ArenaNet Environment Art Test
[EDIT]/Finished:
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Hi everyone. Since the ArenaNet environment art test came out about a week and a half ago I've been working on it whenever I've had time outside of school. I've got some fairly rough WIP screenshots and textures to show. From here I need to do a lot of refinement and polish.
Here's the house in UDK with higher resolution textures that I intend to size down in the future:
When I get the chance tomorrow I want to do some paintovers of these renders to start planning some fixes. Among the things on the list to fix:
-Color refinement across the whole house
-Roof shingle tiling
-Extra hanging shingles for sillouette
-Extra foliage
-Window specularity
-Extra rock bricks for sillouette
-A light grunge pass overall
Here are a couple of my textures rendered out in Marmoset. Once again, these are the high res textures that I'll size down for the texture limit:
I'll do my best to post updates as I finish things. Wish me luck!
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Hi everyone. Since the ArenaNet environment art test came out about a week and a half ago I've been working on it whenever I've had time outside of school. I've got some fairly rough WIP screenshots and textures to show. From here I need to do a lot of refinement and polish.
Here's the house in UDK with higher resolution textures that I intend to size down in the future:
When I get the chance tomorrow I want to do some paintovers of these renders to start planning some fixes. Among the things on the list to fix:
-Color refinement across the whole house
-Roof shingle tiling
-Extra hanging shingles for sillouette
-Extra foliage
-Window specularity
-Extra rock bricks for sillouette
-A light grunge pass overall
Here are a couple of my textures rendered out in Marmoset. Once again, these are the high res textures that I'll size down for the texture limit:
I'll do my best to post updates as I finish things. Wish me luck!
Replies
Keep up the good work!
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Or for critque....
@AlexCat: I've still got a ways to go for this test, so I'm by no means done at this point.
@stoofoo: You bring up a good point. My intention of rendering my textures in Marmoset was merely to show off my work in progress, rather than using it as a working rendering area for my textures. I think I'll take your advice and save further marmoset rendering for some of the final presentation of the assets.
@m4dcow: Oh whoops, sorry. You'll have to forgive me, I didn't know there was a contests forum. Is there a way I can get this thread moved to there?
I did a quick paintover to play with some of the asset colors and to plan out some additional elements. Here's a before/after shot:
I think the next step will be to adjust the texture colors I have now and get the materials to look better in the engine. Then I'll get to work on adding extra elements with the textures I already have, so like the extra shingles and stones. After that I'll likely be on foliage duty.
Any more feedback is welcomed!
But I think the moss is looking a bit stretched/blended on the roof/stone tiles. Ur roof tiles are not really visible anymore at this point, make them a bit bigger perhaps too.
a missing stone here and there would be sweet too, like in front of the door (on the floor) too.
Keep it up
Dude, this is the 2nd ANet thread you've told someone to just submit what they've got or not change a thing. Being a shithead isn't going to help your chances at landing an internship. Try being helpful and go post some art.
To the OP, roof tiles are looking low contrast compared to the others. Paintover looks like a good direction!
I would also totally revisit all the spec maps, you need to consider the material and its specular properties, theres a few good resources out there! but that will really make your asset better.
Id also only place one of the tattered flags on the side of the house, as this makes for a more interesting piece, and breaks up some of the symmetry on that roof.
@AlexCatMasterSupreme - instead of trying to sabotage the competition, although I believe it was all in good fun, you should be all seek and destroy on all the art test threads, cause typically they will also benefit your asset greatly or you may learn something, which is everyones goal
Good Luck to both of you!
+1, it's really visible on your stonewall
@PontusP/Romy: Good catch, I switched that right away.
I wanted to quickly post some progress since my last post. I got some first pass foliage in there along with some other fixes and thought it was a good time to post some more screens:
I'm currently working on a little more foliage variety, like flowers and different bushes. I know there's still some grunge that can go in some places, I think the plaster/wood/roof all look a little too clean. I'll keep chugging as fast as I can.
Here's where I'm at:
So a note on the moss: I'm not sure if I buy it because it's so sparse and kind of thrown around. Check out this moss:
This moss tells a story and looks really interesting. You can see how the water runoff affected where and how the moss grew. It's a lot thicker near the bottom and in the corners, and doesn't grow near the peak. It will also be thicker in the parts of the roof that get a lot of shade. Your building likely isn't in the middle of the forest, so I wouldn't exaggerate it that much.
The vine hanging from the roof post is very nice for silhouette but doesn't make sense at the moment. You'll want to very clearly show it growing up the wall and then hanging off the post.
Another big thing is you'll want to decide exactly how weathered and in disrepair this house really is. I'm imagining you're going for a house that's inviting but is old and has a lot of character because of it. The stones sell that perfectly. The tattered flag on the other hand is really making the place seem uninviting or even abandoned. The flag is still a strong element, but I suggest making it significantly less tattered.
On a related note the wood looks too new and isn't matching the wear on the rest of the house. It could use some desaturation/variance. Also really play up the wear on the corners and make them a lighter brown; that makes it more interesting and will sell the form as the corners turn.
The door on the other hand works, even though it also looks new and freshly painted. I think that's fine because I imagine someone living there would more easily keep that painted and inviting than the rest of the house.
Maybe play up the presence of the windows, they're all really hard to spot in the dark shadows. I'm kind of curious how it would look if there were a window on the front facade (I noticed there aren't any at all. Just an idea).
