Unique Assets Part One:
As I start creating the unique assets I make sure to follow a very important rule to ensure I get everything I need to make done. I make a list of assets from most important to least and go through the list making each asset one by one. This, of course, ensures that even if I run out of time, I have more relevant work than not to show off. So by following this rule, the first thing to make was the bleachers. The bleachers are at the heart of the scene, framing everything into context, so it was important to get those done before moving on.
My method for making the bleachers was a bit different than most assets so I'll do a quick breakdown. First I modeled a high and low poly of the top part (where the jars are resting), as well as a high and low poly version of a thin and thick metal support beam. The thick beams will be used on the ends of each row to break things up a bit. I then grouped these three parts together and baked them down to one texture sheet to save space. This gave me plenty of texture space for my beams, but not so much for the wood tops. To get around this I reused the normals from the bake and blended it with a tiling wood material un Unreal. Since the UVs were straightened out, the tiling wood material would still curve to the shape, while preserving the smoothed normals from the bake.
As you can see in the first screenshot I also completed the standing area of the bleachers as well as the inner walls. This was all done in a more traditional way compared to the railings. However, due to the scale I broke up parts of the mesh and stacked them where you wouldn't see in order to get a better resolution. I then stitched together the shells for the lightmap and ended up with a pretty good result.
Up to this point, the only other creation process worth mentioning is of the ring pattern under the orrery. This was made by modeling out that pattern in Maya, breaking it up and beveling all the edges in Zbrush to add depth, and straightening the UV shells before baking in order to give the illusion of the wood moving inwards.
It is at this point that I'm done the entirety of the building and its core structure (minus the windows), so I'm going to take some time to do a cleanup pass. I took some time to find a more defined color pallet and will be updating the materials and basic lighting to follow it. This should keep things more inline as it is feeling way too green at the moment.
Moving on, from here I started to realize that my next biggest task would be to make the windows. These needed to be done for a few reasons. One: with the windows done that would wrap up all the structural assets, and Two: with the windows in place I could get a much better feel for the lighting. Since the scene is set a night and has a dreadful feel to it, I decided to play off the idea of having the moon be heavily incorporated into the design. This turned out to work perfectly since a lot of the architecture / focal point has a very rounded shape. After playing around with some patterns I sculpted out some basic metal frames, duplicated the around, and inserted my window frames.
With all this in mind, I decided to return to my float and doubled down on the circle pattern idea. I broke up the floor into sections, having leading lined draw the viewers eye back to the orrery.
With all of this completed, it was time to get a stronger understanding of the lighting. I want the majority of the scene to be dark, lit only by the moon, dim hanging lamps, and the center of the orrery. since only one of these is present at the moment the scene may seem overwhelmingly dark and purple, but I aim to balance this out later down the line with warmer tones.
Now that the windows, lighting, and structure is complete, its time to move on to prop modeling!
Creating the orrery
When working on props for a scene I like to begin with the main focal point. This acts as an anchor for the scene, setting the standard for the surrounding assets that will come later on. In this case, the orrery in the main focus, and should pop out from its surroundings.
After looking up several different designs I settled on a larger sized orrery with a dome-like cage on top. This worked perfectly to follow my circular theme, as well as act as a barrier for the creature that is supposed to live inside.
To begin I blocked out all my shaped and set up my boolean meshes for Zbrush. I then made a high poly component for just the unique parts, as several peices can be duplicated around and share UV space. With this done I baked my maps in Toolbag, duplicated my subtools around, and textured my asset.
The next challenge was to create the strange glowing creature described to live in the center. I decided to mask this out using volumetric fog. Personally, I'm not a creature artist, not an animator, so cover this area up with the flashing colours the described is a good workaround for me. Using a basic particle emitter and a volumetric fog material I was quickly able to apply physical fog to an in game mesh. After a few adjustments to the hue, I was able to have it continuously flashing different colours, completly covering what may actually be living inside the orrery centre.
Finally, I wanted to add more movement to this scene, and this prop was a great excuse to do so. Some of the planets are set up in such a way that they would rotate around the center glass, so by making them their own mesh and centering out their pivots, I was able to make a quick blueprint with all parts connected and spinning respectively.
All in all, I think this prop needs a secondary texture pass but does a good job of selling the feeling I'm looking for. This orrery is without a doubt the center of the scene. It's out of place but doesn't feel completely disjointed in my opinion. Seeing as its suppost to contain an almost alien like being, the space theme fits perfectly with its purpose. As mentioned earlier it deffinetly needs some tweeks, but we're in a good position to move forward.