An Investigation into Modular Environment (Victorian) - Dissertation progress thread
polycounter lvl 3
FINAL UPDATE
Hi guys!!!. Since the project is done, I've made a new thread (that also includes a breakdown).
I will update it too soon with the project files
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2357898
- FINAL RENDERS:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2356150&postcount=51
Hi there!!
For my dissertation project (of the MSc 3D Computer Games Design), I am going to make a 3D modular environment with a victorian theme. I really enjoyed "The Order" and also the new trailers of "Assassins Creed Syndicate" so I decided to use the victorian theme for the project.
Basically, what I want to do is to develop a modular workflow and make a study about it. I decided that instead of modelling first, I will make texture atlas and then model through them following some guidelines and that way I could create a lot of texture variations of the same mesh.
The workflow is based on jacob07777's (from purepolygons) method. His thread is awesome, with breakdowns and also his product is available to buy in the UE4 marketplace (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144838)
I will use this thread to post progress, seek fedback and improve the final product, which I will release for free and I will also make breakdowns of it.
I have until the 15th of September to finish it
To sum up the introduction, I will create a full scene using modular assets. I will also make props and use engine game features like vertex painting, folliage, etc. The game engine I'm going to use is UE4
1) References: I've spent a lot of time gathering references, from movies, books, games and also internet. I've found a lot of buildings that have awesome compositions and are modular. Here they are some moodboards of them:
A folder full of references if anyone is interested:
https://goo.gl/qXpbHR
I really like this screenshot of one of the ACS trailer, which is a good example of what I want to do, but with more buildings.
I'm having trouble to find a good picture of one street that I like the layout of it. What I dont want its to just create a straight flat street with simple buildings at the sides.
This is an example of the breakdowns I'm doing now of some of the buildings, to see modularity.
2) Texturing:
For the textures, what I'm going to do is to make some of them using zbrush, another ones substance designer and of course with Photoshop
This is going to be the next step of the project
Any suggestions or feedback for the project will be very much appreciated, specially now that I'm in the beginning of the project.
Thanks!!
Replies
I've been working for some days on the theory part of the thesis (most boring part, but it's important to research methods). Besides that, I really wanted to do some tests with the road and vertex painting.
One project i made some months ago had a street with buildings at the sides, and a modular road. The final result of the road was a little bit "flat" so I decided that for this project I would learn vertex painting and make some awesome materials
I've made a material that is going to contain the asphalt and the pavement. Also it has vertex painting for puddles and dirt!! (thanks to Aaron Kaminer's tutorial). Also I made some tests with substance designer to make a texture for the "asphalt"
The final material is this (sorry for the mess, a lot of stuff inside hehe)
And some screenshots of the material applied to a tessellated plane:
The main layout that I am going to follow for the road and pavement texutes is this:
This way, I can make couple textures with different variations of the textures and then use for example the pavement of the first one, and the "asphalt" of the second one. This will give me a lot of possibilities . (Its kind of the same thing I am going to do with the building parts. I will be able to have multiple variations of the assets using the same mesh but different materials)
This weekend I will start sculpting some of the highpoly objects needed for the texture creation, I will also start thinking about the layout of the building textures.
Thanks!!
Make sure to read up on classical proportions, it'll really help take the headache out of finding the right size for your assets, and making pleasing-looking scenes.
Definitely watching this thread!
Here it is a quick update:
Basically, what I did first was in photoshop create a 2048x2048 document, in Edit/Precerences/Guides,Grid & Slices I set up the gridline at 64 pixels (also changed the colour) and 1 subdivision. Then when I press Control+H I can see the guides that are 64px size.
I made a "guide" texture by drawing lines in the guides in that document and exported that document to a png.
In 3D's max, I set the units to "generic units" and I created a plane of 2048x2048 with 32 length segments and 42 width segments. That way I converted it to edit poly and selecting polygons I detached rows that I used to start modeling the trims
Back in photoshop, when I'm creating the texture (using the AO and NM baked from max), I can create quick masks using the guides
- Concrete High Poly Objects:
- Metal High Poly Objects:
So this is the concrete texture applied to a plane right now:
I want that kind of clean concrete in order to match it with the references (later then I can change the global colour in UE4). I would love to see some feedback in order to improve the texture.
The metal texture will be similar. The good thing is that they follow the same ammount and size of objects so I can easily have variations of the same trim by swaping the textures (I can even make a wood trim texture). Inside UE4 I'll be able to modify the global concrete and metal colours.
After finishing the trim textures, I'll proceed to make the bricks, slabs, roofs, etc tilleable textures which will have some guides. I'm planning to make them using substance designer, as for tilleable textures is awesome.
Any feedback will be much appreciated it!!
