Arena from UT1 to UE4

[ZZZ]

I'm using the UE4 FPS template as a base. According to its scale, 256 x 256 x 256 in UT1 translates to roughly 500 x 500 x 500 in UE4.

Collision and lightmaps in this current state are completely screwed. I made some basic BSP prototype and converted to static meshes. This conversion step causes a lot of issues with lightmaps and collision.

UE4 with a 1366 x 768 screen isn't good. It has so many menus and windows that you really need two screens to work properly with it.

Ideas for UE4 version:

- 3D trims
- Flickering light effect for all tourches
- Water caustics. Not raytracing, just some cool projected texture
- Textures now can have displacement, normals, Physically Based
- Higher triangle count, mostly due to round columns and trim

https://postimg.cc/gallery/cs04sd3

A bit of achitectural research

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by 0kelvin

[ZZZ]

With BSP I couldn't go higher than 300 poly. With meshes I can have millions of triangles. I can build arches and domes now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome

Some references

[ZZZ]

I've learned the very basics to model the basic shapes in blender. Still have to master boolean operations though.

In UT I was limited to 8 - 16 sided cylinders, in UE4 I'm going up to 64.

IT's much easier to work with multiples of ten than with powers of two.

Edited June 5, 2020 by 0kelvin

[Minos]

21 hours ago, 0kelvin said:

I've learned the very basics to model the basic shapes in blender. Still have to master boolean operations though.

In UT I was limited to 8 - 16 sided cylinders, in UE4 I'm going up to 64.

IT's much easier to work with multiples of ten than with powers of two.

Cool progress!

I've worked with both grid styles (multiples of ten or powers of two), and I prefer powers of two, because it breaks down nicely:

8 - 4 - 2 - 1 - 0.5 - 0.25 - 0.125

Whereas with 5, you get a lot of broken numbers:

5 - 2.5 - 1.25 - 0.625 etc...

[ZZZ]

I decided to get rid of the middle ramp because it feels out of place. It was then that I realized that the syymmetrical design feels better suited for CTF, not FFA. I decided to remove the middle bridge as well.

[ZZZ]

I'm settling down with this layout. The rest of the paths are all mirrored.

I have to take measures of all corridors now.

Edited June 9, 2020 by 0kelvin

[ZZZ]

Placeholder material and some trim.

The symmetric design of this map makes it a good place to use the modern modular approach.

The columns were going to be square, but after some research I decided to make round columns. I'm going to bevel the arches too.

Edited June 13, 2020 by 0kelvin

[ZZZ]

[ZZZ]

The idea of a smaller dome with 4 supporting arches came from this

Edited June 18, 2020 by 0kelvin

[ZZZ]

Square where the trims meet.

Not sure. A statue fills up that dead end nicely.

Not sure about the ceiling. I can have 3 circular relief decorations or just one. The ceiling can be flat, or half flat, half curved.

 

Edited June 21, 2020 by 0kelvin

[ZZZ]

With this all map's ideias should be done.

3 skylights compared to 1 looks ugly.

Edited June 21, 2020 by 0kelvin

[ZZZ]

I'm trying to learn how to make materials. Smooth faces makes the lighting soft, but the angle is still not right. The texture maps, including the normal maps, are stretched because I'm having a hard time with UV maps.

[Freaky_Banana]

Cool, good luck with the materials! 
Must say the second screenshot doesn't look right to me. Wood is sort of an unexpected material in among all the stone of this type of building. So I went back and checked your reference images. If you want to use wood, probably try and avoid sandwiching it between those black trims. That makes the entire area feel tight. Instead do something like this reference you showed:

There is only wood for floor and walls and then a clean cut with a wooden trim to the white of the ceilings. Also I would suggest reducing the tile size of the individual panels. Again, I like the small shapes of this image.
Keep it up! 

Edited June 26, 2020 by Freaky_Banana
Refernece

[ZZZ]

That texture isn't wood. It's stretched because the UV is wrong.

I just realized that smooth stone surface doesn't match "ancient". My map is more similar to the American Museum of Natural History than to the Pantheon.

I think that tourches aren't going to be bright enough. Every photo of a corridor with tourches on walls look way too dark.

Edited June 27, 2020 by 0kelvin

[ZZZ]

I just realized that I made a mistake in this map that is going to result in me scrapping it.

I over-focused on the architecture and now that I'm looking at the floorplan, I didn't notice that the corridors are too narrow. The gameplay is not going to work because the player's flow is very bad. Not only that, I misjudged how complicated the architecture would be and honestly, it's not something I would be able to do.