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Exedre project - Machines, glitches and lot of GIFs

greentooth
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Froyok greentooth
Hello ! :)

I'm currently working on a little UE4 project where I'm doing various things (VFX, modeling or even animation). It's mostly a demo, I will see if it evolves into something more one day. My current codename is "Exedre".

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One of my goal was to create a convincing terminal/console where the user can type commands and get a feedback. Of course, since my project is about old machines/computers, I wasn't able to resist the urge to add glitches ! This is fully real-time with some custom shaders and render target textures. First time working with accumulation buffers too.
Funny thing is that I use caustic textures to create some of the glitches. :p 

Here is a little video of my current console : 


Some still images :







Some earlier test, where I just started implementing the accumulation buffer and started getting my glitches :



Now that I have a functional console, I'm working on the in-game asset that will use it. I'm still iterating on the design and looking for shapes at the moment.





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I also started looking into holograms. Not sure exactly what I want, but by trying to implement some ideas I found new effects. So I'm mostly experimenting at the moment. The lines were tricky to get right because I use vertex deformation in the shader and without the right UVs and polycount I wasn't getting the deformation I wanted. I'm also trying to find a way to fight against the Temporal AA which kills a bit the quality of the holograms.



Replies

  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    I made some progress on the terminal and I have now an in-game version in UE4. :)
    Everything was textured in Substance Painter 2, but I plan to retake a few bits later. I will move forward to some more interaction with the console itself.






  • r4ptur3
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    r4ptur3 polycounter lvl 10
    this is super cool!  how are you setting up accumulation buffers?  Is it a custom render target?
  • Kaine123
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    Kaine123 polycounter lvl 10
    lol those holograms make me want to listen to joy division 
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    r4ptur3 said:
    this is super cool!  how are you setting up accumulation buffers?  Is it a custom render target?
    Yeah, it's basically 3 render targets (in C++, it was before they were exposed in Blueprint with 4.13).
    One is for printing the text, one for drawing the material that combine the old buffer and the new text buffer, and the last one is the "old" information. Rince and repeat. :)

  • ZombieDawgs
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    ZombieDawgs polycounter
    That model just gleams well made, love it. My only crit is I can't really define exactly what material you're going for on it, I can't tell if it's a plastic or a metal at this point. The modelling says metal but the texture says plastic.
  • r4ptur3
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    r4ptur3 polycounter lvl 10
    So awesome -- I need to mess around with this :)
  • gfelton
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    gfelton polycounter lvl 6
    I'm genuinely disappointed I missed this project, this looks fantastic! I'm in love with those holograms, especially the second one, looks too damn good! :)
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Thanks for all the comments. :)
    I'm still iterating on the materials and the overall mood :

    That model just gleams well made, love it. My only crit is I can't really define exactly what material you're going for on it, I can't tell if it's a plastic or a metal at this point. The modelling says metal but the texture says plastic.
    The goal is plastic indeed. For the modeling I wanted an hybrid between futuristic things and retro computers. Not sure if I was able to achieve that, but I'm open to critics. 
  • JaySmitt
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    JaySmitt polycounter lvl 13
    Looking awesome, really loving the grungy vibes. As a fellow maya user I have a question if you don't mind me asking.  Do you use maya's text tool for the highpoly text and if so do you manage to keep them quads? I've yet to come across a method of keeping the topology relatively clean after using maya's text tool.
  • radiancef0rge
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    radiancef0rge ngon master
    This is so cool dude.
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Little video of the in-game animation/interaction : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Gb2QfVR88 I also posted some other screenshots (such as some wireframe) on artstation : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gyQYZ
    JaySmitt said:
    Looking awesome, really loving the grungy vibes. As a fellow maya user I have a question if you don't mind me asking.  Do you use maya's text tool for the highpoly text and if so do you manage to keep them quads? I've yet to come across a method of keeping the topology relatively clean after using maya's text tool.

    I used the Maya text tool to produce flat letter (planes) indeed. However I had to rework them by hand to clean them and produce quads, they were full of nasty N-Gons. Once this was done I extruded them, added some loops and produced what you see in the end. It wasn't as long as I thought. It took me 3/4 hours to do the full keyboard (including special characters).
  • Maxilator
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    Maxilator polycounter lvl 8
    Looks awesome! Is there any reason the keyboard letters are scrambled?
  • Chimp
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    Chimp interpolator
    it's a layout used outside of the US called azerty
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Yeah, it's usually the layout for french keyboards. :)
  • snake85027
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    snake85027 polycounter lvl 18
    great art, would be nice to see the video from a little farther back to appreciate it as a whole.
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    @snake85027 Thanks ! This kind of things will come when I will get a bigger scene to show off.

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    I'm still working on this project, at a slow pace unfortunately. I had my hands on some other things lately.
    Now that I consider the computer "done" I'm working toward the center of the room when I plane to display the hologram and more. Today I experimented with some new holograms :


    I'm also working on a robot arm that will be used multiple times for an animated sequence :


  • Scythe
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    Scythe greentooth
    why haven't I seen this before? It looks awesome Froyok, I'm especially fan of those holograms
  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 18
    Yes!
    I love these kind of effects! Looks promising Froyok. Please do share more when you're making progress. :)
  • Shyralon
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    Shyralon polycounter lvl 11
    This is looking super cool, looking forward to see more!
    Any chance to get some kind of breakdown of these awesome hologram effects?
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    kodde said:
    Yes!
    I love these kind of effects! Looks promising Froyok. Please do share more when you're making progress. :)
    Yeah, I should really do that. I do it on Twitter more often, but I tend to forgot on Polycount.