Thanks
Was wondering if you're planning to use vertex paint on your meshes?
thansk for giving such a detailed insight
@Micaky : Thanks!!, what I usually do is play around with the projects at the UE4 launcher (Learn Tab is awesome!) and also UE4 forums. You can learn a lot of things from there. Also I made some projects with UDK long time ago and some things are quite similar in UE4
@skodone : Thanks!!, I will do breakdowns of everything and try to explain my worflow researched and developed as best as I can (as part of my dissertation paper)
UPDATE
I have been working on the textures and materials of the trims. I have made diffuse, normal, roughness, metallic and colour mask of both concrete and metal (although I am using a pure black for the concrete metallic one). The textures are not finished, I would love some feedback to improve them.
- MATERIALS:
The diffuse part is the only tricky one. Basically what I did was a to lerp between my original diffuse and a colour (exposed to change it in the instanced material) by using the Colour Mask texture as an alpha. The Colour Mas texture is a black and white texture in which I specified which areas I want to affect the tint colour (in white) and which areas I want to keep the original diffuse colour (in black). I use gray tones because I was able to get a better blending between them.
Also the "Cheap Contrast" node is to make the edges softer so that way there is not a huge change between the diffuse and tint colour.
The Tint Ammount and CheapContrastAmmount are also exposed to change them in the material instance.
NOTE: Right now the textures are imported in single files but in the final project I will put the different textures in the channels, so that way I can have the diffuse and normal in single textures and then one texture with the Roughness in the Red channel, Metallic in the Green channel and Colour Mask in the Blue channel.
Some animated gifts to see that I can use a lot of different colours in a easy way being able to change it in the editor.
- Metal Trims:
- Concrete Trims:
Next step: finish the concrete, bricks, slabs, roofs, etc tiling textures!!
UPDATE
Things are starting to look good!!
I finished some brick textures and made a window in order to test the variations and trims.
I decided to use Substande Designer to make the brick textures because I want to have a lot of diferent brick styles for my buildings. This way I can easily swap the materials and create tons of variations.
Following a tutorial by @pipesfranco, I made a complex brick generator with 3 different brick styles (2 regular bricks, 1 slab). All the important parameters are exposed so I can change them inside of UE4 and get cool variations.
Modeling was the next step, I wanted to be sure that everything was perfectly lined by the grid and proportions were correct.
Following @jacob07777 breackdowns, I unrwaped the model in a way that will always tile (I also placed the seams in the grouts so is not that noticeable)
And here it is the test inside of UE4. As you can see, using this method I can get easy variations with just 1 geometry. This way I will be able to make different buildings in an easy way.
As you can see, its the same geometry but the brick texture change, as well as the window frames which use the trim textures and the window glasses.
Closer look of it
My next step is to model a lot of different windows, doors, stores pieces so I can make some buildings!!
Again, any feedback will be very much appreciate it
In this one, you can see that they tile perfectly!!
I've made some buildings (I am only showing 1 now because is the only one finished).
I still need to fill those inner gaps (the ones inside of the fences) with some terrain and grass.
Also some pavement and sidewalks were made and made a material for the sidewalks that is similar than the road so I can paint water and dirt on those too. I am not happy with the texture of the sidewalk itself (I like the borders but not the big tiles) so that is something I will probably change soon.
I am also making more road and sidewalk pieces so they will be curves and crosses
Cheers
On that picture you have 2 puddles to the left that seem to tile, it would probably be better to switch one of those pieces out
First of all I will anwswer your comments
Thank you!! Yes, I will create a scene with all the meshes to showcase how they are as single meshes.
For now, I can show you screenshots of a 3D's max file with the pieces snapping and with space between them:
Hope it helps!!
Thanks!!. Of course, right now there are a lot of windows because that is what I started first. I am going to make also stores soon so that way is not all windows!! But if you watch one of the Assassin's Creed Syndicate's trailers you can see the ammount of windows the victorian building had. The thing is that they have a lot of props like signs that makes them look cooler!!
Thanks!!! I will post a complete breakdown and also the theoretical part of the dissertation (if I am allowed) with investigation of different approaches and how I made kind of my own one.
Thanks!! I can show you the stats of both buildings I've made. I'm not making them low polys as I need the geometry for vertex painting and I think now the use of gpu is not really high
Gray Building and road:
Brick Building and road:
With everything on camera, the stats are good:
Thanks!! Yes, I forgot to vertex paint out that puddle, also I got feedback from my tutor and now they are less puddles
UPDATE
First of all, I took a look at the gray building and made some changes with feedback that I got from my tutor.
As you can see now, textures have more detail now. I've made two big changes:
- Vertex Painting: now I can paint another texture to the meshes to give it more detail to them.
- Texture offsert world position: this methods is awesome!! The texture (in this case the top one) will change with the object position so that way each piece will look different.
Fast:
Slow:
Road / Sidwalks: I increased the size of them, now the sidewalks are bigger! Puddles are less randomised. I still need to ad some drain meshes and decals like newspapers. Also I am going to change the texture of the sidewalks soon.
