[UDK] Nature-y cabin scene
polycounter lvl 11
Hey guys. This is my first project in UDK, aimed towards my main (and also first) portfolio environment art piece.
Latest version:
Here's concept art (WIP actually) I did:
And a more fantasy creature:
It's inspired by the story of Dick Proeneke, supposed to be a very natural scene, fairly realistic (obviously the animal is a bit fantastical). Might be a bit lacking in "story" atm. I was thinking of adding maybe something like 2 graves or similar. Ideas very very welcome.
I have a sculpt and low poly ready of the anvil ram, I will post pictures as soon as I get the bake done.
Latest version:
Here's concept art (WIP actually) I did:
And a more fantasy creature:
It's inspired by the story of Dick Proeneke, supposed to be a very natural scene, fairly realistic (obviously the animal is a bit fantastical). Might be a bit lacking in "story" atm. I was thinking of adding maybe something like 2 graves or similar. Ideas very very welcome.
I have a sculpt and low poly ready of the anvil ram, I will post pictures as soon as I get the bake done.
Replies
<SNIP> Sorry photobucket turned out to be really gay, latest picture is in the top post anyway!
At the moment I'm mostly just fighting with UDK over controls and settings. And shaders.
Here's a grab of what I got for my main environment shader; grass and dirt vertex blending over a mask for better transitions, and scalar mapping on both with a unique normal map for variation. Not totally crazy and I probably hacked some stuff together but it helped me learn the basics of materials and shaders in UDK.
<SNIP>
I like to add those hook shapes (although you can't see many of them in the pic) to almost everything I do in art, even realistic stuff, so I guess they are ever so slightly stylised.
<SNIP x 5> again, photobucket = annoying! My bad sorry, I did not save the WIP shots. Latest pics up top.
What's new:
-well, chimney, fence, bucket, table props
-redone tree leaves completely (handpainted this time)& new placement
-numerous texture fixes
-fixed scale issue, real world scale now
-few more grasses and plants placed, but still test placement(nowhere near what is should be for small vegetation)
Todo:
-About a million props, lots of small stuff (axe, knife, fish, tons more plants etc)and some large (2 tree stumps, a heap of logs) hammock(sp?), trough, farm props etc etc
-Baking proper lighting for screenies (this is preview with dynamic stuff, it's a mess..)
-redoing the well roof completely
-making the tree leaves look as good from the side as the bottom
-redo the dirt texture
-add wet mud to terrain texture
-redo ALL the rocks & bottom of islandy parts so that it looks more like my concept art
-Try to have some sort of life in between all that
yay more work!
- You could also try adding one of these windmills:
Metal:
http://www.pondaeration.com/photos/100_5271.JPG
Wood:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/622366987/
- A small water stream that falls off the side always looks nice and adds to the floating effect of the island.
Great concept so far.
Love the concept btw.
Mister_Nice_Guy:Not really the same but somewhat similar to the windmill I was thinking of adding a foodstore tower thing just like dick proeneke built.
I've wanted to add water from the beginning (would look amazing, and water plants are awesome) but I've intentionally avoided it cause its my first time in UDK and I'm afraid the water would take down the entire thing OR I'd just lose soo much time getting the water right (as I'm new with shaders - nor do I want to use anything from UDK content) That said it's still very much in the back of my mind so I might get to it eventually when I'm more comfortable with shaders
Gilgamesh: I've reffed that off the dick proenek DVD and images: here's an example
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/9708428.jpg
In the DVD he layers the roof with a plasticy water resistant sheet, then puts tons of moss on top. I think the moss and plastic holds water so plants can grow on top and the moss is sustained, or something. Either way it looks awesome. (I still need to add upright grasses and stuff to the roof)
Some quick screengrabs from the raw bake of the anvil ram, some bumps here and there to be painted out but its looking fairly okay imo
Given that this dudes just part of your environment though, might not be a big concern just thought I would point that out.
+1 to that, also if you are gonna continue with this little critter might I suggest adding some more geo so you wont have artifacts in your bake..its noticable in the butt area pretty harshly! I do suggest to go back add more detail into your sculpt (Right now he feels a bit blobby to me) And refine your edges alot (trim dynamic brush is your friend)
After that dont be afraid to do any sort of skin overlays in the normals in post by overlaying a 2ndary normal map texture and isolating the blue (mainly for the kinda fuzzy look you would see on a short hair animal)
example of what I mean
keep going with the skyisland!
Here is my high res sculpt in ZBrush
I think my main prob might be a too large cage, way too much decimation (I'm on a laptop and to get it in max I really have to kill some of the detail
Anyway. Did some quick altered textures, still some work to do in alterations but it is a ton better (on my monitor at least) now
Here is the new raw bake. Minus a few obvious errors, what do you think?
About the lighting - might be a bit of an odd question considering lightmass does a good job at getting the bounce light done etc, but would you go as far as adding subtle omnis to control the intensity and colour of light (or shadow) at local areas? Bit like how you would light a scene in 3ds max for film production. Or should I really just keep to the directional light and all the setting that come with it?
Here is some small progress, found the time to do some props today. 3ds max viewport screenie.
About half a 1024 (rest reserved for more props) spec & diffuse. Are the fish too phototexture-y? I heavily edited to get rid of spec & reflection information - most of the stuff you see in the pic is actual spec and a cubemap reflection in the viewport. Although now I look at it the diffuse defintely needs a level adjustment big time.
Anyway - gonna bend and pose the fish into a believable dead-butchered position and place the props tomorrow.
Here's a zoom-in on what this is for in the concept art.
Other than that, I've redone the tree yet again (still not as good as I want it) and I've made a number more plants and bushes, and given the existing grass vertex color data to vary their color. Played with the lighting (and skybox) a bit as well - but it's not there yet. I'll post a pic tomorrow after fixing a bunch of stuff and putting the new props in.
Are you gonna define the face structure more? Loks a litte blobby now.
Keep it up!
Edit: As far as the environment goes the proportions seem to be way off to me everything looks short and stumpy.
Scene is making decent progress, gratz on your new computer
Thanks for the feedback!
I am interested in concept art (and illustration) and heck, even the prospect of freelancing -- since I am in belgium, I'd have to go abroad fairly quickly to get a job. But I equally love 3D environmenting - even sculpting characters and whatnot, and I've put just as much time in it (there's just more technical stuff to learn there!) I might have some form of duality to my portfolio (although many don't recommend this...) Where I have projects with concept art and 3D realistation of said concept art, how painting carries over into handpainted textures (although I don't have much experience with this, but I definitely will get around to that.) and maybe start using more 3D blocking, to get the perspective of a painting right & have full camera control, and my 3D skills in general in my concept art (I don't do this yet) Ahh, I don't know, man. Tough portfolio decisions. Especially if I eventually try my hand at freelancing, I'll be able to use the wide variety in topic I think?
SgtNasty: very good point, I didn't really... think about it at all
Had some fun with generating a cubemap reflection and using a reflection strenght texture map in my shader. (if you're interested in the nodes let me know, its really really simple)
(Crits welcome - stuff to do in above pic; build lighting on props, fix opacity map & face normal on the fins, and fix the slices in the fish.)
Still so much to do & fix, but having steady positive progress, which I like.
Question, I'm using SSAO post processing effect now, but is there a way to tone it down on a single mesh? I ask because it looks good in most of my scene, but really ruins the tree leaves...
In full flat sunlight my normal maps are almost 100% invisible, quite annoying. Is there a way to kinda bump them up "diregarding" the lighting a bit?
Here's an example, when turned, the normal map does appear, but flat on the floor it's totally gone