HCR MINI-Challenge #43: Magic Door - The Black Portal - World of Warcraft

#1

Hey guys!
I Could Not lost this one, such inspiring theme!

When i’ve read the title “Magic Doors”, immediately the very first thing that comes to mind was the Dark Portal from Warcraft, what is more magic than a gate at the size of a overpriced dubai building with headless statues holding a magic portal that makes a teleport between islands?
This was on my todo project list for a long time, so, i believe its time to stop sleeping 18 hrs a day and starting doing something else ((just fantasy, i barely can sleep 6h :frowning:

I began researching some references before i decide to enter the contest, being a megalomanic sometimes can lead to very tough choices (like that i’ve just made :D)

Not sure if i’ll finish in time but, hey, thats the idea, right? :wink:

Since every model of dark portal from different medium has a diferent design, i decided to do a mashup from what i’ve liked more (and from what i’m capable to do in time)

I’m planning on following a art direction towards cinematic style like this:

Not sure yet which direction to choose but, both of them, i like very much!

The statues will be somewhat based on the original game models, like that:

This sense of scale is absolutely amazing, and that is what i’m mostly trying to achieve

Next post i’ll show some modeling work i’ve started so far, there’s not a bunch yet since i really want to research more, especially on this kind of rock sculpture thing, my desktop isn’t a cluster of isaac newtons doing math, so i will really have to think about intelligent ways to save memory and reduce polycount (aka instancing like there’s no tomorrow and all kind of game environment trick)

Hope something interesting comes out from here, lets see! :wink:

#2

Here’s what i’ve been digging so far:

   You should note this was only a test (remember the "research" phase?)
   I wanted to test the workflow, see if things will come like i've figured or if there will be not so good surprises around
   
   Luckily, everything seems to be alright, i'm currently modeling the base mesh for sculpt in mudbox, my workflow is primarily in Blender (yes), in mudbox i'll do the sculpting and texturing work, generating a normal map in a approach similar to game asset pipeline
   
   Heres what i've done so far:
   
   Raw base mesh:
   
 [img]http://i59.tinypic.com/2irub93.png[/img]
   
   Started to modeling the hands recently also:
   
[img]http://i58.tinypic.com/3451wyu.png[/img]
   
   Nothing the best anatomy or topology around but, will serve.
   
   Actually, i rarely do organic modeling work since i'll generaly do hard surface/environment in daytime job, so its really being an very interesting experience, hope i'll learn something new in the process!
   
   The majority of modeling was done using raw edge extruding technique, exept by hand, i really like the freedom of extruding individual edges to create a very organic feel, may be not the best fast workflowise method but, for people that suffers from brutal anxiety, this can be a very enjoyable medicine ;)
   
   Just blocking out overall pose, later i'll take everything into mudbox and start the sculpting work
   i'm really excited to get this done, seems like my old core 2 duo will have many troubles ahead :D
   
   Later i'll come with detailed breakdowns and way more research work for join into this, this early posts was only for me to commit to the project, and put my name on the adventurers list, then see you later!
   
   Go back extrude some damn four sized polygons, yo
   Cya ;)
#3

Awesome, can’t wait to see the progress.

#4

Oh, Really Sorry for the delay in Updates! :frowning:

I had a monstruous amount of work in the studio lately (well, this is a good thing, i think), and really dont had enough time to take a look at this, since after work the last thing i want to see is a wireframe

But here we are, back to planet earth since today, already did some minor things today, dont know if i will finish that in time but, that will be my personal challenge :wink:

Thanks man! Lets see how this turns out :o

-> Just sculpted the details and painted all the textures;;

I brought back the textured meshes from Mudbox and started the layout, nothing really fancy yet


Here’s the “”“low poly”"" mesh from mudbox, with normal map on

Extracted a normal map, ambient occlusion, displacement & color map from there, i’m also planning on extracting a cavity map, since the vast majority of detail work is not being displayed in the render

Anyways, here’s to the render so far:

Nothing definitive yet, but i’m liking the results
Just need some courage to start doing all the other million stuff now :frowning:

Cheers!

#5

All right!
so i’ve started to searching some references about ancient construction techniques, after watching the exodus movie with all the fancy Egyptian construction sites, i’m really inspired to put a lot of detail inside this

My first reference immediately was the Arch of Titus, in Rome, a giant gateway made of concrete and marble:

Actually its kinda hard to find good references about this, since they probably don’t has nikon cameras or iphones with flicker in middle age

initially, i was going to do the structures using metal (its warcraft, whatever), but i kinda don’t like it, the scales just don’t get that right, so i’ll probably redo them as wood pieces, and way smaller too


texture reference


fancy roman architecture detail reference


Scumbag mudbox

#6

For the detail work, i’ve model several modular asset pieces to populate the scene, for now i only did a few, but i’ll start to modeling them massively from tomorrow

Just some wood planks and stuff to build like lego (instanced, of course)

i really did not want to show the actual progress of the scene, since its going to change massively soon, but just for the W.I.P sake i’ll post a Ambient Occlusion render of the overall progress :wink:

Ignore the right side metal structures please :frowning:

I’m coming with my own version of dark portal, based on the three images from first post and bits of imagination, since they do not follow a standard

Searching a bit more references of structures i found this:

Will use them as a guide for sure :wink:

#7

Yay, things starting to warm up here!

