.



    S7varsh.jpg

    3BNf3KA.jpg

    H2v3W7J.jpg

    PtHqe4e.jpg

    Important but not really

    Thinking about reposing the arm on the statue dude to have the line lead peoples eye to the throne.

    Next week its going to be the statue dude, so sculpting and low res and texturing 1st pass. then its onto lighting!
    After the amazing week of lighting its fixing everything else before the contest ends, hype hype hype.
  • WarrenM
    Probably not what you want to hear at this stage BUT ... I think the stone wall thing behind the throne is muddying the waters for you. It causes the throne to disappear visually and at the same time makes itself the focal point of the scene by being so large and flat.

    I would consider removing it and then working on putting some torches or something around the throne itself to call the viewers eye there...

    2015-03-02%2009_08_41-Untitled-1%20%40%20107%25%20%28Layer%202%2C%20RGB_8%29%20_.png

    My 2 cents!
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