warehaus - UDK

[Uly]

well i'm gonna make this environment to learn some fancy shader and sculpting stuff mostly. hopefully you will all give me tons of your sweet tricks and workflow tips along the way. feel free to throw hard crits at it along the way, I want to make the best of this.

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/jstout_homeindustry/homeindustry_ref01.png
here's the primary reference photo I'm basing this off, with two little concepts below to throw in some of my own ideas.

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/jstout_homeindustry/homeindustry_ref02.png
and here's a handful of lighting and mood shots.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g304/krasnoarmiich/wip/jstout_materialtest_brick01.png
here's a material test I did earlier. just the start of the base wall material. its diffuse/spec/normal. in the first, big reference pic I posted, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to be able to achieve those directional, graffiti clean-up swatches without decals. (i'd really like to have that nice effect where the paint has collected in between bricks, and isn't worn down as much.) i'll worry about that later though

I'll post a rough, not-too-far-along version of the environment later tonight hopefully. In a misguided attempt to stay true to a planned schedule, I'll make my own personal mistake of committing the first step to completing most of the base materials and modeling for the walls, ceiling and floor.

here goes!

[Prophecies]

Well executed preparation! Looking forward to seeing this!

[Uly]

a few hours later, I have most of the boring, blockout bits done. now I can move onto sculpting and texturing the large surfaces. after rushing it all into unreal, and 1 quick light bake later, here's where i'm leaving it tonight.

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/jstout_homeindustry/homeindustry_progress01.png

as mentioned earlier, next big push will be the rest of the major surfaces. mainly, the corrugated ceiling.

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/jstout_homeindustry/homeindustry_problem01.png

professionally, the engines that I've worked with offered no support for instancing environment assets, so it's definitely a different feeling than what i'm used to. in the image above, the yellow highlighted object (which is a metal frame that runs the entirety of the warehouse) is very long, and won't unwrap for lightmaps very well. now that I give it a bit more thought, (this also isn't very important at the moment, but hey) I'll probably add a few divisions along its length, and manually break the edges so there's not such a horrible waste in resolution.

tomorrows update should be a bit cooler looking.

[StefanH]

warehaus? LOL.. you are not german by any chance are you :)

Looking good so far. bit on the generic side but i dig the brick texture. For this thin metal frames i would probably just use vertex based lightmaps. Get a few subdivisions in there and you should be good.

[James9475]

The time you've taken in planning is already paying off in the blockout. Already a very believable space.

[Minos]

Nice start, the concepts look really good!

[gsokol]

This is a good start. Blockout looks good so far.

[Uly]

thanks for the comments guys. :] had to spend a little while away from the pc for a bit, but i'm back on the scene. tonight's update was a bit of a rush, i'll try and share a little more in depth stuff, particularly on weekends when i've more time to spare.
@Stefan: haha yeah man, i'll do my best to make this warehouse very interesting. I haven't shown everything yet. ;] I've some neat set dressing planned to give the whole locale a bit of history.

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/hi_UDK_corrugated01.png
here's a start on the corrugated ceiling. (textures and paint wear are far from final, placeholder for the moment. going to move onto some other stuff in meantime.) just nailing down colours and how much paint wear will be on each of the three generic, reusable tiles.

[SHEPEIRO]

whats the point in NOT using decals for paint swatches grafitti etc...this is where they can be really usefull for breaking up tiling...

[PixelMasher]

whats the point in NOT using decals for paint swatches grafitti etc...this is where they can be really usefull for breaking up tiling...

I was just thinking the same thing. I think it would be a lot cheaper than using say multiple uv channels in a single shader or multiple material ID's on the mesh.

we have a crazy shader here at work that does this kinda stuff but its really expensive, so its used rarely, while decals and overlays are used all over the place.

nice ref collection, itd be great to get the grout looking all squished outta the cracks like the main refs you have, right now its looking a bit sterile/unnaturallly perfect.

[Uly]

naw, you're right. (just for clarification, when I said decal I meant a decal plane that hovers over a surface, never ruled out a blend shader) i've been leaning that way for a few days now. i'd wanted to give some vertex painting stuff a shot, but I can't think of how I'd get the nice directional details you see in the ref.

: ) will definitely discuss it more in-depth when I get to that step. (fairly soon) here's what I'd like to achieve though.
http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/mad_tags.png
so example one represents a traditional, alpha card decal. i’ve got my wicked mad tag over the brick wall. nice. now what if I wanted to take it a step further and wanted it less opaque in the grout? (eg2) Adding additional information to the decal’s alpha channel would render it useless for reuse, unless it was overtop another identical brick pattern and rotation.

I admittedly don't have a lot of experience with blending/overlaying materials. (throwing another UV channel on a surface, projecting and clamping an alpha overlay) I'd really like to take a look at some shader examples. I'll dig through UDK's documentation to see if I can't figure out the most basic one, and work my way from there when I get to this step. For now, I need to continue getting all the major elements roughed in.

mash: thanks man, i'll tweak that on the first polish pass.

[keres]

I wouldn't subtract the grout from the graffiti, that's not realistic in my opinion. When you spray graffiti you are less likely to hit the grout, but you'll no doubt still hit it. You will also want a good amount of the texture underneath to show through, but have the color information of your graffiti. Spray paint isn't thick enough to be lathered on to where it appears smooth.

[Uly]

keres: to clarify, my 5 minute image created before lunch is not the level of quality or look that I want to achieve. : ) i'm giving a very exaggerated example of an effect I want to achieve. if you look at the right-hand side of the first reference shot, there's some swatches where water damage has collected in the grout and washed away some of the paint. it's a subtle effect, but when you add all those little touches in, it can really make a shader something special.

i talked with some people at work and have a good idea how I'm going to approach it. in order to maintain focus on what's important at this stage, i'm gonna refrain from any more shader talk until I actually get to that stage. its just diffuse, normal and spec for a while from here on.

