Amazing stuff, very inspiring

Incredible detail. I can't stop looking!

Hey Kevin, amazing work, really appreciate you posting this here. You Epic guys are really the epitome of next-gen
I do have a question:
Don´t you ever think that you´re putting too much detail in these highpoly meshes? So much that it will never all translate to the normalmaps? I´m just wondering because there´s a point where one can just create too much detail that it isn´t worth the time anymore. But maybe that´s why you are the best, doing all that detail and still being fast at it.

i got two questions to ask:

1) did you only work on the high-poly assets or did you also translate these into low-poly models? and if so can you show the assets?

2) how do you render your images they look really nice and i would love to have some sexy renders like that in my poertfolio.

Originally Posted by ae.

2) how do you render your images they look really nice and i would love to have some sexy renders like that in my poertfolio.

Search for his UT3 Environment thread. He explains how to do it somewhere in there.

I WILL get to those questions soon, in the meanwhile heres some step by step images.














And another straight pimp -

Thank you for sharing this information and all of your great work Kevin. It is appreciated and definitely an inspiration.

kevin awesome thankyou!

Great artwork and an example of an excellent work flow. Thanks for sharing this Kevin.

Thanks. Very helpful for learning.

Do I put too much detail in sometimes, yes. The above section of the Hospital Facade suffers from my trying to push too much into the texture, I didn't think it through enough, I should have dropped the leaves from the door frame, I should have dropped the inner door blocks.

I didn't prioritize the door section with enough resolution, I placed an equal amount on the whole asset when I should have realized I could have scaled the res down a bit on the side and upper section a bit more to allow for enough of the details to come through.

That's the one piece in the set that I really wish I had done things differently, I always felt I dropped the ball a little on this one and I'm trying harder to be more restrained in general these days. I hope I am becoming more balanced as I go forward.

Hiindsight helps, its part of why I'm posting also, it helps confirm or deny the things I see in hindsight along with the rest of you.

thanks for sharing man, awesome

I can't help but feel this sort of workflow (adding high density meshes in to max, straight out of zbrush/mudbox) isn't something the average user will be able to do in a manageable state. I cringed when I saw the step of your bricks that had you bringing it back in to Max and instancing it around. Generally, Max doesn't handle that high of a triangle count. (So - system specs?)

With that, could these bricks not be projected down to a simple plane, normals baked, then manipulate said plane/geo as you have in your later descriptions and achieve the same look?

omg omg omg do i have birthday again xD? thanks for sharing Kevin. I should really take a deeper look into that "grid is master" stuff. that lantern looks crazy hehe

Thanks for taking the time to post this stuff man. It all looks great!

thanks kevin, this is really appreciated

Don't Epic artists all have 8-16Gb of RAM in their machines? I'm sure I heard that somewhere (possibly not from a reliable source?)

Thanks for the workflow post, Kevin, it's very informative and sensible. I'm sure a lot of people can learn a ton of stuff from these assets

That dome is really nicely done too, probably my favourite of this new bunch. The lighting / colour setup you have is working well too.

Thanks for posting those workflow pics KJ, very insightful. That dome is particularly nice.

heh, using a bend modifer on a high poly mesh? That's gotta be light to the machine... nawt! xD

Awesome work as always buddy.

Originally Posted by adamBrome

I can't help but feel this sort of workflow (adding high density meshes in to max, straight out of zbrush/mudbox) isn't something the average user will be able to do in a manageable state. I cringed when I saw the step of your bricks that had you bringing it back in to Max and instancing it around. Generally, Max doesn't handle that high of a triangle count. (So - system specs?)

With that, could these bricks not be projected down to a simple plane, normals baked, then manipulate said plane/geo as you have in your later descriptions and achieve the same look?

Yeah, I have to agree, my machine would bomb out on me if I tried that . I think bending a flat plane probably would have issues. There's always a difference between rendering a proper high poly, and cutting corners. The mesh catches things in different ways when projected. Also, you wouldn't be able to have tapered sections like he does with that dome very easily.

Great work though, I love seeing high poly stuff .

I still would like to think there's more hardware efficient ways of doing what Kevin's done.


Also, Kev, this picture here has a shadow error on the bottom left side of the dome.

While we're on the dome - I take it this is just a beauty shot of the highpoly work, ya? It wasn't built like this when baked down, right? It's a pretty modular design, so I'd imagine 1/6th of the dome's sections would be what you actually would use for baking, ya?

I ask because this is where I hit a small bump whenever doing highpoly. Do I flesh it out completely even though I'm only using small sections of it for baking while the rest is just duplicated for tart on my end? (For the possibility of beauty renders later on). This is assuming its not all 1 large unique unwrap with unique texture detailing everywhere.

Just gotta say thanks for posting up your workflow there, can really see how careful planning beforehand helps you reap the benefits later on.

totally love the dome
love the breakdown very much

@adambrome: i believe kevin said in his other thread that he has 16gigs of ram.

Yowza, awesome work, the explanations and examples are very useful. Thank you very much.

thanks, so much Kevin for taking the time out, to share your work with us. There are not a lot of professionals out there who share the information they have learned over the years. Everything you post is so insightful and inspirational.