The Fractal Abyss

Final Update

New stuff

The dudes are from Mixamo. I found there two simple idle animation too. https://www.mixamo.comI retextured them to make look more like astronauts and not soldiers.

The decision to add a landing capsule came pretty late.... one day before the deadline so the asset had to be quick made, simple yet effective.

Wieder fractal tree modelling

Vegetation

last week I worked on the vegetation. I sculpted the tree brunches and leaves and painted grass textures. 

The current state 

New screenshots and breakdowns arrived!

Fractals and Voxels

As I've already mention I am using the voxel plugin for my terrain. It is a very cool stuff. It feels like sculpting in Zbrush but inside Unreal and with automated textures. The reason why I am using that is the idea to make the planet  with fractal cliffs. So I am curving the caves and holes and sculpt some organic shapes here and there so it looks alianly... :D Check the plugin out, maybe you can be useful for your planet:  https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/voxel-plugin-free

Cliffs, rocks, cliffs... even more cliffs

From blocking meshes to ready game assets 

Grass/moss shader

it is a very simple set-up with a world-aligned grass texture 

Substance Painter Texturing

Rocks, cliffs and grass

Next landscape iterations

As you can say the mountain in the background got much bigger. I sculpted it according to the paint over sketch from the previous post. I believe that adjustment helped to maintain the focal point in the composition. Btw the terrain has tessellation and a displacement map now, so it looks a bit more rocky.

Blocking cliff meshes

To manage middle sized shapes of the landscape I modeled a few proxy meshes of cliffs for the blocking. The very rough at that point but will be sculpted in Zbrush later.

Next steps

As next I will take care of vegetation modelling und set dressing of the foreground. The landing capsule is also missing, so I have to block out and place it too. 

Shaping the landscape in UE4

Moving forward from the rough blocking in Maya I started to shape the landscape in UE4 to match my initial sketch and blocking. Right now I am doing a few iterations on the background Mountain. More details will come soon...

Blocking scene

Today I made a rough blocking of the scene in Maya according to the sketch I've posted previously.

Hi there, 

I also join this exciting contest and would like to share my first update. I decided to follow closely the director brief and create an environment which tells a story of two astronauts that landed on an unseen living planet and have no idea how to get out of there.

Core elements: 

1.The Rift

The men had luck and landed safely right on an edge of a huge rift valley. The rift is an abyss and the bottom of it can't be seen. However, the men are in trouble, since the little flat ground they found themselves on is isolated

2. Landscape & Composition

The structure of the composition is based on the rule of thirds. On the sketch below you can see the rough layout of the elements in the foreground and background.

The pictures below are my main references for the composition:

3. Fractals

One of the remarkable elements of the planet is its strong fractal nature. It could be the key visual element which will be present in every aspect of the life on this plane. The Most visible fractals will be in the structure of the cliffs and rocks. And smaller details of the plants.

3. Colors

The colors will be bright and fairly saturated to achieve a little stylized look but not too cartoony. I am not a concept artist and my painting skills are very limited, but I tried to sketch the colors and rough details on that sketch:

Some color inspirations:

4. Plants

I didn't worry too much about the vegetation at that points but to get an idea of how they could look like I put together this mood board of alien plants:

5. The capsule

The astronauts landed in a capsule which will be seen in the scene too, to better communicate the story: