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Hey everyone! Welcome one and all to the 81st Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge for the months of November and December!

This challenge is a way for real-time 3D artists to test their skills and create a piece of work based on concepts provided. It's open to those of all skill levels and we do our best to provide meaningful feedback along the way so everyone can come away from the challenge with actionable points on which they can improve their craft!

Anyone is welcome in this challenge no matter your skill level! It's a test of your own ability not a competition between members. We're all here to improve as artists and learn from each other.

- ENVIRONMENTS -

HARD SURFACE ENVIRONMENT:

Gears 5 by Yaroslav Odnorogov

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aGR42z

STYLIZED ENVIRONMENT:

红邮局 by joker chen

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/r9VBXe

- PROPS -

HARD SURFACE PROP:

bomb by kunbei

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zD6xxw

STYLIZED PROP:

Props design / interior - Islandia by Victor Maillet

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/2qaA6Y

- RULES -

Please read all the rules before starting:

• Try to post at least one critique for every post that you make. This will make for a better learning environment and help us all grow as artists.
• Try your best to finish as much as you can in the time frame provided, but remember even if you don't finish by the end of the challenge we encourage you to keep pushing and finish your piece!
• Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique. Please avoid creating a new thread as we don't want to spam out the forums.
• It is recommended to use a game engine to present your work. Unreal Engine, Unity, and CryEngine are very common engines that can be used but feel free to use any alternatives that you want. (Marmoset Toolbag for example.)
• Feel free to change up your chosen concept a bit if you want! Interpret these concepts to your liking, especially if your aim is to add storytelling elements.
• If you finish your project and decide to post it to Artstation, make sure you give credit to the concept artist in the form of a link to their profile. Additionally, it is recommended to ask a concept artist for their permission to post a 3D piece based on their work before doing so.

- RECOMMENDATIONS -

• When you are just starting out making a scene, it can seem complicated or imposing. Take your time planning and blocking out, it will set you up for success later on.
• 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, don't be afraid to make it your own.
• We 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.

The goal is to learn and grow both artistically and in your ability to both give and receive critique, but don't stress about it and remember to have fun!

Good luck!

Hey everyone! 🙂

I want to start out by saying it's been wonderful watching this challenge evolve over time. Everyone did fantastic work and we had really nice progress shots showing the process, but more than that there was a great amount of knowledge sharing and helpful critique that made me smile each time I saw it. I believe there are a couple people who may still be finishing their piece up, if that's you please keep us updated here! The work has been wonderful and it's always heartwarming to see it reach completion.

Apologies for getting this one out late but challenge 81 is now available! I opted to go for diorama-style environments this go around so hopefully some people here can take the lessons they learned and apply them to something new without feeling overwhelmed. Hope to see you over there!

https://polycount.com/discussion/231681/the-bi-monthly-environment-art-challenge-november-december-81

@Fabi_G This is so good!

So many people have inspired me to participate in the challenge by making such good art. I've procrastinated enough, definitely gonna join the Nov-Dec challenge. Can't wait!

As always, there's some nice work from the lot of you during this challenge. I can't wait to see what's in store for November/December so I can finally be more involved in the challenge, instead of lurking.

@squarebender Thanks!

I've been super excited to watch the progress on your piece. My favorite thing about it is the golden chest and how the silhouette pops with the slight outline... I don't know if that is done by a toon-shader or not, but it is really cool.

At this point, I think a simple adjustment you could make would be to either tone down the intensity of the light that is shining on the golden chest or to darken the chest's base color so that it doesn't get washed out as much by the lighting (could look into lowering bloom settings as well). Being that it is the focal point of the scene, I want to be able to see the details more clearly... that is what stands out to me the most when I'm looking between your piece and the original concept.

Congrats on finishing people - nice submissions! Enjoyed sharing with you and it pushed me to improve.

In the end, I tried a different, more dramatic lighting than in the concept. Still much to improve on assets, the scene and lighting. Maybe it will evolve into a vampire castle kit at some point.

But also looking forward to the next challenge!

Thanks again for the feedbacks! I increased the wood roughness a bit to make it less shinier, also pushed up the wood grain a bit and adjusted my tint slightly to make it read more as wood. For the colors I went very subtly as I really like the color palette I have at the moment and don't want to mess it too much.

I made a quick UE5 scene to showcase the prop in an environment rather than just a solid color background ^^ (I used mainly quixel props and textures):

Here's the main render:

And the final mesh and texture (with my slightly more optimized uvs :p):

I'll still work a bit on it before putting it on artstation but I gotta say I'm quite happy with the way it renders!