[SHEPEIRO]

done quite a bit of this recently... heres two of my findings

1- you dont really need to use an opacty map that matches the brick...if its a diffuse only decal that takes on all the lighting but modfies the underlying spec

2- if you have one type of brick make the decals for that brick... duplicate and push the geometry and then you can pick where you want them to be...if you need them to be somewhere particular... its a case of offsetting the texture in pS and tweaking the underlying UVs......also if you make the texel density half on the decal means you can cover way more space than your tiling underneath and if its using the lighting from the underlying normals it wont look less detailed

[Mark Dygert]

Looking really good!

When you talk about using vertex paint for decal blends do you mean stuff like this: http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/UDK_Advanced_Vertex_Painting.html
or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V6bit8PrZo
Where it takes the bump and underlying texture into account?

I'm not sure how you could use that for paint swatches, typically it uses two tile textures. It would be an interesting trick if you could position a paint swatch anywhere and have it blend...

[Uly]

Shep: Thanks man, good advice. (I was prob overthinking it) What I'm going to try first when I get to the graf stage is just overlaying the diffuse overtop, inheriting the only the bricks' normal information. I'm pretty familiar with using floating decal geo, so if it comes to that, I should be ok. One thing I did find was a decal projector, similar to what used to be in UE2. (though it was a buggy POS in UE2.) http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3decals.htm I'm gonna give it a shot sometime soon to see how it works.

Vig: thanks much for those links! chris actually sits behind me at work, so I think you just unwittingly signed him up for giving me a hand with this shader stuff. he can deal with it. B) This is actually pretty close to what I'm looking for. I just have to think through in my head how to apply the same principles to applying graffiti. That stage is pretty soon.

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/jstout_homeindustry/homeindustry_corrugated01.jpg more or less finished off the diffuse and normal maps for the corrugated sheets. all that's left to final is their alpha masks, spec maps and shader. I also have to play with their placement so they overlap eachother a bit. they've all got tiny seams atm

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/jstout_homeindustry/homeindustry_pillar01.jpg
also got the diffuse and normal done for the pillars & supports that cover the space. looked up a video on how to apply detail normal maps in UE3 and this is what I ended up with. this the best way of going about it? this method also doesn't offer me control over when the detail map fades in, but the mipping seems to do a good enough job.

next update should include more basic texturing and a first lighting pass. (and a replacement to the unfitting skybox in there right now.)

thanks for the discussion and advice so far, guys. : )

edit: holy moly photobucket butchers image quality. i hope it reacts better to PNG's next time around.

[Lamont]

naw, you're right. (just for clarification, when I said decal I meant a decal plane that hovers over a surface, never ruled out a blend shader) i've been leaning that way for a few days now. i'd wanted to give some vertex painting stuff a shot, but I can't think of how I'd get the nice directional details you see in the ref.

: ) will definitely discuss it more in-depth when I get to that step. (fairly soon) here's what I'd like to achieve though.
http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/mad_tags.png
so example one represents a traditional, alpha card decal. i’ve got my wicked mad tag over the brick wall. nice. now what if I wanted to take it a step further and wanted it less opaque in the grout? (eg2) Adding additional information to the decal’s alpha channel would render it useless for reuse, unless it was overtop another identical brick pattern and rotation.

I admittedly don't have a lot of experience with blending/overlaying materials. (throwing another UV channel on a surface, projecting and clamping an alpha overlay) I'd really like to take a look at some shader examples. I'll dig through UDK's documentation to see if I can't figure out the most basic one, and work my way from there when I get to this step. For now, I need to continue getting all the major elements roughed in.

mash: thanks man, i'll tweak that on the first polish pass.This might get you going. There's a link to the sample file.

Here is how I do decals, colored grunge and debris.. err whatever you want to stick on a building. My whole take on material creation is to examine the scene and come up with a list of materials I'd need. From there I see what materials I can consolidate. And from there I make Master Materials, and anything that needs that material I make an instance and change only a few parameters instead of making whole new nodes.

So here is the wall in Maya, I have two UV sets: One for decals, one for the brick. And I liked the UV sets where map2 is linked to the decal, and map1 is for the diffuse. Don't worry about the alpha.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/BrickWallTut_00.jpg


http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/BrickWallTut_01.jpg

So in UED after I import all the assets, here is how I set up the node. Notice the "TilingFactor" labeled node. That dictates the amount of tiling.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/BrickWallTut_02.jpg

I changed the "TilingFactor" node to 5, notice things still sync up. I didn't have to paint a new decal to match up with it.

The benefit of this is that I can pop in any decal image, any brick image and it will tile correctly and retail the nice brick/painted on look. And this can be used for the majority of my buildings. Add in an AO map and custom lighting if you need. Take this one more step further with a good parallax map network and tie in the second mask for the decal with the grout of the brick, where the edges around each brick shows more wear and tear on the decal.

http://www.digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/BrickWallTut_03.jpg

Questions that may come up:

Q - So why don't you just have an alpha plane over it?
A - It doesn't really look like it's tied into the wall, like it's a part of it. I'd use alpha planes for things like posters and dynamic things. Or if the engine dictated that I needed to for things like this. Also, lighting, as objects in UED that are alpha'd don't get the nice lighting as the other objects. The only way is to have a 1bit alpha (either white or black, no grey) and you'd loose all the nice blended edges.

