Modular Cave Kit
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Hello!
I've been trying to make a modular cave kit like in Skyrim for a few months in my spare time and it would be greatly appreciated if you would give me some tips about how to make it more realistic, interesting or technically better, please.
I used Blender to create the meshes and uvs, Substance Painter to export some textures, that I generated from some Substance materials, and Unreal Engine to visual everything together in a game engine.
The screenshots are from Unreal Engine and there is one from Blender too:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/sM1EzZygeYIxnBgi1
Many thanks,
James
I've been trying to make a modular cave kit like in Skyrim for a few months in my spare time and it would be greatly appreciated if you would give me some tips about how to make it more realistic, interesting or technically better, please.
I used Blender to create the meshes and uvs, Substance Painter to export some textures, that I generated from some Substance materials, and Unreal Engine to visual everything together in a game engine.
The screenshots are from Unreal Engine and there is one from Blender too:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/sM1EzZygeYIxnBgi1
Many thanks,
James
Replies
How many modular pieces you have in total to this environment?
I have about 21 "small" cave meshes so far. Room pieces and hallway pieces.
The lighting has been quite hard to try get right so far. I see that in Skyrim the caves seem to be lit up so much that you never need to carry a torch or cast the candlelight spell. I guess that in real caves it would be pitch black. Should I adjust the eye adaption to make it brighter overall? I will also try the other adjustments you suggest.
Many thanks,
James
One thing Skyrim is really good at is directing the player, using the environment to tell you where to go. You should keep this is mind going forward, when you create assets, maybe add some decals (like tracks or blood splatter), using lights to create a visible path etc.
Now your mesh is looking really good, but I think you're spending a lot of polygons on the smaller rocks. If they're part of the main mesh then that's one thing, but if you're gonna have separate rock assets then you should aim for a lower polycount and bake some detail down.
And in general just add more detail to make the scene more interesting. If it's modular it needs to be reusable, but a layer of smaller assets should be on top of that. In the end, levels are created to tell a story and create a narrative around the player - this should be visible in stills too
Great job!
Hello LorasTyrell,
I think you have some great ideas for making it more interesting and will surely also use them sometime. I also agree about the rocks being too high poly. I will optimize them soon but I also have another question about this: The 4k textures seem to be providing some good rock texture details already so with that in mind do you think I will get better results with lowering the geometry complexity and baking a new normal map and AO map from a high poly mesh for each mesh?
I think the rocks look a bit unnaturally smooth at the moment actually. I may replace them with Blender rock generated ones which look more like real rocks to me. I just found an addon which can save me from having to sculpt them. https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?216271-Rock-generator-script. I've added some more photos one of which shows a rock from this addon. It is more optimal yes?
I intend for there to also be additional rock meshes placed around the level in order to break up the repetition and hopefully delay the sense of "art fatigue" that Bethesda spoke about in their GDC presentations on modular assets.
Thank you,
James
I would be very grateful if you would provide further feedback on how I could further improve it to commercial level quality? The latest screenshots are on artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VXdVb
Many thanks and merry xmas!
If you dont look at it then merry xmas anyway!
Great update- its really coming along! I had a few observations, most of which wouldn't take too much time to implement;
I don't think you've set up reflection volumes in your cave yet ( I'm looking at the reflections on the shield, and see that they fall to black where they aren't picking up the spec from your lights. It would also sell the brightness of the entrance against your cave walls)
The wood on your table and stool asset should include endgrain textures. I also think the legs on your stool are a bit skinny. Overall, the furniture looks brand new with no surface variation. You could consider weathering the wood in places, to suggest its been in a wet cave.
The bloom on your torch is very distracting. If your only presenting screenshots, don't feel obligated to keep the same post-processing settings between shots- tweak them to show off your environment at its best. also, mind the brightness difference between your entrance and the torches- the entrance should be much brighter if its daytime.
I don't see a contact shadow under some assets, like the bed and shelf- see if you can tweak some of those broad lights so they allow the space to be more readable.
I know its very 'Skyrim' but I wouldn't mind seeing more breakup between your groundplane and the walls- perhaps with an additional small rock asset?
Finally, I'm glad to see your project is in its final stages, and the screenshots on your portfolio look nearly indistinguishable from the actual game. Unfortunately, I wouldn't say that a 6 year old Bethesda game holds up to modern visual standards- even IF its a great game overall. If you're already looking for your next challenge, emulate a more modern, higher quality game like Wolfenstein. There are several amazing artdumps on polycount to get you inspired.
Looking forward to your next update!