Victorian Building (Newcastle)

[Mist]

Im working on a building based in Newcastle (I lived there for a while). My main aims are to do a high quality outdoor scene for my portfolio, as well as learning Zbrush, and being more confident with UDK.

heres the building in google street view, LINK

I also took a load of ref images with my camera while i was there, so I've got no excuse.

I've blocked out the main features of the building and just started getting it into Unreal. I've been learning zbrush and I'm alot more confident with it.

What I still need to do:

• finish getting it all into unreal
• Finish all the details
• Adjust the textures so they all work together (colouring etc)
• Add dirt to the textures (im gonna look into the idea of vertex blending textures)
• do the pavement, street props and more ground floor details.
• get the windows to reflect
• do some nice lighting, sky, post processing effects, polish etc.

My main question at the moment is what would be the best way to do the reflecting windows? I've use the mirror/camera method before, but i understand it can be expensive. I also want to learn all the options for doing realtime reflections. pros/cons etc.

Any advice is appreciated

some max viewport shots









Some sculpting







and finally getting stuff into unreal, bit blotchy at the moment.

[RedAppleIvy]

Coo that's quite a lot of work there, looking forward to seeing it fully in the UDK, the Max viewport shots aren't doing it justice.
One thing I've noticed in the zbrush sculpts, some parts are looking a bit blobby compared to the ref images especially along the corners and edges of the carved stone work I'd try and sharpen them up a bit. I'd also be careful of any n-gons, for example on the pillar, when importing into the udk as it can tend to triangulate it in funny ways resulting in smoothing errors.

For the glass, a cubemap of the sky or surrounding area would be the most common method you could also control the transparency of the glass via the alpha and have a separate plane behind it plugged into a parallax node to simulate the inside.

[Dandexter]

This looks awesome!

In your max veiwport grabs though and I dont know if its too late to change but the windows look a little big to me? Like the small top bit looks more retangular compared to yours?

Awesome Z-brush sculpting! Can I see your base mesh for the tops of those pillars? Did you model any of it before taking it in to z-brush?

[Mist]

RedAppleIvy: Thanks, how would you sharpen details in Zbrush? It's something that I'm still learning, and most of my sculpted stuff does come out a little blobby.

Dandexter: Thanks, I think the problem with the windows is partly to do with the white frames being thinner than on the ref. I'll change that soon. For the pillars, most of it was blocked out in max first then sculpted on. the leaves were done straight, then I used a bend modifier to curl them down. To be honest I'm not sure if id do them the same way again. I'll post some pics of the base meshes soon.

Thanks for the feedback.

[RedAppleIvy]

You could use the pinch brush evenly along the edges and the flatten brush along the tops as well as the planar brushes although I'm not sure which version they were introduced in so apologies if your missing them : )

[scooba01]

wireframe please?

[Mist]

Thanks redapple, I'll give that a try on my next sculpt.

Scooba: Ill post some wires soon.

Update: I've got it all into Unreal. I'm toying with the idea of doing a night scene.

Also, I've made a thread asking a queston about making a Random Material

[Tim27]

Looking good!

[OddEyes]

i like the night scene !

[DavidMcKenna]

Excellent!