Fox and chicken: handpainted diorama
polycounter lvl 11
TLDR: Latest version
I'm making a small diorama that will features some foxes and chickens playing hide and seek.
My goals for this piece are:
Trees: I'm not very good at them so I'm making one the central focus of the piece
No Alphas. I want to do low (ish) poly foliage which doesn't use alpha/mask maps because these are pretty expensive in some engines.
Story: My scenes are always a bit sterile so I want the scene to 'tell a story.' It'll be quite simple: some foxes playing hide and seek with some chickens, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.
Characters: I don't do these much either, so I'm going to start with a fox and a chicken; again, simple to begin with.
This is what I have so far.
I'm making a small diorama that will features some foxes and chickens playing hide and seek.
My goals for this piece are:
Trees: I'm not very good at them so I'm making one the central focus of the piece
No Alphas. I want to do low (ish) poly foliage which doesn't use alpha/mask maps because these are pretty expensive in some engines.
Story: My scenes are always a bit sterile so I want the scene to 'tell a story.' It'll be quite simple: some foxes playing hide and seek with some chickens, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.
Characters: I don't do these much either, so I'm going to start with a fox and a chicken; again, simple to begin with.
This is what I have so far.
Replies
maybe do something more round for the tree top like this one. I think some flower on the grass could be cute and add a Pop of color
Also game engine are strong enough to support tree nowadays, i remember seeing in a blizzard contest post that they allowed up to 1k poly for a tree in WoW and wow isn't the most next gen game by far, you could almost play with the computer you had during vanilla and it will still be okayish.
As you said the canopy is still wip. The only thing I'm not sure about are the chickens. Color-wise they are pretty close to the mushrooms. I'm having a hard time telling them apart from objects behind them.
Looking forward to seeing more.
Anyone have any opinions on which one or which combination would be best? I'm tending towards E or F at the moment.
I'm partial to C and D.
A, E and F have too much blue overtones.
B's palette doesn't work for me. Tree trunk colour contradicts everything else.
But in all seriousness, D w/the bark of C, is what I'm thinking might look best.
Gave this a try, but I don't feel that it works too well.
Also adjusted the colour of the mushrooms/hen in a few variants
Make the bottom jaw of the fox flat, it'll read better and help the silhouette.
attempt a less shadowed version of this type of texture for your tree? (leaves only, your trunk is better...)
GRADIENTS ALL DAY!
I'm going to redo the grass texture next. I want a nice chunky feel to it but the present texture doesn't support that: the fine blades of grass look weird on geometry that curves round into the rocks. I'll make it a bit swirly to tie in with the swirly pattern motifs on the tree.
Any thoughts/opinions?
It would really look great if you managed that, I would also suggest alternate rows of the leaves so variations that possibly follow the gradient from the peak to the base.
So say 3 - 5 rows of different leaf colors following the gradient pattern for a nice effect.
Shouldn't be impossible find a spot to drop 2 more leaf uv's and give them the same gradient lighting value as the bush bg.
Looks really cool and as long as you continue it will only get better.
GL!
Figure out something that looks good on a small scale prop, then apply your knowledge to the bigger asset. Try different things, scale, leaf spacing, vertex coloring, alphas, alpha as a base for the main shape....etc.
Some good homework is to find some samples of the tree you want to emulate and go for that. (the stylized trees in Mario Kart 8 are amazingly simple yet very beautiful/convincing.
I don't really think the original leaves work well with the new leaves. The new leaves look great and read as leaves, even from a distance. The original leaves look like a symbol that's supposed to represent a leaf. On the old leaves, the light outline and light interior lines contrast strongly with the dark fill, and that contrast behind the new leaf-shaped leaves gives me the impression of a watermark or a corporate logo. The style of lines on the old and new also clash to me - old has thick uniform lines like chisel-tip marker, new has thin varying lines like felt tip calligraphy brush. At the very least I'd advise making the hues of old and new match more closely.
I see the challenge in defining the extents of the grass in the dioroma while creating a contour that fits the scene. The spiral motif is a good way to solve that. And it makes sense to include the spiral motif elsewhere to add harmony/unity/balance to the composition. However maybe this is just me but I feel like spirals are kind of overdone in handpainted wood, and are pretty unrealistic, moreso than the other stylization in your scene.
One other thing, the fern/aloe looking plant (the one at the left in the "current version" and at the right in the "paintover")...it looks great, but it appears to be a way higher mesh resolution than everything else in the scene. It's jarring seeing that plant looking smooth and curved while other plants and the tree roots are noticeably faceted. Neither is wrong or right in my opinion, just a weird resolution inconsistency.
OK now that I've picked it apart, I'll say, I really love this scene! The color scheme is great and your handpainting is really playful and appealing! Keep at it!
I've made the canopy 'fluffier' by trying to mimic Airborn's trees. I've also painted over the grass texture with the swirl motif, which looks OK in some places and like a carpet from the seventies in other places.
Mmm, I don't think it's too bad. I take your point about the old leaves looking incongruous though.
Also, I've loaded it onto sketchfab.
The perils of making a predominately vertical model in a horizontal 1080p world.