Just a quick update today (that wasn’t really that “quick” to do, however)

Started to modeling/texturing the wooden structures, very funny and horrible thing to do, at the same time, mixed feelings, u know

I’ve spent the majority of time working in the shader

These wood pieces in particular have the same textures, moreover are the same instanced meshes, after having a previous idea on how the things will should appear, with the metal structures, i figured that for believably i’ll need not so obvious repeating textures, so i’ve created a shader that randomizes Y coordinates for the base bark texture for each new object ID, on top of that, they changes the contrast randomly for each object too, giving a more or less damaged feel, and to get rid of obvious tilling i’ve blended with a different wood texture using a procedural noise, and setting that noise to displacement channel, to bump the first texture, making something like a damaged bark

i’ll probably redo all the other shaders that uses scatter using this method, since the results are far more realistic and cool

The rope was actually quite easy, just a bezier curve UV mapped with a tileable rope texture, since no way i’m going to model all that stuff 100% by hand (using curves was already boring as hell)

For the rope i’m curiously using a velvet shader, since i think it emulates the rope strands feel quite well at distance

This is the actual stage of my “asset lib” for this scene at the moment, modularity is the key here, trying to make it all fit in whatever position, so i can scale, rotate and stack things together to get a visual madness :twisted:

Things running slow for now, but i’ll try to take some time to dive deep in it next week, stay close :wink:

#8

So nice! This is goin to be awesome!

#9

Awesome!
Nice detail brushwork, Like your workflow.

#10

Nice steps here. Keep the good work man.

#11

@Mrefry, @Tombery, @Scote:

Hey, thanks guys! this is the kind of fuel that motivates me to finish that!

Some time since last update, sorry for that, but i really wanted to come back here with something to show, so here we are:

First of all, i’ve finally find some valuable references!
after turn google upside down, sometimes find the right term for the search engine can be a little tricky

Anyway, look at that:

:o

After finding that images, i began to feel confident about doing that, since we need at least a minimum of believability, right? :wink:

For now my main concern its about time, i’m kinda making the rough heavy essential stuff first, and if i have sufficient time, then i’ll start to do all the fancy neoclassic stone carving and nerdy detail stuff

Since last update i’ve started to scatter all the assets towards the scene, as everything is instanced, theres around 1.6 million polygons with a memory usage under 500mb :wink:
Because of that, i could even gave the luxury of using huge HDR in EXR format for background, just for fun :smiley:

My only concern is about the terrain, i don’t know yet what i’m gonna do or how, but if i’ll rely on displacement maps, things gonna raise hell :frowning:

Alright alright, lets go to the images:

First a Ambient Occlusion render to better see the model:

A Bonus mist pass:

Now, the real thing:


(ignore background, pls)

I really don’t know what path to choose regarding lighting, as a reminder i need to code a random render selector python script, i would be rich selling that, no doubt


(??)

My goal is to start terrain work (and hopefully finish) until the end of this week, and spend the spare days detailing it/compositing (for this i need to choose one style to follow first :G)

See you in a bit, Cheers!

#12

Incredible man! Congrats!

#13

Niiicce love good big-scale Environment.

Are you planning some layers of stones. Since it’s a pile of stones that were sculpted. Could need some clear stone blocks pattern in there.

Love your Contsruction site

#14

@Chala, @Scote:

Thanks guys, i really appreciate it!

Scote, yeah man, actually theres a bunch of stone piles there, but it seems that they are very subtle hahahahah
i’ll see if i add a bunch more, like some more evident piles or something like that :wink:

Oh man, i’ve spent the last two days basically waiting the pc rendering test scenes, a bit frustrating working in a old core 2 duo, especially when you are dealing in a scene with like 3 million polygon :scream:

Hopefully, i did a thing or two in this time

Still unsure about the composition/scene layout, i’ve tested like 20 different cameras w/ different light conditions, even washing carrots is less annoying than waiting a 1h20 test render that looks like shit :frowning:

I ended up choosing a wide shot, despite that i can change opinion in a split second and tomorrow come with a frontal orthographic render that i’ve think it looked cool

Well, who cares! lets start the today’s W.I.P:

Since i’ve decided to make a wide shot, i really wanted to put the more detail i could, this way we can force the scale of the portal (hopefully)
By the way, dealing with the scale issue its been the most challenging thing so far for now, in 3D things tend to look like miniature, even if you’ll be modeling a entire planet full of mutant dinosaurs

So i decided to model a bridge to link the top of the monument to the cliff, nothing fancy, actually my patience with this is bellow zero, so i just grabbed a bunch of boxes and stacked together, in final render this will looks like a pixel or two anyway :curious:

Oh wait, i don’t told about the cliffs yet!

