Enrvironment Art Test
vertex
HI Guys, this is an art test a did recently for an environment artist position, sadly I did not get and did not receive any feedback, so I posting it here so I can hear your opinions.
I wanto to grow as an artist and I know feedback is a big part of that, so here it is.
It consisted in developing this concept
The rules were:
Maximum 6 textures (min 512x512 max 4096x4096) + one texture for alphas (max1024x1024)
50 k tris max
Minimum 10x10 m space and a maximum of 300x300m.
And here is my submitted piece, the render was done in marmoset (which I tried to learn for this test.), ad all the modeling done in 3dsmax and texture done in Substance Painter.
I had 2 weeks to complete this (this was really hard considering I have a full time job and had to do this in my free time but it was still doable)
Everyhting was done with modular pieces, the wall were broken in different parts for the top, middle and bottom in order to create different types of walls. The same for the ceiling and rock wall, the floor and train tracks were done with a single tileable piece.
This screenshots are from max:
So this is it, I spent two weeks doing this and sadly I did not get the job or any feedback, I am still grateful for the opportunity they gave but still wish I could've gotten some feedback.
Any C&C is more than welcome!!!
I wanto to grow as an artist and I know feedback is a big part of that, so here it is.
It consisted in developing this concept
The rules were:
Maximum 6 textures (min 512x512 max 4096x4096) + one texture for alphas (max1024x1024)
50 k tris max
Minimum 10x10 m space and a maximum of 300x300m.
And here is my submitted piece, the render was done in marmoset (which I tried to learn for this test.), ad all the modeling done in 3dsmax and texture done in Substance Painter.
I had 2 weeks to complete this (this was really hard considering I have a full time job and had to do this in my free time but it was still doable)
Everyhting was done with modular pieces, the wall were broken in different parts for the top, middle and bottom in order to create different types of walls. The same for the ceiling and rock wall, the floor and train tracks were done with a single tileable piece.
This screenshots are from max:
So this is it, I spent two weeks doing this and sadly I did not get the job or any feedback, I am still grateful for the opportunity they gave but still wish I could've gotten some feedback.
Any C&C is more than welcome!!!
Replies
1. Unfortunately, you didn't nail the main feeling of the concept. For me, that's the glowy green light coming from the tunnel, and in general the fact that it's very bright and has lots of god rays/atmospheric lights. The lighting in your final renders is quite flat, which might have been because you were trying to learn how to use Marmoset at the same time. I'd recommend using an engine like Unreal Engine, that way you can step up the atmospherics (fog, god rays, etc) and really convey the feeling better. Your render is overall very dark - take a look at the bottom of the roof panels above the platform. In the concept they're still quite brightly lit (from the green glowy light especially) even though they're "in shadow". Whereas in your render, they're almost completely black.
2. The other main thing that's bringing this down is your materials. I actually think most of them are fairly decent, but it's honestly difficult to tell because of how flat the lighting is. Getting more atmospheric, brighter lighting will help a great deal in selling your material contrast and definition. There are also a few materials that I think don't quite match the concept, for example the rocks on the right (concept is a lot brighter/lighter, less saturated).
It's very impressive that you did this in just 2 weeks. With that amount of motivation and effort, I believe you could focus on the two things I listed above and turn this into a great portfolio piece if you're interested in doing that (and if it's allowed by the people who issued the art test).
If you compare the reference to your scene there is a huge difference when it comes to colors.
Yours is almost everywhere lit with white lights and looks really flat, while the concept shows a lot of color contrast between blue, green and white/yellow light. Also the colors are way more saturated and there is atmospheric fog present which helps a lot to sell the atmosphere.
The other thing (which might also plays into the overall color) is that your materials all look the same - a bit like a rather glossy plastic.
Are you using metalness maps? For example the metal ground does not read and reflect as metal.
This also applies to different assets like the rocks - I would recommend taking a further look at PBR texturing and maybe also get some of these PBR material value charts for reference.
Last smaller thing is the rock wall - it looks almost stylized to me shapewise, but also the saturated brown color draws a lot of attention to the wrong parts of the image (the reference is more of a grey with a bit of blue which makes it blend into the overall environment way better).
The models itself look solid, I think you can create a nice piece out of this if you go back and work more and the texturing and lighting.
[Edit: Did not see Carabiners post before, pretty much repeating what she said lol]
Thanks a lot for the feedback, it's just what I thought the lighting looks flat and the materials could've used more work, also about the atmospheric effects, those I didn't add any of that because one of the rules wasn't any post processsing so that's why I left only the lights, but I guess I could add the fog and still not break the rules maybe.
Either way thanks a lot for the feedback, and I asked bout being able to upload this test before posting it here and they said it was cool. I'll keep working on the lights and rework my materials.
@Shyralon thanks for the feedback, I did use metalness in my materials, but now that you mention it they all look the same, I'll check the engine to make sure I am loading everything right.
Thanks for this guys, it really helps to get different point of views!!
So I had some free time and was able to rework some of the materials and the lights in the final render, sill could do more with it, but I guess I'll start moving everything to Unreal and see how it looks there.
I have moved almost everyhting to unreal but I am still not getting the materials quite right, specially the floor, it looks way darker than it looks in substance, I've checked that everything should be linked where it's supposed to but still looks weird. Do any of you know what I am doing wrong? Also do you now some good lighting tutorials in unreal?
Thanks!
@Maximum-Dev thanks for the info, I'll make sure to check the roughness and metalness. About the textures, this are all modular pieces that will be repeated quite a lot so I can't give them any big details or it will be evident it's the same piece over and over again. But I do understand what you mean by just having roughness all over the place. I'll focus more on places where dirt usually gathers and leave other parts "cleaner".
I think this environment has a lot of issues and most of them come from me trying of work on everything at the same time, modeling, texturing, lighting, etc. So a friend and fellow artist told I should nail the mood first, I'll work with a gray material on everything to make sure I get the mood and lighting right first then move on to textures.
Thanks so much for all the feedback!!!!
Thanks!!
It should definitely help you getting started with world space variations.
http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2564643/#Comment_2564643
That function is designed to only introduce color variation, so it will work on your Albedo. But you can go crazy with it really.
I hope that helps.
So after a few intense weeks at work I finally got some spare time to restart working on the lighting of the scene. Been doing some research on the IES lights and they look quite interesting, but first I want to see what I can do with the default lights from unreal.
So this is my progress so far
I think it's getting there, but I am having some trouble, some light "seams" appear on the floor, I am not sure why this is happening They are modular pieces that need to better match one another but I don't understand why one is lighter then the next one.
Also I've been having issues with the pieces snapping together, looks like I will need to do some adjustments to the geo.
https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?46269-Modular-Asset-Lighting-Problem
There are so many discussions about this so googling with help you a lot there.
And here's his thread on the UE4 forums:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?134195-Unreal-4-Lighting-Academy-or-something-like-that-)