Home 3D Art Showcase & Critiques

Monthly Environment Art Challenge - May & June 2017 (48)

134
greentooth
Offline / Send Message
kadeschui greentooth
Hello everyone and welcome to the Monthly Environment & Prop Challenge

I'm glad to see more finished pieces this past round than ever! Truly hard work and great breakdowns/critiques by all.

Remember if you don't finish in the time allotted, just keep plugging away and post when your work is finished. There's always some good progress that falls off the radar - we want to see your work! So keep going and finish those pieces!

 Without further ado, here are our options for Challenge 48!


HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:

artist: Nicolas-Ferrand

HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:
Tea house by Ewreilyn
artist: Ewreilyn


HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:

artist: Alexandra Semushina

HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:

artist: Remko Troost

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


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 must use a game engine to present your work. Unreal Engine and CryEngine are very common engines that can be used but feel free to use any alternatives that you want. (Marmoset Toolbag is allowed as well)
  • 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 me know. As always, please feel free to provide feedback / suggestions in this thread or by messaging me directly.

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!

Replies

  • Supposable Lion
    Offline / Send Message
    Supposable Lion polycounter lvl 4
    I'm digging the hand painted concept, and I could use some practice for hand painted texturing. :)


  • HAWK12HT
    Offline / Send Message
    HAWK12HT polycounter lvl 12
    Awesome! all the best to everyone going for these. 
    Damn I am so out of loop with these. Also will anyone tell why we changed name from MNC to what we have now? 

    Supposable Lion nice blockout! Maybe its just my perception balcony in concept looks a tiny bit offset towards right as in left part is not so aligned with left wall. 
  • Daniel_Swing
    Offline / Send Message
    Daniel_Swing ngon master
    I really need a gun for my portfolio so I'll be joining in as soon as I've finished some other projects!
  • kadeschui
    Offline / Send Message
    kadeschui greentooth
    @HAWK12HT the name was changed before I took over managing these - but I think it was to suggest everyone could participate not just n00bs :) There were occasionally industry vets participating, for example. Also, I believe several other Challenges came about (Monthly Character, etc) so the name maybe wasn't as descriptive as "Environment" 
  • jnascimento
    Offline / Send Message
    jnascimento polycounter lvl 4
    Hi all, my first WIP inside Blender. 
    I think the side walls are a bit more separated but this is more to get the felling.

  • Umbrafoxus
    Offline / Send Message
    Umbrafoxus polycounter lvl 3
    Gonna get in on this one :)  Blockout & light placement to get the scale and light direction.



  • Tre Z
    Offline / Send Message
    Tre Z polycounter lvl 6
    Going to take a shot at the little tea house, never done hand painting before outside of one or two bricks, hope you like it so far!
  • melisac
    Offline / Send Message
    melisac polycounter lvl 8
    Here's my current progress on the handpainted environment 

    I'm having trouble with the detail on top of the rectangular windows. I tried to follow the concept exactly but it's looking pipey. If any one knows the style of frame I should be referencing please let me know! 
  • Wargo522
    Offline / Send Message
    Wargo522 polycounter lvl 3
    very basic block out. this is my first attempt at one of the challenges. I hope I can actually finish this one. 
  • wingaersheek
    Offline / Send Message
    wingaersheek polycounter lvl 6
    Going to jump in the challenge this month! The tea house really called out at me, looking forward to getting to practice some hand-painted textures. Gonna do some combo of sculpting and hand-painting, I think. Just a block-in for now. :)



    @Supposable Lion - Good start! Right now it's looking a little too vertical to me - check out how much height there is between the doorway and the walls above it. Looks a little high to me on your block-in. It's hard because the concept's perspective isn't perfect, but checking the overall silhouette of the building against the ref should help!

    @Tre Z - Nice block in! I'm feeling a little validated that you read the shape of the balcony the same way I did, lol. The foliage makes it a bit hard to tell. The windows on your roof read as maybe a little bit too big to me, but this is totally a solid start!

