For our 3D environment, my team and I decided to choose the observatory prompt out of the list. Instantly we drew up and wrote down the different ideas of what the observatory would be like on a whiteboard and later narrowed our ideas down in Miro to an abandoned/ruined building.
We reviewed our strengths and weaknesses in the 3D workspace and talked about what we would like to model. We roughly wrote down what we had to do during the semester to help us understand the time-frame we got.
Mood board
When it came to a style for this project we agreed on realism.
Since the idea was a ruined/abandoned observatory we researched on many different references relating to that. A plethora of real life references of the actual buildings and telescopes, props, floor textures, and overgrowth etc. On top of that we looked at art and other game environments e.g. The Last of Us 2 for inspiration.
Concepts
After pondering over the multitude of references, a grand and fancy observatory that has been ruined during an asteroid and later taken over by nature. I pictured large windows, grand staircases with decorated cast iron railings, a mezzanine held up by pillars surrounding the middle of the room, wood paneling and much more.
A moody, rainy scene is what I wanted to create, inspired by the stunning Seattle scenes from the Last of Us 2. I want it to be overgrown with foliage and to have parts of the building crumbled.
This is the final look I came up with that Ill be referencing for my 3D modelling. I want a cold blue light surrounding the scene in the finished product.
Here are a few designs on the pillars that I have drawn up. The 3rd one resonated with me the most.
And here are the different cast iron railing and accent railing designs. I chose the 3rd one in the railings and the 1st one in the accent railings as I thought the others were too angular and fantasy-like.
To help Archie keep to the old realism style of scene I helped redesign the telescope. Looking back at references from real life telescopes, art and Archie’s previous design, I mixed the different elements to make an interesting and not-too-modern silhouette.
We made up a table to organise and prepare ourselves on how we’re going to space out our work to meet the deadline.
My tutor presented us with these tutorials of a scene with a similar vibe to what I’m going for. I found it very useful as it gave me a clear reference of how a good scene should look and feel and how the assets should be laid out.
Blockout Stage
For a rough preview of how my building would look and how Id go about building it properly, I blocked out the scene in Maya. I started with a cylinder and enlarged it, deleted the faces under the top face to make a plane, changed its polygons to be laid out more evenly so I could build walls by extruding from the floor. I wanted two extra rooms for the stairs and connected them to the circle.
I added a sphere and cut it in half then target wielded all the sides after connecting all the elements together. I created the mezzanine by copying the building and deleting all the faces that are not included to fit perfectly.
I created slopes with extrusions to act as the grand stairs.
I messed around with the cylinder and created a round window with details and placed it in the hole in the wall.
To differentiated the different textures .roughly, I changed the materials of specific faces e.g. the dome, wood paneling, telescope. I toggled the lighting to see how the holes in the dome would cast the shadows and was happy with the overall symmetrical composition.
Modelling Assets
Blackboard
Railings
I created cylinders and subdivided them. After that i shaped them to fit the reference picture behind them. I placed a human model for reference of scale. I made 2 versions of the railing, one where the details are higher than the other. I added 4 sided shapes to the top and bottoms of the railings to remove ngons. For the fancy railing, I pasted one of the railings and cut the faces in the middle to allow to slot a new design. I used a flat plane and the multi-cut tool to shape the swirls. Then I made sure they all had only 4 sided shapes in them before extruding and shaping them. For the sun I created a little circle plane, extruded, beveled it and shaped sun ray shapes the same way as the swirls.
Pillar
I added a cylinder, added some shaping and extruded parts to the reference image. Again I used the multi-cut tool on a plane to make the leg supports, extruded them and duplicated them to surround the pole. For the swirls i used the exact same technique, however for each part I made them separate for a more complex look instead of a flat plane.
Newspaper
To make the newspaper I used several planes and shaped them in the shape of an old newspaper exposed to the elements. Later on I will add thickness to each plane per suggestion of my tutor.
Papers
For the papers used a similar technique. I made a pile of paper with a solid square and slotted in papers to make it look more organic. Then i cut out different shaped out of the loose papers.
Painting
With the same technique as the blackboard I created the painting. I also used the swirls from the pillar to make the details of the frame.
Incorrect Texturing
I used my photos to create paintings and words on paper. I imported the textures and put them in as an alpha and painted the textures in. This wasn’t an ideal way of going about this job. After my tutor showed me that I can project the textures on and it would apply cleanly.
Room Model
I went about creating the room similarly to the block out, but just in a less messy way. I extruded some edges to add complexity and guide where the railings are going to go.
I centered the scene by rotating it for convenience and easier symmetry. I opened a hole in the wall in both sides and extruded and connected all the sides to create rooms and then made window holes in those walls. For easier visualization of the final scene, I imported and placed the pillars.
