Thank you all for the kind words and support, I appreciate it !
Jeff Parrott > I agree, the two handed hammer may look a bit strange, I wasn't so sure about it myself. Otherwise, the similarity of the metal was done on purpose, I really wanted to practice the consistency of my paintings and see if I could make a dozen of weapons that you would think belong to the same world But I get that it's a bit boring to watch ^^
I didn't want to go too crazy with the weapons themselves either cause, you know, fundamentals first couple swords and all, I thought it would be best to stick to simple things first. But yeah, forest theme would be nice, maybe next time I'll try something more creative hehe Thanks for the critics anyway, I appreciate it
Isaiah Sherman > good to know Diablo 3 is a huge inspiration for me :poly142:
The last couple weeks I've been busy learning javascript to make a more decent portfolio (I'll show that later), but now that I'm done with that, it's time to start a new 3d project !. Here is 3 days of work, a super wip of a first building for a little environment I'm planning to create the next few weeks
It's looking super cool and 100% a great start, but one thing i would watch out for, ios on your last batch of weapons, awesome job on those btw, you have some really super bright white highlights, which looks great on those, but on your bricks and your roof shingles here, you have a similar value contrast where the highlight should be, and I don't think it works as well for this piece.
It's a wip obviously, but everything looks like its made of metal right now, just something to keep an eye out for
I share the same thoughts as Stockwell. Watch all the higlihghts being the same value. Wood highlights shouldn't typically be the same value as metal highlights. Try changing up the hue as well to match the material propterties.
Design wise I think a lot of the shapes are the same size. Push some of your masses a little bit. Personally the wood beams feel a bit flimsy at the moment and don't feel like they would support the structure. Make them more like the ones on top of the roof. The rocks at the base of the building could be fewer and larger also. Try creating a modular hand painted rock and see if you like that instead. I think it could add a lot to the foundations silhouette and make a more interesting transition if/when you make a ground texture.
Hi, thanks for the critics !
Agreed on every points you guys made, highlights are too strong ! I will also give the model a bit more love and change the rocky base as well !
Biggest issue with the (or your weapons as well) isn't the rendering of the textures. Sure there's things like local highlight values, etc that'll really take this to the next level. But the overall concept and story.
The purpose of this house should be visible and readable from this early stage or before. Maybe this is a house that has been pillaged so the door is ripped off and the roof is lit on fire. It has axe and sword marks all over the walls. Fire arrows sticking out of the roof.
Or is it a keep for a wizard? Adjust the shape to have a potion bottle shape slightly or cauldron shaped with really bright lighting on one area or a portal open to another dimension, etc.
Just go nuts with this stuff. Paint over ideas and figure it out. Telling a story through the art is something I've learned is really really important with this style. Make it readable on multiple levels. Take this screenshot and show it to a friend/family member not directly in game art. Ask them who's house is this? What is this? When is this set? Where is this? Why is this in the state it is?
That kinda helps let you know if things are readable to viewers. Sometimes we get blinders on to these things. Just cause we think it's readable it's often not to viewers/players/whoever.
The textures are looking good so far. I'd echo what the other people are saying about the highlights. Everyone has a different style and sharpness seems to be yours. So in that regard maybe just keep pushing it further.
Really solid execution, though I think creating a greater contrast in value between the walls and roof of the house would make it pop a bit more. Right now, if I squint, the two areas kind of blur together.
I keep looking at this thread for inspiration, thanks for posting!
Jeff Parrott > Totally agree I intend to add some unique props to this Inn a bit later to give it a bit more story and character. For now it remains pretty basic just to work on the basic textures first, to get the overall mood of the town/environment and all. But I know what you mean, I don't give enough credits to the storytelling in my art in general ! Point taken and thanks for taking the time to write that down in details :thumbup:
Here is a few more hours of work.
- New rocky base made of meshes
- Improved the value contrast between walls and roof
- Local highlights fixes here and there and general polishing of the textures.
- Tricount reduced (8.8K tris right now)
- Added some hay under the roof
- Pushed the volume a bit here and there, made some planks bigger etc.
- Added new planks under the roofs
- Experimented a top/down gradient + AO bake on vertex color
Thanks for the helpful comments guys Next update tomorrow I hope !
Love it man Great stuff! Not really a fan of the outline tho..but I've kinda always hated those personally haha. How are you planning to do presentation for this one? Looking forward to it! Keep it up
All I can say so far is that you definitely have the talent for the handpainted style. Your work immediately brings back that fantasy, hand crafted feeling.
The only thing that kind of seems weird to me right now are the highlights on the roof shingles. They're a bit too strong for my taste. Also, maybe you could add some dirt or moss gathered up in the places where the wooden supports meet with the roof and the walls.
Hi everyone and thanks again for the support and critics ! It's been a while but I'm still working on this little project
Rhoutermans : I know what you mean about the outlines ^^ I feel the same, sometimes I think it looks great on single props, sometimes not. But overall I'm still not sure how I will present this..*shrug*
Grindigo : I wrote a bit about my workflow on page 2 I think. Nothing crazy, some grass textures were painted, some were baked from billboards, other from real 3d meshes, some halfpainted half baked... I usually mix as much techniques as I need to get the result that I want.
