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Desmond Man - ArtStation Challenge - Ancient Civilizations: Lost & Found - Game Environment

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Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
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Hey guys, I've recently joined the challenge over at ArtStation and I've began production. I'll be posting there and here regularly up until the deadline submission... 

https://www.artstation.com/contests/ancient-civilizations/challenges/19/submissions/13919

The concept created by Leon Tukker.





And this is the blockout I already have in UE4...



There is an insane amount of work to do in the next 2 months but I plan on getting it done.
With the help of artists here and over at ArtStation... I hope I can create a beastly scene for submission :)

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  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Greybox Detailing Stage.

    So I've spent tonight doing multiple tasks... 

    My main task was to sculpt a rough detail pass on the top segment of the tower to get some unique surface detail for the crumbled ruin look... which I do not plan to bake but I plan to retopologise around main surface shapes from the sculpt so it will bring some additional detail to the base when I later on apply decal dressing & material blends.




    It was a lot of detail to resurface and I was only able to get half of the piece done tonight, however while working on resurfacing there were times I got bored due to the tediousness of it and I'd switch between retopologising and building the greybox for the terracing houses.




    I'll hopefully have the resurface done tonight and some more detailing done on the terraced housing..


    Essentially this stage of doing projects like this is the most boring by far... I doubt I'll have any eye candy for at least a few more stages of this... but I'll try get my best out of the greybox stage for now :)

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Building up.

    So I've managed to get a decent amount of recovery done today and some additional advancement on progress... I've managed to finish the middle segment of the tower today however I'm doing everything very fast and I plan on revisiting all segments once all the elements are roughly there.

    Here is my update today smiley

    I'll be moving onto the remaining white boxed segments of the tower exterior before I move onto the terraced housing in detail.

    C&C Welcome.

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Detailing the bottom Deck.

    Hey guys, I've been pretty held back recently due to being busy with other things... but I've now got freedom to jump back on this at full speed for the time being.


    For the last few days in small fragments of my spare time I've been working on the lower deck of the tower... I've manage to complete some of the main parts of the tower and I'll hopefully have the rest filled in soon as well... I'm actually dying to start detailing the terrace housing right now haha.


    Here's my update for tonight.


    C&C Welcome.

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Outer Shell completed.

    Boom~ just like that... I've managed to complete a first pass on the outer shell of the tower... all the elements are there which now allows me to start moving onto other high priority areas such as the terraced housing... The state these pieces are in are generally quite roughed out... so later on in this project I will be coming back to it and polishing things up with better detailed masks etc since right now I'm using a lot of generators in Substance Painter to knock out some quick half decent looking masks for use.

    I decided to improvise a bit with the entrance to the structure... I imagined that the entrances to the tower complexes would be heavily guarded by huge steel doors... something quite alien-esque, almost like a type of pyraminds vs. alien metal like mix... since the entire theme of this concept is of a sci-fi nature... I couldn't help but throw some metal in there haha although my original idea was probably to have the door made of concrete as well... but it seemed like it would be a bit boring visually in my head.

    I also decided to make the gateway emit light because I feel like it deserves some attention in the overall concept of this piece... I feel the bright lighting would bring some visual interest and the terraced housing itself is already quite busy... so having the lights draw my viewer's eyes to it first then makes a nice stepping stone to go to the next busiest place which would be the terraced housing and then to the details across the surface of the tower's outer shell... at least, that's the idea I feel the audience's eyes should follow to unravel the environment.


    C&C Welcome


  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Terrace Housing progressing...

    I've been a little under the weather the last 2 days and battling with a borderline flu, so I've spent the last 2 days slowly sorting out my terrace housing with whatever energy I had in me... anyhoo, instead of having 2 variations I actually think it might be okay having just one variation of terraced housing... since I've set this hut up to be very customizable that repetition may not actually stand in the way but we'll see once I've finished detailing and applying.

    Right now, I've got a first pass on this... I'm still building elements like doors, windows etc to mix everything up with.


    C&C Welcome.


  • polymator
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    polymator polycounter lvl 6
    Don't really have any critiques so I'll just say this is looking dope man.
  • Duard
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    Duard polycounter lvl 3
    Same here! Going to keep an eye out to see how shes coming along

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks guys, that's good to hear :) But again, still loads to do so I'm sure some bad stuff will pop up here and there soon enough haha...

    Anyhoo here's my update tonight...

