Recreating Velious

[Hezron]

I've decided to cross-post this over here in the P99 forums from my guild forums. I've received a lot of encouragement there and hoping the rest of the community will enjoy this as well.

My goal: to recreate a realistic-appearing version of Velious. This is being done using a combination of several programs: photoshop, maya, mudbox, and terragen 3. I'm learning this as I do it and given that fact I think it's going along very well. My modeling of the continent comes from the map image of the overall continent which actually looks a good bit different than the image in my head if you were to line up the individual zones together.

http://wiki.project1999.com/images/Map_rav_velious.jpg

My ultimate goal would be to render a fly-through of this as well though the render time would be crazy-long.
First up, the entire continent was sculpted up in mudbox. Then, I imported it into terragen to begin building the continent, adding in the snow, breaking it up, adding in constraints, etc.

Without further ado:

The scars of Velious. ToV would be located within the far left valley.

http://i.imgur.com/sxucGe5.png

The three main islands of Iceclad Ocean

http://i.imgur.com/zl1UrlM.png

Time to work on populating the continent. I imported the terragen continent into maya to build my objects onto the actual continent for scaling. First up, the Tower of Frozen Shadow.

http://i.imgur.com/salJ82o.jpg

ToFS added in after UV texturing and a dock added in. Scale is difficult to appreciate but I have added trees to give a better sense of it.

http://i.imgur.com/z4WM436.jpg

Building and adding in the Eastern Wastes bridge really gives it a Velious-feel I think.

http://i.imgur.com/ttWxax3.png

Added snow coverage to the new bridge.

http://i.imgur.com/qUBaJIi.png

http://i.imgur.com/PWlEGg7.png



I have some more posts to add in as well to catch up. Will do so as I have time for it at work.

[visage]

Looks cool

[11bangbang]

if i could leave earth and live in norrath id be down.

[Champion_Standing]

http://s3media.247sports.com/Uploads/Assets/23/748/3748023.gif

[Hezron]

Next up I got the Ry'Gorr Fort walls up.

http://i.imgur.com/jTA3gIE.png

Then populated it with some buildings and added some trees along the eastern wastes. It doesn't have the same look as the fort ingame but I think by looking at it you get what it is supposed to represent.

http://i.imgur.com/m9qdqe7.png

I am currently working on creating the portal circles for Iceclad, CS, etc. If you look at the continent map Thurgadin is actually situated in a little port on the northern edge of the island up against the mountains. I plan on trying to create a waterfall in that area to represent where those guys are hiding.

[-TK-]

Looks cool. Keep it up.

[nilbog]

Looking good, Hezron.

This reminds me of a similar project by toddfx using mudbox.
http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?p=792006#post792006

[dafier]

This is absolutely awesome.

If you want to send me some scenes when you are done, I'll use my CPU time to help render portions. I am unsure if this is possible, but if it is, it's the least I can do to help.

[Hezron]

I wish I knew how he pulled the buildings out of the game. That would make things a whole lot faster than creating them myself. They still look surprisingly good as well.

[nilbog]

I wish I knew how he pulled the buildings out of the game. That would make things a whole lot faster than creating them myself. They still look surprisingly good as well.

Maybe s3dspy? Look in the relevant .s3d of the obj

[Pringles]

Ive always maintained that if someone took classic EQ, kept everything identical, but revamped the graphics engine to bring it up to modern times - it'd be a massive success.

Classic EQ gameplay is solid - the graphics are not (by todays standards).

[Hezron]

Will have to check out s3dspy. Toddfx also mentioned using 3D Ripper DX to essentially pull the models and textures into his 3D program but that p99 had it blocked. I may have to look into that further too as it could drastically decrease the time it takes to create these objects to populate my continent. There used to be a zone viewer I remember using to explore new expansions for EQ before going into the zones and perhaps I could use this. Will have to research this further.

[Hezron]

Want to buy a port.

http://i.imgur.com/CQvZMkV.png

Got the port ring up and running tonight.

[Thulghor]

This is pretty awesome.

[Nuggie]

pretty darn neat.

[iruinedyourday]

This is great, but you're missing like 500 of my corpses sprinkled around everything :P

awesome work!

[visage]

Want to buy a port.

http://i.imgur.com/CQvZMkV.png

Got the port ring up and running tonight.


Can you do Cabilis for giggles?

[georgie]

looks like some skyrim 3d nice

[drelk001]

bro... this is awesome =D

[Hezron]

Got the Sleeper's Tomb entrance set up.

http://i.imgur.com/7mdUXyg.png

http://i.imgur.com/n8yYZtU.png

[perrier]

Hezron would you have any interest in selling a large print of this once you are finished? PM me and let me know if that is something you would be interested in.

