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[UE4] Abandoned japanese village + tutorial vlogs

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veteran polycounter
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PixelMasher veteran polycounter
Done the scene....for now ;)
http://youtu.be/c9qOfP4Y-60


UPDATE: Latest tut video is live!
https://youtu.be/jsN0LBgrj14


Hey hey you vertex ticklers....

So I decided to vlog the process of creating my entry in the artstation feudal japan challenge, figure it would make some good learning material for anyone who is interested. First episode is up, its a bit long, but I really wanted to give context to who I am, why im doing it etc. I also hammer on the importance of moodboards/references and give away one of my secrets in the process ;)  A little awkward filming myself being that I am a bit of an introvert but whatever! by the time it's all said and done the series should be one big tutorial pretty much, with career advice layered througout

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJps8QxOh4s

future episodes will probably be around 5-10 mins max and cover each major milestone of production (blockout, asset creation, alpha, beta, lighting and final color grade etc), so probably 1-2 episodes a week. Basically, I want you guys to see that my actions map to my words of my articles and I'm not full of shit hahahaha :D enjoy, and if you do, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed to my new polygon academy youtube channel if you want that phresh art content in your feed.

link to my progress/WIP thread on artstation, but I will probably also create one here with some special sauce for the homies.

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  • Taylor Brown
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    Taylor Brown ngon master
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    Will keep an eye on progress - goodluck with it.
  • alexsir
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    alexsir triangle
    Thanks for doing this. I think it will be ineteresting and usefeul. I interested more in charachters but I want to see how enviroments created in production. Good luck!
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Awesome. Not doing enviro art but will follow anyway. Picked up a few nuggets of wisdom already. There is enough content out there showing what buttons to push, really nice to find some content explaining to gather current AAA reference as a quality gauge, etc. Not too many people explain this very important part of the process. Thanks.

    Do we just find the videos here first?


  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    some images from the blockout phase, pretty much done with my basic greybox, I know what assets I need to make and where to focus my time thanks to this. took a few hours but thats time well invested if It helps me to focus the rest of my time on the challenge in the right direction thanks to this.

    Day 1:


    day 2: added color and expanded the overall scene:

  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wziE0AYCoo

    Back with another episode for you guys! the feedback and comments so far have been GOLD! I really appreciate anyone who has taken the time to watch or leave a comment, you guys are awesome.


    I'll let the video do most of the talking but I just wanted to quickly hammer on the importance of starting a project on the right foot and easily navigating through to the end. I used to HATE this process and was always eager into building props and final art pieces but it always ended up hurting me. Now I fully embrace this process, and have used it on almost every game I have worked on, from sleeping dogs and spacemarine to FarCry 4 and Watch_Dogs 2.


    A solid blockout allows you to prioritized your asset production based on what is taking up the most of the screen, so you are not just blasting out random details and suddenly realizing you have spent half the production time of the project on tiny objects!


    As always hit me up with questions and feedback below and I will do my best to answer them. This next week is going to be focused on the actual modeling and large form asset producction so this will be the last you guys see of this greyblock. A fitting end to #Blocktober more progress and actual art coming soon..

  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Been following along, thanks for the videos Tim!
  • alytlebird
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    alytlebird interpolator
    Yo! I love this idea of vlogging your process like this. :) That concept has been something I've been curious about for a while and I feel there's a very real potential for content like this to expand beyond our small sphere of people who would normally consume high-quality entertainment/tutorial hybrid content focused on game art. People love games and I feel there's a fascination as to the process behind how they're created, regardless of if the person wants to enter the industry.

    I've got one question and one suggestion for you. :)

    Question: In video 2, what setup did you use in Unreal to record the blockout process while not in the main camera view? I've tried timelapses before with level creation but I just used the main camera view, and the result came out really spastic haha

    Suggestion: Also in video 2, when you cut to the shot, of you looking at your computer and narrating, it feels slightly awkward to see you talking to your screen. It might feel better to actively look back and forth between the camera and your computer, otherwise it feels like the audience is in the room with you but you're ignoring them while talking to the screen. It doesn't even have to be prolonged eye contact either haha, even just a passing glance every now and again would help. :P 

    Hopefully that helps! Keep up the great content!
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    Thanks guys :)
    @alytlebird
    I just opened another viewport window, setup a cinematic cam and locked its translation to avoid accidentally moving it, and then had my second monitor dedicated to that extra viewport(you can have multiple 3d viewports in unreal), so I could record the timelapse while working on my main monitor. I just shoved all my content browser and any other unreal windows onto my main monitor, a bit annoying but worth it for the timelapse ;)

