Environment Design Class Assignment

Twotents

Hey everyone. This past trimester I had to work on an environment, so to make my environment I decided to try and learn as much as I could about making low poly assets and texturing.

I initially wanted to have my environment in a game engine but I just didn't have the time to learn how to set up my shaders correctly especially with foliage. I rendered my scene out in vray to save time but my next project I want to take into a game engine.

The trees and grass plus the one flower was my first try at making foliage I still have lots to learn especially when it comes to texturing my assets.

I would love some critique and feed back on my scene so I can improve my next project.

Thanks for reading!

Also for the life of me I cannot figure out how to get rid of the white pixels from my vray render.

DWalker

I'd recommend thinning out the bushes, placing them strategically rather than just blanketing the entire ground. The ground texture could also use some work; I'd recommend a dirt path, dirt mounds around each of the trees, and an improved grass texture.

For the platform border, you might consider choosing a material that is closer to the rest of the environment. Faded wood similar to the house, or even a more natural stone might be a better fit.

The house doesn't seem to have a chimney.

The white windows in the front are a bit unusual.

Twotents

thanks for the input! I will keep these things in mind when I begin my next project. All part of the learning

.Wiki

Those white pixels could be a result of a too high specular value. You could also turn on color clamping. These white spots are superbright pixels which don´t translate well when vray saves the image which is internally rendered in 16 or 32bit per channel as 8bit per channel.

reverendK

your grass is SUPER uniform. I suggest making some variation in size, shape and color. additionally, you don't want them evenly spaced throughout the surface. Clump details together and make pools of interest. Use the clumps to enforce the composition.

Twotents

Thanks for that bit of info .Wiki I will have a look to see if that fixes my render.

reveren - Yea I knew grass was going to seem very uniform, I only made two variations. I had some trouble getting my alphas to work so it went the easy route for this project. Most of what I have been doing for this assignment is actually self taught from various youtube videos.

With my focus going to a game engine this crit is going to help a lot.

jStins

I think it was smart to keep this in Maya for now. I agree with the other comments. Did you use a specific piece of concept art or reference? There seems to be some ambiguity in style and scale. The proportions on the house are exaggerated, but the textures are photo sourced.

Twotents

I initially wanted to go for a tabletop style but when I started this I knew almost nothing about texturing, so achieving the tabletop art style was put aside so I could learn some texturing techniques. I wanted to add zbrush into my pipeline but sadly I had 3 other modules worth of assignments to contend with so I went with a faster solution.

I think if I had taken the time to sculpt in zbrush and maybe use a bit of dDo I could have achieved the style I wanted, but for safety sake to ensure I got my assignment in on time I went with photo reference textures.

Filcomet

Be careful with the specular in your trees I can see a great value in the bark, also I think the ground texture is uniform you can add some dirt or sand in the path to your door, there is no perfect grass when someone walks over a path.

Love the lighting, if you want something closer to a game engine you can try with marmoset toolbag.

KrisLW

I really like where this is going! You did a great job with the foliage for it being your first time.

The biggest crit I have would be style consistency, as jStins mentioned with the difference in geometry vs. texture. Building on that - the difference in exterior woods really stands out to me; the "new" looking wood on the door and wainscotting compared to the old, aged wood making up the trim pieces. Likewise with the door crossbeams being shiny and newish versus the handle/doorknob looking somewhat tattered.

I think maybe some variation could be added to the roof geometry to make it match closer with the texture, mainly so that it shows on the edges and isn't so flat. Something like this perhaps:



Also, this is just personal preference, but I find that beadboard wainscoting to be very strange on the outside of the house...? I would almost say make it have a stone texture - perhaps something similar to the border, just smaller scale blocks.

Twotents

Thanks guys, I really appreciate all this help and critique I have made sure to take note of everything said here even though I know I can easily come back to the post but writing it down never hurts.

I haven't decided on my next project as of yet but I think for now I am going to learn the max zbrush 3dcoat pipeline, making sure I focus on texturing and getting my assets to bake correctly.