You can get crazy with this and have a spec value for the painted images in the alpha channel used by a second UV set. Take this value and add it to the spec of the brick. Also you can combine normal maps in UED, by pulling all the channels apart, then putting them back together. This may be overkill, but the surface variations you can get will look badass.

Download source files (Maya 2009/UED) here: ::LINKY:: (http://digitalweaponx.net/Forums/GameA/DecalTut.rar)

[Uly]

hey lamont, very belated thanks for your assistance. it's gonna come in handy soon.

and hey, i've been gone for a while. after working four months in an eastern european salt mine based a satellite state of the former Soviet bloc, I managed to obtain a plane ticket back to canada via their local airlines. in exchange for the flight, I cried on command repeatedly while they demonstrated to their youngest children what a failure of a man looked like. the service completed and my local reputation tarnished, I was no longer of any use as the official salt mine greeter, similar to my previous job at the local Walmart in Vancouver. Hopefully this scene will break me into the games industry.

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/jstout_homeindustry/homeindustry_mattress01.jpg?t=1291795328
i made a quick mattress earlier today. polycount on the low is really high cause im gonna be bending it over things, just havent deformed it yet. : ) other exciting bedding will come tomorrow! ill start the proper texturing when the rest is done. playing with clothsim soon. im excited!

[glottis8]

Great job... a really good way to show your understanding of the technicalities of creating shaders. It's coming along. There is all kinds of things that you can add to your shader to creat the blending be more random and jittery. As well as ways to add grime to your brick tile to break them up a little. Keep up the good work!

[Uly]

:) thanks glottis, but that was Lamont there giving me a hand. I've learned quite a bit since then, have yet to implement it en masse in the scene.

well i've been all over the place except for 3d lately, but now I'm back to wrapping this baby up. feeling good for the end of this month, give maybe one week for love & polishing. :)

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/goodstout/jstout_homeindustry/homeindustry_progress02.png

[galen linnett]

fast and informative. You've got a really impressive workflow. I mean this is the kind of thread that shows everything from the ground up. You've been very helpful to many just by going about your day. I find that very admirable I always feel jealous when there's no reccomendations I can think of. damn you......good work.

[fearian]

This is good stuff! Only thing bugging me is the black marks on the floor - dirt? oil? what are they? could do with lightening or some specular detail to bring them into the world a bit more.

[EVIL]

I suggest umping the sunlight way up. when your inside, your value range goes from black to white within that shadowy environment, so it would make all area's that receives sunlight, super bright. just like your ref image. Toning the light down like it is now makes it feel.. fake

[passerby]

the paint swathces should be possible with a vertex paint,

check the "The Pit" udk environment on the fourms and you can see vertex paint and a material shader used for sand and damage and the idea could defiantly be adapted. and i dont think it would need detail in the normal maps since it uses the height map of the base of the material to decided how it goes over crevices.

[piippo]

Looks great, and very informative. Learned a lot just by going through this thread.

[Uly]

galen: thanks dude. always happy if somebody else can pick up a few things while I stumble along.
fearian: that was me learning how to set up vertex blending. :) the shader in these new screens isn't final either, but I'm getting a better idea of how it works.
evil: yeah man, though i wanna play around with the HDR so it's not super bloomy when it's not being directly stared at. that will definitely be one of the last steps though, when i throw in the skybox and all that fun.
passerby: thanks a lot man, I'll definitely take a look at that shader.
piippo: glad to help dude

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_COJdjsucPec/TUkkdcJkRmI/AAAAAAAAAFk/JRsjPCd-7_c/s1600/homeindustry_020211_01.png
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_COJdjsucPec/TUkkeaEbdSI/AAAAAAAAAFo/6A69gqGEm-g/s1600/homeindustry_020211_02.png
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_COJdjsucPec/TUkkfTV9mAI/AAAAAAAAAFs/Sd9EEPx8ALU/s1600/homeindustry_020211_03.png
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_COJdjsucPec/TUkkgvNWEQI/AAAAAAAAAFw/BAPgQOOXhYc/s1600/homeindustry_020211_04.png

still a lot to do! that doesn't mean I cant to a lot fast though. : ) uh, i might update more frequently than usual over this week. thanks for your guys lovely comments. one thing to note, is that a lot of these textures are just a first pass diffuse without any normal or spec maps. cant wait to tackle that in one fell swoop

edit: oop, btw next update should have all the set dressing done on the floor. dirt shader however still might not be final. that's been the ultimate thorn in my side all this time

[fearian]

whoo! Loads better! New lighting is ace, once you get a skybox in there it's going to really pop!

[StefanH]

its nice but the lighting isnt working at all for me tbh. I thought it was fullbright until i saw the shadows :) The walls are much too bright for beeing in the shadow. Looks like transluncency :)

[Uly]

Fearian: I can't wait to get the skybox & environment fog in there. :) I like saving that stuff for last. It's fun to tie all the bits of an environment together with those big details.
StefanH: I wouldn't worry about it too much at this point. Pretty much every rendering feature is disabled at this point so the environment can be baked in sometime around a minute. All I've set up is the general sunlight angle and played around a bit with the environments overall colour tint. I'd love to get your critique after I've posted a attempt at final lighting though.

[StefanH]

okay sorry to have given to early critique then. looking fine man

[jordan.kocon]

Hey Uly, I'm new to UDK and just working on my first demo reel piece. The main problem I'm having in UDK is setting up my lighting which I know is a huge topic. I can't for the life of me get hard shadows though like the ones you have in your scene. As soon as I build my lighting, my shadows always soften. How did you achieve such hard, crisp shadows? Thanks in advance,

- Jordan

[Uly]

StefanH: no need to be sorry dude, i should have made it more clear earlier! A lot of people actually invest time in lighting earlier than I did, and I'm inclined to agree that it's a better way of going about things.

jordan: hey man, I'm no expert, but there's usually 2 key things (in UDK) that will affect the softness/hardness of your baked shadows. First off is lightmap resolution. Each static mesh or BSP surface will by default have a resolution value you can play with. Just like how your colour/diffuse maps' resolution will affect how sharp details are on your models, lightmap resolutions will affect the level of detail of the lighting on your models.