Elod.H > Thanks. I've not yet polished the roof texture but I will soon
Anyway, here's where I am at, at the moment :
Then I pushed further the idea of doing a little town so I made a couple variants :
Then I made some props and toyed with some lighting (I'm so bad at lighting ^^)
I feel like I'm starting to go in circle with this project, I still see a couple of things to improve but overall I think it's soon going to be time to move onto something else.
Critics are welcome as usual
Holy moly... this thread really pumped me up before starting to work. I really love the feel and look of your textures and models.
To be honest that picture above the last one could even fool someone as to being a pre-rendered CG scene, I think the lighting is very good and moody.
Only thing I could say is that adding some birds or some life in general to these scenes would make them feel more alive. A nest on the roof somewhere, or a crow/raven here and there. Thanks for the inspiration Cremuss!
wow man that looks awesome! Scrolling through i keep seeing little mistakes and then a couple of posts down you've fixed it! Really cool stuff and inspiring!
You should do some quick hue variants for the roofs and have some window randomly closed. The town scene would work great then. Add a windmill in the background and some clothes lines, etc. Whole town done.
Jeff Parrott > I closed some windows but I was too lazy to add the windmill but thanks for the idea However, like you suggested I tried to add a bit of hue variations for the roofs in the town shot with vertex color and a quick shader but I guess I was a bit shy because it's barely visible :poly141:
Elod.H > Thanks. In truth the night shot is pre-rendered because Blender's viewport sucks. It doesn't support alpha-sort so I have to render it anyway to get something decent. Otherwise, the post-prod is pretty standard and could be done in any modern game engine : a bit of mist, fog, volumetric lights and a tiny bit of color correction so I'm pretty sure I could get a similar result in realtime if Blender would allow it One day I will buy and teach myself a decent game engine, one day !
Anyway, I'm done with this project ! I made a lot of tweaks and polishing, added a few props here and there and decided to start from scratch on the town to give a more cinematic feel to the picture So here it is :
So, after a little 3D break as well as 7 months working in Paris at a small CG studio, I'm back at it. Weee, personal work !!
Before that long pause, I kinda started a stylized modular dungeon set but it was a bit hectic. I obviously wanted to rush it at the time... so when I opened the files the first time after several months, I was kinda disappointed by the look of it. I tried to redo the textures but something wasn't right so.. what the heck, I'm starting from scratch ! With a little more preparation and research, hopefully I'll do it right this time
Wow I just gave this thread a good thorough read and I am highly impressed.
In regards to this dungeon set, I've noticed in some diablo style games bigger bolder shapes are significantly more readable when players traverse the dungeons. So try something with big strong pillars to support the weight of the "plausible" unseen roof in the dungeon.
Great work keep it up this thread is quite inspiring.
The variation between objects is looking good, but remember even Diablo is Highly Modular.
as for the mood its still hard to say without the texture but the lighting does give visual clues for players ie, stairways, entrances, or focal points.
I'm kinda waiting for my 970gtx to come back from abr (the one I got didn't work ) to get my hands on UE4 for the first time. I'm hoping to render the scene in there
I did some texture sketching for a few props but so far I can't seem to get anything good so here's a ground texture to get started. More to come soon !
Replies
Thank you all for the kind words and support, I appreciate it
Jeff Parrott > I agree, the two handed hammer may look a bit strange, I wasn't so sure about it myself. Otherwise, the similarity of the metal was done on purpose, I really wanted to practice the consistency of my paintings and see if I could make a dozen of weapons that you would think belong to the same world
I didn't want to go too crazy with the weapons themselves either cause, you know, fundamentals first
Isaiah Sherman > good to know
The last couple weeks I've been busy learning javascript to make a more decent portfolio (I'll show that later), but now that I'm done with that, it's time to start a new 3d project
Regards !
It's a wip obviously, but everything looks like its made of metal right now, just something to keep an eye out for
Nice work!
Design wise I think a lot of the shapes are the same size. Push some of your masses a little bit. Personally the wood beams feel a bit flimsy at the moment and don't feel like they would support the structure. Make them more like the ones on top of the roof. The rocks at the base of the building could be fewer and larger also. Try creating a modular hand painted rock and see if you like that instead. I think it could add a lot to the foundations silhouette and make a more interesting transition if/when you make a ground texture.
Agreed on every points you guys made, highlights are too strong ! I will also give the model a bit more love and change the rocky base as well !
The purpose of this house should be visible and readable from this early stage or before. Maybe this is a house that has been pillaged so the door is ripped off and the roof is lit on fire. It has axe and sword marks all over the walls. Fire arrows sticking out of the roof.
Or is it a keep for a wizard? Adjust the shape to have a potion bottle shape slightly or cauldron shaped with really bright lighting on one area or a portal open to another dimension, etc.
