Hand painted swamp environment

bcarter

UPDATE!
Here are my final images for this particular project. Thanks to everyone for their feedback, it was greatly appreciated and I'm excited to start on my next project! (there are more final images on the last post)

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Hi everyone! After reading and watching so many other threads on Polycount, I decided it was finally time to post something myself!

I have recently been working on my hand painting skills, and putting them to use by making a stylized scene based in the swamp. I have a couple pieces completed for it so far, but still have a good bit of progress to make, and am looking for comments and critiques in order to make this a great addition to my portfolio.

Here is the concept I created and some reference images I have pulled together so far:






Following those concepts I started with the boat and dock for the scene, and have mostly finished those, as you can see below:




And their textures (diffuse only):




Here are some renders from Maya that show where I currently am (the ground, water, roof texture, fireplace, lighting and multiple other things are definitely still a WIP):




Next I will be working on creating another texture for the roof, as well as finishing up the model and texture for the fireplace.

One of the main issues I will be working with as I continue this project is to make sure I stay on track with the concept and am efficient with modeling and textures as well as trying to get the foliage to look nice, since it is one thing I haven't dealt with as much yet. Another hurdle will be to get the water looking good in engine (currently the plan is to work in either Unity or UDK), because I want it to be stylized as well.

Thanks for reading this far down and please let me hear any comments and critiques you have!

Rokugan

Good start, I'm looking forward to this. I suggest to add some more interesting stuff on the house, at the moment it looks pretty boring, on the other hand I really love the boat (I could only suggest making the texture a little more dark and ruined, with some algae on the bottom, afterall it's a swamp, a brand new boat could look out of place)

BradMyers82

looking good so far. not sure if just because its a wip, but those white lines should probably be darker and yellowish. I would focus on adding a lot more color to your textures for now. Also some different value for the wood planks that make the dock and boat. I really dig the concept!

bcarter

@Rokugan: Thanks for the feedback! I totally agree with your advice, I want to add a lot of smaller props around the house to give it more life, and once I get the grasses and weeds I think that will help too. I also agree with adding algae to the boat, and was thinking about doing that with some vertex painting(? hopefully!), since it would be good to scatter around on the dock and possibly the house as well.

@BradMyers82: Thanks for your advice as well! I like your idea about the color of the lines, originally the idea was that the wood was "shaved" off or smoother on the edges, but seeing as it is in a swamp would probably not be white. And I will work on putting some more color in to the textures as well, one of the things I was worried about was all the wood looking too similar.

cgartland

I really like what you have so far, but I'd put a bit more vibrant colors in your textures than what you had in your concept.

Add some yellows and greens like in those two reference images.

bcarter

Hey, I know you! haha. Thanks for the input, the more I add to the piece the more I realize how subtle some of the colors are once they are in the scene.

bcarter

Update! Today I worked on a couple smaller props that will go around the scene, including a stump, axe, and a tackle box. I also pretty much finished up the UV's for the fireplace, but will focus on the texturing for it later this week.



Earlier this week I also worked on exporting all my vegetation and other individual props out of Maya so that I can bring them in to UDK (or at least marmoset for now to get a render). I started playing around in UDK getting things kind of set up, but there's a lot I need to learn before I feel like I can just throw everything in there, and I have some tutorial video watching to do for sure.

That's all for now, I will get some more progress to show by the end of this week!

bcarter

Back again! Last week I finished up some of the smaller props and added textures to the props from the screenshot above.



Comments and critiques?

Today I will most likely be working on a mixture of another texture for the shack roof, some trees, and adding what I have so far in to UDK.

One question I need to look in to more is that since my ground will be a fairly simple shape (no major cliffs, sharp edges), and not too large, is whether it would be better to import something from Maya, or use the terrain or landscape tool in UDK. Any suggestions?

Thanks for reading!:)

Hupie

I think your original concept lacks interesting lighting, its a bit plain at the moment. I would add some more dramatic light like in the cartoony swamp references you collected.

