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[UDK] Cryochamber Environment

polycounter lvl 11
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Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
Hi!

Been working on this scene based on a concept by Dennis Chan for a while now, and I think it's finally shaping up enough to create a thread now.

For once I'm creating an environment with 100% high-to-low workflow, just to challenge myself, making me more effective when it comes to highpoly modeling, retopo'ing, UV mapping and well, everything.

For this project I'm doing the texturing with dDo.

There are still many props and tiles missing, but yeah. :)

LATEST PROGRESS:
asdf.jpg

ORIGINAL:
room.jpg

Please let me know what you think! :)

Replies

  • aajohnny
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    aajohnny polycounter lvl 13
    Fantastic stuff so far Wiktor.
  • vemadesign
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    vemadesign polycounter lvl 12
    Awesome work. Love the detail. :)
  • Wiktor
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    Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
    Thanks guys!

    Struggling a bit with the colors right now, trying to get some color splashes in there. Will post an update soon. :)
  • Wiktor
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    Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
    Right, so I've added a few more models and added some animations and particles. :)

    Room2.jpg

    Cheers!
  • fragfest2012
  • RitualSynergY
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    RitualSynergY greentooth
    I love the variety in shapes here, this is really awesome man.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    beautiful models and textures but I feel the atmosphere is a bit dull. You are a fantastic artist and ive seen you do some awesome stuff in the past so i really hope u dont mind a little colourful paintover for some quick suggestions for focusing the atmospheric colour and lighting? I went a bit over the top so that you can see what i mean. I basically main made the saturation a bit higher and made the pod the main focus by having warm lighting there and cool light/darkner areas nearly everywhere else, also added some specular/reflections to the pod to give it more interest and added some fog/particle stuff in the air so that the pod is the most clearly visible area in the scene.

    room2paintover.jpg
  • BANGARANG!
    the color scheme is decent, yellow/orange and grays is always a winner. your composition sets up the scene nicely. the chamber is the focus, so thats working really well. my favorite part is the machinery to the direct left & right of the chamber. theres a lot of interesting shapes and angles happening. love it.

    is there a reason you decided to show the chamber covered/open rather than open like in the concept? having the chamber open with some effects emitting from that space would add some much needed life to the scene, as right now its a bit stale in that department.

    your color theme for this room is a little heavy handed: yellows & grays. this is something i am noticing a lot with the current peppering of dDo projects appearing on polycount. simple color themes. the color theme doesn't need to be present everywhere but could be complimented everywhere. for instance, perhaps the flooring could be grays & blues, so that the focus is brought up to the mid level of your composition. right now the entire image covered in the same color choices. humans are naturally drawn to warmer colour sources (a design trope heavily used in our industry), so if you're going to use a warm color theme, you could try and limit yourself a bit with where and how you use it.

    one other comment (besides the use of 'space panels') is that its hard to understand what the function of anything is in this scene beside the lab door on the left and the chamber itself. the chamber itself is barely doing that now. if you hadn't titled this project as a 'cryochamber' i am not so sure that the current design would pull through as one. one very practical exercise you can do with this (and all art pieces) is show this to someone who knows nothing about it. just show them this image. don't tell them the title, or anything about it other than, 'hey check this out'. ask them what they're looking at. if they say 'looks like a cryochamber?' then you know you're on the right track. if they guess other ideas, then perhaps there are elements from this scene that are missing which would help tell its story better.

    in a previous comment i made about this piece i suggested you take the concept and push its ideas further. its just a concept not a blue print and you have plenty opportunity here to add some proper function to the illustrated machinery and forms found in the concept.

    do you have plans for other angles? more rooms inspired by this design? would love to see what you're planning for those as i think you have something very interesting here.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    this concept has some great ambient lighting at the top and smoke coming from the pod etc unitupgrade09.jpg
  • Wiktor
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    Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
    @Ged: Thank you very much for the paintover! I truly appreciate it. As you said, it is a bit over the top, but it does get the point across well. I will do my best to add some more fog/steam to add some more atmosphere.

