[UDK] Sci-Fi Cathedral WIP
Okay my first post, don't mess this one up...
Hey! So I had this idea of making my own interieur scene with a kind of sci-fi cathedral. The whole thing will (hopefully) be handpainted and brought into UDK.
To lose a few words about me. As I'm noticed and also indicated through my post-count, I'm new here. I'm also 'fairly' new to the scene, meaning I don't have a huge lot of working experience. Actually it's about half a year in a 3 man company and it wasn't that great. I mean it was no challenge whatsoever and I realy didn't improve on anything in my time there, sadly.
But onwards to greater news!
I want to boost up my portfolio with this projecte that's why I'll try as hard as I can to finish this. It'll probably kill me because I can imagine that this will be a huge thing to do. And actually that's why I'm here. To grab every little piece of information, critics, helps and tips that I can get from you.
In return I hope to give somethine back to newer artists once I've got anything to share.
So I haven't that much already. I'm officially starting this project with this thread. My biggest problem so far is the workflow. I don't want to mess this up from the start so I hope to get any help here. I'm also currently gathering some reference pics to help me out. Mostly I've got some great shots from the inside of the 'Cologne Cathedral' from germany (gamescom visitors might have seen this one), because it fits the style I'm aiming for and it's kind of the obvious choise for me since I'm from germany too. But yeah I need alot more of references especially for the sci-fi feel I want to get into it and that's where I'm struggling a bit. I realy don't even know what would fit into a cathedral to give it this feeling.
I guess the next step after that would be a rough block-out, but any tips from the more experienced guys would be great though.
Well I'll leave you with this huge bunch of text for now and hope to get a great project and a lot of experience from this.
PS: I'm sorry for any bad grammar or typos.
Edit:
I mashed some of the references together to give you guys a quick Idea on what to expect. Still lacking a bit of the sci-fi feeling though.
Newest pic:
Hey! So I had this idea of making my own interieur scene with a kind of sci-fi cathedral. The whole thing will (hopefully) be handpainted and brought into UDK.
To lose a few words about me. As I'm noticed and also indicated through my post-count, I'm new here. I'm also 'fairly' new to the scene, meaning I don't have a huge lot of working experience. Actually it's about half a year in a 3 man company and it wasn't that great. I mean it was no challenge whatsoever and I realy didn't improve on anything in my time there, sadly.
But onwards to greater news!
I want to boost up my portfolio with this projecte that's why I'll try as hard as I can to finish this. It'll probably kill me because I can imagine that this will be a huge thing to do. And actually that's why I'm here. To grab every little piece of information, critics, helps and tips that I can get from you.
In return I hope to give somethine back to newer artists once I've got anything to share.
So I haven't that much already. I'm officially starting this project with this thread. My biggest problem so far is the workflow. I don't want to mess this up from the start so I hope to get any help here. I'm also currently gathering some reference pics to help me out. Mostly I've got some great shots from the inside of the 'Cologne Cathedral' from germany (gamescom visitors might have seen this one), because it fits the style I'm aiming for and it's kind of the obvious choise for me since I'm from germany too. But yeah I need alot more of references especially for the sci-fi feel I want to get into it and that's where I'm struggling a bit. I realy don't even know what would fit into a cathedral to give it this feeling.
I guess the next step after that would be a rough block-out, but any tips from the more experienced guys would be great though.
Well I'll leave you with this huge bunch of text for now and hope to get a great project and a lot of experience from this.
PS: I'm sorry for any bad grammar or typos.
Edit:
I mashed some of the references together to give you guys a quick Idea on what to expect. Still lacking a bit of the sci-fi feeling though.
Newest pic:
Replies
Advice:
- Be sure to gather lots of reference
- Plan your textures and try to be efficient a modular workflow
- Look at lots of other people creating churches and the like in 3D, got a bunch of them here.
I took a look at sltrOlsson's thread and I have to admit that I don't feel confident enough to fletch out this kind of planning.
But I added a quick mashup of the references that struck me the most so far, seems that this is also a valid way of getting things started. :P
Thanks for the advices, I'll obviously look at all threads that I can find to grap all the informations I could use for this.
Can't wait to see this develop. I love those references.
I was thinking to make it modular, I guess that's a good way to go since it's such a big scene and many parts can be used multiple times?
I also alinged everything to a grid so it'll be easy to place it exactly like it once I get to UDK. Problem with that is, since I'm familiar with the metric system and UDK isn't. So it's converting from meters to feet to the UDK system. Maybe I'm trying too hard, but it seems like a good Idea, atleast for the overall size it was a good thing, since then I realy didn't do it.
So here's the thing:
I colored the modular parts indivitually, the 'parent' is always in a darker color and all the instances are the lighter versions. The little red guy is your typical UDK character with his 1,8 meters (6 feet) in hight.
It's just the first block-in, but it already gives a fairly good sense of the scale I guess.
