The BRAWL² Tournament Challenge has been announced!
It starts May 12, and ends Sept 12. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
It starts May 12, and ends Sept 12. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
Best Of
Re: What Are You Working On? (3D) 2024
Not sure if the best way to share this and still a total newbie, but I modeled, textured, rigged, and animated this low poly rat in Blender!
https://youtu.be/piF5YYSfBO8?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/piF5YYSfBO8?feature=shared
mealeyst
2 ·
Re: Unreal Engine 5 Blending Materials
I agree with that
but since you're there already
what I usually do is..
build material functions for specific terrain types - eg. grass. these materials might have slope blending, various stuff to break up tiling, heightblending between the various textures - whatever is needed
then
use the specific landscape layer blending node (the one that uses the painted weightmaps) to composite the materials, the node supports heightblending between materials already
once that works you can worry about virtual textures and all the other stuff (its very simple, but not something you want to worry about while you're developing the materials and settling on the look.
but since you're there already
what I usually do is..
build material functions for specific terrain types - eg. grass. these materials might have slope blending, various stuff to break up tiling, heightblending between the various textures - whatever is needed
then
use the specific landscape layer blending node (the one that uses the painted weightmaps) to composite the materials, the node supports heightblending between materials already
once that works you can worry about virtual textures and all the other stuff (its very simple, but not something you want to worry about while you're developing the materials and settling on the look.
poopipe
1 ·
How do you minimize connected nodes in Substance Designer
I'm following a tutorial, and this happens when he connects the node. Can anyone tell me how to do it and what its called? Thankyou. 
PotatoCake
1 ·
Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | July - August (91)
Joining this a bit late, but I'm going to add to the challenge and see if I can get this done by the end of the month. Learning Plasticity at the moment for hard surface modelling, so I think I can do it!
kwagner
3 ·
Re: Sci-Fi Mesh - Looking for criticism and feedback
Hey Bmikes!
Nice to see a fellow environment artist learning the ropes as I myself am doing, I thought I could share some of what I've learned and hopefully you can find some use for it
First off I'd like to say that you've made a pretty neat model, I like the look of it and I can definitely see it as a game asset in some kind of sci-fi environment.
As you mentioned UV-mapping can be quite tedious to learn, a couple of thing to keep in mind however;
- You usually want to keep your UVs as straight as possible. Making it easier to stack them and texture them, which in turn makes it a more optimized usage of texture space. (See the red lines in the picture, those are areas that can be cut in order to easier line up the UVs straight.)
- You usually want all sides of your model to have the same UV space/texture resolution (look up 'texel density') The two yellow areas in the picture should be the same size and ideally identical to each other as this could allow you to stack them on top of each other in order to save even more texture space.
- A good way to visualize this is to activate the UV-checker indicated by the green arrow in the picture. Here you want to keep the squares about the same size without distorting them.
I recommend watching this video to get an idea of what I'm talking about.
Making your assets modular and reusable in other parts of your environment (or reusing your texture for other assets for that matter) is really important to think about when starting out with a new scene. Takes a lot of practice and I'm still learning about it myself, it's a lot of fun though!
One last tip, check out Vertex HD. It's a digital book about game art with a lot of nice tips. Hope this was at least somewhat helpful, keep up the good work!
Nice to see a fellow environment artist learning the ropes as I myself am doing, I thought I could share some of what I've learned and hopefully you can find some use for it
First off I'd like to say that you've made a pretty neat model, I like the look of it and I can definitely see it as a game asset in some kind of sci-fi environment.
As you mentioned UV-mapping can be quite tedious to learn, a couple of thing to keep in mind however;
- You usually want to keep your UVs as straight as possible. Making it easier to stack them and texture them, which in turn makes it a more optimized usage of texture space. (See the red lines in the picture, those are areas that can be cut in order to easier line up the UVs straight.)
- You usually want all sides of your model to have the same UV space/texture resolution (look up 'texel density') The two yellow areas in the picture should be the same size and ideally identical to each other as this could allow you to stack them on top of each other in order to save even more texture space.