An easy way to think about it with baked lighting is:
Soft Shadows: Achievable with low and high lightmap resolutions.
Crisp Shadows: Achievable with high lightmap resolutions.

The second thing that will affect your shadow's crispness is the 'Shadow Exponent' value. This affects how strong light bends around corners for the selected light. Here are the settings I've got in my temporary setup:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_COJdjsucPec/TUmn4DhF7cI/AAAAAAAAAF0/dXb7SE7Y9_U/s1600/shadow_exponent.png

Good luck dude!

[XRevan23]

environment looking killer so far, once you populate it, add a sky and some god rays i think it will look amazing.

[whats_true]

Lighting looks like a BadCompany multiplayer map. Great work. Get that sky box in their ASAP!

[Uly]

XRevan23: thanks dude
whats_true: thanks man :] ill have the sky in next time i post progress. I pinky swear.

small update tonight. I've got a good deal of stuff that's dependent on more set dressing before I can show it off right & proper. having a lot of fun tying this guy up though. anyway, here's playing around with some broken glass, and spending way too much time on a very simple shader that should only take minutes to hook up.

I looked up how to render out cubemaps in UDK. It was ridiculously easy, and should be a feature in every engine (if I had my selfish way in everything) I haven't yet figured out how to properly hook it up, tho. The reflection, regardless of the angle you're looking at a reflective surface, is always reflecting the top image of the cubemap and not taking the camera's direction into account. Can't find an equivilant in UDK's database yet either for reference.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_COJdjsucPec/TUvUPhb0_bI/AAAAAAAAAF8/jNpwYcTPDYE/s1600/homeindustry_glass01.png

also, im apologize for the continued harm to your eyes with my largely diffuse only + piss poor lighting at the moment. next update will be more significant. (im just hoping somebody will be like, 'oh hey, check out this sweet glass shader man.')

[StefanH]

hey as a person how worked with unreal3 engine professionaly for more than 3 years i can tell you plug the camera vector into the UV slot of the cubemaptexture. This way you get reflections depending on the camera angle IIRC. The problem is these are also dependent on the uv layout of the texture. So things will only be orientied correctly if the UV chunk is not rotated. The solution to this is to use a VectorTransform node set to world between the camera vector and the texturemap.

This is all from memory so maybe I forgot something. The problem with the VectorTransform is that its a pretty costly node in terms of instructions (20-30 instructions IIRC). So if its possible to have the UV chunk oriented upwards its cool to leave it out and can increase performance quite a bit.

Thats bout it !

Cheers

[Uly]

StefanH: thanks man. i was looking at something similar in a guide in the UDK documentation. there's still something weird going on with mine. ill hit that problem near the end

close to the finish line. still some stuff to do, but its very fun here on out :]

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TVzbb8ScaxI/AAAAAAAAAI8/D_KNHKaJQ8w/homeindustry_lighting01.png

here's the first pass at lighting. the brighter lighting on the right side will not be as bright in the final, and will have a more pronounced falloff, it's kinda flat at the moment.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TVzbcBOxd1I/AAAAAAAAAJA/A3WlavhzTDU/homeindustry_bedrealm5000.png

here's that mattress, all grown up. this bit of the environment needs an additional light source to really sell it, i think.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TVzbcvAALoI/AAAAAAAAAJE/huGF_o5_9dY/homeindustry_girdertrolley.png

here's a girder trolley. (currently not lightmapped. it's not lightmapping well, cant figure out why yet.)

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TVzbcxbgceI/AAAAAAAAAJI/hJejq0aHukc/homeindustry_grass01.png

so i fucked around with my grass' normals today in order to make it light more naturally. it doesnt look planar anymore, but holy shit does the sunlight blow it out. ill be playing with it tomorrow.

also, it's casting black, opaque shadows at the moment. while I don't want it casting black shadows, I *do* want it to cast a less opaque shadow with a green tint like you'd see in real life. anyone here know how to achieve this effect in UDK?

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TVzbdZn0AaI/AAAAAAAAAJM/vZNwzPEi_A0/homeindustry_lightingmockup01.png

finally, here's the original lighting mockup that i started out with. i still want that haze that i put in on the right side, and like i wrote in the image, im gonna try and achieve that with some lightshafts and post settings, though i'm unclear on the specifics. ill figure it out (and if you guys help, thats extra cool)

thanks for looking, dish on me your comments and criticisms. there's still some major changes going in, but this thread kinda serves as good reminders about what i have left to do, so dont be shy! :]

[tristamus]

Dude, I absolutely love the bedding sheets....excellently done. Did you do a cloth simulation for those?

Also, for the foliage, did you just point the vertex normals straight up 90 degrees to get that lighting like that?

Otherwise, coming along beautifully!!

[DDuckworth]

The jump in realism you made from the last shots to these shots is truly impressive, I would love to achieve that level of lighting someday!

[Urbanmelon]

What kind of lights do you have set up ? I see you have a dominant directional light to simulate the sun, but do you have a skylight set up ? Right now your shadows seem kind of bland (color-wise). Having a skylight (if you don't have one) would allow you to play with the shadows' colors and really spice up the scene.

