Monthly Art Challenge July 2016 (42)

eXecutex

Hello everyone and welcome to the Monthly Art Challenge for the month of June !!!

Hey guys !
Another month passed by, and we got new concepts ! Horrayyy ! xD
Not gonna say much, it's summer, so, take your time with some fresh fantasy stuff ^_^

As always: You can still work on the previous challenge and keep posting in that thread! I hope you finish your art!

NOTE: This month and the next to come will include environment(exterior and interior) and prop. It's all up to you which you choose to do.

Join our Skype group if you want! Add me on Skype and I will add you to the group.
Me: oli-graphics

You don't have to join the Skype if you don't want to, and you don't need to ask to participate in the challenge, just start working and post your progress in this thread!




Artist: The Elder Scrolls: Online


Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artist/anda




Artist: Torchlight 2


Artist: The Elder Scrolls: Online

Feel free to approach either of the concepts however you like but I'd recommend making it as modular as possible to save time and keep things optimized. It's really up to you, and as long as you are learning, it doesn't matter right?

Also if you want to change up either concept a bit, as some people wanted, then feel free. Interpret these concepts to your liking.

There are some things that I would like to point out to for newcomers.

If you only want to do a few props as best you can, then feel free to go ahead and do it. This way you can gradually work on building up to a full scene before diving head-first into the whole ordeal.

Please read all the rules before starting.

When you are just starting out making a scene, it can seem complicated or imposing, so take the time to break it down. 

Think about how you can re-use assets, re-use textures, break it down as simple as possible and plan it out. A lot of people will break it down in their own way when they start out their challenge. Gather some reference images as well for different parts of the scene, maybe gather some refs and make it your own.

Take your time planning and blocking out, it will set you up for success later on.

Here are some specifics.

• Try to post one critique for every post that you make. This will make for a better learning environment and help us all grow as artists.

• You are able to use any provided render engine to present your work. (Unreal Engine, CryEngine, Unity, Marmoset Toolbag, V-ray etc. etc.)

• You must try your best and finish as much as you can in the time frame provided.

• Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique. We don't need to have 1000 disjointed threads littering the forums. 

• I would strongly encourage you to go and look at other games and see how they make their assets as well   as get concept art to give it your own feel, but it must stay very close to the concept, if not super close. 

Well that's about it. If you think that any rules should be changed, or there should be new additions to the rules, please let us know.

All that matters is that you learn, while being able to effectively critique others, as well as accept critiques on your own work. Remember to have fun. Cheers!

Omnicypher

i started painting some trims for those torchlight props:

[ Images Deleted due to photobuckets greed. ]

Nerdicon3000

Wanted to do a lighthouse since Bioshock Infinite.. I'm in.

Rohith06

I think i will try do some of the props as well. I am in as well.

Zitch

love the fun style of the props, Going for them!

Omnicypher

more progress:
[ Images Deleted due to photobuckets greed. ]

joe borley

ok so funny coinsidence that i had started working on these exact props in my spare time a month or two back, now they are part of the challenge i feel really amped to up the tempo and get much more of this done over july. so the first image below is of the first couple of assets ive started working on, im going to go back and redo parts of the tomb and and throne low poly to match the sculpt ive done of them both.


so i started working on these primarily to learn zbrush and to get back into modelling again. the throne was the first sculpt i had a crack at. ive also posted screenshots of this on the 10 thousand hours page on facebook for some C&C and the main thing i took away from it was the top of the throne needs to be shaped wider than the base so if i get chance im going to go back and alter this.


the second asset ive tried to sculpt was the tomb, note that ive also gone for a more simplistic style with this one over the gritty slightly noisy looking throne. i think if i get chance to go back to the throne im going to tone it down to be more like the tomb.


along with making my own assets ive also been looking into some zbrush tutorials and ive just finished the sculpt for tilable texture stone floor which i think will fit in well with these props so im going to use it  


guys im pretty new to zbrush and doing challenges and stuff so any comments on where and what i can improve on would be great. or if you think any specific tools or techniques may be good to learn and use for this challenge id be grateful if you could share the knowledge  

sorry for the long post here is a potato  

Omnicypher

joe borley Looking good, but i think your stone damage could be a bit sharper. If you make a clean morph target before you sculpt the damage, you can use the morph brush to get really crisp edges. Also, the cushions on your throne could use less wrinkles. 

Here is where I'm at:
[ Images Deleted due to photobuckets greed. ]

josh.0

Omnicypher:  The torchlight textures have a bit of a watercolor feel to me.  And, though, I don't think there's any need to stick to that, if you're trying to go for a similar feel, you might want to consider losing the noise and figuring something else out.   If you keep the noise, you might want to scale it up, and perhaps add a secondary noise at a lower opacity to give more variation.  Or, you could overlay a water color texture (you could probably find something free to use online).   Also, you could sharpen up some of your edges.  For instance, the frame around the small door looks like a tube.  But, that might just be the phong angle/default lighting of your 3d software.  Lastly, you might want to play with FFD and add some tapering to the overall shape of your props.  All your props are very boxy.  The tapering in the original concept art adds a lot of character.  

joe borley:  are you going for realism, or is your plan to stick to the style of the original concept art?

