Home 3D Art Showcase & Critiques

Sci fi hallway

polycounter lvl 6
Offline / Send Message
manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
This is my first post here :), I'm starting to work on building an environment art portfolio and this is the first piece I'm working on, inspired by Ken Fairclough's concept https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xoPOX


I'm about half way done with the basic shapes from the concept, after that I'll do some quick tests in UE4 to review the scale, and then proceed to add some personalized details to the scene, A first idea I had was maybe making the whole right side a like a big window with either outer space and some planets, some buildings silhouettes with a lot of volumetric fog (after I figure out how that works :p), or a monster's eye.    

Replies

  • Cay
    Offline / Send Message
    Cay polycounter lvl 5
    Hey, that's a really cool concept. Looking forward to what you'll do with it!
    There's a few things I noticed and you should really look into these before you continue otherwise it will cause you a lot of pain.

    1) Parallel lines aren't parallel
    2) Some of these models resolve in a weird manner
    3) Are you sure the corridor is wide enough? I think a good way to measure it is to try and get the door in (see concept). Notice the markings on the floor.. that should give you a good indication of how wide it should be. The door has a window and a handle, place a character and go from there.
    4) Did you look the scale for railings up? It looks a bit higher, might be subjective. It's approximately the height of the door handle.


  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    Cay said:
    Hey, that's a really cool concept. Looking forward to what you'll do with it!
    There's a few things I noticed and you should really look into these before you continue otherwise it will cause you a lot of pain.

    1) Parallel lines aren't parallel
    2) Some of these models resolve in a weird manner
    3) Are you sure the corridor is wide enough? I think a good way to measure it is to try and get the door in (see concept). Notice the markings on the floor.. that should give you a good indication of how wide it should be. The door has a window and a handle, place a character and go from there.
    4) Did you look the scale for railings up? It looks a bit higher, might be subjective. It's approximately the height of the door handle.


    Thanks for the feedback Cay! :smile:
    I see what you say about the hallway, I just wanted to get the first draft in engine to get a better sense of the scale, now that I have It does feel like it should be wider, I've adjusted the height of the rail to 100 cm. There are a lot of details that need adjusting, I'll start working on those next now that I have modeled all the main elements and can see where the intersections that don't fit are located.



  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    Another update, was busy most of last week but today I managed to finish most of the base geometry and fix clashing geometry and will proceed to create a couple of individual elements to break the repetitiveness of the hallway and after that unwrapping everything. (screenshots from ue4).
  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    So after a slow weekend of unwrapping, baking and setting up textures I have another update on the scene, I was a little worried that it would look a little bit too colorful but once I got the textures in UE4 I kinda liked it.  I haven't done may sci-fi scenes so I'm not so sure what would be the best way to light the scene (comments are welcome), right now I have a couple of point lights scattered around inside the hallway and outside some atmospheric fog with high altitude for the outside. Next step will be creating a couple of assets to scatter around the scene and break the repetition and refining the lighting.


  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    I've updated the lighting to a more subtle ambient light, a couple of spots around the scene and some emission from the floor. I think the next step is adding a couple of props. Any comments on how to improve the scene are welcome :smiley:
  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    Update with volumetric fog.
  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    I think I'm finally over with this scene, it was a lot of fun but I feel it's time to move on to the next project, this one took around 40 hrs, a little bit over a week working in my free time and weekends on it.
    https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ryPb6
     
  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    So I've started working on this asset thinking I could add it to my portfolio as an individual prop once it is finished but also thinking that maybe I could use it in this scene as an element outside the window, I've been playing around in my mind with ideas to further develop this scene and the idea I might go with is having this big rocket outside the window and some small kid/robot astronauts playing in the hallway one of them holding the rail looking at the rocket, the other one sitting on the ground.  This piece is based on a piece of Destiny concept art that I really liked. 


  • manuelfuentes13
  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    So I've integrated the rocket to the outside of the scene and I'm trying to figure out the right size and location to get a good view of it from the window, also figuring out if I should change the color to get a better contrast with the rest of the scene. All and comments on this or any other suggestions on how to improve the scene are very welcome :smile: .


  • Cay
    Offline / Send Message
    Cay polycounter lvl 5
    Hey! It has come a long way.
    I'll just tell you what I think in a few points and you'll get to decide which ones to implement.

    1) Materials are all the same
    You don't have any Dirt or Roughness Variation.. and if you do it's so subtle it doesn't come across.
    These assets are baked down, right? Add some Roughness to Crevices/Areas where the AO is strong.
    Take another look at the concept.. I can see some wet areas/puddles on the floor. Just adding interest.

