Hello everyone,
It’s exciting to look at all of your works, follow your processes and share the knowledge. We (I and my team) started a small project, we haven’t finished it yet, but I think, why I don’t share our process here. I’m new to UE4 but maybe this project could have some useful information to other newbies like me, and I can reveive some valuable advises.
My English is not good, so please be patient haha.
Here we go.
Step1:
The first idea is some guys fighting in a small room. 2 characters run in a dark lobby. In the end of the lobby is a brighter room, they meet the 3rd character there (a boss may be), then a quick fight happen. The fight will be simple, our prior objective is making an environment in UE4, with some particles or complex materials.
So we made a basic model, then we decide where the characters run and fight, and we collect references to improve the quality of the scene.
We have more than 1 people, so we can do some different tasks at once. We divide our team into 2 small groups: one do the animation task (making storyboard, rigging and animating characters, we’ve alreay some characters from another projects) and the other make the environment.
I attached our storyboard in case you want to take a look. It’s not really clear but we can use it to discuss the idea.
And here’s the image which we depend on to make different assets of the room. We don’t make a specific concept, so each member can use references to make the assets as they want.
Our workflow for each asset is: sculpting in Zbrush, then making low poly model. At this time, one guy collect everybody low poly model to set up UE4 scene, the other members continue working (UV low poly, baking, making textures, modify assets…). And here’s our very first result, a basic scene with low poly model (no material).
Thanks for your attention. I’ll update the process soon 
Hello again,
We have a little problem: because we don’t have a concept before making the assets, they are not a same style. So we need a while to fix the textures, this is a good experiment haha.
And here’re some asssets after fixing textures. They still are not in the same style, but the textures are similar enough, i hope.
I also search for some fire-particles tutorials. They are a bit confused but really fun. And here’s the torch with fire.
Some assets are still not finished, so I spend sometime with the materials, first the lava. The UE4 shaders are awesome. I learned a lot from Infinity blade project, then modify something. Now my lava can flow and have some waves. Maybe I’ll do some vertex paiting to decrease the seams.
(I try to upload gif file, but I got error all the time).
Thanks for your attention, see you next time
Hello again,
The assets are almost finished. Now I can setup lightning.
Here’re some screenshots. I use mode lightning only so I am not distracted too much by the materials.
And here’s a view with lightning only and with completed materials. The other views are not good enough, I need to modify some materials settings.
Next step, I’ll work with vertex paint, then import characters with animations into UE4.
Luckily, we already have some character from another projects (which we did the models and have the right to re-use them). While we do the environment, our animator did the rigging and animation tasks. That’s a a lot of work for him in a short time, so we need to simplify this task.
Hello again,
The environment is almost finished. After I set up lightning, I do a few vertex painting, add reflection sphere, post process volume and a bit fog. The scene doesn’t need the sky, so I didn’t use one.
Here’re some screenshots of the scene, hope you like them.
By the way, I want to show some images of the characters. Their styles are different to our current scene, so I tried to modify the materials and use the light to decrease the different.
(These concepts and models are from a project we cooperated with JSA entertainment)
I got some problem when importing models with animations into UE4: not unique bone names, camera delayed in playmode, model disappear… I do a lot of internet searching and most of problems are solved, but I’m still stuck with some. I’ll try a bit more before rendering and composing.
Hello again,
After a lot of searching and fixing, we resolved almost the problem. Some notice for our next project and for everyone new to UE4 is: the skeleton of the characters must have unique name, we need to design map and make concepts before we do anything (if it’s a team project), Material and textures will be a bit (or much) different to the viewport of maya, marmoset…(or any other software),…
The only problem we can’t fix is the delay of the camera, but we need to finish the project. So we do the video before continue searching for solution.
And here’re our result:
Please let us know what do you think.
Thanks again for your attention.
Hello,
Here’s the video with characters fighting, as our very begin idea. Hope you like it.
Please let me know what you think, all of your respones are valuable.