Just go nuts with this stuff. Paint over ideas and figure it out. Telling a story through the art is something I've learned is really really important with this style. Make it readable on multiple levels. Take this screenshot and show it to a friend/family member not directly in game art. Ask them who's house is this? What is this? When is this set? Where is this? Why is this in the state it is?
That kinda helps let you know if things are readable to viewers. Sometimes we get blinders on to these things. Just cause we think it's readable it's often not to viewers/players/whoever.
The textures are looking good so far. I'd echo what the other people are saying about the highlights. Everyone has a different style and sharpness seems to be yours. So in that regard maybe just keep pushing it further.
I keep looking at this thread for inspiration, thanks for posting!
Here is a few more hours of work.
- New rocky base made of meshes
- Improved the value contrast between walls and roof
- Local highlights fixes here and there and general polishing of the textures.
- Tricount reduced (8.8K tris right now)
- Added some hay under the roof
- Pushed the volume a bit here and there, made some planks bigger etc.
- Added new planks under the roofs
- Experimented a top/down gradient + AO bake on vertex color
Thanks for the helpful comments guys
To further push the gradient and help weight the building down maybe play with the window brightness on the ground floor.
All I can say so far is that you definitely have the talent for the handpainted style. Your work immediately brings back that fantasy, hand crafted feeling.
The only thing that kind of seems weird to me right now are the highlights on the roof shingles. They're a bit too strong for my taste. Also, maybe you could add some dirt or moss gathered up in the places where the wooden supports meet with the roof and the walls.
Keep up the good work!
Rhoutermans : I know what you mean about the outlines ^^ I feel the same, sometimes I think it looks great on single props, sometimes not. But overall I'm still not sure how I will present this..*shrug*
Grindigo : I wrote a bit about my workflow on page 2 I think. Nothing crazy, some grass textures were painted, some were baked from billboards, other from real 3d meshes, some halfpainted half baked... I usually mix as much techniques as I need to get the result that I want.
Elod.H > Thanks. I've not yet polished the roof texture but I will soon
Anyway, here's where I am at, at the moment :
Then I pushed further the idea of doing a little town so I made a couple variants :
Then I made some props and toyed with some lighting (I'm so bad at lighting ^^)
I feel like I'm starting to go in circle with this project, I still see a couple of things to improve but overall I think it's soon going to be time to move onto something else.
Critics are welcome as usual
To be honest that picture above the last one could even fool someone as to being a pre-rendered CG scene, I think the lighting is very good and moody.
Only thing I could say is that adding some birds or some life in general to these scenes would make them feel more alive. A nest on the roof somewhere, or a crow/raven here and there. Thanks for the inspiration Cremuss!
Had you studied art or something similiar or just learned all by yourself?
Thanks all, I appreciate the support
Soldier63 > self-taught all the way
Jeff Parrott > I closed some windows but I was too lazy to add the windmill but thanks for the idea
Elod.H > Thanks. In truth the night shot is pre-rendered because Blender's viewport sucks. It doesn't support alpha-sort so I have to render it anyway to get something decent. Otherwise, the post-prod is pretty standard and could be done in any modern game engine : a bit of mist, fog, volumetric lights and a tiny bit of color correction so I'm pretty sure I could get a similar result in realtime if Blender would allow it
Anyway, I'm done with this project ! I made a lot of tweaks and polishing, added a few props here and there and decided to start from scratch on the town to give a more cinematic feel to the picture
Also : http://cremuss.net/3d/HandPaintedHouses_2.jpg
And : http://cremuss.net/3d/HandPaintedHouses_3.jpg
Thank you all for the helpful critics and comments !! Next project starting soon
Really awesome work, and inspiring! Keep it up.
So, after a little 3D break as well as 7 months working in Paris at a small CG studio, I'm back at it. Weee, personal work !!
Before that long pause, I kinda started a stylized modular dungeon set but it was a bit hectic. I obviously wanted to rush it at the time... so when I opened the files the first time after several months, I was kinda disappointed by the look of it. I tried to redo the textures but something wasn't right so.. what the heck, I'm starting from scratch ! With a little more preparation and research, hopefully I'll do it right this time
First, some 3D sketches of the walls :
In regards to this dungeon set, I've noticed in some diablo style games bigger bolder shapes are significantly more readable when players traverse the dungeons. So try something with big strong pillars to support the weight of the "plausible" unseen roof in the dungeon.
Great work keep it up this thread is quite inspiring.
T3DArt > Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it
Yep, pillars and many other props will be added ! I'm still sketching ideas though at the moment
About this, here are some pillars sketches
C&C welcome as usual ! Let me know which one you like most
Also, I wasn't on PC when this thread was first around... so I have to say WOOOW to that house!!!
I personally like C and E.
B it is
Here is some further sketching and super rough and ugly compositing to see what the mood could be
as for the mood its still hard to say without the texture but the lighting does give visual clues for players ie, stairways, entrances, or focal points.
I'm kinda waiting for my 970gtx to come back from abr (the one I got didn't work
I did some texture sketching for a few props but so far I can't seem to get anything good so here's a ground texture to get started. More to come soon !