8th February – 10th February
I expanded my moodboard to include inspirations that were closer to our vision for the scene, looking at a blend of both sci fi and gothic in things like film, 3d models of specific areas, and miniature figurines.
As stated in my next steps in my Element 1 conclusion, my first task was to create a block out that would help create a concept/foundation for creating the rest of my scene. I started blocking out by importing height maps to create a base landscape, sourced from https://www.motionforgepictures.com/environment-height-maps-free-download/.
I experimented with the height maps by changing scale and sculpting into the terrain. I used the unreal blocks to map out the basic structure of the cathedral, also using the unreal mannequin as a reference for scale.
For the water, I used the unreal water plugin and imported an ocean into the scene, a different method of creating water will be necessary for the custom appearance we need for the final look but it works well as a placeholder. I watched this video:
I preferred the larger landscapes as it framed the cathedral better but possibly makes it appear too small.
I moved onto create a spline blueprint so that I could more easily place and adjust duplicated objects.
I watched this tutorial:
Troubleshooting involved: reimporting the fence to the correct unreal scale, rotating it in the correct direction, and centring the object within maya to correct the object being far away from the spline/ offset from the spline.
Further troubleshooting is required to make them match up more closely.
11th February
Spoke to industry professional, Daniel McGarry, and received feedback on E1 outcome and concept/blockouts. I expressed my difficulties with creating a concept and he said that it’s best to use a concept from another artist as it’s something that I won’t have to do in industry. He gave Richard Wright as an example concept artist that has created works for Warhammer 40K, our main inspiration. He said that the island isn’t particularly ‘Warhammer’. So next steps is to discuss with my teammate and decide on a suitable concept to work from, instead of trying to create our own. He also said that we should pay close attention to details within our works, for example, ensuring everything is grounded within reality ensuring each of our designs makes sense in the real world. We should also be polishing textures, adding Warhammer aspects like grime, oiled/dirty/greasy surfaces and blood splatter and stains. Our work should be as good as, if not better than the original concept adding extra educated details and develop it.
11th – 13th February
Following up from the feedback, I looked at a large collection of Warhammer 40K artworks on https://40k.gallery/.
I like the city scape of this, I will be using the surrounding buildings and central walkway as inspiration.
I will be using this as inspiration for smaller buildings surrounding the main walkway and possibly use fog and smoke in a similar way to imply grandeur but also help make everything cohesive and feel like a never ending city of hell.
For the main cathedral, I will be taking shape inspiration from this and add more complex details.
I will be using this to inspire the main portal.
14th February
I asked for feedback from my lecturer, expressing my struggles with blocking out and feedback from industry professional, main points include:
- Architecture and theme will always have a basic blueprint to follow, Ancient / Gothic / Sci fi /Religious, have templates that exist.
- Take core concepts of shape language from each and constructing something ‘new’ from them.
- Just work with basic shapes in maya or unreal to nail the footprint, silhouette and scale. Before deciding on the final design.
- A lot of the determining factors will come from the emotion you want the viewer to feel: Oppression, power, ominous, humbling, scary etc. This will dictate the shape greatly, using squares, triangles, harsh angles, towering height etc.
- If you want to convey the grandiose, then the design should be unnecessarily complicated. If it’s purely functional then the design will be more simple.
My lecturer referred to the cologne cathedral as an example of grandiose:
17th February
Using the references, I created a blockout, in order to improve, I’d like to experiment with scale to make the main cathedral look most central and/or move extra buildings so they don’t disrupt the silhouette. Moving forward, I’d like to seek feedback from my lecturer about whether this scale is too ambitious and any other improvements I could make.
18th February
Before requesting feedback, I tried to implement the changes I stated earlier, I gave the cathedral a large circular base to make it look more like the main focal point and added some buildings in the background to frame it.
20th February
Feedback from lecturer on blockout:
- Replace side buildings with military defences, like cannons, guns etc. Side buildings shouldn’t be as grand as the main cathedral
- Don’t have pathways connecting to main bridge as it should be the only way into the cathedral and only path to defend.