- A good way to visualize this is to activate the UV-checker indicated by the green arrow in the picture. Here you want to keep the squares about the same size without distorting them.
I recommend watching this video to get an idea of what I'm talking about.
Making your assets modular and reusable in other parts of your environment (or reusing your texture for other assets for that matter) is really important to think about when starting out with a new scene. Takes a lot of practice and I'm still learning about it myself, it's a lot of fun though!
One last tip, check out Vertex HD. It's a digital book about game art with a lot of nice tips. Hope this was at least somewhat helpful, keep up the good work!
Zacktor
1 ·
Re: Sketchbook: Fstain
Oh my lord, oh lordy lordy. So! I'm back, kind of. Different account, this is probably not the way to do this but let's pretend I just don't know any better.
Lots of stuff happened, and I lost the email (like literally can't even remember what it was called...) so in true daftness I'm back with a different account, in the same sketchbook. And to prove I'm not a fraud, watch how "Fstain" won't come here to kick my ass.
Sajeet, Thanks m8, not sure you're here to see this 5 years later but. Thanks.
Anyway, lately I've been doing really "fast" modeling stuff, focusing honestly on keeping toolchain simple, for example keeping most of the stuff in Blender only, using vertex colors, texture painting and really generic textures re-used everywhere. Some material work etc of course.
So here's some pieces as of late!
I like doing these kinds of modeling projects now because it focuses mostly on "off the cuff" stuff, what can I make in a pretty short timespan, most of these sail around the 15 hour mark, give or take a few, so well finished within a solid day, but segmented out because of work and attentionspan
more to come, and I'll make sure I won't lose this account. And if some mod or something wants to bounce me across the floor because of this account switcharoo, then I apologize, and please do.
See you around.
Lots of stuff happened, and I lost the email (like literally can't even remember what it was called...) so in true daftness I'm back with a different account, in the same sketchbook. And to prove I'm not a fraud, watch how "Fstain" won't come here to kick my ass.
Sajeet, Thanks m8, not sure you're here to see this 5 years later but. Thanks.
Anyway, lately I've been doing really "fast" modeling stuff, focusing honestly on keeping toolchain simple, for example keeping most of the stuff in Blender only, using vertex colors, texture painting and really generic textures re-used everywhere. Some material work etc of course.
So here's some pieces as of late!
I like doing these kinds of modeling projects now because it focuses mostly on "off the cuff" stuff, what can I make in a pretty short timespan, most of these sail around the 15 hour mark, give or take a few, so well finished within a solid day, but segmented out because of work and attentionspan
more to come, and I'll make sure I won't lose this account. And if some mod or something wants to bounce me across the floor because of this account switcharoo, then I apologize, and please do.
See you around.
filthstain
1 ·
Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | March - April (89)
Been working on this one still, feel like i'm almost there. If anyone has any feedback+critique, I would greatly appreciate it 
Jammilburn
1 ·
Re: Portfolio Feedback
Echo the above comment. Unfairly or not, we often judge an artist more strongly on their weakest pieces. Since we’re trying to assess the fitness of a candidate, and looking for weaknesses is often a more reliable barometer than the best they can do.
We have gathered some really insightful info here, from experienced artists and hiring managers, worth a look http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Game_Industry#How_to_Get_In
We have gathered some really insightful info here, from experienced artists and hiring managers, worth a look http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Game_Industry#How_to_Get_In
Eric Chadwick
1 ·
Re: Portfolio Feedback
I would suggest deleting the old pieces, for example that table with the book. When it comes to a portfolio more is often not better. People have gotten hired off a single artwork in their portfolio. Recruiters' time spent looking at your stuff is measured in seconds, you don't want them wasting it on inferior art + seeing worse quality pieces dilutes the potential good impression.
buzzkill
1 ·
Re: (Solved) [Blender 2.8] How to maintain normal on mesh split?
Hey, I know this is an old thread but I found it because I was trying to do what @pior is talking about and wanted to share my solution. I ended up making a simple addon that stores the vertex normals to a color attribute so you can paste them back later. You can get it here.
pixelb
2 ·