Well, I was kinda all over the place today. I decided I oughtta maybe focus on textures, since they're kinda going to be a really big part of making this look good, and also kinda where I have a bad habit of getting frustrated and letting a project lapse into a state of perpetual WIP-iness.
Quick second paintover to try and figure out what textures I'm going to need:
First pass Grass texture, based on Jeff Parrot's tutorial, which is fairly simple, but a bit time consuming because you're kinda hand-placing a bunch of blades of grass, then a bunch of ever-larger clumps of grass until you're ready to start doing the awesome little Offset tricks.
The technique seems sound, but I think I'm probably going to have to play around with trying to start from a handful of flat-colored blades to get a bit closer to the concept. Also, never having done a successful night scene, I'm not sure how much I need to cheat the blue moonlight in the textures, whether my grass (and everything else) should be thoroughly blue-tinted or whether I can expect lighting to shoulder the burden on that.
Finally, I went back to start getting my terrain shapes a bit more detailed, closer to the concept, not made of 20 or so tris with all the jaggedness that entails.
Right then, out with the old and in with the new challenge.
Here's my quick breakdown of textures/assets
I got Ni No Kuni on Friday and been playing it a lot over the weekend. I want to try and attempt a similar art style with this piece because its so gorgeous. Not really had a go at making my own hand painted textures before so it'll be a nice change for me, and quite a challenge as well.
I found the best way to do this for me was to shape a plane to the outline of the hill from the front, rotate it 45 degrees on the X axis and then stretch it vertically (so that it was the same height from orthographic front before the rotation). Then from the top view I places all of the vertices to map my top down interpretation, then add cuts repeatedly to try and get roughly the same rock shape.
Again participating in the Polycount's "Monthly Noob Challenge 5" to challenge myself.
----floating island
Purpose:
-learn terrain and vertex painting
-Will be making the terrain as a whole not just a snapshot.
-learn Hand painting.
-foilage modeling.
Texutres:
-ground Terrain textures:
grass X 2
dirt X 2
rock X 2
-Sky dome [no idea, how I am going to do the sky]? Models:
-terrain rocks X 3
-floating island
Archecture:
-few Houses
-fence
-wood pieces
-floating ladder
Vegeation
-tree(few,Not sure)
-Bushes
-grass
-flowers
So I finally got round to blocking out the concept art.
Planning to throw this lovely little scene into Cry Engine and have a play around with the various gem's it contains and to learn a new engine. I'm not sure if it would be best to have a tillable cliff face texture or just to sculpt it all out. With the bridges and roof panels, I thought it might be best to make them modular and let the tree have its own texture sheet. I think I can get away with having the foliage sharing one sheet too. Considering how dark the scene is not sure how much you would actually see.
Now, to jot down a quick plan and on with the show.
Starting my blockout...first day off since the challenge began. I'm going to try a handpainted style, but I'm going to outline my textures...like in a graphic style. Not the traditional handpainted look where everything is blended. Also I'm going to try to simplify my textures so its not as time consuming given the amount of time I have to work on assets each week.
Starting my blockout...first day off since the challenge began. I'm going to try a handpainted style, but I'm going to outline my textures...like in a graphic style. Not the traditional handpainted look where everything is blended. Also I'm going to try to simplify my textures so its not as time consuming given the amount of time I have to work on assets each week.
You should try and get the correct aspect ratio for your images before you block it out.
Is there a simple way to set that up? I tried using the image plane feature in Maya..and it just didn't want to play nice.
I believe there's 4 ways in Maya to get a perfect image ratio of your reference. At work so i can't double check myself, but hope it helps.
1. (most tedious) In Photoshop, open your reference. Go to Image Size and write down the height and width of the concept's image in cm. Create a plane in Maya and punch in the measurements (Maya's default system of measurement is cm). Create a new Lambert with the concept image in Hypershade and assign it to the plane.