Other then that, i like the handpainted textures. Keep it going!

bcarter

Thanks for your input! Lighting is definitely something I want to work with in engine and hope to make it much more dramatic than what I was able to convey in my concept image.

bcarter

Okay, so today I worked on creating a bark texture for my trees. Looking through reference I decided the majority of the trees surrounding the house will be Bald Cypress, so here is my main bark reference next to what I currently have:



I like where it's going but I want to work on adding some more contrast to the light and dark areas, and work on making the individual pieces less obvious though an outline.

After a VERY quick render in Maya (excuse the quick little scale man), I think I need to work on the contrast in general, and since these are huge trees I don't want the texture to be noisy or anything. Note the tree texture and model are both still a WIP.



Any ideas on how to achieve a better look for the bark?

Laughing_Bun

I think you actually have a pretty nice base for a bark textures.

1. It should be scaled to an unrealistic scale, so you can read the form of the bark. If the point of hand-painted textures is stylization, there is no purpose in keeping a realistic scale.

2. the blotchy moss doesn't make sense. It either needs to follow what little lighting information you have already laid down, or it needs to cast its own shadow and sit clearly on top of the other bark. Its also a bit noisy.

3. Reduce noise, you could seriously, run the texture through paint daubs or noise>median. Something like that. It will put you in a much better place to paint in some of your own detail and get rid of the noisy look.

4. build up volume. I see you added a few little shadows but you need to just work on it some more and add highlights as well.

bcarter

Thank you so much for the critique, definitely some good things to think about! Worked on this a fair bit today, and think it us turning out much better, even though it still has a ways to go. Here is the progress for today:



Also, the texture seems to read better on the model as well. (you can see the old texture on the tree farthest away):



As for the moss, I was thinking this might be best accomplished by doing some vertex painting and having a separate texture that I can use around the scene. I'll be working on this more tomorrow but wanted to show my update for today!

bcarter

Hello all! Sorry it's been such a long time since my last update. I've still been hard at work on the scene. I've completed a few trees and cypress "knees" to give variety to the swamp, and some other small props as well. I have also been working on getting the scene set up in UDK. Here is a render of most of the main exterior props at the moment:



Later on today I'll be uploading some of the screenshots from UDK that I have, although I've been having some problems with baking the lights in to the scene; UDK crashes every time it gets done building...so I think I have some overlapping UVs that need to be taken care of. That's all for now!

liqud shadow

Love what you've done with the hut and dock, I can almost hear the planks creaking underfoot, but you might want to think about making the smaller assets look a bit beaten up, just to add a bit of character to them.
You've got a great style going keep it up.

bcarter

Thanks for the response! Yea I agree that some of the assets need to look a bit more grungy, I think once I get most of them finalized I'll take a second comb through and beat some of them up.

bcarter

Another update finally! I have been working on a truck for a while now (my first vehicle!) and am ready to show the progress on it. The model is completed and I am currently working on the texture for it. Here is my stylized take on a 1980 Ford Bronco:

Will have the texture done today or tomorrow! And as I have yet to find a solution for why UDK keeps crashing on me when I build lighting in the scene (overlapping UVs somewhere that I cant find, Swarm says the job is finished without errors but UDK freezes and crashes before I can find the source of the problem UVs), I will be throwing everything in to Unity to finish it up, as I've spent enough time on this project it's about time to move on to a new one and work on some new things Hoping that a Christmas present to myself will be finishing this up this weekend.

Any comments and questions are welcome!

bcarter

Final update for the truck! Happy with how it turned out, especially since this is my first vehicle. I learned a lot of things to incorporate for next time, especially with packing the UVs in. For this prop I packed them all on one 2048 map, and I will have to work with giving everything better spacing for resolution. Check it out!

