Exterior Structure

UE4 

UE4 

UE4 

UE4 

UE4 

I got around to brandishing the exterior and the ceiling broke my back for a bit as I was learning the baking process for Maya. Now that the final layout of the structure is complete I can move on to building the outer area and sculpting more of the terrain out among other things.

Comparisons

UE4

It took me a bit to convert the assets to Unreal ready but already the difference is substantial. Making preview builds only takes at most 5 minutes, in comparison to Unity's minimum of two hours, and not only that either. The PBR quality between the two engines are vast in the look when it comes to lighting; I could write more on this but so far, at least the current version of Unity, has many limitations that make it difficult to appreciate.

Enlighten Nightmare

Unity5

After so many days wrecking my brain in understanding the Enlighten engine in Unity I am near wit's end on this thing. I had to turn off the terrain I made, set all lighting parameters as low as it could go, even making each section of the environment into system chunks, breaking up large meshes, and other things to see if the baking would speed up.

Alas, it did in a sense: what took five hours went down to two.

Again, this was just a test bake on seeing what things look like but at this point I may take a breather and reconsider just porting this shiz into UE4. I will have to redo the textures as they will not be a clean port but in the grand scheme of this I can say that I wish the Beast engine was still a part of Unity.

The common thread I found online is that the bake times are too time consuming for quite a few users and that does not instill confidence in me on how to get decent lighting in the environment.

Non Non Biyori Progress

Unity5

Finished measuring the interior of this school building along with adjusting the initial atlas and tileable textures to unify the scene. The major thing to work on is the roof and setting up the exterior section of the map, maybe even create tileable glass materials instead of the default ones I set up.

Quick Progress

Unity5

So far the Maya and Unity study is going smoothly, I am finding a rhythm that is working out and making the transition from 3dsmax to Maya less of a head ache than I anticipated.

Classroom Hallway

Unity5

Another fresh start on a new project. This particular one is vastly different in many ways from previous endeavors: for one, I have to use Maya, second, utilize Unity5 and work from there. An ultimate challenge for preparation on the new job next month and immersing my mind into using both programs!

Spiral Dream Complete

UE4

I think this project is finished. Again, I was at a point where I was wrapping my mind around what else to do and decided to put the last touches on it. Successfully, after the last three projects, I now understand what checkboxes must be set to allow for decals to work; also, this marks an accomplishment of using splines! The sci-fi environment has now became far easier to manage once I get to it.

Detail Props

UE4

Finalized the 2nd atlas texture and sprinkled the environment with more detail props. Onto the last batch of assets and tweaking this piece!

Overdue Update

UE4

It has been awhile since I posted an update but still working away at this. Recently was successful in landing a job somewhere, and thus, revitalized me to get this piece done.

Over the weekend I spent rendering over 70 props and started the texture process for all of it today. Once that is in a final stage I will spend more time placing assets around this scene before doing the last bits of texturing and prop making, then and only by that point, will I be nearing completion on this project.

One Atlas Down

UE4

Textured one of the atlases and updated several textures with a dirtier look. Next on the list is to continue populating this scene with assets!

Slow Progress

UE4

Taking more time on this project than I would've in past ones but will continue till I get to a place I feel works out for this thing.

Squatter's Bastion

UE4

Some progress on this, I finally understand how to do 2 way blend materials along with experimentations on parallax mapping!

Back to the Spiral

UE4

Got back from vacation mode the past two weeks and delved right back into this environment. Modeled the majority of the architecture, except one asset, then can move on to dirtying up the piece and making this into a squatter home. The one hiccup was creating details that follow a spiral shape, I had to use Loft and alter the deformations in order to get the results I desired.

This will be the first time I use the spline mesh blueprint to create wiring and cabling; if this works out the sci-fi piece will be a whole mess easier to model than I had previously anticipated.

Last Day Before Vacation

UE4

Today may be the last night I can get some work onto this piece. Replaced all the temporary assets with semi-working ones and made a tileable texture along with other things. During volunteering at the con I will be thinking about this and what else to add into it to get the "squatting" look that I have in mind.

Spiral Dream: A New Project

UE4

This will be a tinier environment than the last few I have made but I still plan to shove quite a bit of life into this piece towards a kind of story that I have going in my head. Sadly, will not be able to touch this for nearly two weeks as I will be on vacation.

Even if I will be away from the computer this baby will be rolling around in my mind!

Another Environment Completed

UE4

Textured the last set of props and sprinkled them all over the environment. I think I will be able to move on to the next project once I am done volunteering at Anime Expo and going to Comic Con. While those events are going on I'll dwell on the next two pieces to test something out.