    @melisac - Love the shapes you've built so far, but I see what you mean about the windows feeling too "pipey." I'd say maybe vary up the width of those pipes? They almost look like they're mimicking bunched cloth in the concept, if that makes sense. Try bulging out the middle parts and the end bits in the center. My tablet's put away for the night but I can do a quick sketch if what I'm saying isn't making sense :)
  • hasgan
    Offline / Send Message
    hasgan polycounter lvl 7
    Hi guys, I'm new to 3D modelling and I think I will try this challenge as well.
    one question though, is it possible to post our finished creation to our portfolio? like artstation or personal website? or do I need to contact the concept artist and asks for permission first?

    cheers!
  • Umbrafoxus
    Offline / Send Message
    Umbrafoxus polycounter lvl 3
    Some progress on the shapes and large details on the assets.



    @hasgan I've seen a few people use their finished environment challenges used in their portfolios. I think the general idea is if you do use it, drop the concept artist a message to see if its okay (they may not have time to respond or have a disclaimer for use of the art on their art pages) and credit the artist and link to their work as a common courtesy :) 

    The hand painted assets are looking good too! Cant wait to see how they turn out :)
  • Zerogun
    Offline / Send Message
    Zerogun polycounter lvl 9
    Weapons have never been my strong suit. But I'm giving this one a try. It's quick throw-together low-poly at the moment. I might need to do a bit more refinement before I move on to the high poly stuff. Going to fix this as a top-break revolver type.

  • MilošBelanec

    Hello,

    I finished yet another personal project in my free time and its theme are objects from my childhood, or basically things that every 90s child probably remembers.

  • Klawd
    Offline / Send Message
    Klawd polycounter lvl 7
    Awesome choices for this monthly challenge! Just started sketching my take on the hardsurface one. 
    Good luck everybody! :)

  • HAWK12HT
    Offline / Send Message
    HAWK12HT polycounter lvl 12
    @kadeschui Thank you for explaining it all. 
    Progress is looking super from everyone, keep rockin! 
  • Klawd
    Offline / Send Message
    Klawd polycounter lvl 7
    My progress. Still have to model door and floor. (and, man, those doors have a confusing mechanism...)

  • jnascimento
    Offline / Send Message
    jnascimento polycounter lvl 4
    I agree Klawd they are pretty strange. And the ceiling to, you can see it, but the light comes from there, I only realized it after seeing Umbrafoxus design.
  • Umbrafoxus
    Offline / Send Message
    Umbrafoxus polycounter lvl 3
    @Klawd I know right, I'm currently working my way through the door and floor too haha. I'm thinking those big piston things just make no sense really and will have to be removed or made smaller cause it just does not look like it could open comfortably in that space with the mechanism. I't cant really swing out or pull into the edge, maybe if fully pulls back into the wall or something.

    @jnascimento I pretty much modeled a wave pattern, made the material a translucent plastic and put a light above it, seemed like it made the most sense and it perfectly replicated the concepts lighting which I was happy with :)
  • Klawd
    Offline / Send Message
    Klawd polycounter lvl 7
    Modeling's done, so I tried to tackle this piece that was worrying me the most for the texturing phase. Material needs some polish but I'm happy that I was able to find a solution so quickly, especially for the holographic-like ball in the center. What do you guys think?


  • Gibby1995
    Offline / Send Message
    Gibby1995 polycounter lvl 4
    Going to give this challenge a go, first time posting and doing one of these challenges. Would love any feedback.





  • suspectlogic
    Offline / Send Message
    suspectlogic polycounter lvl 13
    hey guys. i'm joining in on the hard surface environment!
    Umbrafoxus nice job! love the light fixture, and the scaling looks spot on.

    Klawd looking good. the door mechanism does look tricky. I haven't gotten there yet, but my first thoughts are to move the door hinge and have it pivot when the piston pulls back.

    here's my blockout so far, did anyone get the scene to look right using an average field of view, like say around 60? I'm asking because i had to crank mine up to 70 to get it closer to the concept.



    this is silly, but I struggled longer than i'd like to admit with getting the middle holographic positioning just like in the concept, after looking closer at the concept it became clear that it's a little offset from the benches, not lined up in the middle like i was doing automatically.




