Author Topic: Unreal Engine 4 for ArchViz - Thoughts?  (Read 292311 times)

2014-10-17, 11:43:07
Reply #30

racoonart

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Because automatic sucks. Most of the time it will create way too many UV-shells which then will produce ugly seams somewhere clearly visible in your mesh. It's better to have a continuous unwrap with specific seams somewhere hidden (corners, on the bottom, etc).
Another example: Since the lightmaps are usually very small in resolution (e.g 64x64 ) it's is highly probably that little grooves (the gap between a car door and the rest of the car) which normally would be darker only get hit by a couple of samples, so you get ugly "jaggy" dark pixels/lines in your baking. It's better to plan your unwrapping accordingly.

Don't get me wrong, I would be extremely happy if there was an automatic solution ;)
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2014-10-17, 11:56:12
Reply #31

johan belmans

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Hi

we are exploring Unreal aswell, and untill now we came to the same conclusions as Deadclown and Juraj.
But we are not giving up :-) [I do not mean that Deadclown and Juraj are doing this]

About unwrapping; Bertrand has an interesting post on his blog http://bertrand-benoit.com/blog/2014/09/17/unwrap-help/


2014-10-17, 12:03:08
Reply #32

tomislavn

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Hi

we are exploring Unreal aswell, and untill now we came to the same conclusions as Deadclown and Juraj.
But we are not giving up :-) [I do not mean that Deadclown and Juraj are doing this]

About unwrapping; Bertrand has an interesting post on his blog http://bertrand-benoit.com/blog/2014/09/17/unwrap-help/

Yeah, I have seen that blog post about X-Ray Unwrap update. It is quite cheap and obviously it does the work done pretty good (considering the reviews)... but I simply haven't had enough time to give it a try.. yet :)
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2014-10-17, 12:25:38
Reply #33

Juraj

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I was always curious, why do you need to unwrap everything? There are automatic ways to do that...

Because it won't look good. Even with best automatic unwrap you will be stitching isles together to avoid seams, divisions and other artifacts.
Sometimes the amount of work to clean-up is bigger than to simply unwrap it manually from start.

The GI is photon mapping + final gather. Every artifacts shows heavily and can break the Archviz look.

Edit: Oh...Deadclown answered, I had no idea there was 3rd page, I don't know why it opens on previous for me always.
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2014-10-17, 14:42:46
Reply #34

borisquezadaa

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Best is an automatic by hand method  using some tools (like the one from bertrands forum) best of both worlds.
But you must first start with a good mesh and known some basics about topology .
I have seen some assets came out like a bunch of triangles. Its a pain in the ass to unwrap those unless you do some retopo.
Not even talk about starting with those mesh generated by photogrametry, those are the worst.

So workflow by now: mesh->retopo->create new UV and unwrapp->reproyection->optimize texture size->asset (more or less).
Lots of work...
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2014-10-20, 22:36:01
Reply #35

CiroC

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2014-10-23, 12:33:01
Reply #36

NielsH

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Coming from a game art background this thread is awesome to read as I had pretty much the reverse experience when I learned visualisation. Imagine always having to unwrap everything by hand thinking about seam placement, overlapping, padding, wasted uv space etc. and then find out that a simple box unwrap with some small edits will be enough in 90% of the cases.

I'm currently working on a product visualisation which I'm going to do in UE4, it's a lot of fun to create PBR materials using the Quixel suite. It's not possible to get completely photorealistic results in real time yet but if you can accept a bit of a stylished look you can get some really nice results.


If anyone ever needs some help with "game art" related issues feel free to send me a message.

2014-12-31, 19:21:28
Reply #37

artmaknev

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I am also interested in Unreal, just signed up and tried the demo scene from Xoio, had some trouble for some reason at first to open the scene (it was stuck at %29 and then at %74 loading for like 20 min, is it typical?).

I am curious about this, because I if you can combine this experience with Oculus, then clients could go wild for something like that and it already looks like some are willing to pay top dollar for this experience:

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3037425/a-95000-oculus-rift-ride-will-give-you-a-tour-of-the-worlds-most-expensive-real-estaste

I wonder how they did this, did they bake it in vray or corona and then compiled it in unreal or unity as .exe file?  Baking requires so much work that I have given up that practice couple of years ago when I tried one project with that technique, it just too much work when some element changes in the scene... Is Unreal 100% capable of producing its own GI and baking? So you can import just the model and bring it to photoreal level?


2015-01-01, 01:09:02
Reply #38

Juraj

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Quote
I quickly tug the Oculus Rift off my head, ending my virtual trip into a luxury apartment—a trip that costs $95,000.

What the.. I am moving to Miami to make this shit right now.


Is Unreal 100% capable of producing its own GI and baking? So you can import just the model and bring it to photoreal level?

Yes and No. Yes you can import just geometry with textures, because Unreal does in fact, not allow bringing custom shadow maps (unlike Unity), it can only generate it by itself through:

1)Baking- Using Lightmass (which is Final Gathering + Photon Maps, basically simplified and ugly MentalRay). Photoreal ? Perhaps...if great care is taken. Lots of work.
2)Dynamic GI (Currently only Light Propagation Volumes)- Easy, looks bad. Not suitable for architecture (you can only choose big...or small detail, but whatever you choose, rest is ignored).
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2015-01-01, 16:03:49
Reply #40

artmaknev

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I know right! $95,000 for 1 project virtual tour! you can make one tour like that and take the rest of the year off!

But how do you think they've done it, it looks like Vray to me with baked textures brought into Unity or Unreal, and then added some particles like water and fire, maybe real-time reflections? 

If it takes so much time to bring something to photoreal level in Unreal, then maybe its better to go with the proven path (vray / corona bake from max and import to real-time). 

Anyway, looks like year 2015 is going real-time!

Happy New Year!

2015-01-01, 16:23:05
Reply #41

CiroC

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If it takes so much time to bring something to photoreal level in Unreal, then maybe its better to go with the proven path (vray / corona bake from max and import to real-time). 

See the link that headoff posted.

2015-01-01, 22:45:36
Reply #42

borisquezadaa

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This is why Corona needs textue baking so urgent. Archviz related. Do not think off it as a game developer stuff... the lines between both are turning very dimm.
And there is market for that kind of visualization work so if Corona introduces texture baking, people can work on projects that really pays off. Everyones happy.
What i do with Corona My Corona post of random stuff rendering
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2015-01-06, 13:42:42
Reply #43

chrisis

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Those are, in fact, just vray renders. Their actual product looks very very different... ;)

2015-01-07, 08:59:38
Reply #44

CiroC

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Another visualization using Unreal:


I had the opportunity to use Unreal for at least two visualizations and is not that difficult once you understand the correct workflow.