Fantasy/Nature Diorama - Hand painting practice

Obscura

Final screenshots:




Hey guys, I decided to make a thread for this now, because now its close to be finished I wanted to make a little environment where I can try to make foliages, and other nature stuffs, and something that wouldn't be too big for me, so I can surely finish. Its not done yet, but its getting closer and closer to be that. I work on this every day, so the updates will come very often. Ok, to not waste more time with texts, here are some pictures.

This is how its started. I made some tileable painted textures first:




Then I made some grass, based on an awesome tutorial by metric meditation. The tileable grass is also based on this.



Then I made a pine tree:



Door:


This is what I got after playing with the post process, and after I dropped some pieces together


Aaaand, this is where I am at the moment:


The pedestal need to be uv-ed, and I need to make 2-3 more textures for the ground. The water shader is not finished, and it has a few "bugs", but the reflection is fresnel, and the it has moving waves.
What I still need to do:
Finalize the house
One more tree
Tileable textures for the ground
Stones
A few other plants
A bridge
Fence
Maybe some garden props
And maybe a few more something that I dont know yet what they should be.

Let me know what you think guys C&C is welcome, as usual!

Obscura

Come on guys, I won't stop posting XD
Update...stones, and the blockout of the wood bridge.

lotet

HI there. your biggest problem is the scene in itself, the assets are fine, but everything is kind of boring, it dosnt really tell a story. You need to think of the environment as a character, how old is it? whats new? whats old? who lives there? where does the bridge go? that kind of stuff.

I also think everything is kind of straight and structured. the house could use some skewed angles, the same goes with the bridge.

good luck

ahtiandr

atm it looks kind of flat to me. I would break the grass colour flatness by adding some flowers and maybe dirt.

I would also gather tons of references from real life and also from different games with same style.

Here are some refs from wow

some plantations you could add



some other props you could add to tell the story of the place



hose cartoon look example and notice how grass is made. There are some flowers painted on it and also added as separate low poly objects.


there are lots of pictures about wow style and I advice you to look at them

http://www.ac-web.org/forums/showthread.php?144939-Tirisfal-Glades-Before-Wc3-WIP

also you could take a look at age of empires online screenshots. They are quite interesting as well

Avvi

Don't make the grass as directional fibers. Rather, I'd go for something like that:

PS2 jRPGs are also a great reference for hand-painted, diffuse only foliage.

The rest is good for now IMO.

Obscura

Thanks guys, as I wrote, I'm planning to add more plants/flowers and "fill" objects to the scene, as well as ground textures. I think when I will place all the grass cards, it will break up a little the direction of the tileable grass texture. If not, then I'll redo it. Today I'll finalize the bridge. I will make it less perfect, with adding size/position variations to the planks, and color variations with using the vertex paint shader there too. I would like to make a little garden next to the house, with vegetables, garden props etc. I also want to make a fence around the garden and maybe around the house too.

Thanks for the feedback !

DWalker

The roof really is too steep for that sort of tile. I'd either change to a more Mediterranean design or switch to a more traditional roof - thatch or shingles.

Some rocks in the river and accompanying turbulence would add some visual interest.

Some parts of the terrain are extremely pixilated; this is most noticeable on the path and the grass/dirt boundary.

The stones on the top of the foundation should match those on the side - i.e. the dark lines should align between the top & the side.

The occasional, isolated long stem of grass helps to sell the idea that the grass is 3D. Look at the 3rd WoW picture for an example.

The path looks more like sand than dirt. A darker, browner color would help, as would ruts worn in the path.

Your textures don't seem to have any normal maps; the roof and foundation textures could really use one.

The lines between the planks on the bridge could use some more definition; at the moment they look like a solid mass. Just outlining the planks in a darker brown would help.

Obscura

DWalker wrote: »

The roof really is too steep for that sort of tile. I'd either change to a more Mediterranean design or switch to a more traditional roof - thatch or shingles.

Some rocks in the river and accompanying turbulence would add some visual interest.

Some parts of the terrain are extremely pixilated; this is most noticeable on the path and the grass/dirt boundary.

The stones on the top of the foundation should match those on the side - i.e. the dark lines should align between the top & the side.