  • Klawd
    Offline / Send Message
    Klawd polycounter lvl 7
    @Gibby1995
    I think the proportions need some work, also the bench placement seems too close to the wall!

    @suspectlogic
    Thanks! 
    For the doors, the only explanation I can make is having the big trapezoidal pieces slide on the door. Their size is conveniently equal to the door width. Then detach and retract the small pistons they have on top, and finally the door can pivot on its hidden hinges bringing with it the big trapezoidal pieces. 
    What do you guys think of this explanation? Do you have any valid alternatives?


    Last thing, the problem you mentioned with the center holographic piece, might it not be just the distortion from the camera? Here you can see I overimposed two lines to show how much the visual is actually skewed.

  • Umbrafoxus
    Offline / Send Message
    Umbrafoxus polycounter lvl 3
    @klawd Nice work on the hologram, how did you edge shade it in Modo out of curiosity? Also are you gonna be rendering it fully in Modo or taking it into Unreal/Unity/LY? I'm probably gonna look to do mine through material shading in UE4.

    @Gibby1995 Hey Gibby welcome :) The main feedback i would give is the spacing, although you have all the main building blocks and shapes matching the concept either the camera perspective or the general placement of objects seems larger than the concept itself. Depending on the program you're using I would look at camera matching the concept with your modeler which will align the workspace and camera to match the perspective of the image.

    @suspectlogic  Thanks suspect :) my FOV using the Modo Camera matcher seemed to put it the focal length at around 20.6426mm and the angle of view (FOV) at around 82.1757 

    As for the door my approach will be something along the lines of my terrible sketch below (cant find my Wacom lead so had to mouse draw it >.< )
    There's a separation line between the piston end and the front tip which makes it look like they may potentially detach, in my mind it makes more sense for just the front bit to stay attached to the door as the weight of the whole piston sections seems absurd for what appears to be a waiting room door haha. Also you get some cool mechanical animations by doing it this way so I think this is how i'll approach it.



  • Poseiden
    Offline / Send Message
    Poseiden polycounter lvl 9
    Hey,
     anyone have an Idea how to sculpt moss? I'm having trouble finding a stylized moss look that fits the concept.

    @Zerogun Weapons are not my strong suit either, but with any hard surface model edge flow is a top priority. I'm looking forward to seeing the high poly version and all of the golden trimmings 
    :) .

  • Supposable Lion
    Offline / Send Message
    Supposable Lion polycounter lvl 4
    I've started placing assets into UE4. I've made some adjustments to the building's proportions to match it closer to the concept art and a bit less vertical. I see there's a bit of a divide on whether there's a wall edge with lower side with the further side being a bit behind it or not. To me it looks like there's an edge there but the tree leaves happen to block the detail so it can go either way I guess. I'm not so sure if the balcony edge is more to the left, that's also covered by leaves, though judging by the corner of the balcony in the perspective of the concept, it doesn't look like it.


    @Poseiden My approach would be to make soft small circles with the clay buildup brush. Although, it may be a bit time consuming. It's looking fantastic btw.




  • Aurea
    Offline / Send Message
    Aurea polycounter lvl 3
    Hi all,
    I´m starting with hand-painted prop challenge. I love Alexandra Semushina´s magical world, so I´m happy to do this.
    Here is my first WIP.

  • wingaersheek
    Offline / Send Message
    wingaersheek polycounter lvl 6
    Great to see everyone making progress this week! I didn't get as much done as I wanted to, but I'll have a little more time on my hands next week, I think. I worked a bit on my block-out, adding color to really see how the shapes are coming along, and I did bring it into UE4 - not happy enough with those results to share a screenshot yet, though. But here's one out of Maya. Tried to just get the silhouettes of the trees in, though I really like the way Airborn's trees look lush and fluffy, so I may use these shapes as the basis for that kind of thing.



    I also played around with creating a hand-painted texture for the roof procedurally with Substance Designer, but I'm not sure I'll go down that path. I really love the sculpted-to-painted look, and I could use some more time in ZBrush since I haven't played with it in a long while. But here's a shot of my SD test, anyway! It was a fun experiment just working with normal, height and diffuse.