2) (less tedious) Select your camera and create an Image Plane. Noodle with the settings until it's placed where you want it. It will automatically import in with the correct image ratio
3) (least tedious) Create a new Lambert with the concept image in Hypershade and assign it to the plane. Go to Window > Texture Editor. Click Normalize, and the image should become the correct image ratio. (not sure about this one, can't remember if this works)
Progress on the house, and got the mesh into Unity. I don't have pro, so no shadows unless I bake a light map (never done this before, or move to UDK when I actually get towards the end.
Quite happy with my first hand painted texture. I wish I could have gotten some wood grain in it, but it matches the concept better, and wood seems hard to do, and I don't have a tablet, so I am gonna call it done.
Quite happy with my first hand painted texture. I wish I could have gotten some wood grain in it, but it matches the concept better, and wood seems hard to do, and I don't have a tablet, so I am gonna call it done.
I agree with this, the cheapest wacom bamboo is awesome. In fact minus the pen I prefer it to my intuos as the side buttons are annoying as hell.
This will make your hand painted textures much better. Also try avoiding using soft bruises like you would any painting (generally).
With that said I suck at painting and just started getting into hand painted textures. This tutorial is a good starting point. https://www.3dmotive.com/v101801
So I thought I would break out of this whole modelling thing and concentrate on what looks the best in this scene, the sky. So Here is my progress on it so far.
Started with a gradient using the colours I wanted to get the right mood.
Added the stars.
I created two layers of stars and used a rotator + panner with random 1 vectors plugged into time to give me a better scattering of stars. They are then just added to the sky gradient.
Added the moon with a green halo
I'm posting up the material for this because I figured I might as well show my process. I'm unhappy with the end result so I may go back and try a different method later on. May just drop in an alphad plane with the moon texture on it instead. The final node for the moon is plugged into custom lighting.
I would highly recommend getting one, you might be able to find a nice second hand wacom to get you started.
Good start on the textures though. Do you have access to a camera Benton?
Yeah I'm looking at getting one. I have a good camera too.
I agree with this, the cheapest wacom bamboo is awesome. In fact minus the pen I prefer it to my intuos as the side buttons are annoying as hell.
This will make your hand painted textures much better. Also try avoiding using soft bruises like you would any painting (generally).
With that said I suck at painting and just started getting into hand painted textures. This tutorial is a good starting point. https://www.3dmotive.com/v101801
Thanks, I will check that out What do you mean by not using soft brushes?
Update:
Started working on my first ever brick texture!
It's not great, but I'm really new, so I will probably come back to this later but for now I think its fine. I don't know if I like the white lines on the bricks. But please, throw all your criticism at me, I want to learn.
This tutorial really came in handy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4cjgZA_YKCg
I'm withdrawing out of this one; I just got tasked with a first response training simulator my local police department and as a result and am in charge of characters and some small assets for it. I'll take a peek at the results though and hopefully I can do next month's sci fi one. Good luck everyone!
ps.
Loving those hand painted texture tutorials. They're fantastic!
I have never done any environment work before (very little overall 3d work as well). Next up will be the last island, and then the smaller pieces (bridges, vines / ropes).
AlexCatMasterSupreme : Dont worry man, stuff like this happen, and for 8 days with 90 post aint bad at all, I guess the flow will go back to normal next month.
Im not participating this time due to workshops and tight schedules ,but will be back next challenge.
Thanks AzzaMat, that gives me at least a starting idea on how to tackle the sky with lighting! I had no idea where I was going to start with that.
So here are my updates. I decided to work on some textures that I have almost no experience on. First up was grass. I decided to put a base grass texture down and then I will really punch it up with Panes of grass to give it depth and variation as well as the illusion of uncut grass.
I followed this tutorial to help out with grass as well as the one mentioned earlier. http://www.crydev.net/viewtopic.php?f=315&t=100319
I'm going to get somethings into the engine shortly to see how things look in there. I'm going to give a good crack at the cliff sides tomorrow before work.
AlexCatMasterSupreme : Dont worry man, stuff like this happen, and for 8 days with 90 post aint bad at all, I guess the flow will go back to normal next month.
