W.I.P - Semi Broken down city
polycounter lvl 17
Just something i've been working on lately to refresh my low poly modeling. The scene has texture maps ranging from 128x128 to 1024x1024. The ground was not meant to be a mesh on its own just to help create the scene. All crits and comments are greatly appreciated!
Poly Count;
Faces: 1663
Tris: 3354
My reference can be found Here.
Poly Count;
Faces: 1663
Tris: 3354
My reference can be found Here.
Replies
http://img425.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chicagotownrender25xi.jpg
I reckon the more it looks like that, the better. :P
On topic: It really isn't anything special. It needs to be taken up a notch or two before it is worth commenting on.
Anyway, with the ethics aside, a few points:
Your polycount is nearly the same as the source, but you seem to have half the detail. Put more into your textures.
Your scale is off as well. You have parking spaces as big as a house, super-wide sidewalk, etc.
Keep in mind that when you copy others work as reference, it will very rarely go without being noticed. I suggest you, at the very least make a mention if you're recreating something to any significant degree.
and you've been busted, not that it should dissuade you but it is frowned upon not to mention your source if it is so obvious!
Nearly every wall in the world will blend slighty with dirt, and most buildin will actually have a border at the bottom, with a damp proof course in it.
1 wall, 3 obvious layers of stone
Notice the discolouration at the base
rendered base:
These are little things that add depth to your scene.
Basically, just open your eyes and use reference. The devil is in the details.
First I would like to appologise to craig. I did send him a few pms on cgtalk when I first saw his work but he never msged me back so I figured it wouldn't be too bad to gain inspiration from his work. I'm striving to be an environment artist and from his renders it gave me a new zeal to strive even harder to gain recognition from companies as a viable candidate for a job.
To those giving tips thank you! as i'm sure you can see I need as many as I can get.
Rick_Stirling : thank you for the reference it really shows that extra detail that i've been missing from my scenes.
My next question would be a more basic one. When texturing for a game would it be best to take a photorealistic image and tweak it, take a photorealistic image and add it to something i've hand painted to give it that extra eumph, or would it be best to hand paint the entire texture either by my own creative mind or by using photorealistic textures as a reference?
Incase your wondering I did go to school for 3D animating and modeling but we never really touched on textures that much, nor did we really get into uv'ing other than human characters. I could really use any tips and tricks you guys have to throw at me! and yes I have been reading the forums for any and all methods for texturing/uv'ing.
and Rick if craig is at all angry at me for this please send him my appologies as I did not mean for this in any way to get blown out of proportion or to try to pass this off as my own creation without reference.
*edit* I've added a link to chads work quoted as my reference.
Do what works. Using photos is fine and pretty common practice, but dont rely on photos to do the work for you. have an understanding of how things work and dont be afraid to get your hands dirty with the paintbrush tool. I would definitely suggest doing more hand-made things as you start out. It will help you learn the foundations of how textures work rather than how to just cut and crop a photo. Most commonly, people will create a decent amount of stuff by hand, then go in and add photo-sourced accents as overlayed detail.