You should flesh out that living area too. There's maps and lots of papers on the walls, so we can assume the person has been living there a long time, but there's nothing to cook and eat there (like an old chair, tin cans, and a crate as a table for example), no clothing, no bags, and nothing to suggest the person's profession (like guns or ammo boxes for a hitman). If you cluttered the scene with clues like that, it would really make it tell a story, and make it more than a warehouse with a mattress in it.

You should create a grass material (for the ground I mean) and vertex-paint it under your grass so the intersection of the planes with the ground isn't so obvious.

Also, those red flyer thingies (that's your logo right ?) are kind of distracting, they're all over the place and we kind of wonder what they're supposed to represent. Be careful where you place your maps and post-its, don't put them randomly in the scene. There are some that are on isolated pillars, and even over windows (?), logically they should be in a single "workspace" the character has set up (along with clues as to whatever it is that he/she does).

What are you gonna put outside ? The kind of environment the scene is in (jungle, harbor, abandoned airport) can really help to tell a story.

[Uly]

tristamus: yeah its a cloth sim and some additional rendering to diffuse for some of its texture work. its a neat workflow for anything cloth'ish.
dduckworth: thanks for the nice words

urbanmelon: good crits man, thanks. the current lighting scheme is a dominant directional light, some smaller fill lights to brighten up the right side of the scene, and some additional spotlights pointing in through the windows on the left to give an additional softer falloff of light in addition to the harsher shadows.

i agree that the shadows could contribute a lot more if they have an interesting colour. I'd never known about UDK's skylight until you mentioned it. i'll give it a peek. i'm also gonna be playing with unreal's post effects at the end, so I don't want too many workarounds stacking up on eachother, but these shadows shouldn't be so dark and desaturated in the first place. ill post a more final lighting pass soon.

yeah, set dressing is still a work in progress. i'm gonna add what I can in a reasonable amount of time. I'll put in some changes to more clearly telegraph what I'm trying to get across from whoever the inhabitant is. At the same time, I'm not a big fan of spoon-feeding obvious details, so I'll try and strike a careful balance. If it's still shit after I've done some fixes, tell me so. :]

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TV3bJeEkDBI/AAAAAAAAAJw/DSnLER-H00w/homeindustry_neglect.png

here's a bit i haven't shown off yet, for good reason as you can see. it'll be the 'work' / lunchtime area though when I've finished off the assets for it. im hoping this bit will give the place some additional purpose.

I agree on the grass as well. I'd rather get the grass to properly cast lighting first, though. That would have a far greater effect than an additional layer on the ground shader. if it does come to that though, i'll just do it with some decals on the floor.

good on the red papers. i'll be playing around with those. though i do like the splash of colour they add to areas i want the eye to be drawn towards, I can certainly do far more in a less repetitive fashion. i'll probably resort to some coloured paint swatches, since they're quick to make.

outside will more or less be thick brush and greenery, not jungle'y brush though. :] if you look at the photo that most closely resembles this place on the first page, it'll be similar to that. should give the base level some nice green bounce lighting.

[whats_true]

On a completely unrelated note, why do i have to download your portfolio when i go to your web site? HUGELY disatisfying mate.

[tristamus]

Hahaha! I, for one, love the graffiti there. I say keep it ;D. If you do keep it though I'd suggest fading it a bit as it looks a little too freshly painted on, as if someone vandalized it yesterday lol.

[Cooljay]

Looking very interesting. Nice work here so far.

[Uly]

Here is the final environment I'm ever going to do in gameart. I'm quitting the industry to pursue my true passion. Shrek fanart. I'll be starting up my new Shrek related website soon:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtHxpE_e5I/AAAAAAAAAN8/X2O5_JSk3Kw/polyshrek.png (www.imfuckingkidding.com)

whatstrue: yeah yeah yeah. :] new website is up in 2 days or so. (new URL is in the images) most of my portfolio is still in my sketchbook if you actually care.

Edit: This is where it's at right now. I'd love a few additional critiques to wrap this up. I mention it below as well, but im worried one of my monitors is a bit too dark, and some of my stuff is turning out way way too bright.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDLn9-b3I/AAAAAAAAAM0/DQ2SuQnAST4/jstout_BC_01.png
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDLrGu8wI/AAAAAAAAAM4/rBABKMEKUUQ/jstout_BC_02.png
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDLqkBxTI/AAAAAAAAAM8/485KOAthoW8/jstout_BC_03.png
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDMdfe0EI/AAAAAAAAANE/662BHF6Y7-0/jstout_BC_04.png
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDM1s9CKI/AAAAAAAAANI/6jINTScllg0/jstout_BC_05.png
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDNKbhk3I/AAAAAAAAANM/DGxajAT1BzU/jstout_BC_06.png
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDNSJq3nI/AAAAAAAAANU/4bZgdqe3mNo/jstout_BC_07.png
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDNx4e4rI/AAAAAAAAANY/bPugkhShw8E/jstout_BC_08.png
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDOC98ARI/AAAAAAAAANc/QrF10vmWsnI/jstout_BC_09.png
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDOjsIw2I/AAAAAAAAANk/jbhIB68t03s/jstout_BC_10.png
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDPDOsX3I/AAAAAAAAANo/ZZNT9SsDLEw/jstout_BC_11.png
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWtDPYEk39I/AAAAAAAAANs/0wy5IejaHD4/jstout_BC_12.png

Any comments or criticisms still very welcome. (particularly whether or not the lighting is way too overblown. my two monitors arent syncing up and I dont know which one is more correct. The sky is supposed to be bright, but the light on the ground shouldnt be blinding.) :] I might still be able to sneak in a fix here or there if its high impact and is quick to implement. I'll post some texture sheets soon, too.

