Photobashes
-https://www.deviantart.com/lured2stock/art/Gold-Bronze-Brown-3045595
https://www.123rf.com/photo_85353885_dusty-metal-surface-can-be-used-as-background-.html
https://www.123rf.com/photo_97714433_closeup-of-rusty-metal-surface-background-rusty-texture.html
Sketches
To begin the generation of my ideas, I’ve used my research as reference to produce various sketches of the objects I plan to use within my Diorama. These will help me when I eventually reach the blocking out stage thus influencing my final pieces chosen for each object.
Pickaxe
Due to most of the pickaxes within the era chosen, realistically they did not have much variation to their tools for mining. Therefor I have tried to keep this asset as simplistic as possible with some slight variations of the main head of the pickaxe aswell as a broken variant.
I personally think that this was useful as I now have more ideas about what I could use within my scene which has also allowed me to think about the story behind the Diorama itself, for example the broken pickaxe idea came from the fact that I’m going to be producing a collapsed mineshaft which I think would be a realistic asset within the scene.
Skulls
For this asset I’m still not entirely sure whether or not I will be including this within my scene as I’m not particularly skilled within Z-Brush however I will be taking part in some classes to learn more about the software hopefully allowing me to produce this asset.
I’ve included 3 variants of skulls, one with the entire facial structure intact, one with just the jaw bone and one without a jawbone and a cracked skull. I think the last two variants would be most realistic as it could potentially tell a story about how these people had been killed such as being hit my collapsing rocks.
Helmets
For my Diorama I think that a really creepy way to light up the scene is to use a broken helmet with a faulty light flickering to create a sense of tension for the viewer. Due to this I have collected a range of research to influence the design of the helmet I plan to create, below are some variants which I will further explore texturing/color styles as well as adding further details such as cracks/dents using Photoshop.
Minecarts
My Diorama is going to include a Mine Cart which I could potentially fill with rocks/gems, Using my research I obtained a variety of ideas on how I could create my cart. These include adding detail such as a way to open the cart where I could show off the gems/rocks inside (lit up by the helmet light) to catch the viewers eye.
I also sketched a variety of possible styles of wheel that I could use for this asset – To save time I sketched some of these separate to the cart itself and to get a better perspective.
Tracks/Rails
Due to railway tracks being all relatively the same style, I’ve added some sketches below of a singular track with multiple ideas spread around the same page. These ideas include various alterations to the first sketch which is relative to the Diorama i’m producing because if I decide to create the cavern type mine I’d like for the track bridge to be broken (Refer to the sketch on the top right corner) as if a boulder had fallen through it.
Support beams
In the first image you can see two very simple designs which I have roughly sketched using my research as influence to the style. The first sketch at the top is a pillar type support which I have seen used in some old mines from reference images, I personally think this would look rather strange in my scene however I will continue to test my ideas for all of the sketches below using photobashes and blockouts.
The other two sketches are relatively similar however the one on the right uses logs instead of the planks on the left image. I personally think that the plank style would look the best as simplicity can be quite appealing if done correctly. I’ve also made a note on the right image which basically just states that I could produce a collapsed variant of the supports, as stated above the mine would have collapsed therefor rendering the supports damaged which would mean adding further detail to the beams such as splintering.
Layout plan
To help me when it comes to blocking out my scene, I have created two plans to help me decide which I will use for the end product. These are both clearly colour coded and noted to show where each asset will be placed around the scene.
V1
v2
Blockouts/Test pieces
To further progress through my ideas generation I thought that producing my blockouts after sketching would be more useful for my photo-bashing stage as I can use them to help with perspective and also can add more detail such as shading very easily.
Layout
Using my layout from above I’ve produced a fairly simplistic blockout of how I’m going to be displaying my assets in their final form. I’m not sure how I feel about creating the walls or boulders for my scene yet and will continue to figure out how to overcome this obstacle (As this is the main part of my Diorama lol)
UE4 Blockout Test
Although I haven’t planned this layout out above, I wanted to test how I’d create the environment if I decided to create the cavern mine. I’m not particularly happy with environment sculpting within UE4 due to the stretching of UV maps, however I think this would be easier in Maya to create than the walls in the layout above as I wouldn’t have to add so much detail due to some walls being relatively far from certain camera angles.
