[wip] stylized environment

OddEyes

Hey folks,

first of all .. i'm not very experienced in environment art nor stylized/handpainted textures, that's why i'm hoping to get some good feedback from you guys so i can improve my scene here.

This is supposed to be more a environment like you have in those hack & slay games, that's why i decided to go for that camera angle and the illustrated style.
The whole vegetation is still missing and those textures/shaders are mostly just some blockouts.

Here is the current state

FullSynch

Well I'm no environment artist, but I could throw a few opinions out. Right now your wood is looking a bit muddy and plain. Everything in this scene appears to be a different shade of brown. So if you want to take the stylized route I would take some artistic liberties and throw in a lot more colorful and sharp textures.

chrisradsby

I like the bold shapes but I think you could push for a more stylized look. You need to make sure the edges of the objects pop. If it's a hack and slash game you'll have lots of things happening on the screen at once. Generally players need to be able to identify interesting buildings from just debris and other stuff lying around.

So work with colors and a bit more contrast to make the building pop from the background more.

Benjam

I like the style your going for, i would say that you should add a bit of green to the ground texture, make the mud less dry and more healthy. It can still be dirt and mud but make it a bit more fresh.

For vegetation i would say a mix of healthy green and dying green (brown and crisp) but with more healthy than dying. Really make the scene pop at you!

I would personally give the wood a less dull look aswell, a little bit lighter would do the trick i reckon. I can't wait to see the finished scene!

danpaz3d

Looks cool. I think the fade between the stone on the ground and the dirt could be sharper. And you could add some variation to the wood on the roof. The water can be a bit darker as well. But you've got the theme right.

OddEyes

alright .. had some time to work on..

first of all, thanks FullSynch, chrisradsby, Benjam, danpaz3d for your comments so far

added some bushes and grass. and worked on some of the textures and shaders. Now for the Environment Artists out there .. on what part should i work now, coz i just can't figure out, what this scene could need =/

Garnet

Looks a lot better with the added grasses and shrubs, and I second the comment about making the transition from stone to earth sharper and avoiding a gradual fade-off in stone opacity.

OddEyes

Garnet wrote: »

Looks a lot better with the added grasses and shrubs, and I second the comment about making the transition from stone to earth sharper and avoiding a gradual fade-off in stone opacity.

i tried fixing that, but i couldn't work out how to make it sharper. i selected the smallest possible brush, but i still could only draw those huge 'blobs'. Can someone explain or post a link how i can achieve this in CE3

AzzaMat

I know how you would do it in UDK but not sure how CE3 does it. These should help, Guy called Bunglo posted them up.

http://freesdk.crydev.net/display/SDKDOC2/Blend+Layer
http://freesdk.crydev.net/display/SDKDOC3/Dirt+Layer

Art wise I think your textures are really blurry. They look like they were made with really small texture sizes, while the composition and foliage is nice I would definitely suggest re-working them. 3D motive do some good hand painted texturing tutorials but they do cost
http://www.3dmotive.com/training/photoshop/hand-painted-weapon-texturing/?follow=true
Or just look around polycount for stylized threads and see how other people do them, Jessica Dinh has cool thread in the showcase gallery that's worth checking out.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=87797&page=21
Also you should post up texture sheets, UV's and wires, If we can see more it might help us give you better crit.
Hope this helps, Keep at it =D

AzzaMat

also what is that metal thing on the stumps supposed to be?

OddEyes

thank you AzzaMat for those links. will try it out later, ..

i recently heard of an art test for this kind of environment. And one of the guidelines was to use a total resolution of only 1024x1024. Some of those assets have a 256x256 resolution (i.e. the ones in the image below) I thought this might be a good practice. Since i'm not doing this scence for the studio, should i stay with it or make the resolution bigger?



and the stumps was supposed to be a work place, a big place to work on.

ivanzu

I think that you are blurring your textures a bit too much otherwise it looks good just needs some sick lighting.

Blaisoid

if you're going for the diffuse-only hand painted style then it would be good to paint a stronger, directional light onto these textures.

OddEyes

I think that you are blurring your textures a bit too much otherwise it looks good just needs some sick lighting.

It's my first environment, so also my first lighting of a scene. I'll try sth myself, but i'm very open to suggestions and help. Not sure what causes the blurring, coz it's not intended.

Blaisoid wrote: »

if you're going for the diffuse-only hand painted style then it would be good to paint a stronger, directional light onto these textures.

this was also another thing of the art test. they wanted sculpted objects and crisp normal maps.. and that's exactly what i'm trying right now. I can post some normalmaps as well if it helps

Bombshell

tones are inconsistent, namely your planks have too little contrast yet your bricks have a very sharp cut off.
and when people ask for flats / textures, post ALL present textures, including emission, diffuse, normal, ambient occlusion, etc.

OddEyes

alright ..some changes here and there .. mostly small details and decals

Benjam

Its good but if the grass is poking through green patches of the ground should have some more health to them, maybe darker/wetter mud or maybe some green grassy patches?

kio

dont blend the stones on the ground like this. mask them properly - right now its a 30% gras 30% mud 40% floortile mixture which will always look odd.