Hi again!

So it's update time for the Pharmacy project. A lot happened since the last time I posted.
The scene has gotten a lot of love as well. A relight as I felt the previous one didn't match the concept in the way I wanted. I've also added textures to all parts and props and started adding dirt and rubble to some parts, as well as added some new props.
I found the old boxes a bit boring and clean so I did a texture pass on the to roughen them up a bit.

Below you have a progress update and a closeup of one of the new assets that was added (an auto injector).
But that's not all...

I've made a decision

The bigger news and the centerpiece of this post is that I've decided to shelve the project.
It became apparent to me that it was no longer as fun to work on as I wanted and it started to become a chore taking it forward.
Looking back at it I think I've felt this most of the time during the project with the exception of a few select evenings now and then.
Now the story behind this decision is a bit bigger. I've made some realizations about how I work, why I do what I do, and where I should go forward, and this project isn't that.
Now don't take me wrong I've really enjoyed creating this project. Its just that I find myself wanting to work on it less and less. And from that I decided its better to cut the scope down, finish it up and move on, rather than forcing my way through it.

This is something I talk about in more detail here: LINK TO ANOTHER BLOG POST
This is in order to not shift focus away from the topic with a bunch of project updates in the same place.

In an effort to do the project justice though, I've created some small dioramas to wrap up what I've created for the scene in a neat way.

Hi again, It's update time!

So since last time I've been to Gamescom, Sweden game conference, on vacation and back so a lot has happened both inside and outside of this project.

But the focus here should be about this project. And the bulk of the work since the last post has been a complete overhaul of the lighting. I felt that the old setup ended up being way too saturated and bright. And a second point to the lighting was that when I added proper textures the baked GI gave "proper" light from any emissive surfaces. Causing the light on the pillars and in the ceiling to brighten up the entire scene, and that combined with my directional light ended up way brighter than I wanted.
Another big part of whats changed is that I also gave everything in the scene proper textures and UVs, moving away from the simple tiling textures they had before.

For this round of screenshots I went back to one of my extra supporting cameras as an alternative angle. Making sure the scene is keeping up to shape from more than one direction. 

The scene now has a proper set of textured pharmaceutical props. With proper list of contents if anyone is picky about their vitamin sources.

I've taken a pass adding proper detail normals to the shader and materials to give those really juicy close ups and in that also aligning the reflectivity of the surfaces with how I want it.

Whats next for the project now would be to start giving the scene some proper dressing.
Getting the pharmaceuticals placed in a more proper and logical sense and giving the scene its abandoned, "someone has been here to steal shit" look.

Hi there!
It's time for an update on the scene again

A lot has changed since the last post and the biggest one is probably the textures. I brought in some temporary tiling textures to the objects of the scene to get all the colors in place and get a feel for it all.
The original concept has some really impactful reflections going on in the floor which is something I really wanted to keep so one thing that got some love was the Screen space reflections.
With that I also worked a bit with the shadows to get them real sharp and tight.
Notice how the old shadows have a very soft edge to them compared to the new ones. Also notice the bias issue in the older shadows where the shadows of Adams feet weren't cast just behind him.

There has been boxes... all the boxes!
For this I also created a cardboard material to go with them

And what kind of update would it be if it didn't bring some shader sweets. I started a basic glass shader with refraction and a very subtle adjust of opacity based on depth. This gave it this dark tinted look that I quite liked, rather than it just being transparent. (Shown in the GIF below)

I felt it was finally time for an update on this!
I've managed to get a lot of small blocked out props in to have me getting started on filling the place up.

I spent some time experimenting with the second room, the storage room from the concepts but I never managed to get it to a place where i liked it. So for now I've decided to focus the project on mainly this part of the scene. But I might jump back to the storage area later who knows.

But perhaps the biggest change is the one finished prop. I found it quite fun to model and thought I would take a little detour going all the way with this fire extinguisher. I decided to not add any dust to it in the texture as I think I want to do that with a shader in Unity instead. Will probably give the textures some more love at a later stage when the whole scene starts coming together, still have some masks in there that I'm not 100% satisfied with.

The power of Global Illumination

This scene uses quite a lot of indirect light which makes GI a fundamental pillar in the look of the scene. I think this scene therefore demonstrates the power of GI quite well and shows  what it can do with very little effort. This is a quick bake of about 6 minutes (using Bakery - GPU Lightmapper)

I'm back at it and kicked off a new project this week. So I thought I would share the progress of the scene here with anyone interested in following along...

So I've wanted to do a post apo scene for a long time and I felt that now is a perfect time. Its a genre that I've always liked a lot and wanted to play around more with.
But post apo is HUUUUGE , so what to pick?
Well my latest work has consisted of a lot of exterior work so for this project I wanted to go inside a bit. And after roaming through my collection of nice looking environments I settled on this concept by Ilya Dykov.
The scene being a medical facility or a pharmacy give me a nice amount of small props to really focus on and develop my prop skills.
Plus I will be forced to make some kickass looking cardboard because that's laying all over the place!

So heres the first stage blockout with just basic shapes and lighting mostly to establish scale, position and how the scene should be broken down.

Blockouts

Scene Breakdown

The concept art