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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

Unreal 4.7.1 Differences

Doctor's Office UE4 4.7.1

Throne Room UE4 4.7.1

Today Unreal went completely free so decided to upgrade the project. However, I have no idea why but the reflections are far better than in 4.5 and I don't know why yet. I can understand the shadows being crisper since the shadow map limit has been bumped up to 2048. reflections though, that is a different beast.

I went and updated the Throne room and other projects and noticed the same difference with the reflections, I will now go back to that environment when this is finished with in order to also use as a portfolio piece. This is very snails pace with the doctor's office but after seeing the environments for The Order I have to attempt to reach that kind of quality with this piece!

Delays But Some Progress

UE4

The last two weeks I have had company over so progress on this environment has been very slow. There are only a small few props I have to create low and high poly models for and then I can move onto the UV mapping and texturing stage. Starting Monday I should be free of having guests over and back to a good schedule.

Doctor Office Progress

UE4

All the major elements are now in, at this point I'm just modeling all the minor detail props that'll span the scene. This'll take awhile but I'll keep at it, however, this week will be tough as I have company over so we will see how much I am able to get done.