[UE4] Sentinel Factory - Fighting game level
polycounter lvl 8
Hey Polycount,
I've got a couple of weeks of work on this so far and I'd love to get some critique. As the title says, I wanted to build a fighting game environment taking place in a Sentinel factory. I'm currently working through all of my proxy assets and doing the high-res models and bakes. I'm currently debating on using the new Quixel Suite or Substance Designer to do the texturing pass, so everything will remain generic metal for now
Concept - Final stages of Sentinel assembly and testing. Each bot gets rolled through those big bay doors in the back on a construction platform, wired up and in various states of assembly. Picture big robotic welders working on them, some with missing arms, etc. The Sentinel on the right is nearly finished and testing it's thrusters, so the blast deflectors are up and he'll periodically power up. The big machines on the left are heat treating/forging armor plating and will periodically cycle as well.
There are things I'm happy with, things I'm not, and things I'm on the fence about. I was hoping Polycount could rip this apart and help me make it better
I've got a couple of weeks of work on this so far and I'd love to get some critique. As the title says, I wanted to build a fighting game environment taking place in a Sentinel factory. I'm currently working through all of my proxy assets and doing the high-res models and bakes. I'm currently debating on using the new Quixel Suite or Substance Designer to do the texturing pass, so everything will remain generic metal for now
Concept - Final stages of Sentinel assembly and testing. Each bot gets rolled through those big bay doors in the back on a construction platform, wired up and in various states of assembly. Picture big robotic welders working on them, some with missing arms, etc. The Sentinel on the right is nearly finished and testing it's thrusters, so the blast deflectors are up and he'll periodically power up. The big machines on the left are heat treating/forging armor plating and will periodically cycle as well.
There are things I'm happy with, things I'm not, and things I'm on the fence about. I was hoping Polycount could rip this apart and help me make it better
Replies
I know you haven't finished the sentinels yet in the back, but it would be great to see some details that compliment them to indicate more scale. Things like the ladders and stairs in the back help to understand the scale, but having some more assets to reinforce this would be fantastic. Things like hanging cables, or a work lift, would really assist in capturing the size of the factory.
Looking forward to seeing the progress here.
Fairly happy with the state of the Sentinel high poly tonight:
Fire away the comments/crits!
I think the only thing I'd keep an eye on when moving forward is the amount of detail in the background. There are a lot of small, intricate details that could potentially be very distracting. It's still early on, though, so I feel like this is something you can balance by clever lighting, coloring, or a bit of atmospheric perspective to knock it back.
Looking forward to seeing how this develops!
I wanted to ask if you could post or give any tips about going about creating this, I'm working on a fighting level myself for a friend and I'm just having a hard time trying to get the perspective and layout down. Thanks man and keep it up def following this
One thing that stands out to me so far is that I feel like the background is so left-heavy because of all the equipment, vs the open space with the sentinels on the right.
Balancing this out will help quite a bit...you might be able to do it all in lighting...if you really play up the lighting on that closest sentinel, and maybe giving less light to the equipment on the left. Maybe having some crazy strong underglow under the sentinel would be cool..
Overall though I love where this is going. I really like the perspective that you have here...really looking forward to seeing where you take this!
Latest updates: Sentinel baked down and implemented into the level. Spent a few hours getting Swarm set up on my laptop, so I now have a little 2 machine render farm. Lighting builds go significantly faster! Initial lighting pass done. A little closer to what I envisioned, at least with the focal points isolated a bit more, but lighting is something I usually iterate a ton on as I go. Would love some feedback on the initial pass. All of the materials were changed to a non-metallic neutral color go help judge lighting, so surfaces are looking a bit flat now. I have a couple more assets to model and then I can finally get moving on a material pass.
klamp - Thanks! I loved the new X-men film but I wasn't digging those Sentinel designs. I can see how the comic versions would look kind of cheesy for live action though! How does the detail balance feel now? Hopefully some of the background detail is neutralized a bit while still looking interesting.
Jandokenpon - Thank you!
Synen - Thanks! First thing I'd recommend is getting your cameras implemented. I set up a matinee and got a gameplay style camera moving left and right so I could scrub through the timeline and visualize things a lot easier. There were a ton of iterations on how wide the fighting stage was, camera angles, distance and FOV. I also spent a significant amount of time in the proxy/blockout phase and kept iterating while looking through the "game" camera to compose the scene. One thing that helped early on was deciding to slide the gameplay camera at a 45 degree angle compared to the rest of the level so I could get some interesting perspective. On a real production, getting 2-axis cameras and fighting gameplay would probably cause a ton of problems, but for a personal art piece, I'd rather angle the camera and build the rest of the environment on the grid properly.
gsokol - Thanks! Is the composition more balanced now that I have the Sentinels in? The last major piece to be modeled is a big robotic arm/welding system that is working on the Sentinels, so there will be a little more visual weight to the right side of the frame.
Other than that maybe try fogging-away the farthest space, the atmosphere feels thick
With the current lighting, your foreground doesn't feel as though it stands out from the backdrop which can be problematic. That can also be helped when texturing begins so perhaps its a little early to critique that. Keep in mind that competitively, stages are frequently banned if it's too hard to distinguish the action from the background. Perhaps some caution stripe paint on the floor to help create a divide?
Can't wait to see more updates soon!
I think sticking to the initial camera spot and using lighting to balance the space was the right call.
You have a really nice foundation to work from here, looking forward to seeing where you take this!
Subscribing!
shotgun, peanut, AbKI, SoulWind, gsokol, Minos - Thanks so much! Your feedback means a lot to me.
noscope - Thanks! No concept, just made it up as I went a long. I spent a bunch of time gathering references of factories, foundries, and concept art of "mech construction" type stuff.
TaxExemption - Thanks for the feedback! The equal spacing, grid layout was intentional, cool that somebody noticed
Maybe add some fog or a blur on the background to increase the focus on characters.
Just my two cents, the yellow glow on the Sentinels' chest might be a bit too intense.
Liking the scene, man. Definitely subscribing
Please keep at it.
The lighting is cool. I'd even maybe push the atmosphere heavier. The planes get lost there in the center of the frame.
Maybe look at it fresh with as many lights as there was in the early lighting-only step
Whatever you do, it seems like you are soaring along the right path. Keep it up! Subbed.
I think you could tackle this in a few ways. Try killing a few of the tiny bright spot lights in the back completely and use lowkey fill lights in a complimentary colour, bump up the radius massively and have them on low brightness so that they're subtle. Alternatively, you could add some fog + slight blur in the back (or wherever you want the least attention) to tone down the noise from both the textures and the lights. It would also add to the atmosphere. Could maybe make the lights in the back a bit smaller compared to the lights in the front.
What I personally do is use film lighting as reference. Pick a shot from a movie with a lighting scenario and atmosphere you like and try to match it up to that according to your own composition. I'd recommend trying to play with some colour schemes/grading.
I think Prometheus could be good to look at. Notice how in this shot they use the small spot lights but where they make sense in the composition.
They also placed the smoke + clouds on the corners as to help keep the focus on the middle.
I'd recommend checking out some of the lighting on Blade Runner as well.
Lighting iteration, hopefully I get some more foreground separation and push the background a bit more.
Height fog is tweaked, scene should have some more depth.
Did a pass on the emissive and bloom PP. Sentinel and fight stage emissive should be more interesting, BG light greebles have been toned down but still there for scale/depth.
Got rolling with Substance Designer and got a pretty good material pass in.
Keep the crits rolling, it's so helpful!