Facets aren't like onions. I smoothed these ones out using soften edges in Maya. The FBX were importing into Unreal with hard edges, which while fine for the block out is nice to have gone now. 

I'm going to put a bit more tender loving care into the standing lanterns next. First though, I'm having issues exporting my scene, which, is deliciously scary. So I'm going to resolve that first, I think I need to download...Neihc help me out here :D I think I need to download a set of scripts for Windows. 

My latest updates are below!

This is beautiful and the pieces fit together, yet I confess I'm not sure how this works. I'll leave it to the seers.

I modeled this based on yesterday's exploratory drawings, which I'll include here for convenience. The original sphere was extremely basic, not even quite a block out yet, so this is a huge improvement. I dreamed up cute rabbit feet for the stand, but I may skip them because upon looking at the asset in the scene the base is almost never visible. Modeled in Maya and inserted into my Unreal Engine scene as an FBX.

I'm excited to be posting my update. I'm modeling in Maya, refining the block out of the main table. I installed a plug-in that has sped up my workflow, it's saving me a lot of time otherwise spent on keeping the Outliner organized. https://youtu.be/_Ou9WC6gjxY Less time deleting orphan nodes and freezing transforms, more time modeling. 

I don't believe I've posted the candles on the table yet, those were sculpted in ZBrush.

Another sweet update is the lighting improvements. Mippithedork on Unreal Slackers Discord helped me to really make the hanging lights shine! Thank you for helping me Mippi, this looks a lot nicer.

Tomorrow I'm going to model that Horary/Astronomical clock in the background, the big challenge there is that the concept doesn't show it in detail. I sketched out how I expect the pieces to fit together in 3D. There was one circular piece that I'm not sure about but the rest makes sense in my head. 

Latest below!

Updates on the colors. Texturing in Substance Painter. Lit and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag.

To improve my skills, I went back and retopo'd, optimized the UVs, and started retexturing this train car mesh. This is the work in progress render now that I'm starting to texture again. 

Rendered in Marmoset, modeled in Blender, baked high to low in Marmoset, texturing in Substance Painter.

Setting up vertex colors on the modified train car. I'm going to do the same workflow on the safety lap bar (not shown here.) When it comes to Substance I'll have one texture set for each, and color IDs based on the vertex colors for each texture set. Happy New Year!

Since my last post I've blocked in the entire table with basic cylinders and rectangles, and then moved on the adding more details as shown in the image below. I also made substantial progress on UVs and texturing of the net, which is working very well. I'll show that in another update.

I'm going to focus more on the interior for a while, fill up the table. I modeled the bench and table today. You can also see today's updated landing, with a new trim, and a set of basic UVs applied. I also adjusted the fabric's tiling to reduce the bulkiness of the curtains.

I'm happy. Things are starting to look the way I'd like. In particular, I'm struck again by how helpful it was to have JBKappirossi help me set up a nice skylight. This sunrise shot is so beautiful.

The net meshes being added here are a huge deal! After several days of failing I finally got it to work the way I want, which is even better than initially planned. The net is dynamic due to using Maya 2022's Sweep functionality. I can change the geometry provided I save the curves. I used a Python script made by Schocki on Gumroad to connect the curve vertices while still keeping the curves separate. Make sure your curves all have the same pivot prior to running the script or you will get undesirable results. Thank you to Will Chambers for pointing me to the script, all of my netty plans hinged on that functionality working.

Here is a closeup on the preliminary net in Unreal. I believe it adds a lot to the scene.

A bit further out now.

Excited! Looking forward to tomorrow, and to sleeping tonight. G'night.

Today I've created netting for my shop, to catch all the wayward children, or clumsy adults. Wouldn't want anyone meeting an untimely doom at the bottom of a waterfall would we now?

I include the video showing how to create your own knots down below. While it is relatively easy in technique, I find it a bit clunky. I think that my friend Niehc had it right when he used a nurbs circle to do this rather than the polygon faces as I've done. I'll see if that doesn't work a bit smoother tomorrow morning. 

Links

How to make a net using paracord for the survivalists and other curious folk.

How to tie a knot and draw curves onto geometry in Maya