    Terraced Housing now complete and rebuilding the tower.

    I've managed to finish texturing the terraced housing today... I've gotten all the elements I need in there for me to later on clean up in detail but fortunately my prediction was right and the use of only one detailed terraced housing will be all I need for this environment...

    What I've started doing is rebuilding the terracing with the finished asset since the previous models became obsolete.

    After I've finished layering all the buildings I'll then step into detailing as much as I can with props/switching out materials on buildings/etc to make it feel more unique per layer/story.

    But before I go into that... I will make the next step and start building the vista's, bridge, etc... again just to fulfill all the elements of the scene before I go into hardcore polishing.


    C&C Welcome.

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    So I've spent tonight building assets to help tie the terraced housing together... fortunately I feel that these assets have helped immensely... although they're still only probably half of the elements I require to ground a comfortable terraced neighbourhood feel. I really am riding on foliage for that final beauty touch. I swear, if it lets me down later on I'm jumping into the river outside my window.

    I've also managed to knock out another rock modular asset for smaller scale detail for the base of the tower, I'll be adding more variations later on to help ground it in more :) no pun intended.


    I reckon over the next few days it will be just adding more and more variations of already existing props with some unique eye catching elements to them e.g. the wooden platform with the massive ripped fabric sheet dangling off it (right now it's static... I reckon later on I'll have a look into apex cloth.) Also, some rope netting for some of the wooden bridges, etc.


    And I'll soon be starting on building crane assets to get that other missing elements to this piece in.


    here's what I have tonight.


    C&C Welcome.



  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    I've managed to spend more or less all of tonight building a large crane to place into the environment... while I was building it I decided that the scene altogether is very wood and brick based and doesn't introduce much of the metal variety besides the corrugated roofing... so I've decided to start implementing a metal element to the construction of the city... I've started off by building the crane for the time being.

    I've also managed to build a rope net & rope substance for my bridge paths and also a ragged cloth substance for the drooping pieces of fabrics.

    C&C Welcome.

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Structural Update.

    I've managed to build some assets to introduce a metal construction element to the structure...


    So I've managed to get in some girders, support beams, corner welds, etc... but I haven't finished dressing essentially. I've also managed to throw in some quick foliage which is all kind of a placeholder atm, I plan on adding more variety in plants, etc later on but it's still a low priority for me... But tbh as I've been building this my mind keeps drifting between what I should and shouldn't be focusing on right now... and it's becoming more and more obvious that the more I'm focusing on the terraced housing the more I'm being sucked into wanting to add things for finer details that eat up loads of time when ultimately when I go back to the distance of where the concept sits... you don't see a single bit of the stuff I'm adding right now e.g. metal girders, rope bridges, etc... these are all finer luxury items that I've ended up being sidetracked by and I think I might have to take a step back and go back to concentrating on the bigger picture which ultimately is the tower structure, rocks, underlying city, bridge, etc... Sadly even the test foliage gets lost at a distance due to culling/mipping essentially because this scene is actually THAT big... and the camera placement for the concept to the location of the tower is actually that far away.Which leads me to my next idea, I've decided that I may have to break from the concept again and introduce a type of flower bed/mini garden segments where the civilians started growing trees, bushes, etc which enables me to use large scale foliage to get that nature green into the scene from a distance.


    C&C Welcome.


    I reckon it's safe to say that my next few updates will be more large scale changes smiley Once I've managed to get the bigger picture complete... then I'll sit down and start digging deep into the terraced housing detailing again.

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Lighting & Material Overhaul.

    I spent the majority of tonight revisiting materials and lighting... I've managed to get a better functioning ocean shader in my scene... still very hack but it's better than the previous one, I've also done some minor tweaks to the lighting & fog to get a better atmosphere to the scene... the shift in lighting is now creating some really dramatic shadows along the terraced housing area which I feel actually adds some character to the scene.

    Besides just the ocean shader and lighting I've also managed to tweak the original base material of my tower into something a little more architectural and less unnatural stone. Due to the change in texture choice I've had to Re-UV some of the tower to keep the tiles consistent but due to that it's made me feel a little doubtful about the quality of work on the tower's upper shell... so there's a chance I'll revisit that model later on if I have time.

    Also to add on top of this update I've managed to quickly sculpt a large scale rock piece which I planned on using as a base for the tower and for the silhouettes of the crevices/deep ocean canyons underneath the surface.