Also I would barely have known that chimney pipe existed if I hadn't seen the concept. It's a nice element that's getting lost, so play it up. Make it bigger/more prominent, maybe even copy pasta it onto the main roof to add some more silhouette. *Alternatively* you can axe it all together and use that free texture space for other things.
All that said it's looking really strong. The important part will be getting it into a setting and making a great composition. Keep it up!
@Aimbiz: I'll consider modifying the bars on the door later, to me I'm somewhat on the fence about it. Thanks for the suggestion!
@ablaine: Thanks!
@ZacD: I could work on a paintover of the back wall. At this point, I've got a couple dozen polys to spare to add more elements. The windows are still WIP too, I'm trying to think of the best way to tackle those. Thanks for stopping by!
Okay, so here's another round of renders from UDK, some lit from the front, some from the back:
Most of the work has been texturing, but here some of the main fixes:
-Worn down wood
-Increased contrast on roofing
-Adjusted moss painting
-Redid/repositioned chimney
-Window material experimentation
-Baked down textures to actual submission size
That's all I have for now. The biggest thing I'm unhappy with is the windows, which I'm still tweaking with. I gave a shot using an emissive map for the windows so they could self illuminate, like it's being lit from inside. I'm not totally in love with it but I'll keep trying things. If anyone has any suggestions for the windows I'd be thankful for help.
I also want to get this house in an environment soon, using textures not in the two 1024 limit. I'll get to work on a paintover/planning for extra fixes as well as planning for what environment I want to get this in.
Stay tuned for more!
good luck
I also agree with ZacD about the edge highlights on the wood. Dont really see a lot of that in the game which was probably a mix of style choice and using tiles.
@futurepoly: Thanks!
@ZacD: Thanks! I've fixed that on this pass.
@Mazher: Thank you! Especially for the color feedback. It's the kind of help I'm always welcome to. I've been looking through screens of GW2 for further direction and it's been fairly helpful.
Okay, with only a few weeks left in this art test, I've decided that I want to submit at least a week early before the deadline, which means I'm planning on shipping this on the first weekend during November. At this point, I've got some more renders to show.
I received a great suggestion from a friend of mine which led me to create modular houses from the textures I've already created from the main house. After building a few houses, I built out a little mock scene around the main house. I also re-purposed some foliage and ground textures from a previous project to fill in the environment.
Here are the latest shots:
The main changes from last week:
-Desaturated some elements
-Added grass edges on top of house rocks
-Built scene and tweaked colors through Photoshop color picking
-Adjusted window emissive color
-Tapered building
The next step is to work on polish all around, though I'll want to focus specifically on the house since that's the important thing here. I'll put these renders in Photoshop and try to make adjustments there to get some direction.
With the way school is going I probably won't be able to get to this until the weekend again. If all goes as planned, I'll submit my test this coming weekend, at which point I'll post breakdowns for my textures and sculpts I did for those textures.
Wish me luck!
This looks really good man. I like the buildings you threw in. Brings it all together. I can tell you've worked really hard on this. Not sure if you are aware or not, but the environment test is done. It's cancelled. From what I've read on other posts. Check for the post here on polycount and their website. No explanation so far why it's been cancelled but I assume the internship has been filled.
But if you're like me, you'll say screw it and send it in anyway. I hope you do because this is pretty polished. Good luck man!
Right now I'd worry about the space around the house which seem pretty illogical - just a patch of grass in the middle of the town. Fix it up with a little pavement leading up to the house and maybe some props since you're so bent on overdelivering(which is nothing but a good thing).
Now I'm not a big fan of he buildings in the back, they are a good filler but they don't hold up when you actually start looking at them and their composition feels pretty random. So I'd probably throw in a little depth of field to direct your viewers eyes where they need to go and prevent them from going where they shouldn't.
Anyway, lovely work Brandon and if it were up to me I'd give you a shot with an internship.
And if it's really canceled don't get discouraged - it's still a nice piece.
Well, there's no point in throwing away all this work I've done. Might as well finish it right?
@GOBEE: Thanks for telling me the news. Also, thanks for the complements!
@Pinuja: Haha! I guess I should be happy I might've managed to turn someone into an environment artist. Thanks for dropping by!
@d1ver: I'm glad for your feedback. On this final pass I addressed some of your notes. With the time I have with school on my plate I couldn't go overboard with additional props, but I at least tweaked the depth of field and modified a few other things. Above all, thanks for your post! I'm happy you think I'm worthy of an internship.
So I think this is where I'll leave this finished for now. Here are the newest shots:
I added a few fence props to make the grassy area around the house seem more like someone's yard, like they own that lot. I also added some rock bricks to the dirt path leading to the house, and I kicked up the depth of field just a bit more.
There might be some other adjustments to this for portfolio purposes, but I think I'm calling it done here.
Without further ado, here's some breakdowns for my textures and the model:
A big thank you again to everyone that's helped me with this project. You guys all rock.
Congratulations on wrapping it up.
you improved on all the comments I was thinking off from the first version you posted,
congratz!
although, I have a comment on the final presentation,
your building isn't blending in with the rest,
your's is looking al bueatifull and curvy and the rest are just blocks and a flat ground,
so build a little town around it with the same design as your little house,
or ditch the town altogether and place it on a nice hill side (non flat ground) with some nice trees or something
do you understand what I'm saying?