Design spec :
Ignoring above ground landscape design I have a significant amount of corridors and rooms to create. To speed this up I broke up the world in to corridor types. Normal passage, electrical, data, water, sewage and air ducting. Each ducting has two sized, larger and small, with small being only wide enough for 1-2 people tops across.
Here is my plan:
- Block out the whole world to see how it’ll all connect. UE4 only
- Produce interior blocking volumes. So, very simple geometry so I can walk around within the volumes. Each type has a distinct type\colour so I know what I’m looking at. This would be constructed of regular sized ‘sections’. 6-10m each. Built in Blender and shunted together in UE4.
- Once all the blocking volumes are in and I can run around. I’ll start adding major geometry details
- Detailed geometry features (kitbash)) . Cables, pipes, etc
- Materials and Decals
Challenges:
- My detail in 2 will have to occlude and seams that are visible between sections. I was just thinking of producing ‘flanges’, like you might see on PVC piping so I can shove the sections together with less accuracy and not end up with gaps\zfighting.
- Seams need to be hidden by irregular objects so it;s not too obvious. This is probably not too hard.
- I need different types of sections so it’s not too monotonous
So far it’s working out. I’m about 50% the way through 2.
Looking around I can see that other people use a similar workflow, but use much smaller blocking objects, such are short wall and bulkhead sections. I bet there are other approaches as well. What approach do you use? Please also feel free to comment on the disaster I’m walking in to if there is a big flaw in the approach I’m using!