The upcoming project I plan to push my lighting capabilities and utilize the layered material system for the whole mini environment. It should be relatively quick to make in comparison to this but it is in preparation for the sci fi concept art that I want to tackle.

Forward march!

Nearing the Finale

UE4

Textured the last assets that had temporary colors, fleshed out the level a bit more, and built production lighting for this. This piece is nearly done I think just have to post online and see if I get any feedback before I may call this one done.

Texture Updates and Lighting Changes

UE4

Changed the lighting around again and think it is getting closer to what I am wishing for it to be. I got around to texturing the large atlas for several assets and continuing to get them fleshed out. Only a handful of other tasks to do before I post another update on facebook.

UE4 4.8

UE4

I upgraded the project to 4.8 but sadly it crashes on occasion when I import or auto import changes to meshes so this may be a bit slower going till I figure out what the hell is causing that. I ended up turning of fDFAO, as even though it was a bit optimized, is too much for this scene.

New Discovery with UE4

UE4

I now understand why textures from dDo did not sync up with what I saw in UE4. According to Gametextures.com I need to adjust two texture maps after importing for the materials to take advantage of the PBR pipline: uncheck sRGB on roughness maps and to flip the green channel on normal maps.

The past few projects I wondered why the lighting was not working correctly on any of the materials I made and was at a loss at how to solve it. With this understanding I think I am getting closer to mastering the PBR pipeline and can push the realism further ahead!

Background Elements Galore

UE4

At some point the Kite Demo assets fully loaded onto my project and I managed to start populating the background part of the environment to situate it into a forest area. Now I need to tackle the potted plants that are meant to propagate the interior space.

Readjustments Everywhere

UE4

Used Marvelous Designer to create the curtains and adjusted several other assets in the scene. I'll spend time to adjust the materials to really sell the realistic lighting I am shooting for.

Next major thing is probably converting the glass to stain glass as loading the Open Kite Demo into the project was a mistake. My PC sadly locks up each time I attempt to open a file from there so the prospect of trees and other background elements is a no go.

Lighting Adjustments

UE4

I adjusted the lighting as I found I was not a fan of the general look of the environment. I'll keep playing around with it till I find something that fits the piece. Added a few more props into the scene and will continue that for awhile.

Texturing the Book Atlas

UE4

I took a week break about to play Witcher 3 to properly detox myself after the art test. During that time I went and worked out the atlas for all the books that will encompass this scene. Finished unwrapping the books that I had modeled and placed into this scene but will require more books to scatter about. Luckily the atlas will make this easier to accomplish.

Bookscatter Script

UE4

I found a script that does what I need for this particular environment: take 3d models of books and procedural spread them out based off different parameters for a certain size book shelf. The script is solid and even allows for random resizing between two values, flipping books, and works better with more book variations. At some point will see where I can optimize as clearly the poly count shot through the roof.

Tileable Textures

UE4

Smacked some tileable textures into this business and some small props before venturing into a ton of book models slathered all over the area!

Art Test

UE4

I had to take a break from this project as an unexpected art test for a game company came up. Honestly it was probably the most pleasing test I have ever done to date; whether anything comes of it we shall see, till then continuing on this project!

What I took from the art test was that I should practice doing a mixture of tiled and atlas textures to quickly get the environment up and running. Maybe some project in the future I will return to only creating atlas textures first and then modeling it around that.

Start of the New

UE4

This will be a tough project as I will attempt to do hand painting with it. Not sure how exactly PBR will play into this but I may end up doing a fusion of PBR and hand painting. I did a rough test with the Miku model but this will be a long project in practicing something I rarely do.

Production Lighting

UE4

It took 12 hours but finally finished rendering the scene with production lighting, removed some lights and adjusted the skylight to allow for darker areas in the scene. I shifted the chairs around to break up the symmetry and finally solved why the fps was tanking: it was setting the DFAO occlusion max distance back to default of 600. Apparently having set it to a far higher amount I did not account for the hover text warning against that, now the fps hovers from 40 to 60 fps which is phenomenal for how complex looking the scene is.

I now know that the method I chose for the material setup may be what I use for the foreseeable future.

Throne Room Feedback

UE4

I got some feedback on the lighting of my environment and decided to experiment with a far brighter source light and adjusting the AO to not be as washed out as it was in previous renders.

After some deliberation I decided to convert the chairs and candle holders back to individual meshes with LODs instead of merged as one actor as the DFAO was not rendering properly. Apparently large objects are a no no as it works best with individual meshes that are not too large in terms of screen space. The scene is still GPU heavy but that is part of using DFAO to get the shadowing effects I am looking for.