[Shogun3d]

Great work, the texturing work looks great and I really dig the mattress/bed. I think some of the post it's are a bit overwhelming, and borders the line of becoming 'noise' in your scene but the clumped areas such as the whiteboard tell a great story. The shots look great overall, although I feel the lighting may be a bit too high, washing out a lot of great details.

Nice use of decals however, such as the painted areas and the crane looks great although it may be a bit expensive on poly count (especially if the chain links are modelled out). Really great job, i'd say you're ready to move on and take what you've learned from this scene. Grats.

[beancube]

lookin awesome man! maybe a tad over brightened in some areas, but looks quite vibrant. maybe some assets too hi res or higher poly than needed but its a great portfolio piece so who cares. good work dude.

[Dragan]

wow, it looks awesome. Amazing job with the textures, my only advice is maybe turn the lighting from the sky down just a tad, so that it doesn't really wash out the rest of your scene. Other than that, i would say that this turned out to be a great portfolio piece!

[ajr2764]

This is looking really awesome. Great texture work, that bed is my favorite asset in the scene so far. Others have already made some valid points about the lighting but I must say overall the scene is reaching a close level of realism. Look forward to seeing more.

[rasmus]

Also digging the bed, and nice work overall. I'd say the lightshafts don't really fit in for me, doesn't look quite natural. I'm guessing also because the tonemapper isn't dynamic in UDK you don't get overblown white sky in some shots where it would be desirable, and likewise the ground gets a bit blown out in places. How do you do those reflecting particle blobs btw? Just an idea, but you could also let a few of the metal sheets from the roof have fallen in if you wanted more stuff on the ground in there.

[d1ver]

Great work, Uly. I really enjoy the lighting and don't find it overblown.
The assets are also real cool.

If I were forced to complain I would say, that the whole scene looks a tad empty asset-wise. I see that you primary reference looks this way, but you're making a portfolio piece and if I was working at a company, judging a portfolio scene where there's almost nothing but walls I might've felt a bit disappointed. As much as you want to follow your original idea, the primary goal of your portfolio art should be tresent your abilities at their best. Plus I doubt you're going to be showing potential employers reference saying that that's how it was there.

You've got enough little stuff going on, but no much of anything else.. If it was a warehouse then there should be objects scattered around telling us what it was. 'Cause it looks like a band of extremely hungry marauders wiped the place clean.

http://www.sbwarehouse.com/Portals/13/warehouse4.jpg

There could be some shelves(broken?) left, which are plenty at a warehouse, some boxes, the wooden thingys you put stuff on so forklift can lift 'em(wonder what they're called), lamps hanging from the ceiling or lying on the floor broken, some wires hanging around, fire emergency box, a table, etc...

I see, that you're close to calling things done and I doubt you're gonna add much stuff. And well it's your call, buddy. I just hope you feel like you've squeezed everything there was from the great job you've done so far.

Can't wait to see dem breakdowns)

Cheers!

[sltrOlsson]

Ah wow! Yes the light is a bit overblown, but i like it. It really gives the feeling of a super sunny and warm summer day.

The sky and the outside feels very empty in places. Maybe add some more trees that's further away to?

Some of the signs and little notes is a bit repetetive. I'm thinking of the red one and the greentooth photos. All the other notes and stuff looks and feels great!

I'm really looking forward for some breakdowns! Great colors and feel man!

[krisCrash]

I want to play this level ;D loving the details, it's a very charming environment for something that dirty and old. Want to learn about the crazy dude who lives there, it is begging to tell stories.

[haiddasalami]

Is that bokeh for the dirt of the lens? Looking good.

[_Shimmer]

very nice work there! i agree its a bit overlit, but i would perhaps make mid and white values darker while making the dark values a tad lighter.

Really good lookin!

[gamedev]

Some great work thus far. Aside from what's been mentioned, I just had a few minor nit-picks:


Add a grounding element where your grass and asphalt meet (moss or something similar in shade to help the transition)
Dirt or rubbish mounds along the walls to also break up the wall to floor transition. Nothing extreme, just a dirt mound about 5-10 inches high.
All of the paper / posted bits are too clean. They should be weathered and show some age
And lastly, a silhouette suggestion, consider hanging some cloth or similar from the rafters to break up things.

Cheers!

-Tyler

[scotthomer]

This is pretty much Porn for me, my pants are on their way down as i speak.
You've done a beautiful job of this, well done dude, great talent right there.

[acapulco]

That is lovely work. Looks astonishing for realtime! Kepp it up!

[euclidius]

awesome work Uly- really love your lighting set up- I think it looks great already.

[tristamus]

Amazing scene, but I think if you had more contrast between your lights and shadows it would do you a favor. To me, it just seems lots of areas are way more bright than they should be.

[NoChance]

I'm not really liking the ground, why is the warehouse floor completely dirt? Get some texture blending going, make the floor concrete and then have the dirt building up along the edges of the walls and the pillars with a texture blend.

[mkandersson]

Looking really good! Awesome bed by the way. Though i feel that you have put all the details to the sides leaving it quite empty in the middle. I also agree with d1iver, add shelves or have some broken boxes lying around. Everything else is really sweet. Good Job!

[Uly]

thanks very much for all the crits guys. :) had these fixes done about a week ago, but just posting them now. (was busy getting my site up and running) i eventually did get around to addressing as many as i could.

kab: if it were for an actual game, the chain would probably just lod out if you were far away. :] sometimes you gotta spend the polys on details you think are worthwhile. though it is a bit ridiculous in this case. easily the highest poly asset in the entire scene.

