Smallish update about windows and stuff

No posts for a few days, so here's an update:

With this update, I've textured the Peace banner, made a start on the window texture and made a few other small tweaks here and there.

For the banner, I decided that I didn't want to just make it a cloth actor, as it was a pivotal part of the scene; therefore, I decided to sculpt the cloth instead. It was a good study for me to get used to sculpting cloth, and I find I'm enjoying it:)

 Also, I didn't really like the initial model, so I folded it over the rope to make it a bit more logical how it was dangling there, and to add a bit more character to the material I put scorch marks on the edges of the cloth, where it had been accidentally seared by candles. Here's the banner in-engine:

As part of my expansion plan, I have also modelled a Chinese table and some beanbags to fill in the center of the room a bit more, and later on will have some high-quality props on them. I also redid the ceiling's beam distribution to make it resemble an attic's roof better.

Stick around for more, and comment with any critique if you want to give it.

Thanks :)

Wallpaper micro-update

I found I enjoyed texture painting, so I used it to add some much-needed sparkle to the wallpaper texture.

For my workflow, I first measured out the exact size of the section of wall in UU, and then made this in blocks in 3DS Max(my grid was set to UU units). I then put the existing wallpaper texture on a plane and duplicated this to match the wallpaper blockout:

After I lightmapped it, I put the mesh in UDK and fit it to my wall, ready for vertex painting. Since the brick had gone so well, I wanted some variation on the wall too, to show the disrepair of the environment and the shoddy decorating job the occupants had done, so I came up with the peeling wallpaper idea.

For this, I combined vertex painting with a custom shader tree I found on the Internet, which I have detailed below(the Wizardry section is the new technique):

What I found when ordinarily using vertex painting is that the falloff is always very soft, and since it stems from vertices it  can't hope to simulate the randomness of plaster/paper tearing unless the mesh was tesselated hugely. What this shader does is allow the vertex nodes to control an Alpha cloud texture, which is clamped to the values 0 and 1(on or off respectively) this same Alpha is also rotated and added in order to preserve tiling. This cloud then controls the distribution of the plaster texture in a more organic fashion, and since the value is clamped results in hard edges, perfect for wallpaper.

I've included the shader above to share the knowledge, as it is perfect for peeling wallpaper. I'm going to do more work on it, I enjoy playing with shaders. 

Next up is to do the same for the other wallpaper, and tweak the mesh to make it look more peeled. Stay tuned, thanks for reading :)

Bricks are the best thing ever made.

As you could probably tell by the nature of this post, the brick texture has been changed considerably. Following the advice of my contact, I redid the entire brick texture from scratch, even using my own photographs for texturing. The result, when compared to the previous texture, is striking:

Following the advice given to me, I played around with the spacing, color, mortar and made cracked and chipped bricks in my sculpt. I also baked the texture using depth grab as a heightmap onto a plane and got the AO and cavity from there in Xnomal. I then overlayed the matcap white from Zbrush to bring out the detail and used a photo of a brick wall to texture (much better than polypainting for this particular texture). Here's an example of a Matcap:

And lastly, I made three variants: Normal brick, chipped and broken brick, and brick that had been handpainted by the hippies, perhaps to try and colour the wall to their tastes. the result, when texture blending was used, is this:

The brick in this screenshot is the result of that, much better by far and has enough variance to look really visually interesting.

Another great idea given to me was the use of edge decals, as displayed above: essentially, a curved mesh is overlayed with a texture to get the look of chipped material. The one I created was really brief but does the job, looking great at a distance and removing the sharp edge.

That's all for now. Have a nice render:

(side note: my contact informed me that the game I am emulating has a texture size limit of 1024/1024. I will try and scale down my textures to conform to this in the future of this project)

Feedback, brick walls redux and more.

I recently had the opportunity to show my work to a member of IO interactive, who worked on the Hitman Absolution game the concept is created for. He looked at my progress and gave me some sound advice, which is really helpful:

• Use props creatively to add character to an environment
• Vertex painting is a must in UDK: make a room's walls and floors as visually interesting as possible
• Try different times of day to evaluate scene props
• Edge decals can add so much more to walls
• Soften the edges of the wood assets
• Inefficient to pack carpets into one 2k texture: be just as useful to split them up
• Use decals a lot more instead of separate textures

The biggest point made was about the brick texture: essentially, the texture was matcapped, and as such was subjected to the scene lighting prevalent inside ZBrush. To help me capture a better texture he shared his workflow, which proved to be extremely useful:

• DepthGrab the Zbrush 2.5d canvas and use that to displace another plane
• Use Decimation Master to reduce poly count on the hipoly mesh
• use Xnormal to bake normal, AO, cavity and curvature maps

Unfortunately, my cavity map was lacking: where specific bricks were there were black shapes on the map, where I assume the projection clipped through them, Also, for some reason xNormal crashed when rendering curvature maps, so I couldn't get that either. But...