As for me, I think I'll try to get as much done on that lighthouse concept as I can.  Here is what I did today.  I started to sculpt the bridge in 3d Coat.  I need to figure out how I want to separate the pieces to make it slightly more modular and easier to UV and paint.  I blocked out what I'm thinking at the moment for how i'll split it.  But, any suggestions would be appreciated. 

Omnicypher

josh.0 your arch is looking good, although the concept art has some perspective problems that might have affected the proportions of the bridge. bridge arches usually have a wider span between pillars, your arch is looking more like a doorway, than a bridge. 

[ Images Deleted due to photobuckets greed. ]

as for the Torchlight Crypt props, i wasn't sure if that tapering in the concept was due to perspective distortion, or intentional architectural entasis. the noise on my textures was to help with unwrapping, so i can decide if i want to double the resolution. if i got rid of the noise, and went with solid colors, i could basically just unwrap it to a tiny color palette or gradients of color texture, like an N64 pokemon. but i think i want to sculpt and bake some stone normals to replace that noise.

i took a break for a few days, and now i think i might start over with a more realistic style on those assets. my goal for this project is to better understand how to plan out environment textures, and i think it was a bad idea to atlas masonry architecture trims with props. i think these pedestals would fit better with other architectural trims, so i should probably make a whole crypt porch, with an entrace arch, pillars, stairs, railings, etc, and make a trim set for that... maybe ill make it grey, and color it in ue4.

instead of trying to fit all of these things on a single texture, i think i should make a set of tiling textures that fit together, like: tiling stone, tiling stone bricks, stone trims, and a texture for individual stone bricks broken out from the trims. then i do the same for wood planks, and metal fence. ideally, this atlas technique, where i grouped everything into a single texture, would be used on LOD 2, while LOD 1 uses the tiling trims, and LOD 0 uses individual decimated bricks, placed with a jittery rotation. so i might take another swing at this, maybe with darksiders or dark souls amount of realism and detail.

Experience

josh.0 Nice arch man! I think the shape is more or less spot on and I think what Omni is saying is more or less a scale issue since there is nothing to relate to

Saw them nice books so I made books!



Might make more of the assets tomorrow as this is all I had time for today.

Keep it up guys!

Experience

Sounds like a good plan with the tiling textures Omni if you want to abandon the Torchlight assets. I think they still could work tho if you keep at it

I made some assets and since I already had books I made the bookstand with and then I gave the crystals a go. Was hard getting the crystals to look good and I might revisit them later on.




Feel free to give me some feedback Would be cool if anyone had an idea on how to make the crystals look more like crystals  

josh.0

The crystals almost look like pieces of cloth.  There are too many curved lines.  Also,  something to do with the way your material or normals are set causes too much diffusion.  What program are you using?

Joopson

josh.0 said:

The crystals almost look like pieces of cloth.  There are too many curved lines. 

I agree, but it seems like it's actually an issue that's present in the concepts as well. I didn't know what I was looking at with the model or the concept.

I'd say in this case, Experience, it'll be a good choice to sway from the concept, with regards to how the crystals look. Maybe go for something more glassy, like obsidian, or something.

Decordova360

I would reference some crystals or gemstones. I think crystals would be a better choice as it has those sharp/damaged edges.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gem+crystals&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=955&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiL_sSc0-zNAhXBRyYKHRWED2wQ_AUIBigB

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn2.bigcommerce.com%2Fn-d57o0b%2Ffjb62nx%2Fproduct_images%2Fuploaded_images%2Frock-crystal-gemstone.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bianoti.com%2Fgallery-gems-and-crystals.html&docid=-J3StoptS8vqjM&tbnid=EToxZgopL0EENM%3A&w=338&h=364&bih=955&biw=1920&ved=0ahUKEwi2z_ud0-zNAhVINiYKHZmaAwAQMwhEKAwwDA&iact=mrc&uact=8#h=364&w=338

Experience

Joopson said:

josh.0 said:

The crystals almost look like pieces of cloth.  There are too many curved lines. 

I agree, but it seems like it's actually an issue that's present in the concepts as well. I didn't know what I was looking at with the model or the concept.

I'd say in this case, Experience, it'll be a good choice to sway from the concept, with regards to how the crystals look. Maybe go for something more glassy, like obsidian, or something.

