Swamp environment

karynatrychyk

Hi everyone,
recently I started making a new environment. I plan it to be a piece of swamp terrain surrounded by forest and mountains. Here there are some inspiration images that I used.



Here is the plan of the environment and the blockout.




Next step I plan to make a set of tiling textures for the terrain and model some plants and rocks. I want to export the final result to UDK, but I'm really new to it, so hope to learn more about it by the time it comes to exporting
C&C are welcome and highly appreciated!

karynatrychyk

Here is an update, some reference and tree model. I made it out of several pieces to add some variation and to use them as separate parts.
Comments are welcome

karynatrychyk

Another small update. Any feedback would be appreciated!

Clos323

your links are broken..

karynatrychyk

Oops, sorry, it appeared to look right on my computer. Thanks for telling me! Is it ok now?

karynatrychyk

Here is another update.

karynatrychyk

Thank you! Yes, I will fix the steps on the model, seems I forgot about human scale.

Mischievous

That pier is indeed sweet, nice job on keeping the mesh clean and simple.

karynatrychyk

Thank you, glad to hear that

steppan

Seems like an interesting project. you've made a good start, and like others have said I like the pier. Would be nice to see some of your textures posted up with your screenshots
ps. Are you going for a modular approach or are you going to be creating a lot of bespoke meshes?

karynatrychyk

Thank you for the comment. I plan to use modularity as much as I can without making repeats too obvious. Just trying to save my time and efforts
Here there are textures for the pier.

karynatrychyk

Here is another update. Comments are welcome

cmtanko

oh the texture are sweet... You dont use 100% AO ? For eg. If I had to do the pier, it becomes darker, yours is clean, light yet detailed.
Any special treatments during texturing ?

Jimmg

cmtanko wrote: »

oh the texture are sweet... You dont use 100% AO ? For eg. If I had to do the pier, it becomes darker, yours is clean, light yet detailed.
Any special treatments during texturing ?

Why would you use 100% AO, nothing should be full black.

karynatrychyk

If I understood your question right, the matter is when I bake AO in Topogun, I use 100 skylight coverage. It gives lighter AO but allows to rotate model upside down without worrying about baked shadows.

Jedairusz

I'm think, that stairs are a bit highpoly. You could have a similar effect with less poly. Textures look good. :thumbup:

karynatrychyk

Jedairusz wrote: »

I'm think, that stairs are a bit highpoly. You could have a similar effect with less poly. Textures look good. :thumbup:

You are right, I can reduce the number of polygons. Thanks for comment!

karynatrychyk

Here is another update. Comments are welcome

Mr Significant

Looks fantastic, but this "X" isn't needed. Looks great!

ducckz

i like the "X" :P neat stuff il be following this

karynatrychyk

Thank you for the comments, guys! I'll try not to delay with updates

chazzur

Im loving these textures. Only other thing would be that you could probably optimize the models a little more, but I think that was already mentioned.

karynatrychyk

Thank you once again for your comments, hope to get some more . Here is another update.

MattyWS

The rocks around the boat look like the same material as the boat.

karynatrychyk

MattyWS wrote: »

The rocks around the boat look like the same material as the boat.

Yes, thanks for pointing out, I'll make materials more different.

karynatrychyk

Hey guys!
I'm back on this project again and here there are some small updates.

LANKUS MAXIMUS

Loving that herbal kit-

Nice, efficient alpha use. I look forward to seeing more

karynatrychyk

LANKUS MAXIMUS wrote: »

Loving that herbal kit-

Nice, efficient alpha use. I look forward to seeing more

Thank you, really encouraging.

karynatrychyk

Hi, I'm back again with houses for my swamp environment.

Aardschok

This is a very cool project, I really love your texture work I do think you can lower some polygon. For example the stairs and the roof.
Really look forward to the end result, keep it going

Jedairusz

Good work! I like texture work and models, but I have small criticism:

You can reduce the number of tris without degrading visual effect.

karynatrychyk

Aardschok
Thank you! I'll look for way to optimize polycount, seems there is always something to optimize

Jedairusz
Fixed that Thanks for pointing out.

