Factory Docking Platform

[MNeMiC]

Factory Docking Platform

Time to show everyone my big summer project. The goal was to create a "realistic" 3D-environment with ingame-graphics and render it in a game engine. The whole thing is rendered in Unreal Engine 3.0 without any touches afterwards.

All pictures can also be viewed at my portfolio:

www.HenrikLarsson.info

In-Game Screenshots

Alternate Renderings

Lit, Unlit, Lighting Only and Wireframe

#1

#2

#3

#4

Textures

Some of the texture maps created for the project. In total there were about 90 textures used, though these includes color, specular and normalmaps.

Videos

A flythrough of the scene directly screencapped from Unreal Engine 3.0, more versions of the video with different resolutions, quality and codecs can be found at the homepage.

I recommend watching the video in a video player other than VLC since it darkens down the images in the video alot, which makes it hard to see.

Right Mouse Button-click the videos and select Save Target As

Thanks for taking your time and checking out my work.

Pleaso don't quote the whole post, everyone's scrolling-finger will be sad!

[Furyo]

Guys, hit the right click and save target as for the videos.

[-HP-]

Nice stuff... Although, it looks a bit dark in the screenshots, maybe it would have been a good idea brighten it up with PS a bit?

But I guess It's ok, since you posted those lit versions.

I'm downloading the video atm!

Btw, no one uses 56k anymore, so don't bother mention it!

[JLea]

Ugh, I'm an idiot for asking this but how did you get the UE3?

[Sindwiller]

Ugh, I'm an idiot for asking this but how did you get the UE3?

Roboblitz?

[MNeMiC]

Sorry but can't tell, just hang on a couple of months more! It'll be awesome =)

Also, is there anyone here that has some ideas on why I'm not getting any shadows on my stuff when I'm compiling the map? All objects are static meshes and I'd like them to cast a shadow on the ground at least.

There are no dynamic or animated objects or lights in the scene.

[hessi]

i cant help it, but somehow i am NOT impressed. this looks like a scene you throw together within a week. comparing it to what people usually post in finished work gallery this is pretty much nothing.

of course it doesnt look bad, but it doesnt look really good too. next time you should post into a wip thread and get feedback before you claim it final.

for the future:

- finish environments/levels

- dont make them too dark

- post your progress in WIP forums

- spend more time on the level itself than on the thumbnails you post in the forums!

greetings.

[dux]

It's okay, but to me there isn't anything particularly eye catching about it. Just looks very plain and simple.

[Defrag]

I agree with hessi. The actual level itself is fairly nondescript -- due to the lack of light I didn't even know it had a train in it until I looked at the unlit screenshots! In many screenshots the train carriage just looks like a slanted wall. Some of the pillar areas look quite nice, but it kinda looks a bit too clean, and some of the objects on the floor appear to be floating (no shadows doesn't help, but the floor is still really clean regardless). Maybe throw some decals around to add a bit of variety? I can't really get a good feel for what the area is meant to be, what it's used for, what kind of industry it plays host to etc.

I'm not trying to be overly harsh btw! I just can't really deduce what's going on just by looking at the screens.

[mjens]

Some mappers from this site can make more realistic scene in Source engine but still you make a lot of good work. It's very dark, ground is perfectly clean, ther is no special details... Wordk, work, work...

[-HP-]

Well, I saw the video now...

I can tell you invested alot of time on small details, small rocks, etc. I like this, beauty lies in small details, imho. But the main picture is no less important... you failed in recreating a realistic environment.

But the biggest flaw of this scene, is specially the lighting, you could have achieve a much better result with this scene's lighting, played with fog, and so on and so forth... the scene just looks, too dark!

What's that covering the moon? And why did you covered the moon in the first place?

nevertheless, It's a good achievement, keep up!

[MNeMiC]

Thanks everyone, really good critics, I'll do my best to explain some things.

hessi:

I agree with you, it really dosen't feel like there's anything special about the scene right now, this is probably because I set out with no planning on it kind of, my goal was just to make a scene and that's it. The problem here is that I started working on the props, like the rail and the train, instead of getting the base of the scene done better so I could make the details fit more into the scene. All in all I'd say it's like 1-2weeks work time spent on it, but all during evenings and weekends and such so it's a pretty "lazy" piece I'm afraid.

Regarding the WIP, I'd say it's finished right now for my set goals, but it's not a finished masterpiece, I think I can get it quite a lot better. I just wanted to get it kind of "done" with so I can take some rest and do some other things for a while, my plan is to show it around to people and then further develop it on that feedback. Right now I hardly dare show any of the textures since they are really "cheap" and hastefully done and that's something that I don't wanna do. So when I'll be continuing on it, it's more like I'll be making version 2.0 or at least an update on it.

When that time comes I'll be adding much more scene-related details since I now know how all the pieces are going to be together so I can fix all the flaws.

Regarding to post a finished level or an environment, the thing is that I'm not setting out to make an entire level like this for my portfolio right now, rather a confined space.

About the pictures being dark I have to ask a questions, because the problem - I now realize - might be that my monitor and the HDTV I tested the scene on is either very bright or has very f-ed up settings that makes everything appear much brighter. So the question is: Do you guys see the stars in the background on the normally rendered pictures?

dux:

(or anyone else for that matter)

could someone suggest things that could make this scene more interesting? I was planning on having a crane that would be used to lift the objects from the trains to the docking platform, but the texture didn't turn out too well and I didn't want to spend forever on it so I decided to use it's silhouette instead, which is what you are seeing in the background in front of the moon.

Defrag:

I had some manually added decals created in Maya, but somehow the shading on these got really messed up and it didn't look anything like the desired result at all. I'm clueless on how to actually setup in-engine decals in UE3, does anyone have any ideas here? I haven't really looked it up yet though, that's something I will be doing when I'm updating the level though as it seems that the base platform (the big concrete thing), didn't get messed up, which is something that I totally overlooked when I was adding destructed details to the scene objects.

[HP]

The fog is something that I couldn't find either. Anyone have any suggestions? I tried looking in the Unreal Engine 2.x information databases but I only found a node that can't be added in UE3. Not in my version at least. I tried making the fog with alpha planes, but it - as well as the decals on the ground - didn't work out at all.

About the moon again: I didn't really cover up the moon, I actually added the moon so I could show the crane up there. The thing it's standing on was actually supposed to be a hill, but someone said it looked like a big pile of junk on a junkyard, so I added some things there and tried making it look like the silhouette of a junkyard, I say "tried" since it obviously wasn't clear enough, I'm gonna have to fix that as well I guess.

Thanks for the feedback once again, I really appreciate it and I'm gonna work on all aspects of it when I pick this scene up as soon as I've gotten some relaxing done (played through some new games, watched a few movies), hehehe.

If a moderator agrees with hessi on the point of WIP/Finished Work, please move the topic to the WIP section, either one is fine with me.

//Henrik

[-HP-]

So the question is: Do you guys see the stars in the background on the normally rendered pictures?

I didn't the first time, but now that you mentioned it, yeah there's stars on the skybox, but one can barely see them at first glance! :roll: I can hardly see them at all...

[Skjalg]

This scene lacks awesome shadows

[Steppenwolf]

- needs an eye catcher

- needs an horizon. currently the scene seems to float in space

- needs better brushwork. it looks not very realistic to me and its hard to tell what its supposed to be or what happend there (use ref pics for inspiration)

- what is the stuff in front of the moon? seems very random

- the floor looks extremely plain and boring. make a better texture for it and use some decals to add variation