    Yea I agree with you about the over the shoulder cam, I will try and tighten up that editing with some talking to camera shots that are a bit more planned while demoing.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    quick update, some 3d trims to start arting my modular kit for the house - they will basically replace all that flat brown stuff


  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    sculpted some roof tiles and added a z-up shader that procedurally adds in the moss my buddy gave me. the vlog this week will come on weds probably and focus on modeling :)


    the roofs are pretty highpoly, each chunk is about 5k tris, but I still have to delete some of the tile faces that overlap/are hidden, so should get down to about 4k I would imagine. polys are a lot less of an issue than complicated shaders or tessellation anyways. and unreals automatic LOD's seem super efficient, so after about 20ft away the polycount drops by half.



  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    update for tonight, some of the walls that will take up a big portion of the play area, this is before I vert blend thicker moss over them and add little vines/roots/foliage coming outta the cracks. a bit high poly atm, but once backfaces are deleted its not too heavy like 4.5k tris for a 2mx4m section of wall, and thats the LOD 0, unreal's auto LOD tools drop that by half with no visible difference once the camera is about 20-30 feet away.



  • Cocophony
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    Cocophony polycounter lvl 8
    I am really enjoying watching your process and it has inspired me to start getting back into it! Keep it up, can't wait for the next vlog.
  • Cg_Creator
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    Cg_Creator polycounter lvl 11
    Yep very cool last update. Nice workflow looking forward to the next updates :)
    I hope you ll also go a bit in details with the materials setup in UE4, when you done.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    Yep very cool last update. Nice workflow looking forward to the next updates :)
    I hope you ll also go a bit in details with the materials setup in UE4, when you done.
    yea will do, the base materials are pretty much just slapped on smart materials I've collected over time and the moss on the roofs is done with a z-up shader, I will make a video on texturing after the modeling one coming tomorrow.
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Do you think you could take a bit of time in one of your vlogs to speak a bit about color? I've heard a few conflicting opinions lately, some saying you should be matching color to concept in your textures, others saying to do so in post processing. If so, thanks! Keep up the amazing art :)
  • alytlebird
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    alytlebird interpolator
    Do you think you could take a bit of time in one of your vlogs to speak a bit about color? I've heard a few conflicting opinions lately, some saying you should be matching color to concept in your textures, others saying to do so in post processing. If so, thanks! Keep up the amazing art :)
    I second this. Also just any general tips you might have about industry-standard color grading for real-time projects.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    Do you think you could take a bit of time in one of your vlogs to speak a bit about color? I've heard a few conflicting opinions lately, some saying you should be matching color to concept in your textures, others saying to do so in post processing. If so, thanks! Keep up the amazing art :)
     I would say do it mostly with lighting/color grading. depending on how stylisticly color graded  your end screen will be. mine is gonna be hella green/cyan so thats mostly going to come through color grading I think.

    I wouldnt recommend tinting your textures too much, it makes them not useable for other artists if they are building a level with a different color pallete but the same asset kit. the whole point of pbr is so that assets react to lighting properly, so having a bunch of green rocks that should be neutral/grey means if they were to be added to a volcanic environment thats super red, the colors would look super messed up and the lighting artist would be fighting that.

    tl;dr- color pallete should be largely determined by lighting and post. objects should be their actual colors in relation to their materials in real life. it makes assets more re-useable in other levels or scenes.
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Cool, that makes sense. Thanks!
  • Finalhart
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    Finalhart polycounter lvl 6
    The workflow is really cool, thanks for sharing it!
  • Obscura
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    Obscura grand marshal polycounter
    This looks great!
  • RonanMahon
    Thanks for the effort you're putting into this Tim.
    I realised I follow a lot of the same process but it's great to see it crystallised in written and video form where you can pick up lots of great thoughts. Your Youtube videos are really informative so far and I liked you're article about jobs in the game industry - I had to laugh at the tessellated Substances comment. Great idea with the second viewport - I had been wondering the best way to do a time lapse myself :) Best of luck with the challenge!
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    next episode is up for anyone following along :D 
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC0uL_QQWeY
  • Cg_Creator
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    Cg_Creator polycounter lvl 11
    Great video again, thanks!
  • alexk
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    alexk polycounter lvl 12
    Love the production quality of your videos! Lots of good stuff in them!
  • Swaggletooth
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    Swaggletooth polycounter lvl 5
    I dread to think what the UV2s will be like for those rock modules! Interesting to see how you're approaching it.
  • Olingova
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    Olingova interpolator
    Just discovered your vlgo chain, gonna watch them all! Thanks :D
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Nice. Good look at a professional workflow!
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    did a quick video tutorial on how I sculpted the wood in my scene. hopefully I broke it down to an easy to follow process. I try and keep shit as simple as possible :)
    https://youtu.be/HiwV_C3IWQI

