[WIP] Laboratory/Library Level

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

[WIP] Laboratory/Library Level

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

Looking very good!

Now I'm pondering what version of UE3 this is... I would say it's UDK, the lighting seems smoother than what I know from UT3 - or is this prerendered lighting on meshes?

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

nice!...what a lighty room

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Yeah it's UDK, more specifically I've been using emissive lighting to lit the room. This means the engine is taking the emissive material of those lamps into account for lighting calculations.

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Wednesday 8th of January 2014 07:51:27 AM

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

Huh, I absolutely did not know this was possible! confuse

Though from a logic point of view, shouldn't there be blurry shadows with the shape of the lamps below them? Just noticed there is none, but such lamps basically ask for one (or more likely in this case a bunch).

-- Edited by Sly. on Wednesday 8th of January 2014 12:39:31 PM

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Sorry, I was slightly wrong. My initial plan was to to use the emissive lighting only but this didn't work as expected for various reasons. So I also added one point light per chandelier.

I might get these slight shadows in by adding an invisible shadow casting mesh or by using a decal.

Edit: Just had a try on a different lighting setup,

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Wednesday 8th of January 2014 03:56:48 PM

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Quick update. I've been reworking the UVs of some meshes so that all props in the scene, except the wall map and carpet, are now sharing a single diffuse/spec/normal atlas (4096x2048px). The room mesh itself has 3 material with diffuse/normal maps at 1024x1024px and 1024x512px. For the floor and table reflections I'm using scene capture actors with 60FPS, 512x512px and 1024x1024px. This makes for a total of 30MB of texture memory plus 27MB for the lightmaps.
The tris count of the whole scene, including dynamic light and post processing, is ~ 280k.

Diffuse Atlas:

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Wednesday 22nd of January 2014 10:09:31 PM

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

Awesome job Malk!

While all those textures are looking superb, I really really like that wooden floor!

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

Indeed, the floor material is a blast!

Moreover, I see you improved the intensity of the rays that are cast into the laboratory/library. Looking much better now!

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

That's funny because I was unsure about the floor texture, now I'm gonna keep it ;)

What I don't like is the ceiling. I'm planning to either
add some slight dirt variation and proper decals to the paper (- doesn't fit the overall style with a used look)
or use some squarish would panels (- might make the room too dark)

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

nice job and +1 to the top woodenfloor comments

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Thanks mates.
Here's a quick try of a wood panel ceiling:

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

Nice one bruvvah!

Thrallala · Level Designer

The lighting from the hole in the wall looks a bit strange (the lightbeam too) otherwise fantastic work!

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

Now that Thrallala mentioned it, the glow effect probably has to have a tiny bit of orange, pure white might not suit it there.

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

new ceiling rocks!it gives to the room a complete different feel imo (cold with the old and comfy with the new one, sort of hobbit house now, with nothing negative,hot, comfortable,a good beer, a pipe...lol^^...)

-- Edited by Bl!tz on Friday 24th of January 2014 08:10:31 AM

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

I think the ceiling might be too dark in comparison with the wallpapers. Maybe you should darken them a bit?
Otherwise, fantastic as always!

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

I hear ya mates, and basically agree on everything that was said.
I might try the middle road which would be wooden panels with squarish cut-outs and paper in between.

Thrallala · Level Designer

Nice, the lighting from the wall window feels more natural now

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

Thrallala wrote:
Nice, the lighting from the wall window feels more natural now

+1!

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

Malk, you're always doing such splendid work with Blender, maybe you should make a series of tutorials on how you get at one model? I've seen some of your workflow on the Blender Practice thread, I'm sure many people (including me) would profit from special Blender to UE3 oriented tutorials and the way you create your materials! They're always looking so awesome!

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Well, I could do a tutorial once I get some more time but I'd need better idea of what you or anyone else is asking for specifically, like a certain type of model. Most of my materials and textures are fairly basic smile

Here are 2 higher res shots of the level:

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Monday 27th of January 2014 02:22:14 PM

stevelois · ...

Wow !!! biggrin

Malk, everytime, you impress me smile

Excellent work m8 wink

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Thanks mate

Here are some more shots from different perspectives...

Lighting #1

Lighting #2

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Tuesday 28th of January 2014 05:45:44 PM

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

Very nice and atmospheric! Love the real reflections in your polished wood although I think it should be a bit weaker given how dark the wood is and considering that one can see dust in the air. It wouldn't be unlikely if some dust is also on the ground thus making the reflections less clear.

About the tutorial question I posted yesterday:
I'm mostly interested in the modelling workflow of more complex non-organic models, e.g. your lockers in the library.
My main questions are whether it is better to make it off one model or make detail as separate objects, how it is best to make a high poly model out of the low poly one and how to properly UV map.
An example of creating an animated organic model would be nice to see too though (e.g. a plant that is swinging forth and back in the wind).
And a question that was hunting me since quite a while (and that you might be able to answer without the need of a tutorial, hehe) is this one:
Is there a way to trigger on-grid in Blender per default? If I was to make an on-grid model it would be very tiresome to always hold a key to have it snap to the grid.

I saw your bump map creation and the creation of your wood material on the Blender practice thread so some details are already known to me, although a proper step by step on how to make a convincing material would be a great information for me!

I tried to learn such stuff from videos on YouTube, Vimeo and co, unfortunately those are mostly oriented at modelling itself (featuring way too much polys or what seems to be unpractical workflow to me) and not how to properly create content for games. hmm

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Ok, understood :)
You can permanently toggle snapping. Use Shift+TAB or click that little magnet icon at the bottom menu to do so.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/3D_interaction/Transform_Control/Snap_to_Mesh#Transform_Snapping

Regarding the reflections, I'm tweaking the material as we speak. Decreasing their intensity is easy but making them blurry helps to really sell the effect, unfortunately this is where things get expensive on instructions pretty fast.

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

Oh, thanks! Totally missed this, hehe. Finally no hurting finger anymore when practicing in Blender!

About the reflection: Doesn't the scene capture render it at 1024 or 2048? I didn't work with it myself yet, but if it is going to be blurry, the resolution might get lowered, it won't be that much visible anyway in this case.