    I'm planning on making perhaps 2 more variations of large scale rocks tomorrow and then probably some medium scale rocks after that.


    Here's my update either way,

    C&C Welcome.

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Re-approaching the Tower

    For a while now I've been really unsatisfied with how the tower's outer shell was looking. Fact is, I wasn't even very certain about how the shell's architecture actually was... The concept leaves a lot to the artist's imagination and I think I had grounded my mind too deep into the idea of aztec ruins where the temples or large vistas would generally be made of stone... so my go to was Stone from the very beginning... completely blinded by that I dove into this only to second guess why the entire complex stood as one giant piece of rock. So after thinking long and hard and having a discussion with another artist on my new proposal on the approach we've both agreed that the exterior could have equally have been made of metal sheeting instead of concrete cinder block like elements.


    I drew up some inspiration from an artist named Lebbeus Woods who my friend recommended and it pretty much nailed the direction I was heading in, a lot of his artwork generally wraps buildings and unique dynamic shapes in paneling and it was essentially the look I was looking to go for.


    With this new found direction... I've spent the entirety of this evening creating a tiling metal panel sheet which I cut a few floating decals out of to lay over big areas across the tower... and I built 5 modular panel sheets which I use to bring in and out for lighting variation across the surface of the tower and to bring out some terracing from the silhouette of the tower.


    C&C Welcome.


    Lebbeus Woods (Loose Reference)

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Adding Walk Bridges

    I've spent tonight pretty much building out the walk bridges for the environment & further dressing the tower... The bridges look really plain atm but based on the concept it looks like there's netting that comes off the bridges so I'm considering building some alpha geometry with my rope netting substance and adding some simplegrasswind to give it the illusion of floating in the water... maybe even a fish decal to imply that it's their source of fishing for further story telling.


    Either way here's my update tonight. C&C Welcome.



    Concept View -

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Updated Foliage & Entrance.

    I spent a lot of today generally redoing my foliage and adjusting the shaders, etc... this is actually the best I could get it to with the entire balancing between from a distance and up close, etc... it wasn't easy but I'm at a place with the foliage where it feels somewhat acceptable for the time being and I'll be moving back onto other parts of the environment now... 


    Foliage Shots:


    After tweaking the foliage I took a moment to blockout a revisit on the tower's gateway... I just didn't know what I was thinking with my previous iteration of it, it really held no purpose nor any resemblance to a door/entrance so I've decided to completely re-tackle it.

    So this new concept generally feels like it matches my approach a bit better where the entrance was built using parts scrapped from ships and pieced together to start forming a semi-complete tunnel.


    This is where I need some second opinions... I'm curious about whether that was the right idea or not? I've provided a side by side comparison... I have both versions still so I'm just curious about whether I made the right decision before I go all in tomorrow.

  • slosh
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    slosh hero character
    Wow, this is looking great man!
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    slosh said:
    Wow, this is looking great man!
    Thank you :) still a lot to do but pushing it as much as I can and as fast as I can for submission haha... any thoughts on my approach for the gate way? would really help having a second opinion on whether I'm making the right decision about redoing it haha
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Gateway Textured.

    I spent the majority of today just finishing the modelling/UVing and baking/texturing of the gate way... so here we have the new version of it smiley... my next steps will be to finally build the platform that connects the bridge to the entrance... and then afterwards... it'll just be building the small boats for the bridge side, maybe some rope netting geometry and additional rocks... after that I'll be moving onto cleaning things up and just dressing the entire scene in detail with what I have... I feel good about my timing right now smiley



    Here's the update guys. C&C Welcome.

  • Dubloon
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    Dubloon polycounter lvl 4
    It's looking good! Really starting to capture the feeling from the concept. 
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Continuing with detailing...

    So I've spent the last 2 days just adding small touches to the scene... cleaning up the base of the tower, adjusting lighting, adding ship containers into the mix around the entrance... I've still got quite a bit to do but I'm starting to feel pretty happy with some elements in the scene... I'm anxious to get to a polishing/full environment dressing stage... since those other 2 towers really let down the composition right now but I don't want to go into detail until the main tower has everything it needs first.


    3 more weeks left :)


    C&C Welcome.

