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Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | November - December (99)

@fairlyBread Nice, that sounds like a plan

I think using some tiling trims and re-using texture space would enable you to maintain good/ sharp texture detail without needing to go high resolution.

Personally, I like bringing the assets into a game-engine, since this opens up more options in regards to lighting, camera/ sequences, custom materials, particles and so on. And of course, it's a good implementation practice. Targeting game engine, I find it helpful to setup the assets in engine from the very beginning, then just update them throughout the process, evaluating in engine.

Thanks for checking out the web build

Modeled the figure for the challenge, using a Unity mannequin as a reference for proportions. Then I transferred the skin-weights from the Unity mannequin to my model, in Blender this can be done non-destructively using a data-transfer modifier. This allows me to use Unitys' third person prefab, logic, animator and all, but swap in my custom mesh. This approach works with the Unreal Mannequin as well.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/9s/77j5mh7d0vyh.gif

DataTransfer modifier used to copy skin-weights, Mask modifier to remove occluded geo (defined by vertex group) to reduce clipping

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/kc/tylzs3j9bg81.png

Not quite happy with how the cape is deforming yet. Tried using some cloth-sim, but in the build it looked to jittery so I disabled it for now. Perhaps I find a way to improve it.

Fabi_G

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Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | November - December (99)

@Fabi_G Thank you! As for textures, I'm probably going to stick to a relatively realistic style. I'll be using Substance Painter and create the base rusted/copper-looking material and then focus on the canisters and the light. I won't be doing hi-to-low poly, I'm keeping this fairly mid-poly and will be using Normal decals in Painter to make the things such as the bolts throughout and the separation lines from the meshes and to add more details.
As for software, I think I'll either just present it within the Substance Painter Renderer BUT I do want to try putting it into Unreal Engine, so maybe that one.

Your web build is pretty cool! Did you model that character or used a store asset? Did you rig it? Or did it come already rigged?

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/t9/gkpm4qyqnmvy.png

As for baking vs hand painting... It's a pretty small piece that I think it could even be meditative to hand paint it so... that's my vote!

fairlyBread

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Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | November - December (99)

Okay! Day 4! I skipped yesterday because I had no free time. But today I made good progress!

Today I did about 3hrs of only modeling + doing some tutorials for some of the twisted cable parts, which I think turned out super awesome and learned a new way to make cables/wires that twist: using Sweep Mesh tool, under the Create Menu.
Here's the tutorial I used. I think the cylinder on an EP curve is great, but Sweep Mesh allowed me to add complexity to my cables in one fell swoop. Definitely a tool I loved (I only found out about it for the twisty wires, so I had already done all the others "by hand" lol).

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/tx/6bs0dxaf49ml.png

I also started the inner part of the light fixture, which I've decided not to put too much detail into, since I assume it will be hard to see with the light on. I've also added some bevels and more fidelity to the canisters (I have yet to duplicate special them, I should've used instances instead of copies...)

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/fj/6v2ji4hj31p4.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/27/isolkvogudea.png

Overall, I think it's going really well. I reached out to the concept artist to ask if I could post this when I'm finished and they said yes! So I'm excited to share it on my page afterwards. I've been working through this as a practice piece more than anything else, but I still think it's worth sharing it, even if doesn't end up in my portfolio.

The next thing I will tackle with this one is UVs and moving on to texturing. Is this going to be a project I finish? *gasp* Stay tuned haha!

-K

fairlyBread

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Re: How to Post on the Internet

What keyboard is the best for writing long writeups?

Francois_K

3 ·

Re: AI Art, Good or Bad? A (hopefully) nuanced take on the subject.

speaking as a former student of fine-art ...
The thought of art-world wankers getting (effectively) scammed gives me a lovely warm feeling - I'm giving this one a pass

poopipe

4 ·

[WIP] Warhammer Old World - Altdorf

Hello! I wanted to share my ongoing progress I've been making on personal project in my free time. It's an environment based on Warhammer Fantasy setting.

I got inspired by many artworks made for WFRP guidebooks and various concepts and miniatures depicting the Altdorf, capital of the Empire.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/s1/evgrfjaiwefb.png

Currently I fell rather good about initial blockout. I might have gone gone a bit too far with the overal scope of the street, but I'm confident with the placement of main points of interest.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/3f/pmzjhazf04z0.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/tb/bk5i0dhn02e1.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/fc/ny5pinauuqvw.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/po/82q9obifbejz.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ud/bqyijgnat5f9.png

Right I'm now I'm moving into creating main modular pieces for the houses and towers. I'll try to update this post this post as the there's more progress. Cheers!

Brain_Slave

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Re: BRAWL2 [Character] Sodom, Fabi_G

Sorry I failed you Sodom

Once again I lost control over my 'work-life' balance (lol) and effectively, big challenges continue to kick my butt

For now, I'll have to put this on my pile of shame/ unfinished projects and come back to it one day to finish. One thing I take from this, it's that I really dig this style/ rendering and can see how I'll explore it for future personal projects.

I want to say many, many thanks for organizing this! Also thanks to everybody who stopped by this thread and big ups to all other participants who dared joining and shared their journey!

Fabi_G

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Re: BRAWL2 [Vehicle] Rust Rhino, Hang Li

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/i0/wnes1yfp1m59.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/1g/zyezy9ajkraq.jpg

The Mad Max–style“Rust Rhino” is a heavy-duty custom vehicle built for the hunt. A hybrid chassis—front wheels paired with rear tracks—maintains agility and torque across sand and rubble, while a massive wedge-shaped ram and layered spikes form an integrated breaching weapon that smashes obstacles and projects menace. On top of a stylized foundation, I wove in multiple hunting motifs to amplify character and narrative, keeping the whole design visually cohesive across form, materials, and color palette.

I truly enjoyed this creative journey—it’s been an invaluable experience. I’ll jump into the next one without hesitation!

HangLi

3 ·

BRAWL2 [Vehicle] Rust Rhino, Hang Li

I chose Mad Max as the theme for my vehicle design. It’s a hunter’s rig built for brutal off-road performance and devastating stopping power. In terms of style, I’ll take Overwatch as a visual reference and blend it with my design language and ideas.

Reference

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/7f/giriqvqtm6vs.jpg

HangLi

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Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | November - December (99)

Nice progress @fairlyBread ! That props' design gives me a bit of a 'Dishonored' vibe. Looking forward to see it with some textures applied. What approach will you use for textures and what sort of style? Will you bake some information from a highpoly or work in 2D? Any idea yet what software you're going to use to present/ render the prop? Keep it up

I think my use of the boolean modifier is pretty standard. The newly cut faces receive UVs and Material IDs from the cutter, which makes it possible to control their appearance. Possibly vertex color transfers too, haven't checked that. The main difference to Maya might be that the boolean operation is non-destructive, done with a modifier, and I don't know if Maya has something like modifiers (Iirc Max has). But I think modeling and re-projecting UVs is not much slower, possibly even good to commit to a shape at some point.

I have started some textures and applied it to the model. And of course, I started going down rabbit-holes

Created a simple figure based on third person template to walk around the environment, switched lighting to mixed (dynamic directional light, baked GI), simple skybox texture, added some particles. Did a web build and uploaded it on itch (will update it).

Screenshot of current web build:

My next step could (should) be refining and completing the texture atlas for the structure. Here is the 2D texture I have been using so far (at half res). I wonder if I should model and bake or hand-paint.

Good week!

Fabi_G

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