    Shyralon said:
    This is looking super cool, looking forward to see more!
    Any chance to get some kind of breakdown of these awesome hologram effects?
    It's hard to say. At the moment I focus on the development of the scene. I don't know yet how I will release the project. Either via partial tutorials or all the assets at once.
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    I recently finished the Mechanical arm low-poly mesh and will soon texture it in Substance Painter. (I will probably stream that on Twitch)
    Meanwhile I'm trying out some ideas for the room. I'm not satisfied yet about it :

  • WaYWO
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    WaYWO greentooth
    @Froyok your work is amazing ! how is this not front paged ! :neutral:
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    @WaYWO Thanks ! :)

    My latest iteration looks like this : 


    I will texture the mechanical arm this weekend (and will stream it on Twitch over here :  ). So meanwhile I will do the rigging so I can start to animate it a bit. :)

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    On an other note, here are some old gifs for when I was developing the terminal glitches and my holograms, I thought you guys might find that interesting : 


     
     
  • DavidRamble
    This is fantastic! I worked on a similar slightly grungy space-base style thing for fun last year, I wish I'd thought to use an AZERTY layout keyboard myself. It definitely gives a feel of grungy and old to someone who's probably far to used to using good old qwerty.
    The only thing I can really suggest in terms of the room layout is the Arms - They look to me like they're supposed to be moving the tube with the lady in it, but because they're so far away and directly opposite each other, I can't quite decide where they're supposed to move it to? 

    Anyway I love it and I look forward to seeing the progress :grin:

  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    I got the rig (mostly) working tonight ! Some little issues but I need to figure them out.
     

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    Some other VFX iterations I did for the full body that you can see above :
     

    Also some "loading bar" tests which gave me this (which I don't know yet how I will use) :

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    The only thing I can really suggest in terms of the room layout is the Arms - They look to me like they're supposed to be moving the tube with the lady in it, but because they're so far away and directly opposite each other, I can't quite decide where they're supposed to move it to? 

    Anyway I love it and I look forward to seeing the progress :grin:

    Thank you for the comment !
    As for the mechanical arm, I don't plan to use it to manipulate the stasis chamber or the character, but more for handling other mechanical things. (I keep a bit of secret of the exact details. ;) )

  • kodde
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    kodde polycounter lvl 18
    Cool stuff Froyok!
    Thanks for sharing.
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    I just started the texturing of the mechanical arm (streamed it this weekend on Twitch, replay is available over here :  ).  It's only a first pass, I think I will add more metallic surfaces.

  • Go2frag
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    Go2frag polycounter lvl 6
    Hey! 

    On the lower part on the left you have normal map issue with screws.
     

    Here is solution: http://polycount.com/discussion/147227/skew-you-buddy-making-sense-of-skewed-normal-map-details/p1

    btw model looks pretty good :)
    Keep going!
  • chrisradsby
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    chrisradsby polycounter lvl 14
    Ah Sick! Looking forward to this man!
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Go2frag said:
    Hey! 

    On the lower part on the left you have normal map issue with screws.
     

    Here is solution: http://polycount.com/discussion/147227/skew-you-buddy-making-sense-of-skewed-normal-map-details/p1
    Ha yeah, I'm aware of this little issue. There a few others but I will take care of them later since I'm in a non-destructive workflow. For this mesh I preferred adding support geometry in the low-poly instead of using alternative baking methods (I just forgot this part). Currently the full mechanical arms sits at 10K triangles, which is reasonable since it's bigger that a character and it will have a big focus in my scene.


    Again, thanks for the comments ! :)
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Making slow progress toward the stasis room now :





  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Still working on the room (very early WIP), but I also converted a few element into game assets (retopo + texturing in Substance Painter of the stasis chamber for example). I took the opportunity to do some new FX at the same time. Once again, I spent more time tweaking than actually doing something productive, hah... 
    For the "water", I wanted to use the native UE4 refraction but ended-up creating a custom unlit shader and sampling manually the scene-color to do what I wanted. In the end I perform three refraction at the same time. I have also a mesh around as the glass.
    Ho, I also started adding some custom post-effects (maybe too much... I can't help it haha... ).





  • proxyorgasm
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    proxyorgasm polycounter lvl 12
    Amazing. How you make Console shader?
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Amazing. How you make Console shader?
    Thanks ! :)
    I explained the basic concept here : http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2492387/#Comment_2492387
  • macoll
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    macoll polycounter lvl 13
    Great work here ! Inspiring and thanks for sharing ;)
  • Froyok
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    Froyok greentooth
    Now that I have some free time again I went back over the character of the project and decided to try something else. Maybe I was inspired by the GITS movie, who knows :


    (Initial test in Substance Painter, still fully painted - I didn't bake any details )


    (In UE4, doing some lighting tests)


    (Still UE4, added the missing eyes)

    Step by step of the layers for the face :


    I quite like it this way, so I will probably stick with it. I'm currently reworking my rigging tools for Maya to improve the rig for this character, so I should be able to get back on the armor I started working a long time ago. The goal is to have a full armor that can do this kind of things : 

    (This is a prototype animation here, so no skinning)

    I still struggle with this design because of the human body, we are able to do some weird stuff with our shoulders and legs. So I'm stuck a bit on how I could handle easily the pelvis with something mechanical like this.


    macoll said:
    Great work here ! Inspiring and thanks for sharing ;)
    Thank you ! :)
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