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Hooray! 100th WIP Image

    I spent tonight just dressing the second tower since it's becoming a more regular question being asked by people over the last few days... so I gave it a quick dressing pass just to clear that critique out of the way for the time being... so I can focus on other things over the next few days haha... I've also managed to build one small variation of the bridge where it's slightly damaged but I didn't feel like going overboard with it since these bridges still need to be fully functionable and it would seem silly to have them near completely fallen over... so hopefully over the next few days I will start to populate the bridge with some small scale assets and decals etc to break up the emptiness along the path... and then make a quick boat asset for the water before I tie myself down into cleaning up old meshes, fx actors, etc


    I played around with the sky colour and fog a bit... generally to fling back towards the direction of the concept in lighting but I'm not sure whether that was a better decision or not, I was pretty happy with the sunset warm lighting setup but I feel that maybe I should stay true to the lighting setup from Leon's original concept. Any second opinions would be great.


    C&C Welcome.


  • mfrederick
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    mfrederick greentooth
    Wow!  I loved this before, and I love it even more now.  Great work!

    I think both the sunset and more overcast lighting look good, but I personally find the sunset one more appealing since there's a bit more color contrast to draw attention and help lead the eye around the image.  The redish/pinkish hues in the sky also worked really well with the red cloth imo.  Good stuff either way though.
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    Wow!  I loved this before, and I love it even more now.  Great work!

    I think both the sunset and more overcast lighting look good, but I personally find the sunset one more appealing since there's a bit more color contrast to draw attention and help lead the eye around the image.  The redish/pinkish hues in the sky also worked really well with the red cloth imo.  Good stuff either way though.
    Awesome, thanks for the feedback on that :) I did prefer the sunset too so it's good I'm hearding that from someone else xD... I'll make some adjustments back towards sunset later tonight and have another update over this weekend with more stuff doine to the scene as well :)
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Clean up.

    2 weeks left until Submission, so far all I've really got left to do in terms of adding is...


    - grunge decals for the bridge walk ways & dress

    - anchor point for large ships on bridge walk ways

    - sky dome replacement

    - small scale litter decals

    - some rope connections inside the terraced housing areas

    - some birds flying on a spline to surround the higher segments of the towers


    Seems like a lot still but I don't think it's too bad considering the time I've still got...

    After these, the rest of this project will be dedicated to cleaning up already existing meshes/textures...


    In this update I've managed to include...


    - New Crate Prop

    - New Small Boat prop

    - Some rope clumps to break up the emptiness on the bridges

    - A unique emblem decal for the entrance to the tower

    - Textured the dangling cloth platform assets & added a cheeky ArtStation tag on one of them haha

    - Created Rope Netting that dangled off the bridge walkways and into the sea to catch fish (with simple grass wind applied)

    - Fish Decals which I've applied simple grass wind to for movement with the sea

    - Close to final if not already final dressing on distant towers


    Here's the update guys. C&C Welcome.

  • infectedfury
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    infectedfury polycounter lvl 7
    Looking Awesome, with a bit more polish this will turn out great. The only issue for me is the water feels a little off with the way it is reflecting the scene.

    Keep it up
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6


    Thanks @infectedfury I've made adjustments to the water now, hopefully it's better :)


    Updated Ocean Shader & More Clean Up.

    Here's another polish update...


    My internet's unfortunately just gone out at home so I wasn't able to post an update last night from my home workstation...

    I have had the worst experiences with internet providers and their inefficiency to solve routers going rogue... so I'm already considering the worst and that Virgin Media aren't going to do me any favours for the remainder of this challenge... so I'm probably going to have to work off the grid and even possibly have to submit my challenge at a friend's house over the submission weekend or something haha.


    Anyway, here's the update...

    - Added planar reflection capture

    - added ocean seafoam textures to the ocean shader & cleaned up a bunch of the shader setup.

    - finished texturing one of the terraced housing blocks.

    - added the ship anchor points (these literally felt like a waste of time considering how small they were in the end of it all)

    - Adjusted atmospheric effects & lighting

    - added grunge decals to bridges

    - added paper debris/trash


    Things left to do:

    - flying birds

    - seaweed at base of tower & rocks

    - other small additional foliages

    - sky dome replacement


    Luxury adds:

    - kites tied to bridge railings

    - more ground level props (barrels, wooden pallets, etc)

    - dangling chains off wooden bridges at top of tower


    Potential cuts:

    - Rope connections in terracing section


    Confirmed cut:

    - City scape under water (I couldn't balance the ocean shader to show the city properly... the best I could probably do is have some buildings peaking out of the water top but I feel it may seem a little ambiguous if I hadn't already mentioned it.)