- Instead of fogging the ground, have volcanic, basalt land then there isn’t need to build an entire city.
- push lower ground detail up (tiered foundation on cathedral further up
For landscape height maps, instead of using pre-made downloaded maps, my lecturer suggested programs that I could use to make my own:
https://www.world-machine.com/download.php
https://quadspinner.com/Download
I collected references of different military weapons, both Warhammer inspires and real life references to inform my new design choices.
27th February
I outlined the details of the front of the cathedral so I can begin my modular asset creation while keeping it to scale.
I created a rough plan for my modular assets for the cathedral, missing assets include the large towers but a separate plan will be made for more close up details.. There is a lot of ‘red’ arches, to make this less repetitive I will be adding damage and decals.
3rd & 4th March
To begin asset creation, I started with one of the most detailed aspects of the cathedral, the main portal, to set a benchmark in terms of detail and quality. I began by collecting more focused photos that looked at real life portals, concept doors and some poses I may need for the figures within the asset.
I made the archway deeper and added indents along the top of the arch where figures will sit/stand.
I then made modular trims that can be used in other areas of the cathedral to decorate edges and cover seems.
I then began adding organic figures, I utilised a free asset from sketchfab:
I posed the skeleton to fit within the gaps I made in the arch.
I was inspired by this image from an earlier moodboard to create the main focal point of my arch, I decided that I wasn’t going to use cloth to add extra detail as I have ensure this is an achievable benchmark for the rest of the project.
6th March
This is my first texture pass, I liked the contrast between the dark metal and the gold however I felt that there was too much metal and repetitive glossy materials.
In order to improve the earlier repetition, I decided to make incorporate a rough concrete texture to contrast the shiny metal, I used the same green/grey colour that George uses in his stone tile material. I also added bullet holes, scratches, and blood splats to further break the repetition but also add more interest and enhance the story.
16th March
As I have set my benchmark with the main portal, I then produced the side portals using the same method and techniques. I was able to reuse my trims from the main portal which helps make it look more cohesive. I wanted the side portals to still be fairly impressive, but also not overshadow the main portal therefore I used less skeletons to distract the eye less. Since these portals were going to be duplicated, I didn’t add as many bullet holes/scratches else it would be an obvious duplicate. Instead I will use decals to add these elements to repetitive, non unique assets.
During this process, I also moved the entire blockout into Unreal to get a better feel as to how the textures would look in the final product.
17th March
After looking more closely at my references, I decided to to create to extra variations to the arch frames as in my modular plan the same repeats for the entire cathedral except the main portal however in reality there is a lot more variation.
This is my first attempt at making a balcony fence, I didn’t like how round it was, this meant that it didn’t fit in with the rest of the assets.
This was my next attempt, this was much more successful, I liked the shapes created when duplicated. I also tried to mimic some of the shapes in George’s interior such as the spikey tips in order to better tie the two environments together.
I framed some earlier modular assets to create more interest on the wall behind the main portal.
18th March
I created two trims scaled for import to Unreal, these ones are being used to decorate the wall between the windows and the ground.
20th March
Lecturer feedback:
- Make the main door much bigger than everything else, each window/arch should lead the eye toward the main door to make it look more intimidating
1st April
I started by implementing my lecturer’s feedback by scaling the main portal and lowering the side windows.
I then moved onto making the stepped towers that frame the main portal.
When texturing I was unhappy with the texel density, even when increasing the tiling the material looked blurry. Because these assets will be close and take up a lot of space on camera i decided to go back and increase my texel density.
https://www.beyondextent.com/deep-dives/deepdive-texeldensity
I used these resources to inform my decisions.
Previous texel density:
Improved texel density:
Through increasing the number of UV maps and making the uv spacing more optimised the textures now look a lot less blurry.
2nd April
I decided to change the edgewear mask so that it didn’t cover the whole edge to make it look more realistic. I added a cloud texture multiplier to create gaps within the edgewear.
List of things:
- mini arch texture on side portals
- textures on window trims
- window wall small arches & titles on tilted surface
- make a breaker in the fencing
- fence textures
- decor spikes to window upper arch walls