Hey everyone! I've been frequenting the forums for a while and get a lotta help from the threads and have asked a couple of q's on the Modelling Sub-D's massive thread that's helped me understand a lot on that topic.

As for this thing here, I wanted to work on hand-painting stuff in the Soul Eater style. Some might be familiar with the anime/manga, but I think it's got a great visual style and it's what got me into it (plus some of the animation is pretty cool in the fight scenes).

Anyhow, here's what I've got so far on this thing. Been learning a buncha things here. Special thanks goes out to turpedo and drachis for the help and support they've given me on this personal project!

Currently still gotta:
- Bake out AO map for bottom section of walls
- possibly make some of the cracks on the textures a bit thicker
- Make some decals for cracks and paint dabs (these are gonna be tricky)
- darken the outline on some of the ads on the wall some more
- and one thing that maybe you guys can help me on....

I painted the outline look on some of the walls, but as you can tell, I'm getting pixelation on it. I'm using an RGB map through LERP to get the tiling on the wall right and then painting out the outlines with the green channel. If anyone knows a more efficient way or better way to make these outlines, I would appreciate it, but overall it looks fine on straight edges.

BTW, as you can see in the moodboard, things are placed differently in every shot so I kinda just made it my own on some of the things and the placement of things as well. CnC are most welcome, go at it!

Screengrabs from anime



UDK Rendered Shot

lookin' good man, I like the black outlines; I feel like the walls could use some more grime though

This rocks!! Lighting, texture and modelling is great

Aww, I loaded this expected something from the intro sequence with purples and stuff. That being said though this is looking nice! I'm with Blackula on the walls though, I think they could use a bit of spicing up so they look less flat and clean! Also It doesnt feel as looming as it does in the anime, perhaps its the fov? It just looks more oppressive in the screenshots.

Nice job though!

Blackula: I agree, I'm working on that, just trying to figure out an efficient way of making the grime either decals or setting it on the texture although the texture already has some but for some reason, I think the lighting is washing it out O_O

GCMP: Thanks man! Love your Fried Chicken Shack progress BTW, I gotta do something like that!

Jackwhat: Haha, sorry, I am planning on doing something else from Soul Eater, this was just a practice >_^ Yeah it's most likely the FOV that's doing that. I'll deal with that once I finish adding in some of the remaining elements and polish. Any ideas on how to get that to work in Unreal, haven't done anything like that yet.

Here's a small update. Brightened up the alleyway a bit since it was looking too dark for comfort (adding an omni with shadows turned off at low intensity helped do the trick). Some things I did...

- ditched the LERP effect on the black cracks and have started decal-ing it up
- changed the wall texture a bit and added just a wee bit more
grime...don't want the tiling to get noticeable with it, splotches and
cracks will make it
look nice, i'll do my best

Things to do:
- still need more paper/posters on walls for bottom blank areas closer to
camera
- need FOV for that depth into the alleyway
- making decal splotches
- fixing AO map for left wall (I'm getting some weird blotches, it might be
that)
- place a different building for "skybox" BG since it looks like it's repeating

And I think that's about it for the most part unless some people can recommend anything based on the moodboard I posted from the anime. It's getting close!!

Oh and just for kicks I'm gonna add this lil fella in the sky at the end. THE LAUGHING SUN!!



New WIP

try desaturating the drainpipes more to hit the feel more spot on, looks like they are more metallic brownish in the cartoon, though.

and the hue and those pipes need to be a bit bluer.

You're papery bits and wall colors need to be closer in color. And yea more crap and grime and fix the drain pipes like others have said.

Looking good so far keep it up!

hey guys,

took into consideration some things and did it to it. there are some things i could still fix but i gotta call this done for now and move onto something else, this thing's been taking up my time when i wanna do 3D.

the delay in finalizing it was due to a buncha stuff that's come up including a job at a game studio! currently in training and awaiting further details these next few weeks but i'm stoked! so ive been spending my days at the studio learning some workflow and trickery.

hey, this is looking much better I can see some things you could add onto (maybe the sky) but you said you're not done.
Great job getting a job, haha

This is looking amazing.

And now I have the theme stuck in my head.

and here are some other shots, apparently photobucket downsizes my pics to 1024 x 1024 max so screen ratio and all that crap = less rez since there were taken at 1920X1080 but anyhow....some other shots highlighting some of the work i put into it and some that could use more work, lol if you can spot them with your art eye :P

yea its really badass great work

Nice work sir, really nice to see a nice translation from the cartoon to your 3D piece. It really comes across well.

As for the FOV thing, I dunno if you can change it in the world settings or not, but if you make a new camera you can change that camera's FOV... so that might work for ye.

Great start G3L and very nice environment to recreate. The most recent lighting change feels like it is straying even farther from the concepts though. The shadowed area of the alley have a very cool palette, which contrasts so nicely with the hot orange spots of light creating lots of visual interest. In the current lighting setup the whole environment is orange, which takes away that "POP". Also the whole scene needs to be brightened up, primarily needs more real or simulated "refracted light." Dont be afread to actually overexpose the orange hotspots. Also more light needs to be filling the space through the archway. that's it for lighting.

add some more grunge to the textures and maybe narrow the entire alley a little bit since it looks a smidge too wide in the renders. All together you have a great thing going, this could be wonderful portfolio peice. Look forward to seeing your progress ounce you nail the lighting.

Hey thanks guys! Yeah maybe I can tweak the lighting a bit....you're right Paulewog I did lose some of that cool lighting...I think I might have to tweak the world property settings a little bit. I'll see what I can do with that, shouldn't take too long.