Posts by Drevlin

Thanks for all the comments, guys =)

For the last month or so I've been remaking the lighting in two levels for a UT3 mod called The Haunted. I just posted a bunch of pictures and comments chronicling the work on my project blog. Here are a few pictures from the post, just to give you an idea what to expect.

For all the pictures, head over to http://%7boption%7d

[Blocked Image: http://www.tomaslidstrom.com/blogg/th/wip14.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://www.tomaslidstrom.com/blogg/th/wip20.jpg]

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So to clarify, I did lighting, light effects and post processing.

Art was made by Hegi and Level design by Schlauchi.

We released Beta 2 a few days ago and you can get it here:

http://%7boption%7d

Comments and crits are welcome.

Thanks guys =)

No maps for download, but im working on a "projects" page, seperate from the actual portfolio. On it i'll list the stuff thats up for download (Zavod, possibly the shackscene in a flyby and maybe rope-project)

Again, thanks alot for all the comments!

Hey, not sure where to post this so i thought i'd just post it in here.

http://www.tomaslidstrom.com

crits and feedback is welcome.

Thanks for your time

Looks amazing!

Do you know a person that goes by the nick C-4? I think that he spoke of you and that you two work together over at dice?

To answer your question about not getting any shadows when rebuilding (i dunno if thats been answered already but i dont have time to read trough everything right now and i figure its better to have two answers than none:))

First off, make sure each mesh has a secondary uvchannel with no overlays, then make sure you set all meshes to use that secondary uvchannel for lightmaps in its properties and that you set the lightmap res in its properties. I was unable to make this work when using the Static mesh browser so i had to do it individually for all meshes in the scene.

For a tutorial on this, hop on over to hourences site:

http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3lightmap.htm

Hope this helps.

I would like to see more eyecatching stuff in this scene. Theres no drama going on.

Rick_D, yea started to notice it more and more too.

Thanks for all the comments

Algor, Alot of it is modular. A few examples, each of the 4 wall in the shack is an individual mesh. The wooden bridge consits of about 10 plank thats just repeated over and over.

The metal plates are all individual meshes. The pipes consists of about 5 or 6 different peices that are scattered about plus one that i built specific for the shack structure with pipes leading trough holes in the wall etc. The mountain structure is repeated alot if you look closly but i think its generic enough to make it work while keeping it interesting.

Trees and rocks are all individual too. The lanterns actually consist of two meshes: One with the actual yellow/orange glow to it that doesnt cast or recieve any shadows and then the cage around it that casts shadow to give it the nice shadows from the cage

Then theres alot of single wooden poles, planks, barrels, crates, gastank. All individual and scattered about.

Lee3dee, yes. They're meshes (god rays? Been listening to Bungie podcast, have we? ) I tried a new method of doing em compared to a previous project that I worked with using unreal engine. Rather than using a cylinder i used a sphere that i scaled around alot. The results worked but there was no bigger difference otherwise so it was all rather pointless ._.

I made the volumetric shader (read "looked at existing ones in roboblitz and copied it).

Any specific models you care to look at?

Shack

Information:

This is my test platform for getting experience in Unreal engine 3. All content you see has been crafted by my aching hands.

The actual setting started as a vague image in my head that I ironed out as I went along.

Production time clocks in around 3½-4 weeks spread over a number of months.

The scene consists of 41 meshes, used 616 times and adding upp to a bit over 50 000 polygons.

Tools I've used:

UnrealED (Roboblitz)

Maya 8.0

Modo

Mudbox

Photoshop CS3

NOTE:

As this is just a scene rendered in Unreal engine 3 and not an actual level I have not included a download link. Sadly another project now takes my full attention or I would've made a fly-trough trough the scene and post it but I'm putting that thought on hold for now.

Wireframes, assets or whatever will be shown upon interest.

Thanks to:

Hourences, for providing tutorials trough his site and his artistic and technical advice on IRC.

Family and friends, and especially my brother David for lending me his laptop to work on the scene during the summer.

