[UE4] Hand drawn 3D Art
interpolator
Here's what I've been up to lately. I'm drawing out 2D scenes/props that I want to bring into Unreal Engine 4 and have it look exactly identical to the 2D art. 
I'm aiming to achieve this with a mix of sprites and some 3D models.
I'm aiming to achieve this with a mix of sprites and some 3D models.
Replies
I'm aiming for this quality.
Edit: Removed the lenz flarezz. It's not how I envision it yet.
its a bit unclear whats 3D and whats 2D though.
If you do the main assets only as sprites they would be flat so you cannot rotate or move them. But maybe i just don´t get what you´re trying to do.
The Stats are just me having fun, and are part of the story.
This is my most detailed one to date (until I color in the Leopard Tank I suppose).
I could but as I told .Wiki above, that is too much manpower for me to do it for every object. Some things are going to be full 3D (like a house prop I'm working on). Everything else though are meant to be sprites.
This one is special because it's one of the few props that will have its own 3D model and not be a sprite.
(Note this model is from last year. I will update it to look like the above drawing)
Every texture and line is hand drawn. Not one brick is the same!
I'm a bit confused about what your aim is, especially with the "every brick is unique" thing, which just feels like a very inefficient way to do it. I'm all for doing things by hand, when it has a benefit, but even doing a 12 by 12 brick tile would probably save considerable time and effort. I mean, do things how you want to, of course; I'm just curious about why you're doing it the way you are.
I'm also a bit turned off by the realistic shapes and proportions, with what is essentially a toon shader. Reminds me of the old days, when Maya's built in toon shader was used to all kinds of 2D cartoons that needed complex animation, so they just made a particular object in 3D. Gives an uncanny valley feeling, for me. And it gives me the impression that you took an arch-viz model and just threw on a toon shader, which I know isn't the case, but it really feels that way.
But wait!!! I actually want to give it texture! But it's still in the rough stages of trying to get it to look stylized instead of real.
Instead, I'll leave a visualization!
Edit: Some trees look short. Gonna fix that.
This:
Does not equal this:
All the details in the Iron Giant animation sheet have been simplified and the proportions slightly exaggerated. If you stop and study it you will see what I'm talking about that.
This is why your recent batch of renders fail. You're not exaggerating your proportions or simplifying the details. You are simply applying flat shading and hand drawn textures to realistic models.
That being said, there is nothing wrong with what you're doing, but if you're going for something similar to the Iron Giant feel, then you are off target.
The front grill is simplified.
And the front seat detail.
Tracking the real details in 2d animation is very difficult and expensive. So simplifying is the best option.
So when you take a realistic 3d model, you will have to think about proportion and simplification in order to make the 3d model feel like a 2d object.
I started building my proportions but I'm hurrying to get some textures in there. The scene is also unlit, so I can paint in my own lighting.
I also found another GBA game that really captures what kind of game design artstyle I'm after. See Driv3r on the GBA pull off open world graphics using just sprites and some 3D models.
So you don´t have to paint in all the shadows and speculars.
http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/Leo2_Pics/Leo2A4_scan01.jpg
I also got around to doing the back. Don't want to spend too much time here though so I'll show textures next.
I have never done this before so I'm going to learn from reference.
You need to focus. You're pulling yourself in too many directions and the quality is suffering.
SkankerZero is right, for sure. And I think people have mentioned it before, going back to fundamentals can only help, before venturing into something like this. It seems like you are having trouble establishing a consistent style with the pieces in this thread, and that's something that should probably be sorted out as soon as possible, lest you'll have to redo a lot of it in the future, or you just won't like the final product.
I wrote a post in my old thread that tried to explain what I mean. It's not my intention to not make a good looking art. But because I never posted a lot of art before, I needed to make a start somewhere.
On consistency, a lot of it comes down to how I'm actually learning how to reverse engineer old artstyles. Without many new games/movies doing stuff like The Iron Giant did, I have to clear my mind of those outside influences so I can focus on copying just Warner Bros. You can start to see this change in my newer art, where I'm using colors and outlines closer to the movies, whereas all my art on my first page had colors/outlines coming from my imagination.
The street scene I had planned is being divided into 3 smaller ones. It now gives me more time to finish other assets in the background while being able to show some new stuff running in engine.
This time, I'm now adding lighting. Here are 2 versions:
(less aggressive specular)
(more aggressive specular)
And as usual, my reference. Or maybe I just loving posting screenshots from the Iron Giant. Either will do!!!!!!!!!!!!
It will be part of the new smaller scenes I'm making.
I'm also going to start toning down the realism. I redrew blueprints and exaggerated the features from a real light pole.
As for texture, because a lot of my props will end up using flat colors like in Iron Giant/90s cartoons, I feel this is what people are going to be looking at 99% of time even when it is colored. There will be some exceptions though like if I decide to add more detail later on.