    2) Particles
    I see steam coming up from the floor grating, I can see water dripping down. These could be cool to add.

    3) Focal Point
    Personally I think the emissive floor lights are catching my attention too much.. The focal point in the concept is around the door area, in yours it's actually the red on the right hand side and the glowing floor. Also because your fog is kicking in and the door area looses contrast ultimately making it less visually important.
    The Floor panel lights: I'm not sure they improve or add to the scene.. it might just add a lot of noise to your image. I do prefer the gratings.

    4) Red
    This is probably just personal preference but I'd just very slightly decrease the saturation on that red or darken it, should give you a similar effect. It is red to the point where I feel like it gets cartoony.

    5) Rocket
    Make sure it's not becoming your focal point unless you want that. Push it back a little in terms of visual importance.. could be a nice background detail. (e.g. lessen the saturation, decrease its contrast in comparison to the backdrop, make it smaller, put some fog in front... lots of options)

    6) Lighting
    Is your lighting baked or dynamic? You might not want to do lightmap UVs.. but I'm telling you.. baked gives you vastly superior visuals. I've seen lots of people fall into that trap when doing their first scenes in Unreal 4. If you are going for baked the majority of your lights should be static. The main light sources could be stationary.
  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    Cay said:
    Hey! It has come a long way.
    I'll just tell you what I think in a few points and you'll get to decide which ones to implement.

    1) Materials are all the same
    You don't have any Dirt or Roughness Variation.. and if you do it's so subtle it doesn't come across.
    These assets are baked down, right? Add some Roughness to Crevices/Areas where the AO is strong.
    Take another look at the concept.. I can see some wet areas/puddles on the floor. Just adding interest.

    2) Particles
    I see steam coming up from the floor grating, I can see water dripping down. These could be cool to add.

    3) Focal Point
    Personally I think the emissive floor lights are catching my attention too much.. The focal point in the concept is around the door area, in yours it's actually the red on the right hand side and the glowing floor. Also because your fog is kicking in and the door area looses contrast ultimately making it less visually important.
    The Floor panel lights: I'm not sure they improve or add to the scene.. it might just add a lot of noise to your image. I do prefer the gratings.

    4) Red
    This is probably just personal preference but I'd just very slightly decrease the saturation on that red or darken it, should give you a similar effect. It is red to the point where I feel like it gets cartoony.

    5) Rocket
    Make sure it's not becoming your focal point unless you want that. Push it back a little in terms of visual importance.. could be a nice background detail. (e.g. lessen the saturation, decrease its contrast in comparison to the backdrop, make it smaller, put some fog in front... lots of options)

    6) Lighting
    Is your lighting baked or dynamic? You might not want to do lightmap UVs.. but I'm telling you.. baked gives you vastly superior visuals. I've seen lots of people fall into that trap when doing their first scenes in Unreal 4. If you are going for baked the majority of your lights should be static. The main light sources could be stationary.
    Thank you for the great feedback Matthias! I really appreciate it coming from someone with your experience, hopefully I can get this scene to eventually look good enough to land a job at a studio :).
  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    Here is another update, I updated the lighting and the textures the lightin
  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    Added some water puddles with decals.
  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    Adjusted the scale of the materials, the dirt was way to large, and adjusted the lights again. Also retextured the crates.
  • Cay
    Offline / Send Message
    Cay polycounter lvl 5
    For puddles I'd recommend doing it via a blend in the material. Ideally you want to use the (inverted) height information of your floor so it starts filling into crevices first before it covers large surface areas. If you are thinking of populating a larger level using decals.. all the puddles will be the same shape or you'll end up having tons of different decals.
    If there's a puddle it's also unlikely that the surrounding floor area is not affected at all.. it will certainly be a little wet.

    I can spot quite a few areas where it's still quite low poly or it looks that way. In this day and age there's no excuse for hard edges everywhere. Either have it baked into your normals or use actual geometry and smoothing groups.

    Working on lighting is probably going to improve your scene the most. Just try and separate some of the layers and improve readability of the scene. You can see it in the concept.. he's clearly put his highlights where they matter so the objects stand out from what's behind them. You don't want a flat image.
  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    Here is another update were I tried to light the scene in a way more similar to the original concept. I'm not sure if I like this lighting better than the previous one, I might have to keep tweaking it :S .


  • manuelfuentes13
    Offline / Send Message
    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    Decided on a mix of the two lighting schemes and added a background plane with an image from NASA.
  • manuelfuentes13
Sign In or Register to comment.