Old brick flats left, new brick flats right.

But what I did get was a marked improvement in the texture: I resculpted the bricks to make them more cracked and less of a space between them, as per feedback, and applied and blended the maps I did get out of xNormal. Unfortunately, I have to polypaint the texture manually, but the direct lighting is gone! Hooray!

Here's the current scene. For the purposes of polypainting I have chosen to replace the entirety of the wall with a static mesh, with decent enough tesselation. I will be using edge decals and adding colour to the wall's diffuse when I go texture hunting this weekend.

Thanks for reading. I'm gonna need to step up the pace now to keep up with my peers, but i hope to improve.

Little update and paintover

The past couple of days I have done only a small amount, texturing a little of the skybox and the Moroccan lantern, which was sticking out like a sore thumb. Here's a screenshot:

For the lanterns, I had to use separate materials and an alpha channel in order to get the look at relatively low poly, and I may revisit it in the future to tidy it up a bit too. 

One thing I have added is a road texture to the skybox outside. To create the road, I turned on the grid in 3DS Max and made individual pieces which fit together, textured differently to reflect different patterns of road and lanes/crossings etc. 

As I wanted the exterior to be raining too, I also added a specular and used Ndo to generate a bump map to reflect a wet surface. The results in the scene:

I also added lights to represent streetlights, helping the exterior look more like a city.

On another note, upon seeing the blank look of the main apartment area in the last screenshots, I added a paintover to show, roughly, my ideas for filling this space in a more interesting way.

In the next couple of days I will find reference and model the assets in the scene and try and flesh out this area, adding textures and models where necessary. Thanks :)

Carpets, models, kitchen redux (again)

Big changes were made over the week: I got a bit down but a good friend of mine helped me out of it, and I got inspired to continue working hard.

On to business, this is the environment thus far.

The changes I made were based on additional research. Primary change was that the kitchen location just was not good: it looked far too out of place. So, I moved it into an alcove to fit snugly behind where the bathroom was supposed to be, and moved the door farther back into the wall to make room for a storage cupboard I can fill with junk.

I made a shader for the lightshafts; Initially, it was derived from the shader model from the UDN, but I modified it with my own textures and added panning clouds and noise to simulate dust and smoke passing through from the dusty weed-filled apartment.

I also got around to modifying and texturing the carpets in the scene: they stuck out way too much for me to ignore them any longer. My workflow was as follows:

Instead of having a 1024/1024 for each carpet, I thought it much more useful to unwrap them all (but one) to fit a 2048/2048 as this is less memory-intensive and  packing them in this way also avoids stretching of textures. I left the biggest carpet out as it was square and I felt it needed the extra space.

I then sculpted in folds and pinches into the carpet using Zbrush, mostly using the Smooth and Dam Standard brushes. The reason? it's very rare for a carpet to lie flat without any wrinkles, especially in apartments like this where there is a lot of foot traffic. There's also the natural pinching that occurs if heavy furniture (i.e. the bookcase) is moved, trapping the carpet beneath it.

Finally, I used Xnormal to bake the texture. I find it a more reliable program for baking organic models, as Zbrush often gives me normals that are too powerful. For the AO, I experimented with desaturating the normal map and overlaying the result at high contrast, as I couldn't get a good AO bake for some reason.

The result, when imported into UDK, is as follows:

I had to boost the normal map using shaders, but it's evident nonetheless.

Here's a lighting-only view:

Next time I will be adding lintels to the windows, redoing the wallpaper and adding some decorative meshes to the remainder of the apartment. Thanks for reading :)

Update: Floor plans, kitchen nightmares and lots of cannabis

Today I have been working on remodelling the layout of the environment, as in the stuff outside of the concept: if I'm going to have a coherent room, there needs to be some consideration to the rest of the environment too.
Here's a diagram of my processes, along with some reference from Chicago itself.

