Hey there PC,

So I have 6 months left until I graduate, and it looks like I'm going to make the last minute switcheroo from Character Artist to Environment Artist. Hopefully that's a good call.

Anyfart, I'm planning on this being my first (hopeful) portfolio piece, as well as my first complete environment in UDK. So I was looking for something relatively small in scope. It's based off of concept art I found for Warhammer Online property of Mythic Entertainment.

First the concept art:


So here's what I have so far... everything shown is in engine, just AO and normal bakes so far with some sandstone or simple color overlay. Just really blocking everything in at this point.

looks pretty good, the base of the pillars looks to sharp tho maybe round over the edges a bit?

also i think i saw someone making this a little while ago, ill see if i can find it for you


*edit*

here it is http://www.polycount.com/forum/showt...ight=warhammer

ah... i've seen someone else around here do that concept art as well.

ah yea! someone else beat me to it hahaha

Nice (but I'm Warhammer fanboy and Ancient Egypt fanboy so everything on that is nice ;p).
But you need to tune down SSAO, and make it little darker. Or add some torches or any light source. It looks quite weird as the lots of light coming from nowhere .

Try to rotate the pillars in order to hide the repetition.

You're off a good start.

Yeah, none of the lighting is final. I'm also a UDK newb so I'm sure lighting will be quite the uphill battle when the time comes... just figured I'd make it bright so you could see the detail. Still in the block in phase at the moment.

I'll definitely rotate the pillars, great idea, thanks man

Your udk floor is tiling more than the concept one's. You should use a bigger tile to make the tiling less noticeable.

I know that you're just beginning the blocking part but it's just a little com.

Good start anyway !

I feel that the normal mapped gaps between your floor tiles are a bit too wide and deep compared to the original. But I'm digging the skull pillar.

Ok... so minor update with a question about lighting.

I'm wrapping up the statue for the end of the hallway... here's the low poly from 3Ds Max, just the bakes... no texture work just yet.



So after throwing it in engine... I'm getting these weird shadows... they're kinda fuzzy, and they move around if I move the camera. I think it's some sort of AO setting maybe?

Here's a picture example of what I mean...


There is an orange emissive map in his mouth, so it should be glowing... but his mouth if filled with this fuzzy black crap.

Then... when I move around, it moves... also, if I get close to it with my gun, the shadows will fade... as seen here.


Any ideas?

Yeah this is the SSAO, you can override the settings to make it more subtle if you want.

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/PostP...cclusionEffect

A quick progress update... I've been busy as all hell but I am determined to finish this! YAAARGGGHHHH SPLAT.

YAAARGGGHHHH SPLAT

Ewwww :P

I'm digging the progress here.

I think your lighting looks ok, but overall for this being a tomb it feels too bright to me. Try making the scene a little darker, with brighter lights on the pedestals (where flames are in the reference, and have the lights be a little brighter with a quicker falloff. Not sure how tightly you want to stick to reference but maybe you could try playing with the light color. Maybe have a purple or greenish ambiance to the scene. Just an idea, adding color might look cool. Or even have some ground fog to add to the creepiness of the tomb.

The floor texture seems a little too harsh to me. Considering how the tomb is worn, and has erosion on everything, the ground seems a little too new. The ground should probably be at least as worn as everything else, but probably more so. Generally the floor/ground would have the most natural wear and tear since you'll more likely have erosion from people walking on the ground than rubbing the pillars/walls/etc..

Make sure you don't skimp on the details here. The concept has kinds of cool details: The hieroglyphics all over the walls, the little detailed wall pieces near the floor, broken stones, skeletons, cobwebs, sand pouring down from above... This can be a really awesome piece as long as you keep going with it. Good luck!

looking good. Really excited about seeing the little details that u have not gotten to yet. Like the Hieroglyphics and symbols that are in the concept. This is just my opinion, Even though the concept arts marble is not that shiny i feel that you could use some spec maps or some more intense spec maps. Now dont go too far with it . U just want them to sell your normal maps. That skull up there could really be pushed with a subtle spec. things just need to be little bit shiner.

Double Post. Whoopsy!

A quick progress update... still haven't gotten a chance to mess with the lighting or redo the floor, but they are on the to do list!

The only problem I see is in the proportion. You've, well, game corridorized it is the best way I can describe it. A lot of game environments tend to be wider and more evenly spaced/proportioned than needed to facilitate player movement, much in the same say a lot of scifi corridors are made much larger. It's a subtle thing, but in doing so you've lost a bit of the slightly claustrophobic feel of a tomb.

Seeing the kind of space this corridor has makes me want to run some big egyption mech walker down it, instead of cautiously move down.

Compared to the concept art, there's some major things that stick out:

Ground tiles, the rectangular bricks on the floor are longer than in the concept, being closer to standard construction brick proportion. Tone that down and scale the middle square notched bricks up to match.

The columns in the concept were slightly thicker, and spaced slightly closer together. You can then use the columns as a reference for the sizes on other parts of the walls, such as the base of the columns. In the concept the lowest slab of the base doesn't stick out as far.

Similarly, the proportions on the red bricks with skulls should be tweaked to be narrower than the columns.

am i going crazy... or didn't someone else have the same environment up on a different thread?

The textures on the ceiling buttresses are noticeably mirrored. You can combat that by making a variation of that texture.



Also, I was wondering, what was your reasoning behind becoming an environment artist?

looking good the lighting is a tad bit too bright by the skull. In the concept the skull is almost completely masked away. but what you do see is the light emitting from the mouth and eyes. two ways u can do this: lights in side of the mouth n eyes. or (the way i would do it) paint yellow in side both holes put that yellow in the emissive not the diffuse. then set the static mesh to bUseEmissiveForStaticLighting
thats just how i would go about

So I'm calling this beasty done for the moment. I'm sick of looking at it. I learned a lot, I laughed, I cried. Life goes on. Comments always welcome, and thanks for the crits along the way.

@Trancerobot - Originally I wanted to be a character artist, but I've heard it's a super hard way to break into the industry bordering on impossible.

I really enjoy working on environments too and I figured it was a better way to get my foot in the door. It's also been very fun / frustrating / rewarding to learn a lot more about engines like UDK.

Damn, that looks awesome - a huge improvement over your previous shots.

The result looks very painterly and extremely crisp. Did you use some fancy postprocessing or shader magic? It looks like you've got very thin cartoony outlines; though it's really hard to tell.


Anyways, the result looks awesome but I find the 4:3 ratio extremely boring. Make some widescreen shots and call it done

Great final shot, huge improvement from earlier shots. I would suggest giving the lighting a bit more love, as well as adding some dust and or particles in the air. Remember, your supposed to be in a tomb here, not a museum

dope son. What's next?

Good job. This turned out great!

What is your post-process Shader? or is it photoshop?