Currently working on the scene in Unity, and it's coming along pretty nicely . Any comments and critiques are welcome, thanks!

metric meditation

so far, things are looking good. in regards to the truck, you might want to add some rust around the corners or parts where pieces of metal meet. perhaps pools of moisture would collect there.

the mud feels a bit like a decal.. maybe a layer property of "multiply" or "overlay" could help. in the lower portion of the truck, dont be affraid to add some shadows and maybe as a very subtle warm color to the top portion of the truck...

if you are going for the hand painted look, keep your style consistent.

the tree bark is good, I feel that you could punch out the illusion of dimension by adding some contrast.

keep going

DWalker

The truck tires are much too clean; given the rest of the truck I'd expect them to be mostly brown, with only an occasional bit of black or gray peeking out. The white walls and hub caps would certainly not be white. I'd also expect some mud on the front & rear, especially around the bumpers.

bcarter

Thank you both for the advice! For some reason the idea of rust totally skipped in my mind!, but I will definitely work on adding some; and tweaking the appearance of the mud and cleanliness of the tires as well. Thanks for the bit of advice about the tree bark too, I'll have another look at that texture as well.

bcarter

Hey look it's an environment!!!

These were all rendered in Marmoset Toolbag.

Besides a few tweaks I could have made on the textures (the tires, the truck, water) I am coming to a close with this project. After some issues with trying to learn UDK, lightmaps and taking a couple unintended months longer than I maybe should have I think it's time to finish up what I started and move on to a new project. I also decided to add a "frame" to the scene to help it from seeming empty.

Please give any comments and critiques you have, I am definitely still looking for feedback and will hopefully get some other things edited in the next couple days. Thanks for everyone who has given feedback so far!

*edited to change final images

robert.nally

The modeling and texturing look really nice. My critique would be to just add it to a game engine or give it a nice, foggy, dark backdrop to help it complete the look. You have all this nice hand painted and stylized work put into it but the mood and atmosphere are sort of ruined by the simple, gray backdrop not that I'm really one to talk because I use the grey backdrop of marmoset all the time, but I do think getting some height fog/exponential fog on this would really push it to the next level especially since it is a swamp.

UDK can be a bit complex when first starting out and the control scheme is different from other programs, but have you thought about using Unity? I would recommend it. You could get everything in quickly with an fbx file, duplicate the trees to give more depth to the forest, and then just add some exponential fog really quick. Unity's control scheme is the same as Maya's is so if you know that then it is easy to maneuver around in there and their documentation is really good so if you google "unity lightmapping" you should find how to set it up and exactly what each setting does in a simple, straight-forward description.

bcarter

Sorry for the late response! Thank you so much for the critique! I definitely had plans to add it to UDK at first, but after spending so much time trying to troubleshoot light mapping issues I thought it would be best to finish the project and get it displayed then work on those issues in the future to avoid them since I had already spent longer than probably necessary on the entire project.

I also want to say I checked out your website and love the style you have to your textures; they have a great feel to them!

robert.nally

Oh Wow, thank you for the compliment, much appreciated after a long, difficult day.

I totally understand where you are coming from with feeling like you have spent way too much time on something and just feeling like you need to get it out there in some sort of presentable form. I did the exact same thing with the bike I was working on, which is why my shots for that also have a grey background lol. I had plans to build out a whole city street for it with some background stuff ... one day.

As far as the lightmapping issues, I'm sure if you post some shots and describe your workflow people here will be able to help you work past them. The problems I usually have with them are I forget to make a second UV set or the second UV set I have has overlapping UVs. I know in Unity I have to make them Static as well, but I can't remember if you have to do that in UDK also. I don't think you do.

Congratulations on the Mini-Golf win as well. I really liked your entry.

bcarter

Yea, I have been trying to focus on keeping on track with a project and finishing it in a reasonable amount of time. Much harder to do when it's a personal project and doesn't have a set deadline! haha.

And my problem was most likely overlapping UVs, but that's good advice about adding screenshots to have people be able to see the problem as well.

Thanks for the words about the mini golf entry too!!! It was a lot of fun to make!