UTMC - CGAmanra
--Latest Update--
High Rez is available here.
Cheers!~
--Progress Archive--
Alrighty! The level of excitement is real!
(No longer the theme)Basic idea, snowy mountains, isolated base. Pretty much "Mountain Base"
[Rough Idea] Space, Mega-structure, Sci-Fi (As mentioned by FirebornForm, Unreal 2 Hell)
Here's a first pass of thumbnails. Will clean up ASAP.
Would love to see which of the thumbnails you guys think should go forward, even though I've got an idea of several that I'd personally like to work on. Also, I am going to be time-lapsing my process because it helps me learn, and its fun to watch. Part of the time lapse will include comments/feedback from the Polycount community. Just toss a red colored "No" before typing in your feedback if you'd like to censor out your comments/feedback on the video.
Here we go!
*Bloop*
High Rez is available here.
Cheers!~
--Progress Archive--
Alrighty! The level of excitement is real!
(No longer the theme)Basic idea, snowy mountains, isolated base. Pretty much "Mountain Base"
[Rough Idea] Space, Mega-structure, Sci-Fi (As mentioned by FirebornForm, Unreal 2 Hell)
Here's a first pass of thumbnails. Will clean up ASAP.
Would love to see which of the thumbnails you guys think should go forward, even though I've got an idea of several that I'd personally like to work on. Also, I am going to be time-lapsing my process because it helps me learn, and its fun to watch. Part of the time lapse will include comments/feedback from the Polycount community. Just toss a red colored "No" before typing in your feedback if you'd like to censor out your comments/feedback on the video.
Here we go!
*Bloop*
Replies
So an Icey mountain base eh? A good number of the guys on here have done something like that, but why not try to put your own spin on something from Hell? No not the fire and brimstone idea.
http://liandri.beyondunreal.com/Hell An Icy moon in Unreal 2 with a base and mountains
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We're already pulling from Unreal 1 with Na Pali map themes, so something from Unreal 2 would be cool as well. Anyways if you want to go with your own vision keep at it but Hell's frozen landscape is really captivating especially with the big blue gas planet in the skydome.
Will work on cleaning up the thumbnails and eliminating the vagueness. Thanks for the heads up on the mountain base theme vs. something original. I think I'll run with what you said and deviate these thumbs from the mountain base, snowy stuff to something more out of the box I guess. I like the proposed hell idea, something more deathly looking perhaps.
Cheers!~
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137728
Winter base by Htkpeh (at least I think its winter)
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137005
Winter base by Brandon
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137609
Winter mountain morpheus by Htkpeh
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137375
Winter factory by Lukas
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137379
Frost base by Gooba (4th pic down) it does seem like he abandoned this one though.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136807
Winter base by Apostolon (4th one)
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136915
Winter concepts by Citleat
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137190
Winter death glacier+base by Rekkin
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136969
Giant freezer by Helix.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136699
So yeah, people do winter stuff but thats because it's a well loved and favorite trope of all time. Winter level? Check, Lava level? Check. Green Goo level? Check.
Epic is also literally asking us to remake themes based on consistent buckets they pulled from UT99, and we're doin that
I would say don't be too worried about what someone else has done and do what ever inspires you the most that way your hearts in it instead of trying to go at it like a formula crossing off "Whats been done before" because let's face it pretty much everything has been done already and we're just remixing and re-envisioning. Some people are reinventing old locals and others are making up completely new stuff for Unreal.
No one's touched Unreal 2's Hell
Much thanks for scouting out additional background info!
Will be uploading updates ASAP.
Ideally since we're so close to the deadline for the contest it would be best if you try to make decisions for direction on your own. As concept artists it's part of the job to internalize these sort of things without reaching out to ask others. It's up to our personal taste to see which we end up going with and what defines our art.
All of that said, I know feedback is good to have and second eyes on something is always beneficial just make sure it doesnt totally diverge from what you want to do or youll end up hating your art. It's also good to bounce ideas off
I gave a run through on these and without any sort of direction or hint on what these things are I just kind of guessed at it.
1 - I'm positive this is a space scene but I don't really think it conveys enough information for what you're trying to convey. IE as concept art I want to see either more of the thing farther back or less of the space getting more into detail or another angle for this space station like thing.
2 - I don't really get anything out of this one. So you'll have to help out on chiming in on what each one is after I run through them all.
3 - Some sort of ancient Greek like structures. I see some tiny semblance of dome topped buildings and pillars. If you want to explore something like that it's fine. UT has a strong history of taking architecture from ancient civilizations and
4 - Similar problem to 1 except I can tell even less on what's going on and wouldn't serve too well for a concept art piece. I could actually see 4 being a zoomed up shot of 1's core.
5 - This is either waterfalls or crystals, and I'm going with crystals due to how rigid you've made the lines. Appears to have some water down at the bottom. Could be downed trees in the back but it's more likely to be the inside of a cave. Caves are always cool and I don't think some of the more rod-like crystals have been explored in UT as giant platforms.
6 - Appears to be a nother bunch of crystals in caves, infact I could say that 4-6 are all exploring crystal caves. I like the odd and varied arrangements of rocks and crystals here.
7 - At first glance I thought this was a fire pit with old cathedral like architecture over the top of the pit. A gothic Colosseum in the middle of fire moat. Upon looking at it some more though I think it's glowing crystals again. Still not sure what the main architecture is but its definitely not natural. If you want to explore outside architecture in the environment this would be one to check out but I would vary up the form of the architecture some more.
