[WIP] Stylized Env
polycounter lvl 7
Most recent version:
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Hey everyone,
During my current job hunt I started another environment piece. just have some evening hours to tinker around atm so it's coming together rather slowly.
I'm still working on textures and mesh and I want to add some proper light sources.
I was told that my texturing is to monochromatic so I'm trying to fix that on this one. I'm also trying to improve the feeling of scale and add some functionality into the Scene.
I would appreciate some feedback if I'm on the right track or missing on some stuff out?
Let me know what you think!
Cheers!
_____________________________________________
Hey everyone,
During my current job hunt I started another environment piece. just have some evening hours to tinker around atm so it's coming together rather slowly.
I'm still working on textures and mesh and I want to add some proper light sources.
I was told that my texturing is to monochromatic so I'm trying to fix that on this one. I'm also trying to improve the feeling of scale and add some functionality into the Scene.
I would appreciate some feedback if I'm on the right track or missing on some stuff out?
Let me know what you think!
Cheers!
Replies
The main thing I'd say is what is this? Where is this set? What's the story? A lot of people can model and render textures. Not a lot of Artists can tell a noticeable story though their art. Especially with environment work.
Also you should focus on doing some finishing polish on your piece. Take time with balancing the detail areas, color scheme, and checking the brightness/dark values in the scene. Take a screenshot for a typical angle (or multiple) and make sure you have good contrast.
I didn't have a ton of time but I did a quick screengrab, levels adjustment, and a brightness adjustment on it. The piece just pops a bit more. Also don't be afraid of a bearclaw (shift+control+alt+E) everything onto a new layer with your textures then sharpen filter. Set the opacity to 90something%. It tends to give a small bit of sharpness to the texture that makes things easier to read.
Lighting and Quick Read
I think adjusting the lighting would really make this pop like the examples given above
Is this just color channel work? Could the shades be improved in Unity?
I tend to like environments that really make use of nice colored blacks that highly contrast with the key lit areas. This contrast provides the player a quicker read of the environment while they are running around in game play. I know I can run along the stairs or jump up on that pipe or go in that door because it is popping out of the environment.
As a mobile game designer I can understand the monochromatic comment you have received. I like to see the different elements in the environment be rendered in contrast of each other.
I feel like having the buildings, the plants and the pipes share that same green palette might be something to change up which could help split these elements further apart could and give us a faster read of the environment. Could this be tested in Unity with the hue shift in the color channel of the different shades?
Story Ideas
Have you thought of putting a character in the scene to help with the "story" and "scale" mentioned above? I get this is a environmental piece, but could it help us see what life or characters inhabit it? A alchemist repair man? Lonely steam punk wizard a top of ruined city infrastructure?
Maybe there is no visible character but there is a coat rack with a wizard hat on it, or a tool box and a hard hat sitting on a table, does the stove burn with wood or is there a pile of glowing shards with glowing animated shovel putting coal into the stove?
Will the gears and the stove become animated? If so what do they run? A metal forge? A alchemist table? A steam punk robot repair station?
If they are runes of a former city could there be broken gears or cracked pipes that have liquid flowing out?
I can see why people might have said you're textures are monochromatic. Most of them are right now, and the ones that aren't (green metals) are really noticeable and appealing because they have some compliments/additional color shifts. Try that with you're blue metals and such.
Cool work so far, thanks sharing and keep pushing this thing!
Originally I had a version with much stronger contrasts. But I had some feedback from a veteran that I should be more subtle. I'm in a constant struggle between popping thing into contrast for attention and matting things down. As far as I understand high contrast environments will make it for the player really tough to see game play relevant objects. Still the old version is rather confusing and boring to look at I guess, so I tried to create focal points with a complementary contrast. I'm not sure if this is to much, it definitely works better for the sake of the composition but I'm uncertain if this would be to much from a gameplay point of view?
I continued to ad different values to the textures, which is highly entertaining
I've added another element to give the scene some context. I hope it works? I do have a back story for everything I build but it's always on shifting ground so I can stay flexible for change
still tinkering around many things, the frame around the basin is still just a placeholder. and there are still some textures in dire need of pimping & polish =D
Let me know what you think!
You straight up see you have to go to the lava pool to smelt and stuff.
