Weather Control Environment

DDuckworth

I am doing a supersmall (SUPER SMALL) environment for my portfolio mostly to get my foliage skills down before moving on to a larger environment, as well as some light kismet scripting I had to figure out before going on to bigger and better things. Also I am REALLY wanting to get better at lighting so I am using this as a learning experience as a whole. The final scene will be in UDK and I already have a test scene setup if anyone wishes to see it.

As for now I really am hoping for some critiques on my high poly ginkgo tree, this one is very small and will be one of the only items within this scene so I want it to shine, it will be covered in leaves some but at one point I am going to have the leaves fall off so it needs to be able to stand on it's own.

Go ahead polycount, rip me a new butthole.



Some detail shots




Reference



Finally I could really use some followers on my blog, not looking for crits on my website yet as I am going to redo it entirely once I finish this scene.

Going to begin texturing this tree once I get all crits out of the way, thanks for looking!

DDuckworth

Got pushed off really quick, could really use a critique before starting the texturing

Mike Yevin

to me it looks like you have too much "micro" detail going on here and not enough mid-range detail. also idk if thats just the type of tree, but the branches coming off of the main trunk look to be too disconnected. i would attempt at trying to blend them together a little more, same goes for the knots you have.

post up what you have ready in udk

DDuckworth

What is it that makes them look disconnected? Is it the grooves i've placed under each branch to give them that seperated feel to them? I did it on purpose but I guess a mistake is a mistake.

I'll try and give it some more medium detail, I had some deeper grooves in there but it just wasn't looking right to me.

I don't know why I offered to show this haha, I already have the kismet set up and working but as far as lighting I know it's bad, I just don't know how to improve. I do want this to be a small area with a dark surrounding with nowhere to go and nothing else to focus on, I put in a paintfx tree from maya in and threw an image on a plane to get some basic color in there. Oh well, have at it

Fullsize or it looks too blurred, probably too blurred anyways, also slightly desaturated in post.



Also thanks so much for the crit Mike!

DDuckworth

Tried to up the medium detail here

DDuckworth

Finished the retopo and low poly bake - would love some crits, could optimize the topo to lower (currently at 4553 Tris) but it is pretty much the only piece that's going to be in the scene and the main focus.



Normal Map at Half Scale (Original 1024)

Thanks for looking!

Mike Yevin

that bake came out pretty good, nice job

im assuming for the final product, the tree will be less specular than it is now? as it stands the tree looks very much like plastic

DDuckworth

Yes of course, I just threw a phong on it to show off the normal map, this project is on hold for a while though which is sad because it's my fav project yet!