Im not participating this time due to workshops and tight schedules ,but will be back next challenge.
That's good to hear!
And yeah I just am surprised by how low it is, a total black and white of last month.
It's a pretty weird concept, I have to say. Not a lot of interesting assets to create... The only thing I'm interested in is how people would approach the fluffy clouds.
It's a pretty weird concept, I have to say. Not a lot of interesting assets to create... The only thing I'm interested in is how people would approach the fluffy clouds.
this ^
It's just a weird concept. If I can't visualize the concept art as a 3d environment then I lose interest in it pretty quickly. This concept doesn't really work as a 3d environment if you ask me. However that's just my opinion, maybe someone will be able to turn this into a beautiful 3d scene
Replies
Quick second paintover to try and figure out what textures I'm going to need:
First pass Grass texture, based on Jeff Parrot's tutorial, which is fairly simple, but a bit time consuming because you're kinda hand-placing a bunch of blades of grass, then a bunch of ever-larger clumps of grass until you're ready to start doing the awesome little Offset tricks.
The technique seems sound, but I think I'm probably going to have to play around with trying to start from a handful of flat-colored blades to get a bit closer to the concept. Also, never having done a successful night scene, I'm not sure how much I need to cheat the blue moonlight in the textures, whether my grass (and everything else) should be thoroughly blue-tinted or whether I can expect lighting to shoulder the burden on that.
Finally, I went back to start getting my terrain shapes a bit more detailed, closer to the concept, not made of 20 or so tris with all the jaggedness that entails.
Here's my quick breakdown of textures/assets
I got Ni No Kuni on Friday and been playing it a lot over the weekend. I want to try and attempt a similar art style with this piece because its so gorgeous. Not really had a go at making my own hand painted textures before so it'll be a nice change for me, and quite a challenge as well.
Someone else having troubles with the camera matching?
Working on the blockout
what im workin on.... thinkin bout redoing the tree >.>
I found the best way to do this for me was to shape a plane to the outline of the hill from the front, rotate it 45 degrees on the X axis and then stretch it vertically (so that it was the same height from orthographic front before the rotation). Then from the top view I places all of the vertices to map my top down interpretation, then add cuts repeatedly to try and get roughly the same rock shape.
-learn terrain and vertex painting
-Will be making the terrain as a whole not just a snapshot.
-learn Hand painting.
-foilage modeling.
Texutres:
-ground Terrain textures:
grass X 2
dirt X 2
rock X 2
-Sky dome [no idea, how I am going to do the sky]?
Models:
-terrain rocks X 3
-floating island
Archecture:
-few Houses
-fence
-wood pieces
-floating ladder
Vegeation
-tree(few,Not sure)
-Bushes
-grass
-flowers
Day 2:
Blogged at: http://suchanbad.blogspot.com/2013/03/participating-in-monthly-noob.html
Now foliage.
I'll try to get something up later this week, too busy with a retail course atm XC
Planning to throw this lovely little scene into Cry Engine and have a play around with the various gem's it contains and to learn a new engine. I'm not sure if it would be best to have a tillable cliff face texture or just to sculpt it all out. With the bridges and roof panels, I thought it might be best to make them modular and let the tree have its own texture sheet. I think I can get away with having the foliage sharing one sheet too. Considering how dark the scene is not sure how much you would actually see.
Now, to jot down a quick plan and on with the show.
Starting my blockout...first day off since the challenge began. I'm going to try a handpainted style, but I'm going to outline my textures...like in a graphic style. Not the traditional handpainted look where everything is blended. Also I'm going to try to simplify my textures so its not as time consuming given the amount of time I have to work on assets each week.
Just move the top edge of the plane down till it's right.
I believe there's 4 ways in Maya to get a perfect image ratio of your reference. At work so i can't double check myself, but hope it helps.
1. (most tedious) In Photoshop, open your reference. Go to Image Size and write down the height and width of the concept's image in cm. Create a plane in Maya and punch in the measurements (Maya's default system of measurement is cm). Create a new Lambert with the concept image in Hypershade and assign it to the plane.