Usually places were battles take place are more plain but this could be a small area of interest and lore, even in a boss battle room.
I think you could sell those as trees better if you made the silhouettes more tree-like. Make a metal tree trunk and branches, then take the texture you're currently using as metal grass (or bushes) and use those as the trees' canopies. You could layer them accordingly to make the canopies look dense.
So if the green metals designate which objects are supposed to be foliage, what's the story behind the green on the pipes? Why not have green stone on the platform where the metal grass is and leave the pipes a metal color?
I hope this is helpful.
I think everything would pop out better with stronger light or with stronger post process settings. You could also see the details better then. They are washed together at the moment.
good work on the texture painting
What Obscura did helps a ton too. That's a pretty straight forward way of doing it.
Stronger lighting might help also, but I already liked the very first version.
This will really help to sell your artwork and add an extra level of authenticity. It will help to separate various elements in the scene and help everything read more clearly. This can be aided by further darkening elements outside of the focal point, depending on what areas you want to read at what speed. Might be time to start thinking about particles and effects as well such as smoke, dust, wind? Good luck, it's going to look nice.
I like it and think that's a good direction, value-wise the saturated colors of the pit are perceived much darker, though, than the greyscale version might lead to believe. So I'd go still lighter around the pit area.
@Afklamer: Like already said I really like your piece and like it the way it is and I can't imagine you'll be looking for a job very long.
One other point that I'd offer, though, is material definition.
It's definitely there and to a certain extent I'd call it a style choice and with just diffuse shaders it's extra hard, but if I wanted, I could read all of those materials as painted rock. (Could be a sideeffect of you dialing down the contrast later in the process, too. )
Im really thankfull it keeps me questioning every step I do so far =P
Pushing up the contrast is a really tough one. I tried to increase it a bit further to make it look more interesting but it kind of collides with loads of stuff I've been referencing so far stuff like this or this or this. I know that I have to sell the environment as exciting but everytime I push the light further it feels to dominant. Any thoughts on that?
KyleJensen, hey I see the tree issue i din't want to lose the shape of the trees since i liked the bulkiness of them i do hope it looks more like a tree with the current solution.
The pipes are green because they are supposed to be roots
At this point I feel like I start detailing to a degree where I still could work a couple of days on the scene especially on polishing out the textures and some other stuff that's bothering me but I think it might be just my perfectionism kicking in and it would be smarter to start with something new
Once again thanks for all the great feedback! And let me know what you guys think about the contrast issue and the reference shots I'm realy struggling with that.
cheers
I'd desaturate the blue light on the right, it seems almost as important as the pit right now.
And perhaps the smoke reads a bit hard.
It's all about contrast between the elements of your scene, it's all relative.
Your piece has no player/character in it, so the pit and stove are the heroes of the scene. (If you want to consider how a character reads against the scene, I'd actually add a character. )
The scene itself can be high contrast, low contrast, high key, low key like seen in your examples and within this set range you lead the eye with value, color and saturation.
Also note how in the warlords of draenor piece the metal has still some relatively bright edges, though the scene itself is rather subdued, just for the sake of bringing out the "metal-nes" some more.
To be honest I wouldn't worry too much about that kind of things, though, they are easily corrected and you already have mastered the actual painting part.
I wouldn't even go so far as to say that the new version is better than your first one, it's just different.
Thanks again I do appreciate the help
It's so dam easy to overdo stuff in 3D I really have a hard time to determine when I should move on to the next piece. I see your point with the draenor screen, I still have a hard time working with highlights since I'm constantly afraid I'll overdo it.
I will take a look into z-brush this week since its a reoccurring question in my job interviews.
So cheers and thanks to everyone who took some time and helped me out on this one!
Right now your best bet is to find a company which pretty much needs exactly what you are doing at the moment.
Don't be afraid of overdoing stuff. By testing the limits you may end up in some area you didn't even think of before.
Like I once said: It's better to test the limits then live in the secure.
Personally for me the textures have a whole lot of detail atm. It becomes hard to rest my eye on something. Having some lesser detailed area's makes the piece a bit more balanced I think ^^
I think that's why a lot of people have mentioned to change the lighting. To have a clear focal point in your work
Oh well