8 - I like the diagonals here creating a strong striping of light is cool. This looks like an internal shot of some sort of structure. I don't know if the diagonals are windows, or lights, or pits but its cool.
9 - Pretty similar to 8 but I prefer 8's more diagonal slants. I'm really unsure of what's going on here.
10 - I think this is an internal shot, I could see this as an energy chamber of sorts in the main structure somewhere. The monolithic like slabs show this is definitely a higher tech area.
11 - This one all depends on scale. If the scale on this one was smaller I would say this would never really work because visual clarity would be a huge problem. However if this is scaled up into giant hallways with lightrays shooting through the cracks this could be the most interesting and best comp out of all of them for a unique environment. Maybe it's the inside of a boat, but i'd worry about too much visual noise.
12 - This looks like a somewhat clear mix of landscape and tech. Possibly a downed ship in the middle of sinking? or just the outer wall. I think the darker grays on the bottom right is supposed to be water of sorts. Could be a nice outside shot of the structure.
1 Doesn't have enough to be considered "Mega structure" but it's definitely sci-fi
2-3-4 Don't really fit the theme so I would throw them out.
5-6-7 don't say mega structure as much as big old ruins far inside of a crystal cave (Still a cool idea)
8-10-11-12 Convey "Techy Mega structure" the most to me.
9 Could easily be mega structure curved hallway as well, or the outside rim underneath the main megastructure but it's hard to tell.
7 - as i love the old roman games and old architecture, if you can go inside that it will remind me a bit of a Gears of War arena, i think its the stadium one, but it has loads of cool little areas to add gameplay too.
10 - to me it looks like a reactor core or some sort of big machinery where if you fall in its goodbye. It also looks like its floating (the background looks like faraway rocks. Once again loads of areas to run about and hide behind.
12 - looks like an old mine facility i imagine that vehicles once came down here with supplies etc and i see it has a big pile of rubble now due to planet activities. But some of it is still accessible.
With all that said 12 is my fave
Alright, nutshell version = time, not enough.
Thanks for the feedback guys, here's where I'm at.
Looking at the thumbnails after.. what is this.. a week later? Didn't look as interesting as when I started. So this is just a combination of the ideas from feedbacks and whatever I saw in those thumbnails.
Resource/energy reactor, colossal terrain, cold asteroid w/ valuable resource/energy matter, referencing unreal 2's Hell.
Just a note this seems more like a general establishing shot but not too much information on what the area would be like during gameplay. Judging off of your tiny figure in the foreground. Great concept for an epic fps story ala Halo or Mass Effect but maybe not that helpful for an arena based shooter like UT. Since you joined so late in the contest it'll be really tough to pull off a closer "gameplay" shot but you can stick to your guns now with this establishing wide shot and add some more to it after the contest via the Unreal tournament forums.
UT is an on going game development and it's just started this year, it wont be done this year and there's no reason they can't add grab some more environments after this initial concept art contest. In fact I expect them to do that so it's something to think about.
And I agree. Valid points made for the establishing shots topic. Definitely something I should have thought about earlier. I did dedicated this weekend to making at least something that I can submit and make impressions on my progress. I'll see if I can get this one done and start up/finish a presentable interior shot from one of the block outs. Time be the enemy.
As for the time-lapse video, unfortunately there's two files that aren't being read by any of the converters or Camtasia so I've had to shut down the time lapse production for this challenge. Big chunk of the video would be missing so its pointless.
-Update-
Constantly flipping the canvas.. some reason this angle looks better to me now. Don't know if its because I've spent more time looking at it flipped.
Till then,
Cheers~!
I think what you're seeing on the flip is a subliminal compositional trick. I scribbled over your painting so you can get the idea.
Since we tend to read left to right, on your first shot it's instantly grabbing your attention on the big structures. After wandering around the image we can see there's a guy down at the bottom. Though it appears more like an afterthought.
Flipping the image the guy is on the left, and is much more noticeable instead of an afterthought because that's how the west reads. When we notice the guy, we take notice of which way he's looking and that leads to the big ol structure.
Now this is debatable but since we're designing an environment for UT then I'm partial to the first one, because it's the big structures that is most prominent read. The second one again would fit well for something like Halo. Going into more depth the first one is like WHOA check out this place! and then there's this guy whos just kind of there. Where as the second flipped feels more like the guy is making a discovery because we as a viewer share that looking at the guy, then looking at the environment we "discovered" it so the piece as a whole feels like it has more narration.
Good luck pounding out a last minute interior shot!
As for comp stuff, sense made. Thanks for the info! I'm a visual learner so yeah scribbles all over is a must!
I'm finding that most of what I've made are 'discovery' pieces. I need to move into more technical stuff of concept art. Functionality, layout all of that fun stuff.
-Update-
Think I'll call this done and move to the next.
Thoughts, critiques, comments etc etc.
High rez is available here.
Cheers!~
One tiny tweak I would add to this one would be the planet in the sky (Gaigan). If you really want to get across that this is Hell from UT2 I think a little more love to the planet in the sky would be nice. It's basically a blue version of Jupiter. I think you're just missing some of the dark stripes in there but that's basically nit picking. Focus should be on your closer "gameplay" shot.
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