Mr Significant

How did you generated normals for thatch (sorry for PRO english ): it's FIber mesh from ZBrush or Generated in ndo 2 ?

Very good job, like it!

karynatrychyk

Mr Significant
Normals for thatch were generated in ndo2.
Glad you like the models

Mr Significant

More than models I love the textures

Hope the lightning and the mood will be same

gamerenrique

this is very nice! I like the texture!

karynatrychyk

gamerenrique
Thanks!

Seems you guys are interested in textures, so here there are some texture flats.

karynatrychyk

Here is another small update. Seems I'm almost done with modelling, so next I'll start putting it all together.

karynatrychyk

Here is one more small update, some plants for swamp environment. Next hope to show you the whole scene

karynatrychyk

So, as promised, here there are my expriments with UDK. Any comments will be much appreciated.

oxblood

loving the way this is turning out

aajohnny

Nice work so far. I have a few crits. The tree bark is really low resolution, especially compared to the buildings. If you're going to have something close up in your shot try raising the resolution a bit The tiling of the grass is really noticeable, it almost looks like football turf :P try adding more grass geometry in there or maybe just vertex painting in some mud or something. Anyways, it looks like it has promise so far, keep it up!

karynatrychyk

oxblood Thanks!

aajohnny Tried to fix the issues you mentioned, thanks for comments.


Below there are some more experiments, please let me know what you think.

RexM

The moss hanging from the trees and the leaves on the trees seem to be throwing off the scale of the scene. They seem too large.

The wood feels like it needs more dirt and moss, especially the roof, possibly through vertex blending.

The assets are prety good, everything seems to read well except for the moss and tree leaves. Try using more cards when scaling them down, I think it will help this scene out immensely. I like the wood texture on the buildings, but would recommend differentiating the wood tone for different elements slightly. Right now, they seem to read as one thing, and it is hard to pick out any of the wood-textured assets individually.

nathanbarrett

The assets are awesome, but I don't think the scene does them justice at the moment.

aajohnny

I still think the foliage is the weakest piece in the scene... also the lighting needs a lot of work, its just flat. I'm not sure if you got to that yet but try adding some sun in there!

karynatrychyk

Thank you for your comments, guys, you are extremely helpful.
So I tried to follow your advice and worked more on lighting and foliage. Here is where I am now. I would appreciate feedback a lot.

karynatrychyk

Well, here is one more attempt. Feel like I put 80% of my efforts to make last 20% of work done

KartoonHead

Still very flat, give it some mood, give it a story, give it context. There's an odd square thing happening in the water? Fix that. Use volumetric effects, fog particles, fill the air with flies etc. Read up on composition, think Fibonacci spiral. Use fire! Use contrast. If you can make such nice assets then you can make better swamp water than you have there! Murky dirty water. Reflections? Your little tufts of grass look too dense and too dark. That's all I can think of for now. Good work, keep going!

evilblah

I really like the progress you have made but I think the scene could benefit from some more focus on the lighting. Generally you have a good ambient light (maybe a little too bright of light) but adding some more focus for instance some warm lights coming from the houses or some cold blues around the mushrooms and areas like that will draw the eye to different elements and help set the mood. It will also break up the overall light in the scene. Just my two cents.

Ged

KartoonHead wrote: »

Still very flat, give it some mood, give it a story, give it context. There's an odd square thing happening in the water? Fix that. Use volumetric effects, fog particles, fill the air with flies etc. Read up on composition, think Fibonacci spiral. Use fire! Use contrast. If you can make such nice assets then you can make better swamp water than you have there! Murky dirty water. Reflections? Your little tufts of grass look too dense and too dark. That's all I can think of for now. Good work, keep going!

I like the individual assets but this is some good advice to bring it all together!