Medieval Town (WIP)

Cocophony

Hi guys,

So I'm starting a project for my portfolio. I'm going to post my work here regularly for critique as I know you all give great constructive advice.

The nature of the piece is going to be a medieval town based in the hills. It will have a waterfall running through the center of the piece. The engine it will run in will be UDK and the final product will be a flythrough of the town showcasing textures, models and lighting.


I look forward to work with you all!
Ethan

Cocophony

Heres a look at the first asset creation process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg34RVrbok8

Cocophony

Just some quick sketches.

Joopson

I like the style of the sketches a lot. I'm excited to see this as it develops!

Gazu

Yeah, me too!
Lets see how this will turn out!

Fenyce

Hey there, I guess it's quiet early in the process, so it's kinda hard to give feedback. What kind of style are you going for? Just curious, because of those mushroom paintings and the cell shading style you used for coloration.

Cocophony

Thanks for the responses all. As for the art style, you're right, its in the beginning stages. The art style is still being figured out. I think I'm heading towards it being a cross between realism and cartoon fantasy (real world shadows, normals, but bright exaggerated colours). The colour of the mushroom might not be a good example so far.

A couple more sketches:

luge

i can't wait to see more. also, the shrooms on the tree kinda looks like stitches O_o just a side note.

Cocophony

Designs for some other props.

Cocophony

Just a quick update with how the assets are going. Foliage was just a practice getting it to work inside UE4. I think the crates may be a bit too dark but let me know what yo guys think.

Ethan

Cocophony

Critique is welcome!

Cocophony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rT2LWB0f9I&list=UUbrc29V5ExJUbJFg_eygqBA

BARDLER

Those textures are not going to do anything for you. You can't put a cgtexture photo with a normal map filter and call it done. You should be sculpting highpoly models and creating textures from that, and using cgtextures to create different details/masks for different areas.

iniside

BARDLER wrote: »

Those textures are not going to do anything for you. You can't put a cgtexture photo with a normal map filter and call it done. You should be sculpting highpoly models and creating textures from that, and using cgtextures to create different details/masks for different areas.

????
It is perfectly valid approach.
1. Go To cgtextures.
2. Find textures.
3. Make it tileable.
4. Slap it on prop with separate materials.

I can agree, that those photos need some processing, but there is really nothing wrong with using photos.
I'm now texturing all my props using photos, single tileable texture and multi materials. I avoid using unique textures like a plague. It is reserved only for things that clearly can't be done using tileables.

I will reserve my judgement, for it works or doesn't work, when I see complete scene. Single prop is meaningless. Final composition is key.

luge

I'd agree with iniside, using complete photobase textures can work as well, and its even faster for things that don't necessarily need to be sculpted or even have a hi-poly for. its whatever floats your boat and works for you, as long as the end result looks good who cares so much as the process in which they did it (unless its extremely drawn out and there could have been a way thats A LOT faster than the way proceeded.)

now to the critique, I feel like the crates and the fence and such are fine the way they are, the well on the other hand, could use some work. here is an instance where I would suggest sculpting brick instead of using a photobase simply because using a photobase, you will more than likely have a large and noticable seam at the top of the brick model, where as if you sculpt it, you would not.

next, your wood beams, using the photosourced texture is fine, but make it smaller, not too much otherwise it can become blurry, but it does need to be smaller. for the roof, I don't think planks really works best, maybe shingles would look better. also, it looks like you were going for damage/aging or something of the sort by making the roof partly cave in... you need to bring the center in as well, if its caved on both sides, then the center should be caved in as well, at least thats my opinion.

In general, since you are using UE4 for this, you should boost up your poly count, make the well and the bucket more cylindrical, right now they are very blocky. and remember to set up your smoothing... if your in max, that'd be smoothing groups and if your in maya that would be smoothing edge normals. (they work differently)

as far as the strength of the textures in general, iniside is right that you could use some processing of them, don't just slap em on to the mesh and call it a day, change them up, take different photos and merge them together and mess with the colors, whatever it takes, you just want it to look interesting and have a good feel to it, photosourcing can work.

Cocophony

iniside wrote: »

????
It is perfectly valid approach.
1. Go To cgtextures.
2. Find textures.
3. Make it tileable.
4. Slap it on prop with separate materials.

I can agree, that those photos need some processing, but there is really nothing wrong with using photos.
I'm now texturing all my props using photos, single tileable texture and multi materials. I avoid using unique textures like a plague. It is reserved only for things that clearly can't be done using tileables.

I will reserve my judgement, for it works or doesn't work, when I see complete scene. Single prop is meaningless. Final composition is key.

Your tavern scene iniside was what inspired me to use this approach. This is my first time modelling for a game engine. I like the results I'm getting using photo textures. The only think that was just "slapped on" was the rock texture, the rest were manipulated.

This is not a completed prop and I appreciate all criticisms. I will give it a higher poly count and add some extra details that way.

At the moment I'm having issues with duplicating foliage inside Maya, (I'm working on Ivy) and using just one leaf image. The problem arises when I import into UE4 I get an error for overlapping UV's. Anyone know a good way around this?

luge

as i don't have much experience with UE4 as my computer that could run it recently went out of order for the time being... I can only help as much as I can see. and i know that sometimes in UE3/UDK you would get a random error for overlapping UVs in your lightmap, but those overlapping UVs don't exist. it could be a false positive if the same applies, beyond that, I don't know. you should probably post up an image of the error and a visual of whats happening if there is one. that will help people be able to help you.

Mike8917

I can't really comment on anything that hasn't already been mentioned, but one small suggestion for the well, would be to put some small elements or rivets on the beams, to show that they're being held together maybe?

Looking good though man! I like the style you're going for in your sketches

iniside

Cocophony wrote: »

At the moment I'm having issues with duplicating foliage inside Maya, (I'm working on Ivy) and using just one leaf image. The problem arises when I import into UE4 I get an error for overlapping UV's. Anyone know a good way around this?

That is because all your UVs share single space. You need to create second channel, and make sure all UV islands have their own space.
IDK how to it in maya though.

luge

to do it in maya, all you have to do is select the UVs in the UV editor, go to the top left dropdown menu (i don't have maya up right now so I don't remember the name...) and go to copy to new UV set. then just auto map to that UV set and you're good to go.

I didn't think about it actually being shared spaces and not something else like another error causing it lol.

Cocophony

Hey guys, just a little update. Getting my head around World Machine. Quite a nice program. Just a quick questions for one of you experts out there; is there a way to export the texture along with the height map. I'm using a macro called Coastal Overlay. I know how to export a standard diffuse texture but I really want something similar to the result in the image I've linked.

Any advice would be much appreciated.