  • infectedfury
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    infectedfury polycounter lvl 7
    those few changes have made a big difference
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    haha thanks man :) I've got a few more days left to polish this up... so I'll make sure to keep posting things here! :D


    -EDIT- Copy and pasting text & posts from ArtStation's really messing with my fonts on here now lol... bad idea =__=''
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Here's my update tonight guys... What I've added in this update are as follows...


    - Seaweed floating under the water near the shore

    - Dry Seaweed melded onto the rock terrain leading down to the ocean

    - some trees to break up the harsh transition between the rock floor and tower

    - Seaweed texture set to vertex paint blend in with the rock terrain to help blend the seaweed foliage into the surface better.

    - Sky Replacement (UDS)


    Based on what I've managed to do tonight, I've already kind of gone through most of my to-do lists... and may soon enable me to do my luxury adds like kites, etc... but that will be after I do a clean up on some of these meshes.


    C&C Welcome.

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    In tonight's update I've managed to add as follows...


    - Seagulls flying around the tower

    - Apex cloth to the dangling cloth banners in the terraced housing

    - Adjusted the fog start distance to be a little further away so we get that saturated contrast back on the main tower (as per Matt's feedback) 


    Most of tonight was pretty much just fine detailing to be honest, the seagulls can't really be seen from a distance sadly and everything else I've added also can't be seen unless it's at a close up shot.


    This will be my last update until next week Tuesday as I'll be out of the country and away from a workstation.

    Next week will be very chillaxed if anything, I'll be preparing to add small additional decals here and there during Tues/Wednesday and then I'll be spending the rest of Friday-Sunday preparing all my documentation/submission materials for submission 


    I've managed to capture some gifs of the scene in editor too, Enjoy 


    Capture of seagulls and apex cloth.


    Capture of the scene in motion. (Some reason the capture did something to the colours of my scene, the actual colours are in the editor screenshot I've also posted.

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    I'm coming to a close end on props now... I've managed to knock out quite a heavy amount of quick prop/decal work for the bridge today... a lot of it is very basic detailing but it gives the effects I want.


    I'll only really have tomorrow left to build anymore assets/dressing and then I close the book with lighting tweaks/composition tweaks and final camera placements, etc for the following days


    C&C Welcome.


  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    I'm pretty much ready to close the book on additional asset creation... I might be able to milk one more day out before turning to submission documentation but I'm running out of small ideas to help this which doesn't require me to open a whole new chapter to the environment dressing since I won't have enough time to do it. Therefor, I'm calling it... Less is more.


    My updates tonight are as follows...


    - More dressing on the bridge

    - 2 new assets (Cargo transportation cart, Small scale crane/lever wheel for boats and tower)

    - Created a batch of crates covered by cloth

    - Added some element of skyscrapers back in that peak out of the ocean a bit to support the washed away under city theme.

    - Reduced clouds density (for Matt's observation, could easily change them back if they were working better before)


    As much as I want to keep adding, I need to stay safe and start packing up shop... so C&C's are still welcome, I'd really like to know whether people think the current lighting setup is working or would people rather see the lighting be more blue/turquoise like the concept where it gives off a bit of a darker vibe? Let me know :)


    Enjoy.


    Small Crane/Lever Wheel for Boats & Terraces -


    Cargo Transportation Cart -

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Colour Correction Comparison

    As mentioned, here's a side by side comparison on colour correction for the scene/lighting... what do you guys prefer? 



    The right one leans more towards Leon's original concept colours... the lighting doesn't accurately follow Leon's as the lower half of the towers are darker lit in his concept so this is strictly critique on the colour scheme for the time being.

  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Finalizing.

    I've added what I think should be the last 2 props of this project now... I'm officially closing the asset list and moving onto more important things like camera sequences for a short exhibition video I plan on making for this. Once I've finalized my camera sequences I can think about adding additional props if I have time... but I'm not counting on it.


    What I've managed to add tonight are some lamp posts and banner flags for the bridges. I've decided to go with Cool Blue for the colour scheme.


    The next few days will be dedicated to whatever I can do to present this in full. Stay tuned!

  • nastobi123
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    nastobi123 polycounter lvl 8
    WOAH ! This is really awesome man ! It turned out really good. 
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6

    Well, here it is guys... it's been one hell of a journey... I've had an amazing time doing this over the last 2 months even though I've missed out on a lot of sleep and definitely gained weight from poor eating/lack of dedicated exercise loool xD... I wanna thank all the people who've given me support during this challenge with critiques and positive commentary. Thank you!