Started to modeling the terrain today (or yesterday? i’m awake since i began), just did some random weird box and threw on mudbox, nothing fancy here


cute cliff

Since i’m lazy as hell i’ve just instanced that a bunch of times and made the whole island hahahah


Talking about shaders, i decided to make everything i can procedurally, as this get me rid of doing full UV mapped textures or dealing with tilling, (since the scale its brutally huge and the assets are repeated more than 200 times)


I think its enough of detail for today hahahah

#15

note that the sculpted stuff actually is very low poly, i’ve decided to take that way since i really want to push this render forward, but i’m not sure if my pc can handle that/render in time, so normal maps are doing its way massively here


How lovely the scene is, special attention to the weird planes that looks like a bug, they are my light blockers (or shadow casters, whatever), i’ve wanted to emphasize the right spots (who said grainy renders???)

As for render times, i’m using Cycles renderer, which is a Unbiased renderer, because of that my render times will tend to be xXxinsanexXx, that lighting scheme/scene actually is one of the worst types to deal with unbiased engines, for make even better only if i put a roof on top of everything and throw water with caustics on

The final will be a 4K render @900 samples at least, otherwise will be noisier than death metal


The render, as for now


AO


Viewport

Still lacking many things, i don’t even like to think about that, don’t want to tell what since i want it to be surprise (aka don’t know if i’ll make in time so don’t want to commit myself hahah)

well, i think that’s it for now!
until next update :wink:

#16

Passing here just to show a test i’ve did with Mist pass from last render:

:o

For control the density of mist/fog i’ve used levels in photoshop, that way you can control the falloff using the sliders, even if the fog was set differently in the render, you can almost redo a completely different mood with that :wink:

Just a quick tip, now i need to back to work, see ya!

#17

As a matter of fact: You are a Blender Guru!

makes you fun to watching your Awesome progress.

#18

Oh man, i’m flattered with your kind words!
But, i’m most to a “random button press guy” than a guru at all, maybe one day :o

Hope its being as good as yours, since i really enjoy to watch! :wink:

Back to Dark portals n’ stuff!
Sorry for the time off guys!

Actually, this month is my birthday, so i received a surprise vacation on the beach this weekend by the family, and yes :smiley: (suppose I would rather not stay home ending the thousand things I should, but) hahahahah

As a good boy, we are encouraged to thanks and smile, so :smiley:

but finally i’m back to my lovely sweet workstation:

<3

Sorry, i just needed to show it

Well, at least i took the time to take some references about large scale building & cliffs/lands

Back to home, just woke up earlier i could to catch up the deadline, and i think i’m finally (almost) done

Since i think my next post would be the last here, i mean, with the final render, i’m not going to show the actual progress of the render now, just for a bit of surprise :wink:

Instead, i took a bunch o screenshots from the scene, with funny things/details we never would see in final render :frowning:

as are several images, i’ll post them in the next post, just wait a sec :wink:

#19

So here we are!

Just look at the character poses and thinks what could been happen then hahahahah

OH WAIT A SEC

i don’t told nothing about characters yet??

Yea! thats one thing i’ve planned to do since start, but wasn’t sure if i’ll had time
Seems like i have, so i did a random crowd, very low poly & basic, just for a bit more color in the render~

Actually theres still a thing or two to do, like flags and stuff, that i’m not sure yet if will be cool, but, huh, lets see what i’ve got until now so far:


“YOU, did you eat my donut? watch your back, nigga”


“wheres the f**ing load??”


ï should have listened my dad"


“GO BACK TO WORK” “BUT SIR, I THINK I STEPPED IN SHIT :frowning: WHY WE DONT USE SHOES??”


“f**k, i should drink whey protein”

Sorry for being stupid

#20

As a bonus for all that bullshit, i’ll show a little test render that i’ve did earlier today:

the crowd position was not final in this render, was my first test;;

in the updated version i did a shader that randomizes a bit the saturation for the clothes, for they look a bit less like a satanic sect

The final model have a polycount rounding towards 7 million and half polys, so in the screenshots maybe not all layers can be seen

Honestly, i really wanted to detail a bit more the overall scene, but with the given time constraints, and specially my poor hardware, this is not possible :frowning:

moving the viewport of this scene in my desktop is like playing crysis on a smartphone, so, yea

See you all some gigahertz later, will render that in 4K at 1024 samples, full global illumination

probably will take around 2 days to finish, hope before day 13 :G

The output will be a multilayer EXR file, this way i can tweak brutally the scene, with minimum loss, especially the mist pass, where the 32 bit floating point can really make a difference when adjusting in photoshop without clipping colors :wink:

cya!