The occasional, isolated long stem of grass helps to sell the idea that the grass is 3D. Look at the 3rd WoW picture for an example.

The path looks more like sand than dirt. A darker, browner color would help, as would ruts worn in the path.

Your textures don't seem to have any normal maps; the roof and foundation textures could really use one.

The lines between the planks on the bridge could use some more definition; at the moment they look like a solid mass. Just outlining the planks in a darker brown would help.

Thanks DWalker!

I used this reference when I painted the roof:
http://cgtextures.com/texview.php?id=9141&PHPSESSID=eu11nek0lhvamt55ivia5q0gh1
I actually like this the most from my textures.
The scene is far not finished, so a lot of from what you wrote will be changed. Like, the ground textures. The road is currently have the wall texture, and below the river, there is the wood texture at the moment. I just dropped together a vertex paint shader, and I wanted to block out the shape of the roads, etc. I will make proper textures for the terrain, and replace these placeholders. Also, I will make a better blending for the vertex painted ground.

Obscura

Okay I made some ground textures(for the road, the bottom of the river, and a darker grass), scattered some trees, and some grasses (need more), and I made changes in the water shader. This is not really visible from this angle, but I'll make closer shots too when the scene is done. The vertex painting of the terrain is still not the final. Tomorrow I'll continue with the bridge, and maybe with some flowers.

levigilbert

Hey Obscura, looks like you got a nice start. I like how everything is on this wooden circular frame. I was thinking it'd be neat if you made it into a more intricate carved design. Your scene could use some more uniqueness I think. You could add a neat looking weathervane and some height variety in the ground would be nice, adding a hill or two.

Keep at it!

Gazu

This will turn out great.
Come on, keep it coming!
Model in more details!

Gazu

Obscura

Thank you guys I was also thinking about a weathervane. I think I'll make it! The more unique objects will come a little later, but there will be some of them. Unfortunately I don't have too much time in the next few days because of the coming christmas, but I'll try to make something every day. Just a new ground texture for now, but I think I can get a little more time for the bridge later today.

Obscura

Here is the model of the rooster weathervane:

D4V1DC

^ I love the way that looks, good job!

lotet

dirt texture and rooster looks great, keep goin, I wanna see them in action!

Obscura

I'm really glad to see the positive critiques Here is the textured weathervane imported into my scene.

And this is how it looks from further, when the full house is visible.

AzzaMat

Looking good so far, I love the door texture. I would say everything looks a little too straight and ordered. It looks like its been cut by a machine :P

DWalker

The purple flowers lack definition when seen from a distance (even in the small version of the second of your latest shots). Perhaps giving the individual petals more definition would improve the current shape.

The foliage overall has a bit too much yellow for my taste.

Many of the clumps of grass seem to run parallel or perpendicular to the path; try giving some a 20 or 30 degree offset to reduce the uniformity.

PyrZern

I'm sorry to bring this up now, but would someone build a bridge over a river where it is the most wide section ?

DWalker

The bridge might have been built over the shallowest/slowest-moving part of the stream.

Obscura

AzzaMat wrote: »

Looking good so far, I love the door texture. I would say everything looks a little too straight and ordered. It looks like its been cut by a machine :P

The house is not finished. I will get back to this a little later, and add more edges, plus vertex paintings.

DWalker wrote: »

The purple flowers lack definition when seen from a distance (even in the small version of the second of your latest shots). Perhaps giving the individual petals more definition would improve the current shape.

The foliage overall has a bit too much yellow for my taste.

Many of the clumps of grass seem to run parallel or perpendicular to the path; try giving some a 20 or 30 degree offset to reduce the uniformity.

I was planning to add more detail to the purple flower, because I also noticed that its a little flat and not defined from a further view. And I will try some color changes on the grasses, plus better placements.

PyrZern wrote: »

I'm sorry to bring this up now, but would someone build a bridge over a river where it is the most wide section ?

Damn. Good point. I can change this easily.