Ye, I do agree that that the concept might also have this issue. Maybe ill throw em into Zbrush and rough them up abit to change the overall look.

josh.0 said:

The crystals almost look like pieces of cloth.  There are too many curved lines.  Also,  something to do with the way your material or normals are set causes too much diffusion.  What program are you using?

Ill see if Zbrush helps, Im not sure what you mean by the material and normals. Im pretty sure that both are what they are suppose to be. The models are rendered in Marmoset.

Decordova360 said:

I would reference some crystals or gemstones. I think crystals would be a better choice as it has those sharp/damaged edges.

Crystals would be a better render target than the concept. Ill definitely try to match a real one on my next iteration and maybe mix in some other elements as well.

Cheers guys!

Omnicypher

@Experience

[ Images Deleted due to photobuckets greed. ]

the main difference between a rock and a crystal, is the way light passes through and bounces off the interior of a crystal, creating a secondary, more saturated, highlight on the inside. this is difficult to do in ue4, because its lighting is deferred, and doesn't allow specular highlights with translucency, unless you enable forward rendering, but i came up with a hacky way to fake that bounce lighting in an opaque material, using Fresnel and WorldAlignedBlend: 

[ Images Deleted due to photobuckets greed. ]

Experience

@Omnicypher

Ah nice man, I might try that out when Im setting up a final scene in UE4. Right now Im just using Marmoset for a quick render

yukonwanderer

I think I'm gonna take a stab at this - the lighthouse environment.  Totally in over my head but here goes!

yukonwanderer

So I tried to model as much as I could as quickly as I could because my 3dsmax trial is going to be running out in a few hours.  This is what I have after working on this for 2 days.  I'm still a total noob and the idea was to just get as much done as quick as I could while trying to maintain decent topology. Definitely had a few mess ups and mistakes.  Would love feedback, I posted wireframes well but I don't know if they'll be useful.   



Working on UV's right now maybe I'll know better if I did an ok job after those are done.

Decordova360

very nice start, keep it up and hopefully you can continue in 3ds max

TheTopolgyDepartment

yukonwanderer:
Looking good so far, i'm a bit of a noob myself, joined up to comment and give that Lighthouse environment a go, so i can't really comment on how good your topology is but your silhouettes are looking pretty accurate. Maybe keep your meshes nicely named for organization purposes. Looking forward to seeing your progress. Ill start blocking out and breaking down what textures to use when i've got some time.

vbaguirov

yukonwanderer said:

So I tried to model as much as I could as quickly as I could because my 3dsmax trial is going to be running out in a few hours.  This is what I have after working on this for 2 days.  I'm still a total noob and the idea was to just get as much done as quick as I could while trying to maintain decent topology. Definitely had a few mess ups and mistakes.  Would love feedback, I posted wireframes well but I don't know if they'll be useful.   



Working on UV's right now maybe I'll know better if I did an ok job after those are done.

yukonwanderer said:

So I tried to model as much as I could as quickly as I could because my 3dsmax trial is going to be running out in a few hours.  This is what I have after working on this for 2 days.  I'm still a total noob and the idea was to just get as much done as quick as I could while trying to maintain decent topology. Definitely had a few mess ups and mistakes.  Would love feedback, I posted wireframes well but I don't know if they'll be useful.   



Working on UV's right now maybe I'll know better if I did an ok job after those are done.
Not a pro by any means, but this is looking nice. I would use this scene as a nice foundation for more modular asset creation like rocks wood planks and other stuff, don't be afraid to start bringing different stuff in zBrush and sculpt from there

vbaguirov

yukonwanderer,  Im not a pro by any means, but this is looking nice. I would use this scene as a nice foundation for more modular asset creation like rocks wood planks and other stuff, don't be afraid to start bringing different stuff in zBrush and sculpt from there

yukonwanderer

vbaguirovDecordova360TheTopolgyDepartment  Thanks for the feedback!  I will for sure start to get in the habit of naming things more accurately.  I wont be able to model in 3ds max again until i get home in August, and my laptop couldnt handle processing the UVs.  Im looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with here for sure!

Experience

Did a quick redo on one of the crystals only spending like 10-15 min sculpting it. This is the result:



Should I just keep at it or scrap it and start over? If i were to continue I would make it even more sharp and work with the silouette.

Decordova360

Better looking than before, I would make some areas sharper than some so keep at it. Would that be rock formation around the crystal?

AlexanderConcept

Hi guys,

Long time lurker here, thought I'd just join in on this challenge to practice game dev techniques. Going to be doing some of the props so I (hopefully) can get a hang of the various methods before starting a full environment.

Below is WIP of what I have so far. New to Substance Painter/designer, but I love the software so far. Images are screenshots of the Iray render and wireframe in Maya.

