Gravity Falls "Mystery Shack" WIP

JustinSlick

Hi Polycount!

So, I've always kinda shied away from game-art, because to be honest, the workflow makes my head spin a little bit ... But I wanna give it a try, and I think this will be a really funnn project to start with.

I just marathoned through Gravity Falls a couple days ago, and was pretty blown away by it. I love the way that Oregon is basically depicted as a giant old-growth redwood grove, the colors are gorgeous, and it's got a cool off-kilter stylization to it.

Anyway the "Mystery Shack" is the show's centerpiece, so I'm gonna model it up and then try to build a small UDK map around it. Here's the primary ref I'm working from:



I started blocking out the scene last night, so I'll post those WIPs in a moment or two. Cheers!

JustinSlick

Aaand here's the beginning of my block out. These aren't necessary my game-res meshes (more of a base to sculpt on), but if you see any glaring topology issues feel free to point them out, because I'm a bit inexperienced with low-poly.



And here are some trees I modeled. Tried to get pretty close to the stylization used in the show... will probably try to come up with a few more variations, maybe a douglas fir type, and a smaller pine or something.



I know it's early, but crits are always welcome... Thanks for looking!

Joopson

Great show. Can't wait to see where you go with this! Looks good so far.
Although, the reference you posted shows the house not as a triangular prism shape (which is how you have it), but instead the house walls are parallel, and very skewed. I'm not sure that makes sense, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

JustinSlick

Haha, wow you're totally right... that's crazy, I watched the whole series thinking of it as a triangular house.

I did notice the odd angle in the ref, but ended up overlooking it I guess. I just found a shot from the other side of the house though, and there are definitely vertical support walls.

Will have to revise the silhouette a little bit--I'm actually kinda relieved, I think it's gonna make some of the connections a bit easier.

And since I'm posting... went ahead and started blocking out "Greasy's Diner" from the show as well, because why the heck not : ). I might do some sculpting tonight...

Stinkhorse

So you got me to look the show up. The character art style isn't immediately jumping out at me but that Mystery Shack background image is something right out of Sam & Max Hit the Road.

Are you going to try and capture that brush style look that the art has? The diffuse effect on the tree trunks or the clear individual strokes of lighter green on the trees in the background could be a real achievement if you figure out how to pull them off via shaders or some other effect.

JustinSlick

Hey guys, no real update on the Gravity falls stuff, but I did want to ask a quick question.

I've been sculpting some environment assets, and was just working on a wood beam:



I wanted to ask sooner rather than later because these are kinda labor intensive... you think this is on the right track for a stylized piece?

I'll probably do one or two more of these, and I just wanna know whether anything just isn't working or really jumps out so I can make adjustments before I move foreward!

Thanks so much : )

@Stinkhorse: Yeah, the one thing I'm not crazy about is some of the character art, but I love the environments. I've heard it compared to Sam & Max before, although I've never played it.

As for the texturing on the trees... it would be really awesome to figure out how to nail the brush stroke style on BG trees, but honestly I don't have a whole lot of experience building shaders. We'll see what happens, but at least for the foreground trees, I'll probably sculpt em up in ZBR.

Selaznog

Wood beam sculpting looks awesome! I wouldnt bother sculpting any more though; one should be enough. Think about it, you'll have two unique ends and 4 unique sides so if you model right you'll be able to add a ton of variation (the thread of mine you posted on, all those wood beams were just one texture, and it's not too noticable)

Just tryin to save you some time, as I know how time consuming it is to sculpt wood :P