Life got in the way a little bit, so I didn't get to finish mine. I told myself I wouldn't move on to anything else until it's done though, so hopefully I'll get to finish up this week.
Dang too bad we never got to see another update from Airage! His was looking sweet.
I didn't have the time to do everything I wanted to, but I'm calling mine finished now, too. I really need a little break and want to move on to the next challenge as soon as possible. It would be great to hear what you think, if anyone is still reading this thread I definitely need to practice modeling trees...
I like your scene a lot. I know the concept calls for lots of shadows but perhaps you have the shadow facing the wrong way. Getting a shadow from the tree would look better than the entire wall being shadowed. The angle is a little off on the right wall to achieve the shadow consistency like in the concept.
Overall I feel it is too dark, I cannot really see any detail in the trees, maybe brighten the leaves a bit to add more contrast to the scene. I really like the buildings and the cloth you have, have any tuts on the cloth by chance?
Here is my final after I got some input from AlexCatMaster w/e the hell his name is. (Ill give him crap for that later).
You're definitely right, I didn't realize how much darker my post screen shader made the whole scene (plus, the monitor I'm working on still seems to be too bright...). I totally agree with what you say about the shadows too, and tried rotating my light a bit. The problem is as soon as the trees create interesting shadows, the rest of the scene is really too bright and lacks of contrast in my opinion, so I guess I'll go with the boring shadows for the benefit of the overall scene.
I'm still experimenting with some tweaks regarding post screen shader, lighting and ambient color to make my scene brighter. If I get a result I like, I will definitely post an update
I'm glad you like the cloth! I actually just sculpted it in zBrush, so I don't know if this will help you at all or if you're looking for a real cloth tutorial, but here are my steps anyway:
I like your scene too, especially the trees and foliage as I said before - and you've got those fancy tree shadows! I would maybe do a final shot that's similar to your second image, but move the camera closer to the towers (and rotate the camera little to the right) to stage them a little better.
Oh I am so stupid!!! Totally forgot to use Zbrush for the cloth... Thanks for posting your workflow on the cloth, it looks awesome.
Are you using UDK? If so you can increase lighting on trees without changing the shadows. It looks great but if you were to put a little more time in tweaking the shadows I would think you have yourself an even better piece.
Hehe, I'm also forgetting the easiest solutions all the time
Yes I am using UDK! I placed a point light near the trees now that doesn't cast any shadows and tweaked the post screen shader. I made the scene only a little brighter, but there is a lot more detail visible on the trees now. At least on my monitor it is looking okay right now. What do you think?
I will also redo the tree model tomorrow. As much as I want it to be finished, this is a portfolio piece and I don't want anything in there I'm not happy with. So maybe I'll tweak the lighting one last time after I fixed that trees
Yeah that looks a lot better. Could you post a shot of just your trees? What I am seeing is there are no branches but just leaves attached to the base.
This is my tree in 3ds max, for instance the leaves on yours seem too big and I see no geo for branches.
I am in no way saying my trees look good cause I hate my trees, I believe I suck at making them and they look horrible, but thats just me.
Thanks a lot for your help! I still think that your trees are working perfectly fine
Here is a shot of my trees from Maya:
As you can see I've got a least some bigger branches there, and all my planes are attached to them. But I have to agree that they are not visible in UDK. It's a little hard to get the placement of the planes right, because transparency sorting in Maya's viewport is... suboptimal. Maybe it would really look better if I skaled those planes down, then the branches would hopefully be visible, too. I guess my biggest mistake was crossing the planes and not bending them a little. Any other suggestions? Maybe I should also make the twigs and branches in the texture bolder, it's really looking like there are just "flying" leaves...
What I think you need to do is scale the leaves down, the branches look fine but the leaves are too big. If you scale the plane down it will also scale the twigs that connect the leaves. I would say re-render the leaves or make them smaller while leaving the branches intact.
@Manticora: YOur main problem is that the Leafs are 1. To big 2. To flat.
Try bending the geometry of the plane you are using, so the leafes seem to be bent a little bit. Gives them more "Life".
Thanks a lot for your input, it's really great how much help everyone gets here!
You were absolutely right, the tree's looking so much better by simply scaling down the leaves... Seems like sometimes you really can't see the obvious yourself and need some external input
I will fix the planes now and post my results later.
Well, it still isn't exactly the best tree in the world, but I guess it's at least looking way better now. I definitely need to practice modeling plants
This is my WIP so far, still have to put a little more detail on the materials and add some decals as well. Still working on the water shader, have a temp material there for now. Probably need to trim the grass a bit too.
I really like your scene, great textures and cool trees
I think you should reduce the foam on the water shader. It looks great, but a little as if the Niagara Falls were behind the camera. And I agree that the grass might be a little to high. Have you got lightmaps on your foliage and did you build the lighting? It's looking pretty flat shaded at the moment.
Yeah the water texture is just a temp material from udks engine . Yeah I still have to work on the lighting shader for the grass and trees the grass areas are definitely looking flat.
The cloths are too long, cant see where it cuts off, would look better if you leave some space at the bottom.
The brick walls do look cartoon, maybe remove the brown grout.
Weird shadow from the tree, cannot see leaves but just a solid shadow.
Use some post processing effect in UDK if your using UDK to get better lighting, everything seems a little to bright, toning it down and getting darker shadows would make it look better.
Thanks for the feedback all of you , managed to work on this for an hour or two today... I've changed around the lighting a little bit (not sure about it though), and improved my wall texture
Thanks for the feedback all of you , managed to work on this for an hour or two today... I've changed around the lighting a little bit (not sure about it though), and improved my wall texture
[IMG][/IMG]
at the moment your Wall textures look to cartoony compared to the rest of the scene. And it's way to clean. Also Think about how colors go together. The blue/greyish tone in your wall doesnt fit the rest of the scene. The Bricks seems to big.
Same thing goes for your road. Now here's a little paintover what i mean. No it's not exactly what im talking about cause i suck at paintovers..
Replies
really nice take on it man. Loving the the wall textures.
So was that your first CE3 project? I'm gonna try and learn the in's and out's of it with June's concept..
Pretty intimidated by it atm
Yep, my first date with Cryengine and it was horrible. Oh, and as a bonus i have the maya + cryengine deadly combination
Good luck man, at 2 hrs/ day i hope to be able to finish just the decals texture on that challenge
Sweet effort man. Would not be able to tell that it was your first round with the beast.
Flowers are really well done too.
Gotta figure out how to do cloth better for the next challenge.
Life got in the way a little bit, so I didn't get to finish mine. I told myself I wouldn't move on to anything else until it's done though, so hopefully I'll get to finish up this week.
Dang too bad we never got to see another update from Airage! His was looking sweet.
I had problems with the gras-texture and the light.
So this is my last status:
@ joshschmitt & shosh:
I really like your foliage!
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I didn't have the time to do everything I wanted to, but I'm calling mine finished now, too. I really need a little break and want to move on to the next challenge as soon as possible. It would be great to hear what you think, if anyone is still reading this thread
Thank you.
I like your scene a lot. I know the concept calls for lots of shadows but perhaps you have the shadow facing the wrong way. Getting a shadow from the tree would look better than the entire wall being shadowed. The angle is a little off on the right wall to achieve the shadow consistency like in the concept.
Overall I feel it is too dark, I cannot really see any detail in the trees, maybe brighten the leaves a bit to add more contrast to the scene. I really like the buildings and the cloth you have, have any tuts on the cloth by chance?
Here is my final after I got some input from AlexCatMaster w/e the hell his name is. (Ill give him crap for that later).
Thanks for your critique!
You're definitely right, I didn't realize how much darker my post screen shader made the whole scene (plus, the monitor I'm working on still seems to be too bright...). I totally agree with what you say about the shadows too, and tried rotating my light a bit. The problem is as soon as the trees create interesting shadows, the rest of the scene is really too bright and lacks of contrast in my opinion, so I guess I'll go with the boring shadows for the benefit of the overall scene.
I'm still experimenting with some tweaks regarding post screen shader, lighting and ambient color to make my scene brighter. If I get a result I like, I will definitely post an update
I'm glad you like the cloth! I actually just sculpted it in zBrush, so I don't know if this will help you at all or if you're looking for a real cloth tutorial, but here are my steps anyway:
I like your scene too, especially the trees and foliage as I said before - and you've got those fancy tree shadows!
Oh I am so stupid!!! Totally forgot to use Zbrush for the cloth... Thanks for posting your workflow on the cloth, it looks awesome.
Are you using UDK? If so you can increase lighting on trees without changing the shadows. It looks great but if you were to put a little more time in tweaking the shadows I would think you have yourself an even better piece.
Cant wait to see your work on the new one.
Hehe, I'm also forgetting the easiest solutions all the time
Yes I am using UDK! I placed a point light near the trees now that doesn't cast any shadows and tweaked the post screen shader. I made the scene only a little brighter, but there is a lot more detail visible on the trees now. At least on my monitor it is looking okay right now. What do you think?
I will also redo the tree model tomorrow. As much as I want it to be finished, this is a portfolio piece and I don't want anything in there I'm not happy with. So maybe I'll tweak the lighting one last time after I fixed that trees
Yeah that looks a lot better. Could you post a shot of just your trees? What I am seeing is there are no branches but just leaves attached to the base.
This is my tree in 3ds max, for instance the leaves on yours seem too big and I see no geo for branches.
I am in no way saying my trees look good cause I hate my trees, I believe I suck at making them and they look horrible, but thats just me.
Thanks a lot for your help! I still think that your trees are working perfectly fine
Here is a shot of my trees from Maya:
As you can see I've got a least some bigger branches there, and all my planes are attached to them. But I have to agree that they are not visible in UDK. It's a little hard to get the placement of the planes right, because transparency sorting in Maya's viewport is... suboptimal. Maybe it would really look better if I skaled those planes down, then the branches would hopefully be visible, too. I guess my biggest mistake was crossing the planes and not bending them a little. Any other suggestions? Maybe I should also make the twigs and branches in the texture bolder, it's really looking like there are just "flying" leaves...
What I think you need to do is scale the leaves down, the branches look fine but the leaves are too big. If you scale the plane down it will also scale the twigs that connect the leaves. I would say re-render the leaves or make them smaller while leaving the branches intact.
Try bending the geometry of the plane you are using, so the leafes seem to be bent a little bit. Gives them more "Life".
Thanks a lot for your input, it's really great how much help everyone gets here!
You were absolutely right, the tree's looking so much better by simply scaling down the leaves... Seems like sometimes you really can't see the obvious yourself and need some external input
I will fix the planes now and post my results later.
Awesome scene
Thanks a lot!!!
Yeah, I was going for a lot of density in the treetop initially, but now I've learned that's exactly the wrong way
That looks a lot better.
Thanks, you really helped me a lot with that tree
Glad I could be of some help.
I really like your scene, great textures and cool trees
I think you should reduce the foam on the water shader. It looks great, but a little as if the Niagara Falls were behind the camera. And I agree that the grass might be a little to high. Have you got lightmaps on your foliage and did you build the lighting? It's looking pretty flat shaded at the moment.
Keep on the good work, you'll have a great scene
Yeah the water texture is just a temp material from udks engine . Yeah I still have to work on the lighting shader for the grass and trees the grass areas are definitely looking flat.
Looks great, just need some shadows and you almost have it.
Would love some critique
I'll post some work when I'm finish it off. I'm little too late, but I think it's not a problem :>
The cloths are too long, cant see where it cuts off, would look better if you leave some space at the bottom.
The brick walls do look cartoon, maybe remove the brown grout.
Weird shadow from the tree, cannot see leaves but just a solid shadow.
Use some post processing effect in UDK if your using UDK to get better lighting, everything seems a little to bright, toning it down and getting darker shadows would make it look better.
the texture youve got for your walls doesnt really look like it works. that seems like itd be more appropriate as a floor texture.
Same thing goes for your road. Now here's a little paintover what i mean. No it's not exactly what im talking about cause i suck at paintovers..
Things to do: Banners, flowers, water texture, background props, decals, lighting, post processing.