    @BANGARANG!: Lots of awesome feedback there! Regarding the closed pod; I decided to close it up, both to get a large, smooth and bright area to rest the eyes on and because I feared the amount of detail in the scene would be too much. It was a chance I took early in the production.

    Very good idea regarding the color scheme. This is something I've been noticing as well, now that everything is coming together. Will definitely see what I can do about this. Was planning on changing the texture of the floor tiles a bit, so I might do something about it there.

    I definitely agree with you about the functionalities of the props and assets in the scene. I decided the cylindrical thing to the right is a laundry machine, so I added a hatch to the top to make it look like a top-loader for example. I don't want to go in and change the appearance of the props, but I can try and add some more grounded props that people know what they are around the existing props to try and explain them in that way.

    I am planning on presenting more angles, as well as a short video of it. :)

    Thanks again guys, I really appreciate it!
  • maverickhornet
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    maverickhornet polycounter lvl 9
    This is looking really really nice, the only thing it is lacking at the minute is mood... Atmospherics should change this such the steam and smoke. Maybe a good idea to factor in some basic atmospherics to help set the mood a little better?
  • Wiktor
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    Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
    Thank for the feedback maverickhornet!

    I've gone ahead and boosted the light colors and intensity a little bit as well as added some more fog and steam. I didn't go nuts with it though.

    roomAmb3.jpg

    Please let me know if you think it's better. :)
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    it does look better and the mood is getting there! the focus is still a bit wide. personally my eye is drawn to the orange pillar behind the computer desk because it is the most colourful part of the scene. Also you could dirty up the specular on the floor to get it more like the concept. The concept has some greenish gray tones (eg. the floor) where your scene has more gray than anything else, trya touch more colour around the scene.
  • whats_true
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    whats_true polycounter lvl 15
    Yeah, boost the colors some more. Thing is, go over board. And I mean, OVERBOARD with the colors, then scale back. I never found it helpful inching towards the right direction because i always thing i got it right. So, i go beyond what I wanted, in color, textures, atmosphere. It makes scaleing back easyer then scaling up.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    whats_true wrote: »
    Yeah, boost the colors some more. Thing is, go over board. And I mean, OVERBOARD with the colors, then scale back. I never found it helpful inching towards the right direction because i always thing i got it right. So, i go beyond what I wanted, in color, textures, atmosphere. It makes scaleing back easyer then scaling up.

    yeah i do this too, sometimes I make my textures have a little too much contrast and saturation and too much sharpening and then I check it out in game and sometimes it looks way better than i expected with these overdone textures as it sorta counteracts the mipmapping and other issues a bit, then I tone it down till its more normal.
  • Wiktor
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    Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
    Thanks for the crits guys!

    I've gone ahead and boosted the saturation and intensity of almost all lights in the scene. I also dirtied up the floor quite a bit. Thanks Ged! ^^

    @whats_true: Thanks for the advice. That's a great thing I to keep in mind. :)

    Here's what I have now:
    RoomAmb4.jpg

    Cheers!
  • ScribbleHead
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    ScribbleHead polycounter lvl 13
    This looks absolutely awesome! I have to ask though, why change around the door/entrance?

    I've mainly got some issues with the feel and proportions of the different assets...

    Concept feels as a mix between quake/star craft and your environment reads more like a deus ex scene, i think though that it mainly comes down to grit.
    Also in the concept the different machines feel like they've got a more "dull" specular...just noticed.

    Either way this is fantastic modelling! :D
  • maverickhornet
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    maverickhornet polycounter lvl 9
    This is looking awesome now! Your changes made a difference. Still think you need to boost the mist... The concept gives off that 'freezing' look and at the minute it sort of looks 'a bit nippy'. Maybe add some mist in the ceiling, I mean really boost it then roll it back until it looks good. It just shows heat evaporating into the atmosphere of the room and gives that freezing feeling.

