Monthly Noob Environment Challenge 1
interpolator
First off just want to say sorry for spamming the P&P with our challenge threads, we are just figuring things out.
So this is the start of a monthly challenge where everyone works on an environment concept we give you, you have until the following month on November 7th to finish as much as you can, if not all.
The goal is to do your best, post your progress and for everyone to give feedback, weather you are a "pro" or a noob feel free to give input. And post any questions or issues you come across. Share your ways of doing things if you so feel like it.
This month we are doing an outdoor concept, it it slightly complex but it has so many things to try and practice that you will hopefully learn a lot. This is the concept:
This may seem like it's pretty complicated, and if you are starting out it can be overwhelming, so take it piece by peice.
Break it down into how you want to handle, this will vary depending on what engine you will use. I personally will be using Cryengine, and if anyone needs help with anything relating to it I would be happy to make you a tutorial when I have time.
All that matters is that you learn and give and get advice and are willing to be critiqued, I am thinking that at the end of the month a small prize may be handed out to the winner, nothing significant , maybe a game or something. If you guys like that idea I'm for it.
So here are the rules:
Must make your own textures, no stealing, we can't keep you from it, but the goal is to learn, even tileables, I mean you can take someone else's image and make it tileable, that's fine.
You must use a game engine OBVIOUSLY. UDK or Cryengine will probably be the most used.
You must try your best and finish as much as you can in this month.
Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique and we don't have 1000 disjointed parts all over.
Well that's about it, if you think the rules should be changed let me know.
I would 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, but it must stay somewhat similar to the concept, if not very close.
Have fun!
So this is the start of a monthly challenge where everyone works on an environment concept we give you, you have until the following month on November 7th to finish as much as you can, if not all.
The goal is to do your best, post your progress and for everyone to give feedback, weather you are a "pro" or a noob feel free to give input. And post any questions or issues you come across. Share your ways of doing things if you so feel like it.
This month we are doing an outdoor concept, it it slightly complex but it has so many things to try and practice that you will hopefully learn a lot. This is the concept:
This may seem like it's pretty complicated, and if you are starting out it can be overwhelming, so take it piece by peice.
Break it down into how you want to handle, this will vary depending on what engine you will use. I personally will be using Cryengine, and if anyone needs help with anything relating to it I would be happy to make you a tutorial when I have time.
All that matters is that you learn and give and get advice and are willing to be critiqued, I am thinking that at the end of the month a small prize may be handed out to the winner, nothing significant , maybe a game or something. If you guys like that idea I'm for it.
So here are the rules:
Must make your own textures, no stealing, we can't keep you from it, but the goal is to learn, even tileables, I mean you can take someone else's image and make it tileable, that's fine.
You must use a game engine OBVIOUSLY. UDK or Cryengine will probably be the most used.
You must try your best and finish as much as you can in this month.
Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique and we don't have 1000 disjointed parts all over.
Well that's about it, if you think the rules should be changed let me know.
I would 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, but it must stay somewhat similar to the concept, if not very close.
Have fun!
Replies
Thanks for the challenge, nice to have someone going with CE3 too
First start boxing the scene, to get right perspective and proportions.
Create some ground, basic shapes, basic lightning. After that replace them by final objects.
i really like to join in
Anyways here is my blockout so far:
You could use Unity engine.
I will most likely be using Unity as my game-engine and I will try to hand-paint my textures.
The textures are just basic colors until I begin texturing next week. Any suggestions so far.
How are you guys coming along?
Looked at the Wenda World Machine > Mudbox > UDK videos and have got a grasp but I'm bound to stumble. This will be fun
I will continue modeling tomorrow and try to make the first textures as soon as possible.
then u learn how to
Why don't you just practise blocking it ALL out, super low poly but emphasis on scale, distance and composing the scene completely. (Use vertex colour to make it standout)
After you are happy with this choose an element that you have some experience in and try and improve, be it focus on cleaner mesh or better texturing etc.
Take one step at a time.
Please give me some feedback on my work I could really use it.
Try, see what you can do. You may be impressed by how much you can do. I'm in the same boat but I want to learn so if there are a few set backs along the way then at least I'll learn from them.
The main difficulty to me here was trying to make it work on a 1920*1080 aspect. I worked with colors here because it helped separating space in the picture. It's all very early work, there's 2 hours of block out here. But it should be enough for a test in engine just to place the final camera position and start producing art for it.
It's missing props and the camera angle is slightly looking upward as opposed to the concept but it's part of trying to make it fit the canvas I guess. :P
I am reconsidering my choice of game engine and an open-source alternative would be very nice.
There's no editor whatsoever neither.
I'm also gathering advices here being a stylized art noob.
And yeah I won't have the time for this one - I hope there's been enough reception for another challenge next month?
Edit: I completely understand if this throws me out of the running for winning it, I have no problem with that.
The ground texture looks great, I'm not sure about the bigger plants though, I feel like they should probably be billboards that stick out of the ground, just my point of view though.
@Bonkahe this is the monthly Environment challenge, I don't think we are supposed to include the characters. There is another monthly challenge for characters only.
I am also starting very late so I'm not sure I can complete it in time but I'll try to do as much as I can.
For now all I have to show is the fireplace, I need help optimizing this a bit better because I think 2830 faces are a bit much for this kind of prop.
The most poly-consuming part is obviously the stones, I made a few variations and instanced them around the fireplace so that I could just unwrap and texture the original stones and save some time. Would it be better to as GerardM did and texture each stone individually instead?
Love seeing stylized stuff, can't wait to see what you come up with.
NinthJake - I think the places you could save some polys is the knob on the pot lid and that dirt mound. I don't think you need so many polys for that, especially since I don't think that extra geo is really helping the silhouette. To help decide where to cut out polys, try to see your asset from the perspective of the player and think about whether your edges add to the overall form of your objects. For example if the sticks are going to be shoved into the ground, you can delete the faces on the bottom of the sticks since no player will ever see that.
I think you could also cut a lot of edges from the rocks. I think you're right to create the rock variations and instance them around the campfire (you can make them look different by nonuniform scaling them too!) You could probably fit all 3 or so rock textures on one map too. I also think I see some extra unneeded edges on the sticks, near the bottom.
As for your poly count, the dirt doesn't need extra polys imo, just make it a plane, or just put it on the ground and make the ground texture dirt, then just add some logs maybe a decal of ash on the ground and your good to go. As for the rocks, you could try something like Skyrim does with its rock walls and make all the rocks one model. Just make a cylinder (using cylinder or create a box and extrude it around it if you want it less uniform), and slice it up, then move the verts around into the shape of rocks. Extrude a face or two here and there to break it up even more, for added detail you can try breaking it up into 2-3 objects.
>.> But wait there's more! lol not really but that does sound like an infomercial.
Edit: Darn you Sybrix, Beat me to it, sneaky hobbitises... oh well, but the rock idea is still good, it all being one model, I would suggest trying em both and finding what you like best, also I don't think you need as many polys on those binds holding the sticks together.