Everyone in #terrafusion on quakenet for feedback

Everyone in #Unrealed on both Enterthegame and Quakenet for feedback

And everyone else who provided feedback and critics but does not fit into any of the above groups.

Enough talk. Here are the images of the scene.

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Psyshokiller, thats what i was going for =)

KungFuSquirrel, i'll fix thumbs when i get home from uni today.

The fishnets are gonna be removed cuz they suck. I havnt been able to get materials in UE3 to work using an alphamask with normalmap, let alone get it to be lit.

Thanks for the feedback

Another big update in first post.

Cheers

I made the sky really bright at first but toned it down after hourences noted it. I'm gonna play with pulling down the master light to see how it looks. Don't wanna touch the fog cuz it lets you see just enough at this point.

Update in first post. check it out

no.

all geometry was made in maya, modo and mudbox. the "walls" around the scene is addative BSP just so the fog looks good and to use as backdrop later.

in UE3 you can choose if you want an additive or subtractive scene when you create a new level. Not that it matters in terms of quality, just how you go about doing things.

Roboblitz also is a very small game. The arcade version is like 49mb so they had to use alot of tricks and do stuff as cheaply as possible. i dont have that problem

Whoops didnt realize there was two pages in the thread ;D

Thanks for all the feedback. Flickering lights would be cool but we'll see, i think it'd be a wee bit heavy. Foggy particles will be added to the scene. I've added volumetric lightbeams sipping trough the holes in the walls. it looks neato and i'll post some pics when i find the time.

Thanks for all the feedback and comments its apprechiated

Sopa_de_letras, screenshots will do that. Once you see it in motion and move around you'll notice the specmap doing its work with highlighting different areas and in different ways (Example. the moss on the mountain in the background doesnt bouce light at all whereas the rock-foundation does. A small yet important detail)

aevirex, I made the basic shape in Maya, landed on about 3-400 polys, then brought the model into mudbox and used my Wacom to make all the fine details (the highpoly model is around 2 or 3 million polys i think). Then i made a low polyversion based of that high poly version (3500 polys) and i rendered out the normalmap and an ambient occlusion map from the highpoly. It took some tweaking in Photoshop to make it look right. Based on the Ambient occlusion map i made the texture.

The rock in the scene went trough the exact same process. I havnt used mudbox before but its an amazing tool and i never wanna be without it =)

Yea, Hourences. Misterbister (admin on leveldesign.nu) said he was missing a backdrop too (and he'll probably be nagging me if dont make one. We're pretty much nighbors:)). I was considering not making one but im starting to change my mind so i probably will get started on the it. I'll vtxlit all the small prop-like things like buckets, bottles and shovels and what not. Ue3 is a compleatly new environment for me so im pretty much learning as I go. So all feedback on technical issues is most welcome.

The actual level file is about 13mb and the package file, containing all content, is 130mb. It takes about 5 minutes to rebuild on my laptop (3ghz, 1gig ram)

Watermaterial looks VERY interesting and and i have been searching high and low for any or all info on how to make one in ue3 so anything you can toss my way would be put to good use

Im away over the weekend but i'll get on irc next week.

Jeanpaul, yea created everything you see in the scene. Tools of trade is Maya, Modo, Mudbox, Photoshop and Unrealed for Roboblitz.

Yea, looks good so far. Hard to give critz on something so early in development.

I dont know if its because some geometry doesnt have textures, and so its easier to see, but the res of the lightmaps on some objects really differ against other objects, making shadows go from sharp to blurry. looks a bit weird.

Looking forward to seeing an update

Update! Check first thread

Slainchild, yea all meshes are lightmapped.

About the light, its still a big wip. Last i posted people said it was too bright ;D I'll fiddle some more and see if i can get it to look better and i'll definatly boost the lightsources shinyness.

Thanks for the feedback:)

Edit

The multiply with a constant on the lantern worked out great, will post pics later. Thanks hour!