Comments/critique highly appreciated.
Thanks,
Alexander 

kadeschui

@AlexanderConcept that's coming along nicely! it's difficult to tell from the concept, but my interpretation is the two metal "brackets" are nailed into the table top planks. adding some nails to the normal map on those could help them read better.

@Experience really digging that crystal material, color / reflectivity-wise I think you've got it. Do agree with @Decordova360 though, more sharp areas would help....which is exactly what I'm struggling with!

Working on the small table prop. I'm pretty far off conceptually with the crystals, but trying to get a more jagged/spire look to them...pretty difficult in zbrush though:



plan to rework the far left and right "crystals" and get the wood and brackets finished up next.

Decordova360

@kadeschui You can use a matcap within ZBrush that'll make the mesh white, this could help with the silhouette/shape of crystal.

kadeschui

@Decordova360 thanks for the tip - I'll try and lean on that a bit more for the next two and reference the concept more frequently. I suffer from the zbrush sculpting hole of darkness syndrome and forget to check my references XD

Decordova360

@kadeschui I know the feeling, still can be a big void when using zbrush :-) . But with references, knowledge of brushes, planning, and tutorials from the community will do you good.

kadeschui

@Decordova360 thanks for the words of encouragement ! Here's my updated attempt whilst trying to check my reference more frequently. I think I'll take @Joopson advice for the remaining crystals and stray from the concept a bit...the 2D > 3D is just really difficult to work out with the info available in the concept.

Decordova360

@kadeschui  Yes the concept is difficult to read, that's why I referenced images from the web.
http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0305/6537/files/CRYSTALMAGICGRAPHIC_grande.jpg?18329548710626158047

http://bubblepinch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Mineral-Admiration-Watercolor-Paintings-of-Crystals-by-Karina-Eibatovaby-Christopher-Jobson-on-September-1-2014.jpg

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/2/26/Skyrim_Greater_soul_gem.png/revision/20130120200139

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/c/cc/Skyrim_Lesser_soul_gem.png/revision/20130120200142

https://img1.etsystatic.com/005/0/6750855/il_570xN.404200985_4bti.jpg
http//s1298.photobucket.com/user/Lutzburg/media/gem_monster_by_mooreartcn-d6qk58w_zps18e79428.jpg.html
Sorry I am at work and not at my computer at home, so I had to resort to microsoft paint :P.
Good start, maybe try connecting more sharp edges to one another and having the faces pop like some of the references listed.

AlexanderConcept

Hey guys,

@kadeschui 
Thank you for your feedback, I appreciate it. I went back and added some sort of nails to the metal brackets- they're a bit faint at the moment so will go back and increase their visibility. 
You have made some very nice progress on the crystal based off of Decordova360's feedback. Keep it up

Here is just an update from me with some props in UE4. Playing around mostly- having a lot of fun. I will re-size the props once they are done, crystal/crystal holder feels unbalanced at the moment.

I do however have an issue (last image) and that is that something goes wrong in Substance Painter when I bake. I do not understand what or why, I'm doing the same method I have before. I have done everything I know to try and fix it. I am using a cage which is covering the high/lowpoly meshes, the UV's should be fine, tried various smoothing groups etc but nope, nothing. If anyone have any sort of idea I would really appreciate your help. I get more confused since it's looking fine in the viewport but the maps themselves are not- maybe I'm just stupid, haha. 

Anyway, thanks for looking and comments/critique always welcome.

Alexander

Decordova360

AlexanderConcept if you want we can get on skype or google hangouts? I am use to baking within a 3ds software like 3ds max, however you can use a cage that you export out of it which I do when I need other maps I cannot get out of max.

AlexanderConcept

@Decordova360  Sure, whenever you have time. Yeah, I created low/high poly + the cage in Maya. I like doing all my maps directly in Painter just because it's simple and I have it all in one place.
Many thanks for your time  

Decordova360

You are welcome.

kadeschui

@Decordova360  Thanks for the in depth feedback ...excellent suggestions. That's going to go a long way to improving the look of all the crystals.

@AlexanderConcept The nails are looking great!
Thanks for the words of encouragement...it's getting there ..i think

Decordova360

you're welcome.

Omnicypher

AlexanderConcept : your problem isn't baking, its unwrapping. your uv islands are stretched because you are welding the cap of a cylinder to the side of the cylinder, and you cant relax those islands as long as they are connected. for the best normal bake, you should separate the caps of cylinders, and any other sharp edges, as a separate UV island, with a separate smoothing group. 

this might help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciXTyOOnBZQ

AlexanderConcept

@Omnicypher
I just did a quick auto unwrap and now it's working perfectly. Thank you for your help + the link, I greatly appreciate it.  

kadeschui

went for a complete departure from the concept art for this next round. Think I'm gonna run with several variations of these type groupings for my prop ...

Decordova360

kadeschui  Great work, looks amazing. Better than the concept