New building: I've made this new building!!, Don't panick yet, I still need to make the store so that way is better!! I will be able to combine pieces of this building with the next ones I am making.
Also I will be able to create tons of variations by modifying the material instances and by remplacing or moving meshes (for example, in the first screenshot you can see that I have two type of corners).
Now I will work on some stores and some props before moving to the next building.
I know it might look a little bit flat but that will change when I put the props , decals, ilumination, etc
Regards!!
Cheers!
- Some props
- Stores
- Block out of the final scene that I will make with the modular buildings
- Some ilumination (this is my weakest "field")
- Changes in textures like the old "gray" building and sidewalks
Yeah!! Im trying (slowly) to break the tilling by doing those variations
There you go:
In my case I connect that multiply to another multiply that has the regular concrete texture
It seems a bit high for just one building. That's because all the pieces as individually placed static meshes.
I got around that using blueprint to spawn an array of hierarchical instanced meshes. You can then set it so you can adjust the pieces placement and spacing in parameters. This way, it only counts as a single draw call for all the pieces, instead of each one.
Looking great so far, keep on the good work
Thanks!! I think the grey building is going to be one of the main elements of the scene. It's not going to have as many props as the other buildings (because of the kind of building it is) but it looks cool.
Not really, modularity doesn't only exist in 3DsMax. In fact the modularity exists outside of videogames.
Im going to quote some text of the theoretical part of my dissertation that may help understanding modularity:
If I have time before the deadline I will definetly make a nigh scene variation!! If not, I will do it after the deadline
Yeah right now each part of the building or props are not instances (they are just static meshes). What I really do is just import it, drag it to the scene and duplicate it (the materials instead are instances). I will try to make some kind of blueprint after the deadline but right now I want to focus more on the art side and be more technical after that
Thanks!!
Thank you very much Vincent for taking the time to go through the post and give me feedback
The deadline got extended so I have until the 25th of September, that is why I am a little bit more relaxed right now.
Definitely, that is what I am going to make as soon as I finish some props. I'm planning to add some props (which I'll write in the next post) that hopefully will break the flatness of the scene. About the construction sites and moving markets, do you think they will fit in the small sidewalks that I have right now?
Thanks again!!
I will post soon with some updates
UPDATE
I've made some props, although they are not textured yet! The new ones I made are the awnings, signs, letter signs and floor sign.
This is a quick list of some things that I am going to make (props/decals)
- Mail post
- Bench
- Planters for the windows
- Sewer
- Gutters
- Flags
- Horse poops * (it might look like a joke but if I am going to try to make some, as in that time there were a lot of horses in the streets so I guess also horse poops were common hehe
- Decal of texts for the stores: "hairdresser", "pub", "jeweller", etc.
- Grunge decals
- Newspapers decal
- Leaves decal
Then I will move to make more buildings, but I really want to have tons of props in order to make it look awesome.
For the update, I also made some variations of the sidewalks, as the curbs were perfectly straight and now they have more variations. Also I added some geometry to match the slabs. That way I can extrude inwards or outwards some of them and have more detail there.
Also the road is not flat anymore.
This kind of city are build on the same structura than a lot of european city with a big amount of building stack to each other on the side but not the back. Most of the time you have alleys between those buildings which are dirty and darker. Could be interesting to add some arch between some building to break some lines and have a feeling of "depth" even if we stay in the main street.
I'm sure you will do it but I really think you can add a lot by adding a lot of dirt and mud in all the corner, link between sidewalks/building and even in the center of the road.
Keep on the good work it's really cool now
Thanks!! I think the kind of main street that I want to achieve is like this one (small one, but mine a little bit wider):
[ame]
I will probably make the scaffoldings and archs, as I do think they are a nice add that will give variation to the street.
Right now the sidewalks have some kind of dirt on the link between the buildings but maybe it is not really noticeable. Also, those dirt and mud should be textures added with vertex painting right?
Thanks again!!
Also I made a new store and changed a little bit more the ilumination. I also made more decals, vertex painting, etc.
This is where I took the idea and learn about it:
https://gumroad.com/aaronkaminer
I made then my own modifications and custom things but if you are interesting in learning how to make the puddles I really recommend you the tutorial, as it shows you how to make puddles and all detailed.
I still need to make more buildings and stores (and ofc texture the assets)
One problem I can't really fix is that the window's material is translucent and it the atmospheric fog doesn't affect the translucent materials in UE4 so thats why when they are far away they are darker...
The only solution I got is use an opaque material but I lose the transparency....
Any suggestions about the lighting? where should I position the sun?? I don't like where it is right now...
I'm going to texture some props now!!
I will wait for feedback and apply it
Normal maps:
Ambient Occlussion:
Roughness: