low poly environment

WindchILL

Hey everyone, this is my second thread so I'm still VERY new to this community, and I'm also a beginner in modeling/texturing. I'd appreciate it if I could give any critiques/feedback on geometry optimization and uv mapping. Also this is my first handpainted environment so any tips on how to get the visuals to pop would be appreciated. Here's what I got so far, I'll be working on it for the next 6-7 days and hope to finish by the end of this time period at the latest.

http://cgsyndrome.deviantart.com/art/Ghost-House-357726024

^here's the concept art from the person i got permission from to try recreate this in 3d.

http://p3d.in/db98d/wireonshadeless
^here's what i have so far. I'll be updating this constantly within the next several days. Thanks for reading!

Jessica Dinh

Hey, nice concept you chose. It would be easier to see your work if you could just embed the images in your thread though! Upload to imgur and paste the highlighted code here!

DWalker

How large is the house going to be? Small, like in an RTS, or large enough for the player to enter, like an FPS? If it's about the default size in your web model view, you'll want to increase (slightly) the number of sides on the entry arch, and reduce the number of sides for the spheres on the fence surrounding the house.

Unless your model is going to be very large, both the iron posts topping the fence and the entry gate can be modeled as flat sheets with an alpha test/blend texture. For larger models, you can add a normal map to give some depth to them; for small models, the diffuse alone should be enough.

WindchILL

Wow, I can't believe this thread from a lowly noob artist got the attention of THE Jessica Dinh. :O I'm a big fan of your art, and someday hope to get as good as you!

@DWalker: The house was intended to be smaller, as in slightly bigger than the default web model view size. Also good call on the flat sheets, hadn't thought of that (I'm very much still a noob sorry about that >.<) I'll work on what you said.

WindchILL

I took into account your suggestions @DWalker so now this is what the scene looks like so far.




added two more edge loops to the arch, and reduced the sphere subdivisions from 8 to 6.

the 3D preview has also been updated



I've always been wondering, what is the best approach to uv'ing a sphere? This is the default uv layout maya gave me, but would it be better for this case to just planar map the top and bottom half?

Moosebish

Mapping sphere's is always tricky, there is always going to be some stretching, it just depends where you want it. Plant Mapping the top and bottom works, or front and back. You have to decide, strategically, where you want the seem to be..

WindchILL

I believe I have everything uv'ed correctly so I'm gonna begin texturing. This is the part where I'm gonna need critiques the most because I have little experience with hand-painting textures, so bear with me.

Pangahas

I'm no expert and I could be wrong here but afaik its good practice to make major parts have almost the same texel density(I hope i get the term right).Big surfaces like the ground for example should occupy more space compared to walls?

Jessica Dinh

Yay, images! ^_^ Agreed with Pangahas; those checkers indicate resolution. Bigger checkers mean the uv shells are getting less space, smaller checkers means they are getting more. You should try to get them all about the same size, so some areas are not fuzzy and some areas sharp (because that is really jarring).

But before you continue with your uvs, there are some things to fix with your model. The house feels a bit small to me. The entry arch is very thick, probably one thing contributing to that. The chimney is missing the lip. The attic should also be much bigger, and have a little window extruding off the side (unless you decided to modify the design for some reason).

You are also missing bushes, and it would be nice to see the little rocks and pebbles surrounding the perimeter of the house. The lantern is also rather small. Paying attention to these nuances and proportional details will really help your piece out! Then you can get back to your uvs Keep it up!

Brian "Panda" Choi

Getting a quad sphere from ZBrush will make life easier here, i'd imagine.

WindchILL

some updates:

http://p3d.in/AE1Tw/wireonshadeless







Thank you for the advice! Sorry that these are such amateur mistakes, so embarrassing >.<

Edit list:

-slightly scaled down the entry arch
-added chimney lip
-rescaled attic to match concept
-added protruding room to attic
-slightly scaled up the lantern
-added bushes around house and shrubs/rocks around the perimeter
-added a poly plane for the front gate
-(kinda hard to see) added evenly divided edge loops on perimeter walls to help with texture reuse

I'm not sure if i got the bush geometry right, but I asked the guy who made the concept art for advice and he suggested to create spheres and paint from there. Not quite sure how I would go about uv'ing this, since my bushes are basically spheres (with the bottom faces cut out), and I still have a hard time thinking whats the best way to unwrap such a shape with minimal seam visibility.

I thought my uv'ing fundamentals were decent, but I can foresee several problems ahead. I plan to use several uv maps for this scene (because its way too big for one map). What would be the best way to group objects to put on the same map? Should things like the wooden planks, bushes/shrubs and rocks be all on one map, or should each object have their own? Since I'm using several maps, will the texel density mentioned by @Pangahas and @Jessica Dinh still be able to match across the entire scene while still optimizing uv space for each map?

Sorry if my problems have obvious answers, this is the first full scene I've ever made.

WindchILL

JadeEyePanda wrote: »

Getting a quad sphere from ZBrush will make life easier here, i'd imagine.

I replicated that quad sphere in maya using two subdivisions on a cube, but I think the final object has too many faces. Would the first subdivision work for something like this?

Brian "Panda" Choi

Depends what the game camera zoom and angle is, Justin.

Jessica Dinh

Awesome, much better! ^_^ And don't be embarrassed. The more you practice, the easier if will be for your eye to catch these things. I would still like to point out the scale of the attic though. In the concept you can see that the bottom of the attic roof pretty much lines up with the top of the house roof. In general, finding tangents like these can help you with getting proportions right. This will make your house feel taller too

As far as bush geometry goes, you could make it a sphere and quick planar map it flat out, but there will be stretching. Or you split the sphere in half, and yeah there would be a seam, which you could deal with in two ways:

1. Paint out the seam in 3D Coat (really awesome, easy-to-use program. has a free 30 day trial, or the educational version is $100. Or use free 3ds Max viewport paint. Seems you're using Maya though, and I'm not sure if Maya has a similar deal).

2. Strategically cover the seams with alpha cards

ORR instead of making your bushes out of spheres, you could cross rectangular alpha cards, ORR or you could make little umbrella - shaped alpha cards and layer them to form a sphere. There are so many ways to do one thing, so just pick what you like :]

I would try to use as few maps as possible, so probably don't give each object its own map (unless you intended this be like a first person rpg where a player can run right up to each prop, and even then..). I would pack several props into one map, then if you are using tileable textures (you might not), those are each their own map as well.

Concerning texel density, you should try to get all those checkers about the same. HOWEVER, let's say you have extra space in one of your prop maps. I would scale up all those props to fit the space, and maybe then they will have more room than other things in the scene, but that might be ok.

It is especially less noticeable when hand-painted things have differing texel densities than when photo-sourced textures do. Just honestly look at the scene, and if you can't discern a difference in the texel density, you'll know that it was okay to scale some things up to utilize all of your texture space. I hope that made sense I ran into the same texel density confusion when I made my first scene too; in the end we just worry a lot and it turns out okay xD

WindchILL

I don't own a copy of 3D coat and never tried it, so I'll deal with the bushes and spheres near the end. Thanks for clarifying the approach to uv mapping, I'll get back to work on that!

WindchILL

I'm having a difficult time getting the proportion right. If i place the rooms flush against the roof below, the roofs above dont look long enough (at least for the big roof)

WindchILL

I think I discovered the problem thats been giving me headaches for the past hour.



I forgot this concept was done for a social game, so its an orthogonal view (DURRRRRR)... Sooo much wasted time but I think that's the reason why I've been struggling with proportion. I know this doesn't follow the concept, but think I'm gonna have to make a judgment call and go with the attic looking like this

Jessica Dinh

Yeah, sometimes concept art can be a bit wonky, and the good 3d artist is required to make those sort of judgments! I like your solution of adding the attic supports.

WindchILL

Man, this only took forever, but here's everything with pretty even texel mapping (except for the rocks/bushes/shrubs, and spheres in the scene. I'll figure those out later)


The madness...


Now to fit everything into maps. I hate playing tetris in maya..

What is a good way to do texturing? Is it better to work on all textures a little at a time, or polish each object as you go? If choosing the latter option, would it be considered practical (in this case for a low poly hand-painted scene) if map each individual object to take up the whole uv block, then rescale the image later to match the actual uv size?

PLing

I would just lay everything there in the places they will be in the final map and just render the UV out with much bigger resolution. Then when you are finished with the detailed texture you can just scale it down and it will fit the same mesh but with lower resolution.

And as for the texturing, everyone has their own preferences, you can try both and see what works for you. It's nice to see that you are giving some thought to this instead of just slapping something on!

Brian "Panda" Choi

Tiling textures are a must.

Check out the article on the handpainted Tavern building in here: http://www.artbypapercut.com/

WindchILL

I'm not sure what would need to be tile-able in this scene, since the pieces are either unique or exact copies of each other

WindchILL

alsdfkjasldfjaslf;kdjsaf I'm soooo sorry for the long delay in posts, I've been busy getting ready for GDC, (which I'm at now! :O)

This is what i got:


and the textures:















Again, I'm still very much a beginner to modeling/texturing and this project was definitely a learning experience for me (eg. learned the importance of tiling for the first time, lol), especially since this is the first full scene I've made. Due to other things I gotta focus on, I'm most likely gonna call this done, but I'd still appreciate any advice on my textures and uv island spacing, so I won't make the same mistakes again.

(I unfortunately had to remove the bushes and pebbles littering the area because I had a difficult time figuring out how to make them look good )

To the people who stopped by and took the time to help out this noob, many thanks to you guys! I've learned quite a bit from you guys from this scene alone, and look forward to whatever my next project may be!

pixelb

Commendable first effort! Now make s'more. O_O

Christian Nordgren

This is great! Keep at it! I see some UVspace left ou could have used. But it looks really good!

For the bushes how you could have done:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1783337&postcount=2647

well, perhaps for the next project, it is a learning experience