- Thanks for the feedback guys, this helps a lot to keep it on a good way. In the next few days I will change the mentioned things, and add more unique props. Merry Christmas to everybody, and thanks for the feedbacks once again!

chrisradsby

Usually ferns grow in chunks, try something like this as well. With varied scale and rotation

http://www.nhdfl.org/uploads/NHB%20photos/DSC_4550_3b.jpg

as for the house, I think you need to get rid of some of the straight lines you've got going. It just looks too perfect. Make the silhouette more interesting

Obscura

#chrisradsby, I'll get back to the house a little later. The current placement of the foliages is just placeholder and I will try to place them more naturally,and fill the places where there aren't any foliage yet. Also I'm planning to make more type of plants. Thanks for your suggestions!

Anyways, here are some more unique prop models, before I go to the fixes that you guys mentioned to I should do.

Obscura

Small updates again... Sorry but can't endure to texture these first XD

PyrZern

Also Settlers 6: Rise of An Empire. Beautiful game.

Arkana

Right now the trees look a lot like fake plants. That might be because of it's repetition or that the colour looks flat from far away, I'm not too sure.

If you're making a lot of small/medium detail props I'd recommend you take an image that's a bit more zoomed in to better show your work. That far away shot could be a bit too hard to see everything you've made.

Obscura

Arkana wrote: »

Right now the trees look a lot like fake plants. That might be because of it's repetition or that the colour looks flat from far away, I'm not too sure.

If you're making a lot of small/medium detail props I'd recommend you take an image that's a bit more zoomed in to better show your work. That far away shot could be a bit too hard to see everything you've made.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I will make closer shots too when the scene is done.

Obscura

So... I changed the color of the grasses on the grass planes, to match more to the tileable grass, and not to be too yellowish. I moved the bridge to a better place, placed all the stones to the river's side, and made a new texture for the bottom of the river. Looks like I need to make some water plants too to make it look more natural because this stony texture makes it look too stony to me...


Next steps:
- changing the bridge model to be shorter, and addig variations to the planks, plus using the vertex paint shader on it to add color variations.
- one more tileable texture to the side of the river
- finalize the house
- placing more grass planes, and a few stones to random places
- plants,plants,plants
- more props
- a little garden
- changes in the water shader to make it less transparent (depth based transparency)
- ?

lotet

wow, great update! looks tons better the stones in the river might be to much, you should make a more muddy/sandy water bed texture to break up the repetative texture.

Obscura

Fence...

Mud texture will come next time.

Obscura

Here is the reworked bridge. I forgot to add nails....


And some other changes like the mud texture on the bottom of the river, some terrain painting fixes, vertex painting on the fences, and I placed more grasses, but still need more...

lotet

looks a lot better, the close up shot is really nice btw, Im starting to think your top down view is really hurting your WIP images =P

Obscura

Thanks I'm trying to improve it. The final bunch of screenshots will contain closer pictures too. And, here is one for now too :P New props again.

Burnzy

I agree the bridge image looks great! Consider maybe re-positioning your top down view to get the most out of your image. Choose an angle that lets those shadows flex to add some contrast.

Obscura

The house is done. I added some extra edges to the walls and to the beams, and now they are vertex painted. Also, I added slight bends to beams, so they are not that straight now.

Obscura

Carrot field


I think that it will be done really soon. I want to finish it in the next 1-2 days

lotet

looks nice, the trees still look kinda out of place, they look a bit to realistic to me.

1stAnd10

This has been a great thread so far! Thanks for sharing your work. I dig diorama's.

Higuy

Pretty cool scene so far, like another person said though, alot of things seem like they were cut by a machine. It'd be nice to see a bit more stylization of things, eg the roof on the house could be a bit curved on the ends, the base stones not so ordered, etc. It's looking pretty good though so far and I think that'd be my only gripe currently with it

Obscura

Thank you guys. I didn't thought that this much from you will like my scene I actually don't want to go with the "usual" curved design on the house. I made little bends to the beams , so they are not 100% straight. If you view the close ups in full size, you can see those bends. I call the house model finished, and I don't want to edit it now.

Anyways, here are two new things for today. A lamp, and a juniper bush.


Maybe I can finish some flowers too today, but thats not sure. I will take a day break tomorrow, but then I come back, and finish this

Obscura

The finished scene is arrived. Thanks to everybody who tried to help to me with their suggestions and tips! I started making this on december 12, so I actually satisfied with my speed XD I was enjoying making this, and I hope that I can get a job in the future, where I can make hand painted environments Happy new year, and thanks once more!