Another Project Completed

UE4

I think I can call this baby done. I've learned immensely from this and this is the 2nd project in a row I tested out an efficient shader network that utilizes channel textures and parameters to keep material count low and use mostly instancing to get the result I desire.

The main issue I came across was the fact that DFAO in this scene was GPU heavy and in future projects I'll need to reconsider using it or find ways to somehow optimize the scene while still having the option of enabling it. This was also the first time I tried Merging Actors and for the most part helped in keeping the draw count manageable for this environment.

Onto the next project!

Reworked Lighting

UE4

Added in gothic window frames into the scene and in the process of adding the last batch of assets into this environment. I adjusted the lighting to be a bit more dramatic than previous iterations and placed in some god rays for artistic lighting.

More Textured Props

UE4 

UE4

I managed to fit the scaffolding and one of the fences into an atlas that I had already made! Sadly I was not able to fit the chandelier into there so it'll have to go into the 6th atlas for this environment which means room for a ton of other props.

At this point I may turn to playing around with more dramatic lighting for the scene to help push the mood or do something with it.

Throne Room Texturing

UE4

Refined the textures for the majority of the assets and have a handful that still needs better textures. I will soon be doing another pass of assets to add to this and will continue on optimizing the scene by adding LODs and possibly doing some blend materials on this business!

A Different Direction

UE4

I decided to change the color of the walls and other sections of the environment to give it a freshness and so far am digging the place it is at. I started the base texturing for the assets I've added into the level and still need to do way more to get it to a point that I feel it needs to be at before I can move on. This piece will be a huge learning experience for sure.

Substantial Progress

UE4

I spent some time exploring what assets would fit along with the throne room and I've settled on a theme of a banquet hall. This will probably be one round of detail prop set up and will start texturing these guys and will see what the 2nd iteration will be.

Also first time in a long while that I've made LODs and have helped considerably with the small assets. I used Simplygon for this process and their free account helps speed up the work load!

Slight Iteration

UE4

I normally wouldn't be posting this often unless I made substantial progress but the previous entry in this blog bothered me quite a bit. I know it was the addition of all of the benches that blocked the way and detracted from the grand vision the original concept had, my interpretation anyway.

Onwards!

Design Process and SSD Magic

UE4

The past few days I ended up spending cleaning up the hard drives of my 'puter in preparation for installing the Solid State Drive that was delivered. In those few days I brainstormed on how I would flesh out this environment and tread away from the original concept and make this into a piece I would feel proud of.

I settled on placing elements that are from European cathedrals into the scene and break up the back areas further to element the sky from being dominant in this piece. It'll be awhile but I am excited nonetheless in fleshing out this baby!

Return to the Throne

UE4

Now that I have finished with the last project I can return to this with renewed vigor and fix the issues this piece had!

I will need to model more elements to fill up the space and update all the textures so the interior looks like it is actually textured. One of the critiques I had was that the environment at first was essentially too desaturated and I'll need to now go away from the initial reference concept and try to make this thing my own.

Updated the lighting, AO, and added a few trees to slowly flesh this out further.

Conclusion?

UE4

I think this will conclude this personal project for now. The last batch of assets are textured and I will say that this piece was taxing in terms of my computer power, dDo is amazing but the way it chugs this PC kills me a bit. Hopefully the SSD coming in within the week will help the next project: updating the throne room!

Base Texture Groundwork

UE4

Pushed through with the last bits of props that needed a basic texture foundation and am I pooped out. It was a grand experiment to smash in about 35 props worth of UVs into one grand atlas but thanks to dDo turned out better than expected; added in the Ambient Dust particle to see how that looked in the scene.

Now to refine all the textures and to add in extra detail props all over this business!

DFAO Revisited

UE4 with DFAO

Spent much of today rendering Distant Field AO for the scene and 4.7.2 has a far better version than the one I used for the Throne Room in 4.5. Colored me impressed with the latest engine update!

UV Glory

This baby took most of yesterday to unwrap 35 assets. I still have room to fit more that I have planned into here and will be adjusting the IBM uvs as well!

More Progress Yo!

UE4

Starting to get fleshed out but need to figure out how to properly have curtains that have slight opacity but still receive shadowing from the lighting. This will require further research.

Base Texturing Galore

UE4

I set in some more texturing onto major architectural elements and added in a bonifer tree from Speed Tree into the scene to help flesh out the general look of the environment. Still a ways to go and loads of time spent in rendering AO, World Space, and Normal maps for Quixel to do its magic.