For fancy wood panels I used a plane and extruded faces and shaped them to the right effect. Then I placed them around the walls at the bottom floor. Saving time by copying and pasting already joined parts until I had all the walls covered. Finally in the middle of the scene i added a podium.
I destroyed the wall by deleting faces and then cutting the edges with the multi-cut tool. I also deleted faces in the dome to look like missing panels. After that I filled in the unwanted holes with the bridge tool. I deformed the mezzanine and part of the dome to add variety and realism to the scene, as if something hit into the wall. I deformed some pillars and placed them under the bent mezzanine. I added an easy window grate for extra detail.
Time was running short so I used the round window from the block out model and fitted it into the hole. However the stairs are very important to my scene so I prioritized my time on them. I made many subdivisions and then I deleted faces for the stairway to be even and thin. Then I filled them in with the bridge tool and gave it a ledge with a different material that curved slightly. I special duplicated it and combined it with the floor tile.
Texturing the Scene
I used the concrete material for the walls and scaled them down for smaller textures. I painted a black mask over it with a fabric texture to create ripping wallpaper. Then I used a picture i took of a brick wall texture and projected it on different parts of the wall. Then I added the silver material for the dome and colored it more coppery and added a rust black mask material. The walnut texture was used for all my wood textures with a black mask of lighter messier wood to make it look chipped. I used a fabric texture for the floor, tweaked it to look like a fancy marble floor. I made most of them 4k textures to make them less blurry. With the ivy tool, I went wild on applying it to appropriate places and think its a nice base and standalone texture for when I add foliage assets. I also added some leaves with the leaves tool.
Unreal Engine
I imported all of my teammates’ and my assets into unreal engine to see how everything looks. I used blueprints to fix the roughness of the materials as some of them were too shiny. I made new materials and applied the different textures to them and placed the material onto the assets. For James’ glasses I created a special translucency and refracting effect with nodes (I used this material for the windows as well) and I changed the color of Samantha’s table to a more reddish darker tone.
I then began placing all the assets into their places, I was aiming for a great mess and clutter but also have some assets in their original places in less affected areas of the building.
I placed a lot of the starter pack bush mesh around on the edges of the dome and walls and floor to give it an overgrown effect. Clutter is the key to a realistic looking scene, that and good lighting.
Rails
I created the rails for the stairs and mezzanine by copying them and cutting out the faces to fit perfectly. Then I filled in the gaps with the bridge tool. In substance I added the walnut wood texture and set it to 4k.
Previewing Different Shots 1
I loved how the scene was coming along and decided to take a break and look for different potential camera shots. This is when I also remembered that I need to fix the lightmap density, Most assets are to aim to be in the green category for clean lighting bakes.
Migrating Projects
I wanted to use the ultra dynamic sky for the rain effect and my tutor gave me a copy. I migrated project from the sky project to my scene.
Fixing Textures
I wasn’t very happy with how blurry the textures looked, so I went back and added more faces to the building with the multi-cut tool. Then I brought it to substance and repainted everything the same way. This time it looked cleaner and I added a roughness effect to the bricks as advised by my tutor. The floor wasn’t perfect, I would’ve made a trim sheet if time allowed it.
Previewing Different Shots 2
Post Processing/ Fog/ Effects
I decreased the saturation, messed about with the different color grading so it would have a blueish tint. I increased bloom for a nice little touch. I included a volumetric cloud and made it pretty thick for the atmosphere. For the rain effects all i needed to do was drag and drop the particle system in and remove some collisions from models so it doesn’t look weird. I did the same with the dust particle system from the starter pack.
I need puddles to be in this scene and so I used a sphere and squashed it. I put the default water texture on and added the glass opacity effect. I placed it so it wouldn’t look too obvious that its just a circle.
For extra depth I created a landscape to be in the background with a city (simple blocks). The fog and field of view blur them out to look good. No need to extend the baking time for the lighting.
I changed the camera split to 35mm so it would have the cinematic letterbox look.
I used many cameras and level sequencers to create every shot. I had a lot of help from the previous camera shot scouting missions. The camera overall did what I wanted to but every now and then i’d have to struggle with a smooth curved movement.
I created 25 shots and rendered them all and imported them into Premiere Pro. With the music I knew I wanted to have something from The Last of Us or Haunting of Bly manor, I chose the latter ”The Beginning of the End Movement V”. The music and slow moving shots make this scene calm and relaxing, with rain sounds in the background.
I uploaded it to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahnYNbhK1cU
Overall I love how realistic and cinematic the scene turned out for my first 3D environment and now i’m inspired to create more scenes like this in the future.