    Though the environment is looking sweet and what I say are minor things :)
  • Fnitrox
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    Fnitrox polycounter lvl 6
    say this in the WAYWO thread, it's really comeing along nicely, but i think the 2 light hitting the walls on the sides of the capsule are distracting and taking the focus away from the capsule itself.

    Looking at that last pic you posted my eyes went from the desk to the capsule and then to the wall... but my attention was always dragged to the wall, even more so because of the pedestal that's standing right on the front plane. You could maybe just tone down the lights and also try to move that pedestal right in front of the wall to clear up the composition a little.
    Anyway just my 2 cents, and keep going as you've got a nice atmosphere going on
  • Wiktor
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    Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
    @ScribbleHead: Thank you! :) The door was the only part of the concept I didn't like. It felt really generic and boring, so I tried to come up with something else. I completely agree with you about the grit. I had a hard time telling if the details in the concept was steam, fog or other atmospherical stuff, seeing as some parts are really clean and some look dirty. I kind of went the middle-road I guess. ^^

    @maverickhornet: Cheers! :) I've increased the steam and fogs now, and I'll link to the latest update later in this post. Hopefully it looks colder now. :)

    @Fnitrox: Thanks for the crits! I've decided to keep the lighting on the back walls, but instead I had changes to the other lights in an attempt to make it easier on the eye. Please let me know if you think it works better now.

    Here's the latest update!

    RoomAmb5.jpg

    Angle.jpg

    fromdoor.jpg
  • whats_true
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    whats_true polycounter lvl 15
    Your lights are white. Maybe add some color into them to give it a greater sence of mood.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    whats_true wrote: »
    Your lights are white. Maybe add some color into them to give it a greater sence of mood.

    sorry to dig this up, it is looking good! You are probably done with this now but i do agree with this statement. how come the lens flares are a pinkish colour and then all the lights are more or less white? maybe make the lights very slightly coloured but just a tint.
  • Wiktor
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    Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
    Thanks for the crits whats_tur and Ged! I tinted a couple of the lights slightly.

    Retextured all of the assets and changed the lighting a bit. Hope you like it!

    asdf.jpg

    Cheers!
  • RaPtoR_v9600
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    RaPtoR_v9600 polycounter lvl 4
    Great stuff, lots of good props, and good texturing, good job bud
  • Shanthosa
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    Shanthosa polycounter lvl 11
    I am loving this. The new lighting setup has really elevated the scene. dDo is a damn impressive piece of tech. How long did it take you to retexture the whole scene? And what did you address when you went over it again?
  • Wiktor
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    Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
    Shanthosa wrote: »
    I am loving this. The new lighting setup has really elevated the scene. dDo is a damn impressive piece of tech. How long did it take you to retexture the whole scene? And what did you address when you went over it again?

    Thank you! I'm glad you like it. :)

    It took me about 1,5 hours to create the new preset and apply it to all the textures in the scene.

    What I wanted was more grime and to better accentuate the edges.
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
    Fantastic work as always Disting, can't believe only now I saw this thread. Definitely will be keeping an eye on.
  • Wiktor
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    Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
    Thanks Helder, glad you like it! :)
  • Budello
    ...you're kicking some serious asses. Woah. :)
  • RailbladerX
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    RailbladerX polycounter lvl 8
    looking good man.
  • kary
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    kary polycounter lvl 18
    Great piece. Love the videos you did with it, very good as a teacher as well :).

    I shouldn't latch onto a detail, but the chair in the bottom left feels a bit out of place with the rest of the scene. It might be WIP, but in a very detailed and chunky world it seems a bit texturally minimalist and markedly less chunky then the stuff around it.

    Looked at the line art on Denis's site and you did a brilliant job realizing that as a 3d space. Congrats :)
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