LOOM: i got my primary monitor's settings to a more reasonable level and redid some of the lighting and post, hope the new stuff is more appealing :]

dragan, ajr: thanks much!

rasmus: is the tonemapper what gives Source it's amazing exposure based on what your looking at? i was really wishing i had something similar for this, but i did what i could. particle blobs are just an overlay in the image's PSD, though now that the newest UDK has bokeh DOF, i really want to get the effect running in realtime. :] problem is, i dont think my videocard is up to snuff. tried getting the effect running, no luck.

d1ver: hey bud, few other people said something similar. i scattered some broken shelving around on the ground, some more garbage, and some light fixtures hanging from the columns. hope the new stuff does something for ya

sltrOlsson: yeah, i know what you mean about the facade. there's little i can do with the time i have, sadly. its a valid point though. as for the red paper, there's a reason for it, though its a bit self-indulgent. i can live with the paper haters :]

kris, haidda, shimmer: thanks much :]

gamedev: i get where you're coming from with these, hopefully i addressed most of them. couldn't hit them all though, gotta move on to something else. i had mocked up the dirt fringe at one point, but there were too many clipping issues with surrounding assets and decals. Good solution though for this kind of problem, i'll be sure to put something like that in earlier for whatever scene i work on next.

scott, aca, euclidius, trist, mkandersson: thanks!

NoChance: why's the floor completely dirt? take a look at the first reference photo. also, vertex masking for a simple effect like dirt running up a brick wall is a waste of resources. you just toss that shit in the diffuse map if it doesnt tile vertically, such as in this scene.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF1NENOtI/AAAAAAAABJQ/MOcS1nxhOpo/jstout_BC_01.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF1NbNDOI/AAAAAAAABJI/dIFniVu6sCo/jstout_BC_02.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF1IqltZI/AAAAAAAABJE/P2xPE51so3o/jstout_BC_03.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF1YURidI/AAAAAAAABJM/Jz2PKJSytBc/jstout_BC_04.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF1kvDzHI/AAAAAAAABJU/xRTylCFtfew/jstout_BC_05.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF2Kkz3oI/AAAAAAAABJY/Dk_73R2rDMM/jstout_BC_06.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF2M7DbMI/AAAAAAAABJg/cTLJT-tCW5E/jstout_BC_07.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF2cvET8I/AAAAAAAABJk/i-_eXmfbKX4/jstout_BC_08.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF2UHuEII/AAAAAAAABJo/x1yC0XyUpWg/jstout_BC_09.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF2_m5kLI/AAAAAAAABJs/zwAVFnsD96w/jstout_BC_10.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXyF25VC5xI/AAAAAAAABJw/Nujn0S4RiGI/jstout_BC_11.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TX0WqKXuopI/AAAAAAAABLM/fxyDPliBRWQ/jstout_BC_12.jpg

anyhow. thats that. im moving on, but if youve still got grievances, feel free to point them out. i'll carry the advice to the next scene.

[seth.]

stunning, I love it. As said somewhere else, in a few of the shots only " rendered in UDK " gives them away as not real.

[paulsvoboda]

Love it! The improvements you made are really significant. The light in some of the shots is still a bit too strong, but ti still works pretty well. I love the lens effects you have, although it looks as they are always there? They look great in all your shots except for the last one. It would be nice if you set up a lens flare and had those appear when you look at the light.
Everything else looks really good. Great job on this!

[Uly]

thanks guys. as promised earlier, here are some texture pages.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXX2gU7Fe8I/AAAAAAAAA9o/6PLAqNwBidE/jstout_BC_texture_girdertrolley.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXX2f3c8fmI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/uF2e6GtXsrk/jstout_BC_texture_blankets.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXcQqOHcqgI/AAAAAAAAA-s/XJql0P6HLc8/jstout_BC_texture_brickwall.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXX2grrnsvI/AAAAAAAAA90/14uHrSDld8E/jstout_BC_texture_miscpapers.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXX2gzOpzII/AAAAAAAAA94/pA0RaOs9gS4/jstout_BC_texture_pillar.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXX2gJPhJ3I/AAAAAAAAA9g/OGvE60loorM/jstout_BC_texture_boardfixture.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXX2gbWl32I/AAAAAAAAA9k/Onfd8vrw1xk/jstout_BC_texture_dirtfloor.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TXX5VYg9LQI/AAAAAAAAA-E/YoYfkuJIxS8/jstout_BC_texture_foliagesetdressing.jpg

spec maps are greyscale, as I was packing them inside individial RGB channels to familiarize myself with how peeps save memory inside this engine. next thing i do i'll prob go back to coloured spec or invest some time in some nice vague cubemaps that deliver some nice colour.

and finally, here's a hefty 10mb timelapse that shows more or less the middle of the project, to just before the end of the project. i screwed up my cameras, so I couldnt take new shots for the final tweaks. It's still fun to watch though. :]

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TWoRgkPIBYI/AAAAAAAAAMI/ErJyCrrrVWw/s800/jstout_BC_timelapse01.gif

[P442]

how did you get that lens flare effect?

[scotthomer]

This has to be some of the best work ive ever seen. Very inspirational, I think the one thing that you've managed to nail that has really blown my mind is your ability to pull an entire environment together, each asset is amazing in its own right, but that fact youve pulled it all into one almost photo realistic environment is just amazing.

<3 Mad props yo.

[dur23]

wow.

[ajr2764]

Two thumbs up to you sir, very incredible work.

[Striff]

What was the final lighting setup like? Did you use static meshes for the light shaft effect?

