Kraken's Bride- Galleon

kdm3d

Heres something I've been working on for a while. I think its to a point to get some good feedback, where as not too far along to make changes.

These screens are from inside maya, diffuse only, I haven't begun work on normals and spec yet. The second set are a few material tests on the deck planks and rope materials. Deck material was in CE3 and rope is in UDK. I'll prob stilck with UDK on this one just because my software and computer are so old it will be a pain in the ass to get everything in and running on CE3.

C+C's always welcome!

DWalker

Galleons were square rigged ships, with lanteen sails only on the mizzen and main mizzen masts (if it all). Your sail arrangement looks almost like a clipper, a ship that came 3 centuries later.


The rudder and the stern post were generally quite visible and extended up to the balcony under the officer's quarters.

You're also missing a distinct fore castle, capstan (used to raise and lower the anchors), and ship's bell. Also, while mastheads weren't on every galleon, they were fairly common, especially on British ships, and provide you with an opportunity to branch out with either a krakken or his (probably scantily clad) bride.




When you get to texturing, keep in mind that galleons were often colorfully painted, with important details picked out in gold leaf (dependent upon the size of the captain's purse, of course). At the very least, the name and decorative trim would be gilt.

kdm3d

Hey, thanks for the crits! Definitely some stuff to consider as I move forward.

I probably shouldn't have labeled this as a Galleon. Even though a Spanish Galleon was my original inspiration, I know I have definitely moved off of something historically accurate and taken some artistic license. It has become a mash up of many different types of sailing ships.

Thanks again though, keep em coming!

Der Hollander

I feel like your textures are too sharp and contrasty, which is making your textures look super busy, aliased and generally not easy to look at.

If you look at the images DWalker posted, while admittedly, they're ships that are being taken care of thanks to modern science, you can see that you don't actually see a lot of the wood grain in the images. If it's been painted, it's likely got paint slathered on so much that most of the grain detail would be lost.

Your wood texture rendered in CE3 looks good, but I would even dial the grain on that back a bit, having your deepest normals be the seams in between the planks of the wood, have subtle normals for the larger chunky bits, and then have your fine wood grain pulled in through a detail normal map so you retain texture integrity when you get up close, but when you're far away it doesn't end up looking really busy.

It's looking good so far, just keep "Krak-en" at it... alright, I love bad puns but even that makes me want to punch me. :poly124:

kdm3d

More good points. I agree on the aliased textures. I have a detail map multiplied over my diffuses in maya right now, I think they're tiled a bit too much. I'll work out all the materials when I get it in engine. Also thinking about masking out the detail maps to make a change between painted/non painted wood. I should be able to get some nice variation that way.

All that being said, the intent for this guy is a weathered pirate ship, not much time for maintenance, so Its to look a little rough. For instance the deck on the pic dwalker posted is sanded and polished, where as I was going for a more worn at sea look.

Thanks again!

kdm3d

Here's another material test for the railings. Less noisy and aliased. Fun stuff... I was trying to get a "brush stroke" detail normal on the paint, but I dont think quite it reads as that...

KheltonHeadley

Looks way better! Love the new wood textures!

kdm3d

Had to pull these down, I was going over my traffic limit on my site. I'll start a new thread from here on out with only new stuff.. thanks for all the comments guys, see you on the other side!

kdm3d

A couple more screens of progress... UDK stuff...