[UE4] Making Ships - Sails of War
Styled after a Royal Navy SwansClass Sloop (1766) this Sloop-of-war model I made for my personal game project Sails of War.
I posted a link to my ArtStation on the Polycount Discord yesterday, but thought to share it here as well. C&C Welcome and much appreciated!
She was quite the beast to make. Water and sky – pretty much everything you see is made by me.
As the title reads it's all UE4 and the water and ship materials turned out to be quite complex in the end.
The ship one mixes tiling textures, titling overlays and unique overlays – all of them with switches and parameters so they may be turned off.
Flags and sails are on their own material, again with possible UV2 overlays (especially for the sails where the extra detail is needed).
It super awesome to finally be able to share this work, and I am really looking forward to making and sharing more ships. Production should speed up now that master materials and such are done!
Again C&C is much welcome, hope you like it!
Replies
-Reading the details of the hull on your sloop from side to side, to me is a little monotonous. It'd be nice if texture-wise, you could put in some kind of swath detail that encompasses large horizontal sections of the ship. I.e. wide patches of water-damage texture rising up on the hull, or maybe specific planks of wood that are slightly different tones from the rest if the texture system is capable. Something to break the evenness.
-I'd also advise bending the designs of the ship more towards creative liberty. It would compromise the authenticity of the designs, but if you were to prioritize having it pop as a 3D model, it'd be best to adjust the visual narratives. Right now I'm essentially reading evenly-width, evenly-colored, and evenly-distributed planks of wood across the hull (along with ropes that crisscross for the sake of function, but visually they're more distractions than narrative statements.) It'd be nice if you could break the evenness with specific concentrations of intentional detail (i.e. a specific section with an irrational number of ropes, sections of complex decorations with thinner planks, a very detailed railing, etc.) and other unique items that you can put on the hull that can't be found anywhere else on the ship.
-I'd also ask for a grungier-dirtier look to offset a "recreation" atmosphere but that's my selfish-preference.
I don't imagine you'll drastically change your work process or your commitment to accuracy, but if I was helpful with finding avenues for micro-adjustments or in clearing tunnel visions, I'd be glad. Good luck.
I think one reason it looks much more like a wooden toy model then a real ship is the lack of ropes. Ropes to tie down stuff, loose ends of the rigging etc. It's indeed one thing I will do going forward and also likely revisit the Sloop.
Best wishes on your future design decisions.
Thank you so much for your comment Olingova. I think my model is a bit elongated - but you will be able to tell me once its done
Hi there! Been a bit. And the cutter is mostly done. A pleasant surprise to start the month was being featured and made one of the recipients of the Nvidia Edge program. Certainly a great way of starting a productive weekend! So then here is the mostly done block out for the cutter:
This is just a quick preview render – no real materials.
Before I run off to doing a bevel and normal as well as unwrap pass I thought I'd post the progress here. The deck and details are mostly done, masts still need work.
I have been thinking about the rigging and the way I been doing it on the Sloop - it will most likely cause problems for ingame. So I am currently rethinking how to do it without spending thousands of polys on it. One option is less rigging but a combination of dynamic ropes and statics - will look at it later.
It'll likely be a couple of weeks until I get here in-game, at which point I will of course post here but also turn towards props and world models. As was mentioned before some palm trees, cliffs and shanty huts might be quite helpful showing the scale of these ships.
I feel liek those kind of shapes help a lot with the overall feeling.
Good point about the detail at the base of the mast. The real live ship seems to just have straight beams in the back and small indented once at the front (like so many are for ropes to be tied down).
I do though have to mention that you won't be able to walk the deck as the camera is following the ship. And seeing how we just moved it further away from the ship a bit the other day... I'd love to add all those small details. Even though the real ones are flat the crossbars are fine carpentry work. But I just don't think you'd ever see it in-game - certainly not if it was a normal mapped detail, it would be mipmapped out at that point sadly. My main ref images of the base of the mast: (credit to whoever made them, found these online)
Some awesome close-up photos of the modern day rebuild. As we I think all agreed further up - real life really is just boring