Pickaxes
Using references and sketches produced above, I have blocked out 4 pickaxes with different styles of ‘Heads’ as well as a broken variant. I will most likely create two of these to add further detail to my Diorama which could give the viewer information that there were more than just one person in the mine.
Helmets
Using my sketches from above I’ve produced some fairly simplistic helmet designs which are actually quite close in style as the sketches created, however I did add slightly more detail to the helmet in the middle as I got slightly carried away (woops)
I don’t really like the first blockout due to the light using electricity which is fairly unrealistic due to electricity only recently being discovered and they probably wouldn’t have batteries (:D)
However the second helmet in my opinion is quite possibly my favored idea as it is by far the most realistic style for the era of choice, the helmet light uses an oil lamp to light the area ahead possibly using a mirror behind the flame to increase the amount of light produced.
Rails
Following the style of my sketches I’ve created 4 blockouts of different tracks. The first blockout is simply just the rails which would be along the ground, possibly the most realistic for the era however I think that I could get away with using planks and supports to create a bridged track which can go across my cavern depending on which layout I choose.
I’m leaning towards the cavern layout as I’m really liking the idea of using a broken track going across the scene, I think this would stand out far more than the closed off layout planned above.
Minecarts
For one of my minecarts I followed one of my ideas from sketches however for the two on the right I kind of designed them free-hand and I personally think they actually turned out far better than the one where I followed the design process.
I will produce some photobashes to see which design I prefer better, using these as an outline to keep the perspective as well as adding extra detail extremely quickly.
Rocks/Boulders
Without using reference I decided to test out an effect I attempted to use in the past for my final project last year but failed to do so, This is called shatter. I created a sphere and gave it 40/40 polys then solid shattered it by 12 pieces allowing me to move the shattered pieces around creating a relatively good looking formation of rocks.
However the issue I faced was that the polycount for 10 rocks was 9338 as seen in the image on the right. Underneath is how I solved this problem.
As explained above, the polycount was far too high in my opinion considering the fact that there is going to be a rather large amount of these placed around my Diorama and could potentially impact the performance of a game (If these were placed into a game)
In theory I could potentially bake the higher poly rocks onto the lower poly giving the illusion of a higher poly assets. However for now this is fine as this is just a test.
Photobashes
helmets
V1/2
Using the images below and one of the block outs above I’ve produced two variants of helmets which can be seen underneath the images below.
To help me decide on some color and texturing ideas I’ve overlayed the metal texture from above to give me a rough idea on how my helmet would look with certain styles of metal by altering the image using various tools such as hue/saturation, curves and pattern overlays. I also decided to paint some blood over the first design however it is not very clear in the image and looks quite rusty, which is also quite a nice texturing idea.
V3
Pickaxes
The images below display a block out of one of the pickaxes created above, I’ve used the same texture as the helmet above and adjusted it slightly to replicate a slightly damaged style to the head of the pickaxe using a pattern overlay to create the rusty/weathered style of texture displayed below. For the handle of the pickaxe I’ve used a fairly rough bark texture at a rather large scale to give off a damaged feel to the handle such as cracks going down the handle, I also altered the contrast of the texture and used the curve tool to darken and lighten certain parts of the texture.
V1
Rails
V1
For this asset I’ve used the same wooden texture from above as I wanted to continue with the damaged style of texturing which I’ve overlayed over the planks underneath the rails, I’ve darkened and altered some of the planks to give them each a slightly different style of damage to add variation to the texturing style.
I also used the metallic texture from above making adjustments where necessary such as creating a similar effect to the pickaxe head above using a pattern as an overlay which has given me quite an appealing looking rail, almost as if the rails have been affected by the soot in the air/coals in the mine.
James' 2nd Year - Level 3 