  • Larry
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    Larry interpolator
    Your videos are really insightful! Keep up the good work :)
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    little update with some ground materials. just applied the stone slab material to my placeholder rocks, dont mind the stretching haha.

  • NikhilR
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    NikhilR polycounter
    did a quick video tutorial on how I sculpted the wood in my scene. hopefully I broke it down to an easy to follow process. I try and keep shit as simple as possible :)


    Great workflow!
    And using the Wacom Intuos 3, I prefer that version also!
    Thank you!
  • DeeK
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    DeeK polycounter lvl 3
    Loving your series, thanks for sharing! :smiley:

  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter

    added a few quick placeholder ground textures. right now everything has the same level of z-up moss, but I am going to start adding in variation during the polish phase. sculpting the rocks and stairs next. right now the rocks are just my placeholder with the shader for the flat stone tiles applied, totally hacky faked for compositional planning. the floor stones are actually just the top slabs for the walls re-used so that saves me a prop i need to sculpt down the road. re-use where you can get away with it! ;)
  • Heatolian
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    Heatolian polycounter lvl 2
    Thanks for sharing man. I've been looking for a quality channel to learn like this for a while ;_;
  • explodingSeed
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    explodingSeed polycounter lvl 3
    This is an amazing video series. Thank you so much!!
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieGNMntRV4E

    Episode 4 is up! I give a quick update on the overall scene and then go into how using blueprints and prefabs can save you literally hours of work and makes bug fixing and optimization fast and easy. Hope you guys learn something and use it to save yourself some repeditive tasks in future. I also highly recommend Jonas Ronnegard's japan reference packs, they have come in handy while making art for my scene, you can grab them on his gumroad.
  • Olingova
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    Olingova interpolator
    I'm legitimately excited when there's a new video, really good quality there! Thanks for sharing!
  • Cg_Creator
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    Cg_Creator polycounter lvl 11
    Me too... I hope it s coming soon...Dont give up Tim :)
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    thanks guys :) nah won't be giving up on this scene, fighting to finish it on time and document it, but it's going well so far. quick update, got those trees in, which i am about to sit down and film a vlog episdode about. havent done foliage in a while but will do another pass on them to get them to uber quality in the polish phase.


    the bark sculpt for the tiling texture on the trunk. 

  • PixelMasher
  • garcellano
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    garcellano greentooth
    Holy moly, thanks for sharing! Just came across this.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    created the torrii. first pass textures/materials, will add some rope and fun stuff if there is time in the polish phase. wrote a big ass breakdown in my WIP thread on artstation if you really wanna go deep.




  • bryan77
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    bryan77 polycounter lvl 3
    I just found this thread. The scene looks awesome! That video on trees was very helpful! 
  • Macebo
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    Macebo hero character
    Already subbed to your YT channel, and I'm addicted to watching your videos. I feel that you are going to help me immensely with my fear of UE4 :) 

    Also, i must say that the environment is turning out amazing! 
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    thanks guys, new screenshot now that I have started to focus on getting my camera shots and lighting down, then will polish assets and small details for the last couple days.

  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    new vlog episode is up, this time on lighting and fog ;)
    https://youtu.be/jsN0LBgrj14
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    finished up my scene here is a quick flythrough and final screenshots, you can probably squeeze even more info outta the project if you check out the ArtStation progress thread, ideas tend to cross pollenate ;) 
    http://youtu.be/c9qOfP4Y-60


  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range

    Wicked!!!

    The lighting and fog is really just the final element to cap the scene off quite nicely, IMHO. 

    Anyway win or lose, congrats all the same.

    Cheers :)

  • Cg_Creator
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    Cg_Creator polycounter lvl 11
    As always, great video, some nice tips and tricks that sometimes I would forget to use but it s good to be reminded how important and easy they are to use. Good luck with the challenge, from what I saw I d definitely put u in the top 5. And thanks again for taking the time sharing all of this with us.
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