Also I would get this into UDK as quickly as possible. It will give you a better sense of scale and you can block in some lighitng then as well!
Also I don't know if you are using Maya but here is a good tut on matching your units from Maya to UDK!
http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/udk/udk-maya-how-to-set-up-grid-in-maya-to-match-udk.php
Good Luck man I hope you get further than me!
EDIT:the problem I had has been solved as it seems.
Btw here's how it looks in UDK as a scene:
I've got some early stage workflow ideas for ya that have helped me in the past. Don't know if these suggestions will work for you (or maybe you've already thought of them) but maybe they'll help...
If your comfortable with 2d in photoshop I find that paint overs of 3d renders can be a very fast way of developing the concept for your scene. I find myself doing this quite often.
If you don't like 2d then another fast way of "sketching" your ideas out is taking the block in meshes directly to zbrush(especially now with dynamesh) or mudbox. Subdivide and play with shapes. Even if your end result will be hard surface it doesn't matter at the early stage if it's sort of wobbly and bubbly as long as the general shape is there for reference.
Okay the highes point seems to be reached. 7 unique objects so far!
@artquest Haha yeah I've heard a bit about instancing models and how it can help with performance and I've seen quite a few people here doing stuff with modular pieces, so I thought I'd start with that quickly. And to get everything right I searched a bit to get it 1:1 from max to UDK. Also I like this approach, because I just have to change I piece instead of all.
For your other tips I have sadly admit that I'm not good at painting (but hopefully that will change, since I want to get this thing done with hand painted textures) and don't own a ZBrush license so far... But I'll keep that in mind for future reference, so thank you for that!
I think sculptris is still free and will give you everything you need to play around with shapes and forms.
I'm really digging the shapes you've got going on man.
Okay I'm done for today, have some updates:
Just the entrance and the Sides are left and then it's atleast fully closed.
Had a pretty lazy weekend, so the update isn't the biggest. Also I think I'm going for a fully fletched warhammer style, I kinda like the new changes pretty much. Thoughts?
Also Lord High Marshal Biped:
But I have to say, I like the idea, giving it a sense was in my mind but I hadn't a straigt goal, so I'll probably go for that now, thank you for that!
Also my knowledge of the Warhammer universe isn't probably the best, but I always liked the Blood Angels, so I'll make this to a cathedral dedicated to their primarch Sanguinius.
@Mooglesarelittle Haha thanks! Walking through this thing gives me the feel I got it a little bit too small compaired to the 360° pictures I've seen, considering that I took the cologne cathedral as main reference I had atleast the length, width and highth the rest is done by guessing. ^^
(sorry, that wasn't in the least bit helpful)
Moore Warhammer, less Goats!
I worked a bit on the Pillars:
Also I started a servo-skull, he's heavily WIP atm but I already like him. :P
Thoughts, critics & ideas are welcome!
Sorry for the doublepost, I hope the more frequent updates are okay.
I usually don't see a lot of War Hammer environment stuff so I'm really looking forward to this one.
Have you given any thought to the final presentation images?
Thanks for the kind words, even I was surprised on how big this turned out to be, I just hope the modular parts won't look to repetetive in the end.
As for the final shots I'm not entirely sure yet, but one thing's sure, I wont get all the cool stuff in one shot.
Okay update time.
Sadly I haven't gotten too much done the last days. Mainly thinking about what I could add to make it look less empty and reading alot about the Warhammer 40k lore. ^^
So here's what I've got, a banner, a few purity seals and a torch got get sime light in there. I made a crappy 5 minute paintover to get the idea of the torch delivered and it would be nice to hear some thoughts about that. I mainly want to know the idea with the shadowing makes sense or not, but if it does, how would I get it to work like that? Messed the whole day in UDK to get something like that, but nothing worked.
Also I'm thinking about coloring the stones in the texture red and giving a nice contrast with these teal torches. Good or bad idea?
And yes I kinda got inspired by Dead Space here. ^^'
Comments and crits are always nice to see!
This is my first attempt at hand painted textures ever, so don't expect too much. Any advice & critics would be realy great though.
I'm not sure if I'll keep it on the pillars, but I like the look of it on the bow pieces.
Okay back to fill in the white parts! ^^
Since this is a cathedral for the Blood Angel chapter from the Space Marines in Warhammer 40k, I thought it would be nice to get a red color scheme down.
And to be honest I kinda like it, and if it looks weird when everything is done then it shouldn't be a problem to quickly change the color.
Maybe it helps if I desaturate it a bit, we'll see.
This got me reading Blood Angel stuff, and holy crap you could do a ton of cool stuff to throw in blood angel history/lore. The possibilities..:poly142:
Watching this one with excitement for sure!
It may give the colour more pop if its used in a controled way.
But yeah, whole thing looks boss mind XD
i was just wondering how hard was it to paint the bricks? they look really good for hand done, i usually take mine into zbrush and sculpt them then bake the maps ,but i dont really have enough time to do that for my current project