Working on building

I am currently at a fairly happy stage with the Landscape so its time to move on to the building that will sit within the mountain, this unfortunately has been causing me a lot of agro. I initially wanted a sci-fi building with plating so I started by looking at nature particularly Coconut crabs (pictured below). I made a quick 3d kit bash and started using symmetry and modelling towers on top to get some ideas, I scrapped this fairly quickly as the designs looked fairly generic.

After looked further into the crabs I really liked there pose and position of legs so thought that I could possible create a walking building with legs that the player could enter through to gain access to the building, these legs would drill themselves into the landscape to anchor the building. Below are some quick leg design kit bashes, with the final designs below.

I made these into quick building blockouts below, with final leg positions below.

Update on Terrain and Grass

After looking closely at the terrain I wanted to work on some areas I was unhappy with, the image below illustrates the terrain as it was (circled in red) I was unhappy with this because it looked a little messy and not natural. I re sculpted and blocked in a new area seen below. This needs pulling up a little for better sillouette but the basis is there. 

I also have been working on the layout for the playable area leading up to the mountains, I knew I wanted a waterfall for the main sci-fi building so I worked out a river and pool system as I didn't want the river ending at the sea so to distribute the volume of water I put in the pools.

I also posted the work on Polycount which was useful for some critique, something that was pulled out was the grass wasn't as strong as the other elements of the environment. I looked at more referance of grass as I wanted a highland feel, I lowered the grass, thickened it up and gave another model which I coloured with a more yellow hue. It was also taller and a lot thinner to give a nice variety. I used the colour of the terrain to influence the colour of the grass which allows me to paint in different bands of colours to give a nice variety for the landscape as you run through. 

Update on Progress

Thought I would post the concept for the environment, just roughed out a quick proof of concept to try and decide on placement. Below is some updates to the level, started populating stuff with vegetation

Variation in Rocks

Been Placing Rock meshes in the level, got some critique when posting my portfolio to a couple of websites. Someone mentioned some of my work was a little noisy, and as these rocks are granite based rocks they have a tendency to be quite noisy. I reduced the dappled effect they have in the texture and also drew attention to the edges by hand painting a cavity type feel. These looks a little odd in Max but in Engine the effect is not quite as strong.

Here is some rock variation I have been testing in the level to see how much variety I could achieve with just two rock meshes.

Rock Final Sculpts

Here are some Rock Sculpts and a baked version with Texture. I plan on having a large, medium and then small scattered of tiny rocks, these are the big and medium ones. If I need more variations I can always model some more as these take about a day to sculpt, retopologize, bake and texture 

Terrain Update FMP

Now I have finished working on the Speedo Project I can now start my FMP, Been using the original Base of the terrain to re-sculpt and re-texture the base landscape.  I can then make some low poly surrounding landscape to fix the squareness of the surrounding terrain. I have also been basing the terrain on an actual place which has given me a basis for modelling and texturing. I am following Mount Titiroa in Fiordland National Park. 

Now I have a basic shape for the terrain and Playable area I will be modelling detailing assets and tileable textures to detail playable areas. These will be Rocks, Sand, Stone, Moss and Grass following the authenticity of the original New Zealand location.

Practice Rocks

Definitely needed a break over the holidays after working hard during the first term, but thought I would test some rocks for the terrain of my environment using a new technique I have been researching. 

It uses small individual rocks and a process called voxel sculpting in 3d coat, this allows you to combine the rocks together like a cut and paste job so you can focus more on the design and silhouette than sculpting the forms. Below are the Zbrush sculpts and screenshots from level. (AO and Normal only)

My plan now I have practiced the technique is to create around 3 rock tileset pieces which I can use in the level. Probably should use some reference as these were done without.

Edit: Did a quick texture test for the rocks