FINAL | WORLDS | 3D | Enzymes | tonpix

[tonpix]

Michal Milkowski
tonpix@gmail.com
https://www.artstation.com/michalmilkowski
http://twitter.com/tonpix

Final image (direct link to 3000px image: https://i.imgur.com/FyjyXIu.jpg) :

Flyby video (4k available https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoKAo5JZR0Y):

Interview with lead scientist who explains the idea: (direct link to image text file https://i.imgur.com/Iaigkei.jpg for high res)

Also, additional images from various angles (I hope it's allowed, if not, please let me know)

And this is how how "adult" enzyme ant's skeleton is looking:

----- END OF FINAL TEXT ---- (below is original first post + added images from next posts to get everything in single post)

There's latest blockout mockup:

And this is previous mockup, I think I like angle and mood more than in newest mockup, might use it as reference for final editing:

At this moment I'm modelling assets to replace blocks in mockups. In number of assets, I did 50% of what I need, I think? After I have enough of them, I'll give them another detailing pass. Texturing is unknown at this moment, my gpu died and I'm working on 10 years old gtx285. Substance painter and quixel suite are almost impossible to use, 3dcoat is surprisingly very smooth, but it lacks flexibility by a lot ;(

The general visual idea is that the source for those enzymes are old, vintage electronic parts (from tube TV/radio/analog audio amplifiers era - e.g. capacitors, batteries, vacuum tubes) that are then processed in different ways and used to build a more modern/abstract electronic nest/town. Transition from old to new. And synthethic ants are bond between those two elements.

EDIT:

Putting later images in this first post:

And last WIP

[tonpix]

Replaced some mockup elements, then realized it was pretty cluttered and hard to read. So I did some cleanup + added charcoal marks on floor, done by scientist:

[Goat]

Really neat idea and I'm liking your approach, good old blue / orange contrast as well never fails! Keep it up!

[tonpix]

(if someone is skilled with 3d/texturing hard surface models, please scroll to bottom for
my really, really urgent question)

Good news, thanks to family support, I got new gpu yesterday, therefore I can abuse ue4's juiciness

Quick mood test in ue4

Assets so far (I think assets for city outer areas are enough in numbers, not sure about internal city area, probably will need much more small detail assets to fill it - I want it to be detailed to get google street view feeling). Biggest addition are three vintage fans, so many cool old fans there, makes me wanna to have one on my desk.

Today I textured 2 capacitors

I have however difficult problem I don't know how to overcome. How do you deal with baking ao/curvature maps for chamfered medium poly hard surface objects? If you place uv seams on chamfer edges, it breaks ao/curv maps as they lose smooth transition in seams places and often gives wrong values. Workaround are either placing seams further away from chamfers, but it usually lead to distortions (think of chamfered cylinders with flat surfaces on tops/bottoms), or painting manually in substance painter, but it's time consuming and it loses the precise texture transitions and you lose flexibility in adjusting wear look. Baking high poly onto medium/low poly seems to be other way as well, as ao/curvature bakers relies on baked normal map from hi poly to calculate. However it doesn't fit my workflow - not enough time and difficult for my actual 3d skill level

[davidaguero]

have you try to bake AO in 4k?

[tonpix]

No luck there, I'm afraid

[davidaguero]

looks like a Normal problem, what software you using to generate the geometry?

[tonpix]

I model in sketchup, then cleanup/average normal vertexes/unwrap in blender. I'm not sure if it's normal issue as shading looks fine without mats, it's just that abrupt transition occur only on uv seams. If I don't place uv seams on chamfered edges, curvature map is fine. But doing so, it gives some complications in form of additional vertexes and texture distortions around uv seams placed on flat surfaces, far away from bevels.

[davidaguero]

can you share the cylinder so I can test it in my substance painter?

[tonpix]

Sure, thanks for your efforts - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9dsmFwYPZGVelQ1M2lPRUlSNWs

[davidaguero]

I think I discovered what was bothering you, if you are using a generator for masking, the grunge options doesn't have triplanar uv projection (at least in my version 1.7, perhaps in newer version you can fix that) look the image

[davidaguero]

my previous post is a partial fix, you other problem are the curvature maps also

[tonpix]

Hey, I appreciate it man. It's like you said, for texture abrupt transitions, tri-planar is life saving features. For baking textures, it seems there are not much solutions, you need to either place seams further away from chamfer. I heard baking from hi poly might be solution as well, but it's too time consuming for this competition project. So I either placed uv seams outside chamfer when it was possible, and when it wasn't worth it (due to distortions/geometry), I painted it manually with grunge brush.

Anyway, last 7 days I've spent on cleaning up geometry from sketchup in blender, averaging vertex normals (for nice shiny 1 segment bevels), then unwrapping and finally texturing. It's insane how long it takes, I've managed to make 57 ingame ready assets, but when I placed them in editor, it looks like I didn't do much Textures are pretty simple, 1-4 materials + 1-2 layers od dirt each asset. I miss a lot of grungy vintage decals on them, but it's low priority due to looming deadline and how it's inconvenient to do in painter (seems you have to make decals in photoshop, fit them into square canvas with alpha background, then import to painter and use them as mask to paint again. Perhaps someone has better workflow for that..?)

( hires link

hires link

Next are vacuum tubes + around 10-20 assets (plates, cable connectors etc.) and hand made textures to use for nest interior.. I think I'm going to suffer deadline panic

[tonpix]

Finally the work is getting some shape, remaining days are going to be spent for assembling parts a'la lego bricks and making missing assets/textures. I was near deadline panic, but looks like it's gone as I started enjoying how the work starts looking now

(hi-res link)

[tonpix]

I'm done with work, finals + video + additional shots are added to first post. It's been a hell two last weeks, good luck to everyone!