    @Poseiden - Love what you've done so far! Awesome sculpt. I had some trouble finding decent reference of what people have done as far as approaching sculpting some stylized moss - a lot of moss stuff out there in terms of resources is for realism and PBR. But I did find this photo that I think is a good ref for lumpy moss shapes, though you probably won't want as much microsurface with a sculpted/hand painted workflow :) 



    @Supposable Lion  -  Looking good! This will be fun to see in color, I like that tree branch sneaking under the railing on that first platform :) The chimneys look like they come down a little far on the roof, maybe it's just that they're a little big and once they are smaller they can be positioned higher? Otherwise looking pretty good!
  • Klawd
    Offline / Send Message
    Klawd polycounter lvl 7
    @Umbrafoxus I plan to render it in UE4 since I work with it and I know it better than other game engines. As per challenge rules I think a Modo render wouldn't be accepted!
    I learned something cool already (!) when you mentioned modo camera matcher (I never used it before and it's awesome!). Also the edge shader you see in my experiment from few days ago is made in Substance, I simply played with the opacity channel, and a partial edge rendering on the emissive channel for the holographic ball. 

    I have had zero free time these last few days and couldn't work on my scene... I hope I don't fall too behind since it's already the 13th :p Man, time flies...

    PS: All you guys are going super great!
  • Caiterade
    Offline / Send Message
    Caiterade polycounter lvl 3
    Started the book! :D
  • hasgan
    Offline / Send Message
    hasgan polycounter lvl 7
    woww!! everyones doings great! 

    Hey @Klawd , those holographic-ball looks great! How do you textures those? did you hand paintetd it (I'm really curious about how can you make the edges glowings thingy).
  • Lukitscherie
    Offline / Send Message
    Lukitscherie polycounter lvl 8
    Hmm I don't like either of the handpainted concepts but I need to do something...
    I haven't done anything that big before but I'll try making the tea house  : x 
  • Umbrafoxus
    Offline / Send Message
    Umbrafoxus polycounter lvl 3
    Digging everyone's submissions so far :) The stylized books are gonna looks so cool when the base colours are in!

    @wingaersheek Those tiles are niceee! Tea house looks a bit short and wide in my opinion compared to the concept.

    @Klawd Yeah man camera matching is the one of the best tools i came across when you want to directly fit a scene to a concept! There's one in 3DS Max too for those inclined.

    I've not done too much this weekend, just minor tweaks here and there and the start of the baking process.


    Timelapse GIF for fun :)


  • MGHMahoney
    Offline / Send Message
    MGHMahoney polycounter lvl 6
    Hey guys, I decided to also take part in the challenge :) I decided to go with the Revolver.

    Since the revolver doesn't really show any reload mechanism, I decided to go with an folding mechanism.

    Here is my first blockout so far:
     


  • suspectlogic
    Offline / Send Message
    suspectlogic polycounter lvl 13
    Umbrafoxus just watched a video on the camera matcher and it kind of blew my mind :)

    I started with Maya for the initial blockout, but after hearing all these great things about modo, I can't pass up this time to start learning it! Will hopefully have some updates up soon.
  • xX0r1oNXx
    Offline / Send Message
    xX0r1oNXx polycounter lvl 6
    Hello all!

    Just getting started, quick blockout in Maya.

  • slam_nine
    Offline / Send Message
    slam_nine polycounter lvl 2
    I want to practice hand painted textures and the tea house concept looked fun. Here's the blockout with some detail:


    I'm looking forward to seeing how people translate the foliage from the concept art to 3D!

  • MMGiles
    Offline / Send Message
    MMGiles polycounter lvl 4
    xX0r1oNXx said:
    Hello all!

    Just getting started, quick blockout in Maya.

    what's the mesh you use for you human reference as looking for something like this as i've always just used boxes but fancy a change lol 
  • xX0r1oNXx
    Offline / Send Message
    xX0r1oNXx polycounter lvl 6
    MMGiles said:
    xX0r1oNXx said:
    Hello all!

    Just getting started, quick blockout in Maya.

    what's the mesh you use for you human reference as looking for something like this as i've always just used boxes but fancy a change lol 
    It's the default UE4 Mannequin that ships with Engine Content in Unreal Engine 4.