[Uly]

striff: i put together a few pics to give the gist of it. and ja, static meshes for light shafts. somebody mentioned earlier, and I agree with them, that the effect has some problems. wish i knew of a better way to achieve a localized haze in some areas.

if anyone else wants to know some junk about the scene, i'll do my best to answer
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TX7gzCFKtJI/AAAAAAAABL8/AxZMdySrvOI/jstout_BC_lighting01.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TX7gzEQsj0I/AAAAAAAABL4/pk92m96Dgvg/jstout_BC_lighting02.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TX7gzK0bLeI/AAAAAAAABL0/gJLTPJsCGEQ/jstout_BC_lighting03.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TX7gzaeUEqI/AAAAAAAABMA/HLtS0cJKag8/jstout_BC_lighting04.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TX7gzotz76I/AAAAAAAABME/bBR83HfGCDI/jstout_BC_lighting05.jpg

p442: lightshafts from the dominant directional light. i wish i'd taken the time to make a cool lens flare effect like mass effect 2's though. it could have added a lot to the scene.

scotthomer: hey thanks man, means a lot :]
dur23: <3
ajr2764: thanks!

[cholden]

I like it. I want to use it to make video games.

[Ferg]

I feckin LOVE this Uly! The colors and lighting are beautiful, I would love to see a game in this style. Great work dude.

[StefanH]

looks great forget all my skeptisism about the lighting or whatever it was hehe. nice work!

[P442]

thanks!

[fearian]

God I cannot stop pouring over your final shots, absolutely gorgeous! :)

[whats_true]

Wicked stuff dude. Now, do it again!

[mixeh]

can you explain how you went about doing your vines, i really need some help with foliage, thanks and amazing work!

[Uly]

cholden: :]
ferg: thanks much dude :] keep up your awesome stuff, i need the inspiration
StefanH: thanks for keeping an eye on it! glad to see it came through for ya
P442: np
fearian: :] thanks dude.
whats_true: the next one will be set inside an explosive barrel factory.
mixeh: ask and you'll receive. kind of. while making this, I realized how better served someone would be from a video tutorial. I kind of retrofitted my assets into this tutorial though, it's about an "intermediate" difficulty, if that means anything. Hope you and some other folks get something out of it.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TYXYdkRlSzI/AAAAAAAABN8/TARrHEHR8-Q/BC_screens_foliage01.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TYXYdtPf_aI/AAAAAAAABOA/HJhzAUl7yo8/BC_screens_foliage02.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TYXYdq_A_EI/AAAAAAAABN4/6JtIV8_l51E/BC_screens_foliage03.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TYXYeAUtnQI/AAAAAAAABOE/jg6gApmb-hk/BC_screens_foliage04.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TYXYeTRGtoI/AAAAAAAABOM/YM5eEr5JM8g/BC_screens_foliage05.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_COJdjsucPec/TYXYeW3dvSI/AAAAAAAABOI/BicdcDDy2H0/BC_screens_foliage06.jpg

i had to rush through this, so it's a bit messy and missing plenty of small but non-essential details.

[Jeff Parrott]

Great tutorial! Awesome idea of storing multiple masks in a multi map.

[fearian]

very neat idea there with the opacity maps! thanks!

[mixeh]

Uly I'm so grateful, I'm amazed you did this for us, thank you so much!

[popngear]

Sweet trick for multiple masks. The compression artifacting I'm guessing is minimal because of the opacity clip anyways. Nice!

[ae.]

so much win in this thread! great job James :)

[Spatz]

nice work! ... and thanks for the tutorial

[sltrOlsson]

I was watching your portfolio and saw the HP for the bed. I think it's really nice, can't you explain how you did it? Is it physics calculated or is it 100% sculpted? Or both?

[bbob]

Holy crap how did I miss this?

[Uly]

thanks guys, :] glad you liked it.

popngear: it really is a great trick. :] picked it up from Riki. it can be used for any other greyscale mask keep in mind, so grey spec maps, or spec masks for cubemaps, height maps.

sltrOlsson: hey man, the blanket is physics calculated, mattress is sculpted. there were a few ace tutorials I read through online for architectural previs that I used to make the high poly. I'll dig them up from my bookmarks after I get home from work and post them and explain in a little more depth what worked and what didn't.

[evilblah]

Wow... Mind = Blown. Great work. Love the timelapse! Thanks for that.

[sltrOlsson]

thanks guys, :] glad you liked it.

popngear: it really is a great trick. :] picked it up from Riki. it can be used for any other greyscale mask keep in mind, so grey spec maps, or spec masks for cubemaps, height maps.

sltrOlsson: hey man, the blanket is physics calculated, mattress is sculpted. there were a few ace tutorials I read through online for architectural previs that I used to make the high poly. I'll dig them up from my bookmarks after I get home from work and post them and explain in a little more depth what worked and what didn't.

Cool! Looking forward! ;)

[Uly]

evilblah: thanks dude

sltrOlsson:
for the blankets, i used these tutorials to get a hang of max's clothsim stuff.

http://surrealstructures.com/blog/?p=229
http://surrealstructures.com/blog/?p=315

After getting a hang of thin, neat blankets, I moved onto messing up the bed, adding a lot of folds and stuff. Mostly by picking it up and letting it go, raising the friction setting, grabbing the corners and throwing them over the main blanket. You'll definitely have to tweak the physics settings for the blanket to get it working the way you want, though.

Also, be sure to UV map your initial plane you'll be using for the cloth in case you want to project any textures later from the high poly.

[ae.]

Thanks for the links Uly very useful :)

[JimmyP.]

Hey man I just want to say havent been a posting member on these forums since the Q3 mod days. But im back in school now and your stuff totes got me wanting to mess around with some game design. So im gunna snag the UDK sdk and start reading. Props on an awesome warehouse scene would totally love to frag some of my friends in there

[Eric Chadwick]

Uly, thanks for the ivy tut! Added here.
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironmentFoliage

[superdenny707]

Are there a bigger images for the tutorial? I can't really read the text in the images