I eventually decided on the more modern variant for now, as with the more classic version the room shape looks a lot more boring. As for the room as it stands:

Here I've textured the ceiling, added more meshes and other aspects. Why a wooden ceiling, when the concept looks plain, you ask? Well, all the research and ref material I have gathered about attic conversions (as well as promo shots of the game itself) show that often the exterior wood panelling is left exposed for a stylistic touch, and is rarely plastered over. Considering the nature of the environment and its occupants, the likelihood of this being plastered over is mimimal. Plus, it looks nicer. 

Here's a shot of the new kitchen location:

For now, it can stay there; I can easily move it back into the corner if I have more time and more assets to block it out, or even wall it in and make a hatch. One thing's for sure is that its old position looked pretty ridiculous, and not conforming to Chicago architecture.

I also made cannabis leaves using a new foliage workflow I will detail later, and I have also adapted the model of the Chinese-style bookcase to make a corner unit, as seen below:

That's all for now. this week, I want to focus on completing my base modelling for the assets in the concept, and then get on with highpoly and sculpting. Lots more to do yet!

Textures, Research and Remodeling

This past couple of days I have been busy with other modules, but I have remodelled and broke down the scene artistically. I've done a paintover of the scene after evaluating the architectural construction of the concept, and I've assessed the areas where the concept, nice as it is, doesn't work:

The job of an environment artist, as I have learned, is not to simply copy a concept, but expand upon it, and here I've evaluated some areas for consideration. To act upon this, I have rearranged aspects of the level geometry and assets, such as moving the beams to the correct location so as to correctly be feasibly supported by the metal posts.

I also conducted additional research into the environment of Chicago to better pinpoint the location of such an apartment building. The conclusion I reached was that although the apartment depicted here is not dissimilar to those apartments on the outskirts of town, the amount of lighting coming in through the window is much too bright to be reflected moonlight, meaning this apartment is most likely lit by inner-city light pollution.

I also feel the skybox is lacking, and needed to research more to add variety to the buildings. Using Google Street View, I was able to get the next best thing to visiting Chicago: walking its streets over the Internet. In doing so, I found a building that I think would closely resemble the apartment itself:

See the arched windows at the top? Not too dissimilar from the concept's windows. 

The research also prompted a remodel of the Bookcase: the ones in the game's promo shots and the additional Chinese decor made me pursue a more Oriental-styled bookcase. Here is a shot of the high-poly, modelled in ZBrush; the floral motif on the front was created using a custom Alpha.

And here's my first attempt at the texture:

It took me some time, but I got it to an acceptable level for now. The important thing was making sure it looked like varnished mahogany, and getting the grain sizes right.

That's all for now. This week I will start to texture and refine and also add to the skybox. 

Continuation, books and discovering China

In this latest entry, I was helped by some observant soul (who shall go unnamed) on the nature of the scene's assets. By pointing out that the object on the concept's window ledge was a Chinese Medicine Cabinet, it opened my eyes to the prospect that.....the other wooden furnishings in the room were Chinese! This would tie in well with the bohemian themes of the hippie movement too, and make my assets ultimately more entertaining and visually striking than a more modern wooden look would be.

Here's my current scene in Lit mode; as you can see, I replaced the checker texture of the default UDK. Why? Not only does the checker come with a normal map  (thus affecting Detail Lighting preview), but it looks ugly as sin and can also affect Light bounce if using Lightmass.  I instead went with a white with a Specular map so as to catch the unique shapes and add bloom to lighting.

Here's some more asset ideas:

These assets don't exude Asian culture overtly, but still look nice. I am going to alter the bookcase and some other assets to have an Asian theme in the next update.

And here's a shot of the level lighting. Not much more to be done on this front, though it could be darker:

Overall, I'm happy with progress thus far. 

Expansion plan in effect!

After much deliberation I finally put my expansion plan into practice. Initially, I thought the best idea was to fill out an adjacent room (and I will, when I have time) but initially I choose to expand the room by adding a kitchen area.

It's a work-in-progress, but I guessed I should block it in now. Ideally I want to add a fridge and a microwave, but dingy and unkempt due to the "tenants" use of the facilities. Other ideas I had included stringing cannabis planters along the roof and many trash bags.
The room in entirety looks like this now :

I placed some more assets about to pretty it up, including the metal support beams and the candles. I've also added doors, based off my own room door (although you can't see them from the screenshot).

Here is a lighting-only view, to give an idea of the lights:

Will update soon, feeling a lot better about my work after expanding. :)