UDK Roman Ludas WIP (From Spartacus)

[AD-Edge]

Hey guys, first time posting on this forum, and first project using UDK

So this is for a project at university, where we're required to design an 'architectural visualization' with a building as the focus. I decided that Id learn UDK and develop a game level cinematic for a building since I love game design and havent had a chance to try out UDK yet.

I chose to make Batiatus's Ludus from the TV series 'Spartacus', closely following the style of the show (very similar to 300)

Main reference:


After a few days working on the project I had enough done to work on some test clips, and put a couple of the best ones together in a teaser video of the level:

>>>> WIP Teaser Video<<<<

Note that this is a screen capture from fraps, its a bit choppy in parts and the fps is lower than I wanted. I'm aware that UDK can run in a bench-marked highest quality mode and dump an image sequence, and Ive messed around with it a bit, but Ive had trouble with building 'lightmass' in the April build, so I get the best results doing it this way until the May build comes out (which hopefully has a fix for that infamous issue)

At this stage I'm working on polishing the level and adding a whole bunch of static mesh objects to give the place more detail. I'm using 3dsmax and Blender for the 3D work, and will hopefully replace most of the stock textures and stock static mesh's that Ive used with my own (depending on how much time I have to spare of course)
Once its improved Ill start working on more camera shots for the cinematic.

And yes I'm aware the sun is a bit too bright!


Any crits and comments more than welcome.

[AD-Edge]

Couple more screenshots, should be pretty much finished with this project by the weekend, working on the cinematic now.
Spent a lot of time adding to the level and creating assets. One of the final things Ive added is the terrain which I think really adds to it, being able to see the mountains off into the distance really seems to add scale.

Had a lot of trouble with decals being lit properly however, and I dont have the time to look into it atm, so most of those havent been added (2 hours of decal creation down the drain)















Last min advice or comments welcome.

[nathanbarrett]

The landscaping and views of the sky/mountains are amazing. Can you talk us through how you did the terrain and sky? And which post-process effects you used?

Oh and, fantastic map. Really impressive.

[mokazon]

very very nice work! The atmosphere and sky are perfect. The glow on the flames doesnt have the right falloff point (if you know what I mean), and it should be more subtle.

-Mokazon

[AD-Edge]

Thanks nathanbarrett

The sky was quite easy. There are default skyboxes setup in UDK ready to use (half sphere meshes of course) with some default sky textures applied, I just replaced the texture on one of them. I wanted a more bight red/golden sunset type of sky, all the defaults were just blue skys.

The terrain was also easy and only took 10-15mins to whip up. I used Blender for that part, and basically subdivided a plane many times (until it was about 16,000k polys) and then used Blenders sculpt to make mountains around the edges, and form the cliff where the Ludus sits and just randomize the terrain a bit to make it look more natural. Then I imported it into UDK as a static mesh and scaled it up until it was massive. Then it was just a matter to apply a simple rocky texture. The texture was pretty stretched in the end, I could have put more time into UV mapping it better but since its all in the distance and blurred out by the Dof then it didnt really matter to me.

Post process effects were mainly just Dof, Ambient Occlusion, sunrays being emitted from the main light source, slight bloom and a lot of adjustments with the scene highlights, midtones and shadows, all done within UDK (all screenshots are raw from UDK)



I should also mention that for the majority of the project I followed Alex Galuzin's 11 day Level design tutorial. It tutors you though the entire process of designing a level in UDK (minus asset creation which I worked out how to do from tutorials on youtube, the 11 day tutorial Alex has created just uses default assets from UDK itself)
Either way Id highly recommend it to anyone whos just getting into designing levels with UDK.


UDK 11 Day Level Design

Having said that, I rushed though the tutorial (had some deadlines for the project looming) and got though stages 5-11 in 2 days.

[AD-Edge]

The project is coming to an end, and the DVD design has been finished, with the majority of the project being handed in for marking at this stage. The final cinematic was also completed, but some parts were rushed so I wont be posting the final cinematic video for a bit longer, Im going to spend some time giving it some overall polish.

Heres some shots of the DVD case however:

[scooba01]

Nice one. I'm from Adelaide too originally.