[Swish]

You know what's sad? OP has done more awesome stuff in a few weeks than EQ Next has managed in 2 years.

[Thulghor]

You know what's sad? OP has done more awesome stuff in a few weeks than EQ Next has managed in 2 years.

[Hezron]

Well, today's project seemed so simple in my head and somehow took all day to accomplish. Mostly this was due to having to reconstruct the terrain to create a valley for the Kael entrance. Anyhow, finally got the Kael wall and city entrance up. I have it curving into the mountain similar to how it look on the overall continent map.

http://i.imgur.com/Tr54utx.png

http://i.imgur.com/1KBf8qy.png

Hezron would you have any interest in selling a large print of this once you are finished? PM me and let me know if that is something you would be interested in.

I'm currently just working on populating Velious. Haven't thought much beyond that so far. It wouldn't be too difficult to render out a high quality image, would just take a long time to create it.

[Hezron]

Next up I'm going to work on the Cobalt Scar shrine portal. Then on to NTOV.
I'm trying to decide on whether to build something to represent Skyshrine or not. Its underground in game though the overall map shows it in a corner of one of the scars. It would definitely increase the work time.

Also not sure how to successfully create Wakening Lands, a lush forest in the midst of this ice and snow. This may be limited by the terrain software I am using.

With that complete I'll look into adding cloud and fog for more realism. I'd also like to add in some ice flows around the islands in the water but this will take some experimentation as well to see if it is possible.

Am I missing any other large landmarks?

[Sirken]

looking great sir, keep it up <3

[Patriam1066]

This is very fucking cool. Nice work OP!

[Hezron]

Today's work:

Added in the Cobalt Scar/Skyshrine portal buidling.

http://i.imgur.com/8YtG2HR.png

Colored it in.

http://i.imgur.com/JjMIATI.png

Topped it with snow.

http://i.imgur.com/wFtYmTX.png

Also added in some ships to the surrounding coast.

http://i.imgur.com/9JfsVGe.png

http://i.imgur.com/871EmNr.png

[Hezron]

Didn't get to do a whole lot last night, but I was able to add in some trees and the portal ring to cobalt scar.

http://i.imgur.com/8MWuaxw.png

[Hezron]

Thanks. I've spent the past 2 nights working on terrain. I wasn't happy with the peaks on the mountains. They weren't epic enough, so I readjusted the terrain. I like the look a little better now. I'm also a fan of this shot in that you can see the CS portal to SS, TOFS in the distance, and beyond the tower the tiny little spec of a ship on its way to the island pictured previously. It gives a good scale of the continent.

http://i.imgur.com/OJO844P.png

I also got started on the ToV entrance. It's coming along nicely.

http://i.imgur.com/nrpwDC1.jpg

[Lamil]

Wow, this is amazing. Some kind of print of this would be awesome!

[Hezron]

I'll see about creating a large scale render when I finish.

I'm working on adding the ToV entrance in now.
Then onto trying to create wakening lands.
Next, I need to try to create a waterfall for the Thurgadin area.
After that I want to see if I can add in some ice flows around the islands.
Add in some ground fog for ambience.
Add in clouds.
Adjust the lighting.

Still lots of work to be done. My dream with this is to create a flythrough video similar to a trailer or advertisement you'd expect to see for a game. The render times are pretty long. At a resolution of around 480p, it takes about 5 mins to render one frame. When you add in clouds and fog, the time will jump up dramatically. Bump it up to a resolution good enough for print and you are looking at hours if not more than a day for something like 4k or more. Render times for a 720p video would be pretty long unless you use a render farm. I suspect that will be cost-prohibitive to do as a hobby though.

[Hezron]

Got the ToV entrance put into place today.

http://i.imgur.com/ftjyUb0.png

And created the wakening lands forest.

http://i.imgur.com/PlgnBrV.png

http://i.imgur.com/LIUKb0B.png

[phacemeltar]

now port this to source and create all the races/classes for pvp shenanigans!

[Swish]

Would love to see a vid, definitely :)

[Hezron]

So I think I'm pretty much done with my project. Playing around with adding in some surrounding glaciers and fog tonight.

http://i.imgur.com/Rham5d4.jpg

Renders in 1080p of a single frame are taking hours, so I don't see making a video as a real possibility. At this point if anyone is interested in a specific shot somewhere they are welcome to tell me what they'd like to see in a higher resolution and I'll see what I can do. If you are wanting a shot in a custom resolution let me know that as well.

[Thulghor]

This is pretty awesome. You consider doing a Thurgadin waterfall/river shot in GD?