    Exported out the Skeletal Mesh and removed the skeleton. I keep it around for that very reason - it's a great scale reference if you work in Unreal a lot. :smile:
  • Dayol
    Offline / Send Message
    Dayol null
    Hello everybody !
    First of all, it's great to see your work, on all challenges.

    I'm going on the Hand-painted house, if i can afford to finish it :).
    Started yesterday for about 2-3h, bit late but heh..

    Here's where i am for now after a morning trying to find measurements.  (lunch break ! :)) :

    I don't know for you all, but i put a biped (3dMax) with a height of 1,70m. The house seemed a bit of measures. And looking at the concept, i find some things a bit weird like stairs width compared to the door. Maybe it's just that my house will need some modifications.

    @slam_nine Nice work this far, really enjoyable ! One thing "troubles" me is the roof, i think it's a bit too curvy. I find on the concept that the main roof edges are a bit more straight.
  • Lukitscherie
    Offline / Send Message
    Lukitscherie polycounter lvl 8
    Well, gave up on the house and started the book lol.
    The face is giving me a bit of trouble, and it's hard to get the right proportions in the one same angle but it's a start.


  • MMGiles
    Offline / Send Message
    MMGiles polycounter lvl 4
    xX0r1oNXx said:
    MMGiles said:
    xX0r1oNXx said:
    Hello all!

    Just getting started, quick blockout in Maya.

    what's the mesh you use for you human reference as looking for something like this as i've always just used boxes but fancy a change lol 
    It's the default UE4 Mannequin that ships with Engine Content in Unreal Engine 4.

    Exported out the Skeletal Mesh and removed the skeleton. I keep it around for that very reason - it's a great scale reference if you work in Unreal a lot. :smile:
    I thought it was the unreal mannequin I think I will do the same and begin working on the hardsurface scene look forward to seeing your end result 
  • FuryAndMadness
    Offline / Send Message
    FuryAndMadness polycounter lvl 8
    Hi all! This is my first challenge here. I've never done anything like that. It will be fun) Good luck all!

  • Caiterade
    Offline / Send Message
    Caiterade polycounter lvl 3


    Fixed the face! Onto the rest of the parts.Lukitscherie said:
    Well, gave up on the house and started the book lol.
    The face is giving me a bit of trouble, and it's hard to get the right proportions in the one same angle but it's a start.


    SISTER BOOK CRAFTSMEN! UNITE!
  • MMGiles
    Offline / Send Message
    MMGiles polycounter lvl 4

    Here's a screenshot of my WIP 

  • Caiterade
    Offline / Send Message
    Caiterade polycounter lvl 3
    image

    Sorta figuring out the book's silhouette now. The lamb face and the book itself are in two different perspectives in the concept so im choosing to adhere to the perspective of the lamb.

    MMGiles said:

    Here's a screenshot of my WIP 

    Create a camera in your scene that matches up to the concept as best you can! It'll be so much easier to get things in.
  • Lukitscherie
    Offline / Send Message
    Lukitscherie polycounter lvl 8
    @Caiterade My super low poly version looks inadequate next to yours lol. That looks great! Can't wait to see the painted version with all the modelisation details.
  • Klawd
    Offline / Send Message
    Klawd polycounter lvl 7
    It's already the 18th, damn! Finally got few days to work on it though. Today I managed to tweak and polish the scene a bit more. These next couple of days I'll start texturing and assemblying it all in ue4. Stay tuned, and keep up the great work you all!

    Comparison gif of my progress so far:

  • kadeschui
    Offline / Send Message
    kadeschui greentooth
    @Klawd looking awesome! love the updates keep up the good work! 

    @Caiterade sculpt is coming along nicely! looking forward to seeing how you approach your textures :)
  • Caiterade
    Offline / Send Message
    Caiterade polycounter lvl 3
    kadeschui said:
    @Klawd looking awesome! love the updates keep up the good work! 

    @Caiterade sculpt is coming along nicely! looking forward to seeing how you approach your textures :)
    I'm not. I've never done painty textures. RIP in piece 
134
Sign In or Register to comment.