Hey Everyone, Back with another Environment Journey.
This time its a 3 person Collaboration between 2 environment artists and a character artist
My job is to design the underground part of an advanced society where the blackmarket is, but its not necessarily dangerouns but more free than the oppressive picture perfect upper world.
its going to take place in the underground ventilation systems of a futuristic megapolis, where underground fights are being held.
think arcane meets cyberpunk, anyways in the following days i’ll be sharing more about it and starting on the blocking
Unfortunately over the past week I’ve been super burnt out due to having done 2 Game Jams back to back, one at school and right afterwards the Global Game Jams in Valencia.
I didn’t get to progress as much as I wanted but I got to figure out some of the technical/storytelling aspects of my idea that i’ll have to figure out.
Changelog :
Storefront Modular Pieces made
Irrigation System Modular Pieces Made
Area Modular Pieces Made
First Pass On Hologram Shader
Anti-slip Steps made
Cable Variations made for splines
Fence Grills Made ( 2 Sizes )
Stuff to fix Immediately :
The proportion of the off the Environment Modular Assets is too big, they’ll need to be scaled down to almost half.
I’m still struggling to land on a shape language, because the environment is the illegal/free/black market portion of the oppressive technologically advanced upper world, so I haven’t been able to find a balance between the poverty/lack of resources and the Tech they could have salvaged ( i.e. robots, holograms … )
Last week was a bit rough ( rocky personal life ) so I didn’t get to hit my usual stride until the end of the week, I shifted the Idea to more of a Underground Factory/Lab Setting but after Consulting with my Professor, we decided to go back to the original idea thank you demolition man ( half a week’s worth of work down the drain haha )
I’m still Struggling with composition and material division but it’s going much better compared to the start of the week.
I had modelled a few assets that were specific to the factory environment which I’ll still try to repurpose but I’m gonna have to think how to use them in a smart way.
Changelog :
Scaled Down the Arches and Columns ( a couple revisions )
Modelled a pretty Flexible Wall kit so that it flows into surfaces and the length of the extruding walls can be extended however much needed ( don’t think i’ll be using them in this version though )
Pipe Formation Variations
Modular Hand Rails
Completed Fence/Grill Mesh
New Metallic Patterned Surfaces for the different Levels of the market
Last week I was finally able to break the spell and get into my usual stride, I resolved the blocking issue and right now its working much better, but decided to take a bit of the focus away to other stuff so that i can do the final polish with fresher eyes this week.
This week I Focused more on the House/Container Kits and how I’d want to decorate them,
A Lot of Trial and Error more than i’d like to admit
But I like the way that it is taking shape currently, I decided to choose a corner of the blocking as my testing ground to just put stuff there and see how it would look and taking the assets into consideration do the final polish of the blocking this week.
Changelog :
Low/Mid/High/UV Workflow for Minor Assets ( no template previews since there are no bakes and textures yet.
Barrel
Trash Bin
Basket
Power Junction Box
Air Conditioner
Trolley
Wooden Cache
Mid Poly Assets that’ll only take tileable textures
2 Antennas
Telephone/Powerline Tower
Water Towers with Scaffolds
2 Containers
Pipes going along the houses
Ladders ( I think its a fun addition along walking platforms and steps )
Took my Corrugated Sheets which I had modelled previously to Zbrush to sculpt and deform for variation
Made updates to the house blueprints to have the corrugated sheet roofs like in shanty towns.
Applied tileable textures to assets to see the uvs working and have some visual aid in the scene ( all due to change )
This Week I’ll try to have every single thing regarding the Blockout finalized so that i can start with texturing and set dressing and hopefully lighting ( jejeje not likely )
as for issues, I’m still not sure how i’m supposed to blend out the intersection of the buildings, because the borders are very noticeable.
And what type of window and door to add to the buildings so that it fits the scene.
Hey Everyone, back with the weekly update, this week I did a ton of work, but as with any big scale environment, It feels like the needle hasn’t moved at all haha.
Changelog :
Textured all the assets I made I had made the previous week.
Tweaked some UVs
Modelled and Textured some Additional Light sources
Did a Base Lighting pass in select areas to see if my strategy was gonna work
Polished the Blocking so that now more or less all the main buildings are in place
Did a primary vertex painting pass on my house blueprints ( worn paint so i can have robots painting over them later )
made doors and door frames for the buildings ( unfinished textures )
Brought back the pipes, vents and fans into the scene with the new blockout.
Dedicated a small amount of time to learn the UE Masked Texturing Workflow as an optional solution for my textures and setup the materials for it.
Started on my hero asset but I’m not in love with the model yet so I’m looing into other ways of making it more realistic looking.
Issues :
right now I feel like because the values of all my buildings are in the brown and red ( with the rust textures, the cold environment with the warm yellow light setup I was gonna go for is a bit problematic and will Washout all the textures.
I’m Looking into viable and performance-light options as an alternative option to splines to be able to spawn a bent rope or wire between two points. because having to do splines repeatedly between the houses and poles which are at different points and distances ( so it can’t be modelled ) isn’t that appealing time-wise. I found the cable actor but the problem is it starts the physics simulation everytime u open the level so during cinematics rendering it’ll require a lot of warm up frame.
Mattress ( i still need to deform it in some areas )
TV
Did a bit more set dressing
modelled wire wire clumps and power boxes for the buildings
modelled a garbage skip and Crane for more story telling
Made a rotation blueprint for the fans and some lights
Did another slight lighting pass, right now i feel like i want the environment to have a bit of a green almost blue cold hue so i can light it with warmer neon lights
added UV lights for the plants and the main area with the hero asset * because realistically they would need some sort of UV light there
made a glitchy screen shader with complete control over everything to put on the tv screens does need some tweaks for more realism
Overall Im still not happy with the environment. it still hasn’t taken shape the way i want it to.
Im trying to keep all the texture values pretty desaturated and in the grey zone so that i can do most of the mood work with lighting but i haven’t gotten it to work yet.
Also i feel like due to the fog in the scene i need to put the bookmarks in sequencers so i can render with anti aliasing to get sharper results