    I'd also like to give a shout out to my team at Sumo Digital who've been helping me by almost providing me feedback and critique by each major update.


    This was my first ever art challenge and it was scary for me to decide to join it at first but I'm incredibly happy that I did. I look forward to the next challenge.


    Main Shot:


    Supporting Shots:


    Packed Shots:


    Breakdowns:


    Substances:


    Assets:

    Video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8h2_9OWx64

  • HAWK12HT
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    HAWK12HT polycounter lvl 12
    Looking really awesome Desmond Man! been following progress at Artstation. All the best
  • Gannon
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    Gannon interpolator
    Hell yeah nice break downs. Great work! Only big crits is that the foliage is all the same color and it all feels very dry where some of the transitions are.
  • Tim Lewis
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    Tim Lewis polycounter lvl 7
    This turned out really nice! Good breakdowns of everything too.
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    @HAWK12HT @Tim Lewis
    Thanks guys :) Appreciate the kind words n__n

    @Gannon
    You have a very good point on this one, sadly this has been an issue throughout the entire project for me... Because of  I'm not sure if it's to do with my shader or perhaps that I created my leaf atlases from scratch in Designer & Painter, the textures are using different albedo tints across the tree so a lot of them are a few shades off from eachother... but the results were still quite the same.
    I had contemplated about switching out the leaf textures with photographs instead but that hadn't occurred to me until like earlier this morning haha... I'll give it a test later on for sure... but on a side note, if anyone has any tips or tutorials they think is a really good find for foliage shaders please link me, it's by far the weakest area of my knowledge in terms of environment art.

    Thanks for the critique!
  • Macebo
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    Macebo hero character
    Definitely the most ambitious take of all the entries i have seen!
  • RashedAlmetrami
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    RashedAlmetrami polycounter lvl 10
  • SamStark
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    SamStark triangle

    I saw Abstergo logo on it! What r u trying to do man, r u Templar!? JK, great work man.
  • Gannon
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    Gannon interpolator
    @Kid.in.the.Dark A quick cloud texture using world space position could break plant colors. I'd maybe try and mask it so the plants closer towards the water are more dead~ish since plants don't typically like salt water. ( assuming this is a salt water body )

    https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?64278-Foliage-color-variation <---- this should get you started if you want to give it a try. or This video 
  • littleclaude
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    littleclaude quad damage
    Wow, this project is amazing. Hard to believe just one person made it. Best of luck, I think this has win all over it :)
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    @Macebo  @RashedAlmetrami @littleclaude @SamStark
    Thank you guys, really happy to hear such positive comments :)

    @Gannon
    Legend, thank you for this. I'll make sure to go through this and try reapply it to the scene when I've had a moment to chillax... really feeling the energy depletion after the challenge so I've been quite mentally drained over the last few days haha... I'll jump back in and test this out soon though :) Thank you


  • Nomad - Nicolas Pirot
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    Nomad - Nicolas Pirot polycounter lvl 4
    Awesome work man, always cool to have some neat breakdowns too!
  • BucketOfNuggets
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    BucketOfNuggets polycounter lvl 6
    Perfect stuff. Thanks again for the help you gave with mine during it all (the glowing orb mask one). Was really appreciated. 

    Couple of questions 
    In your break down you said you have the alpha decal to blend the material. Is it just the bare plaster piece that is floating? Do you have to set it up to not cast shadows or anything like that?

    You also said you pushed the windows and doors in. Are they geo or also floating textures?

    Once again awesome awesome stuff. 
  • Kid.in.the.Dark
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    Kid.in.the.Dark polycounter lvl 6
    @BucketOfNuggets
    Hey John, No worries at all man... I'm all about helping and sharing :)

    Now to answer your question, the floating decal technique I used in my scene was mainly applied to building corners and the flat surface sections that needed breaking up... essentially almost every corner of my buildings have a decal to cut off any harsh texture seams between each surface, the decal itself is a strip of tiling plaster that has a 90 degree bend on it to give the corner a smooth and clean transition.

    The windows and doors are actual geometry but they've been placed onto the building as a separate element instead of directly modelled into the building, they've been modelled to the same metric as the cuts in the building and snaps into place :)

    Hope that helps dude
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