2) (less tedious) Select your camera and create an Image Plane. Noodle with the settings until it's placed where you want it. It will automatically import in with the correct image ratio
3) (least tedious) Create a new Lambert with the concept image in Hypershade and assign it to the plane. Go to Window > Texture Editor. Click Normalize, and the image should become the correct image ratio. (not sure about this one, can't remember if this works)
4) Eyeball it.
AspectRatio= imageHeight / imageWidth (this gives the number of vertical pixels per horizontal pixel)
FinalHeight = FinalWidth * AspectRatio;
FinalWidth can be chosen at will and this will make sure the height is the same ratio.
(programmer answer).
I think I got the aspect ratio fixed...and the image plane is in a decent spot..not in the way. Thanks for the tips guys.
Quite happy with my first hand painted texture. I wish I could have gotten some wood grain in it, but it matches the concept better, and wood seems hard to do, and I don't have a tablet, so I am gonna call it done.
I would highly recommend getting one, you might be able to find a nice second hand wacom to get you started.
Good start on the textures though. Do you have access to a camera Benton?
Here is my block-out took me longer than expected. I will be working on the assets tonight/tomorrow. Hope i will have an update.
I agree with this, the cheapest wacom bamboo is awesome. In fact minus the pen I prefer it to my intuos as the side buttons are annoying as hell.
This will make your hand painted textures much better. Also try avoiding using soft bruises like you would any painting (generally).
With that said I suck at painting and just started getting into hand painted textures. This tutorial is a good starting point. https://www.3dmotive.com/v101801
Started with a gradient using the colours I wanted to get the right mood.
Added the stars.
I created two layers of stars and used a rotator + panner with random 1 vectors plugged into time to give me a better scattering of stars. They are then just added to the sky gradient.
Added the moon with a green halo
I'm posting up the material for this because I figured I might as well show my process. I'm unhappy with the end result so I may go back and try a different method later on. May just drop in an alphad plane with the moon texture on it instead. The final node for the moon is plugged into custom lighting.
Yeah I'm looking at getting one. I have a good camera too.
Thanks, I will check that out
Update:
Started working on my first ever brick texture!
It's not great, but I'm really new, so I will probably come back to this later but for now I think its fine. I don't know if I like the white lines on the bricks. But please, throw all your criticism at me, I want to learn.
This tutorial really came in handy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4cjgZA_YKCg
ps.
Loving those hand painted texture tutorials. They're fantastic!
I have never done any environment work before (very little overall 3d work as well). Next up will be the last island, and then the smaller pieces (bridges, vines / ropes).
Im not participating this time due to workshops and tight schedules ,but will be back next challenge.
So here are my updates. I decided to work on some textures that I have almost no experience on. First up was grass. I decided to put a base grass texture down and then I will really punch it up with Panes of grass to give it depth and variation as well as the illusion of uncut grass.
I followed this tutorial to help out with grass as well as the one mentioned earlier.
http://www.crydev.net/viewtopic.php?f=315&t=100319
I'm going to get somethings into the engine shortly to see how things look in there. I'm going to give a good crack at the cliff sides tomorrow before work.
That's good to hear!
And yeah I just am surprised by how low it is, a total black and white of last month.
I would get some more height variation in your grass alpha's they look far to uniform at the moment.
this ^
It's just a weird concept. If I can't visualize the concept art as a 3d environment then I lose interest in it pretty quickly. This concept doesn't really work as a 3d environment if you ask me. However that's just my opinion, maybe someone will be able to turn this into a beautiful 3d scene
Then again, that's what makes it a challenge.
grass_diffuse
My first ever hand painted grass texture. Simpler style then what most will do, but I'm ok with it.
Got moonlight rims on a simple cloud textures. now all I need to do is add variation and fix the alpha so the stars don't shine through the clouds
I agree that the concept is a little difficult to wrap your head around. However, all environment art can't be interiors!