Your texture work is so great, im literally using your renders of the wall and ground plane as my desktop backgrounds!! keep it up man, and thank you so much for the breakdowns, newbs like me LIVE on those things =]
I'm really happy to hear everyone likes the breakdowns! Thanks for the comments everyone. It's comments like these that keep pushing me to try to make some awesome artwork.
@xChris - Hahaha, thanks chris! Yeah absolutely, well I was lucky enough to have a friend already working at Kojima Studios. So my resume got through the door at least, but after that it was all up to me. They have some pretty strict requirements and a pretty rigorous interview process/art test. So just hone your skills as best you can then kick some ass on whatever test they give you.
@Kobalt - Thanks a lot man! Good luck on your project and if you have anymore questions just let me know
@Sk8erSeth - I think that's a first for me to be used as someones background haha. So thank you very much Seth! That is a great honor to be your background ^__^
@Shogun3d - Hey Will! It's great to hear from you. You've always been a big inspiration for me, so I'm honored to hear that from you, thank you
So I have been working on a new texture guys. I wanted to try my hand at making some tree bark, trees have always been pretty tough for me so this was definitely a texture type I wanted to hit during this practice of mine. So this is a bark NOT like an Oak Tree with very deep bark and lots of crusting falling of chunks of the tree. I was going for more of a Juniper Red Tree or a London Plane Tree. Comments and Critiques are always welcome and I hope you guys enjoy the work!
I think they look a little too rough for the kind of tree your aiming for. I was looking at some images of both of those trees and it looks like they have long streaks of smoothness to them, as if someone peeled down a strip of bark off of it.
FOX ENGINEEEE!?!?!??! *ALERT SOUND*
This is some sick work! thanks for showing us your breakdown. Really nailing the textures.
Have to say, its a dream of mine to join KP team. One day! If you don't mind me asking, are you an environment artist on the team? I'm guessing this is KP in LA right?
OMG O_o I never imagined I would get a banner. This is one of the coolest things ever! Thank you Polycount!!
@xChris - You're absolutely right, I deviated quite a bit from my original plan for this bark. Perhaps I will attempt a few other tree styles or one that is more recognizable so there is no guesswork as to whether it is accurate or not. Thanks for the comments
@Icaban - Thank you, it was a dream of mine for a long time as well. Feels unreal sometimes that I actually work there now Yes I am an environment artist there! How about yourself?
@JamieRIOT - Thanks! I'm very surprised and happy about it as well haha
I will have to try and finish up some more Textures sometime soon. I've been in crunch mode at work so no extra time these days. Any one have any ideas for some interesting organic textures btw? I'm looking for something really different to try. Thanks for any suggestions in advance!
@kinslayer233 - I'll try to write something up soon for that bark, sorry it's taking a while but hopefully soon.
In the meantime I have been at it again this time trying to make some branches with leaves on them. I feel pretty good about it, but I can't quite put my finger on it something seems off about them. Maybe I'm just being harsh on myself as most artists are.
Thanks for the feedback Quack! You were right, after adjusting the roughness map and slightly toning down the normal on the leaves as well I think I achieved a much better result. I updated the original images since it was a quick fix, but will post a new one if I make any other major changes
First of all yeah, I'm really jealous of your ground texture. It's really great and it became one of the bars I'd like to reach in term of quality/realism thanks for posting that.
Then for your tree branches is it supposed to be seen from close up view? When I look at them from a distance or if I squint my eyes, it doesn't seem that odd. Now for a close view out of context as mentioned before, maybe the thickness of the leaves is too much. I had similar problems before while modeling thin feathers in zbrush (if your did that in zbrush..)
Maybe it's just me but the color variation of the leaves is probably too subtle or too broad compared to the variations of the bark (which is great btw ) I can see subtle green/yellowish variations but no variation based on the sculpt geometry (for instance leave veins seems too close to the rest of the leaves) again if you used zbrush, maybe adding some subtle spotlight projection details would help? But anyway, I doubt that these details would be seen from a distance in the final bake...
Hope it will helps you in any way, and thanks for posting your work and workflow on the ground texture work.
Good job on these ground textures. I'll be adding your breakdowns to the wiki!
For the leaves texture, I think two things could use improvement.
As someone said, the leaf edges are too thick. They're looking more like leaves made of cake frosting. Also the leaf veins and surface detail are strangely laid out, looks like a Zbrush alpha straight from a photo, not sculpted properly.
The bark looks a lot more like dirt at present. Too lumpy and uniform. I think it might help to look at real branches. They have growth rings, little scabby bits where insects bit and it grew over the damage, leaf-sprout nubs here and there, occasional dead twigs, etc. Here's a pic.
Awesome Eric! Thank you for that and that's some great feedback for the leaves. I should really go back and try taking another pass at it. Thanks again!
Replies
@xChris - Hahaha, thanks chris! Yeah absolutely, well I was lucky enough to have a friend already working at Kojima Studios. So my resume got through the door at least, but after that it was all up to me. They have some pretty strict requirements and a pretty rigorous interview process/art test. So just hone your skills as best you can then kick some ass on whatever test they give you.
@Kobalt - Thanks a lot man! Good luck on your project and if you have anymore questions just let me know
@Sk8erSeth - I think that's a first for me to be used as someones background haha. So thank you very much Seth! That is a great honor to be your background ^__^
@Shogun3d - Hey Will! It's great to hear from you. You've always been a big inspiration for me, so I'm honored to hear that from you, thank you
So I have been working on a new texture guys. I wanted to try my hand at making some tree bark, trees have always been pretty tough for me so this was definitely a texture type I wanted to hit during this practice of mine. So this is a bark NOT like an Oak Tree with very deep bark and lots of crusting falling of chunks of the tree. I was going for more of a Juniper Red Tree or a London Plane Tree. Comments and Critiques are always welcome and I hope you guys enjoy the work!
This is some sick work! thanks for showing us your breakdown. Really nailing the textures.
Have to say, its a dream of mine to join KP team. One day! If you don't mind me asking, are you an environment artist on the team? I'm guessing this is KP in LA right?
@xChris - You're absolutely right, I deviated quite a bit from my original plan for this bark. Perhaps I will attempt a few other tree styles or one that is more recognizable so there is no guesswork as to whether it is accurate or not. Thanks for the comments
@Icaban - Thank you, it was a dream of mine for a long time as well. Feels unreal sometimes that I actually work there now
@JamieRIOT - Thanks! I'm very surprised and happy about it as well haha
I wonder if you can give me some advice or maybe a small tutorial for the tree bark?? thanks!!
In the meantime I have been at it again this time trying to make some branches with leaves on them. I feel pretty good about it, but I can't quite put my finger on it something seems off about them. Maybe I'm just being harsh on myself as most artists are.
They may also just look a bit off because they are being presented in an arbitrary layout.
How will you use it? When it comes to branches, it's all about the layout and how you'll use it in the end..
+100000000000
I love the puddles, everything just looks so realistic.
keep up the good work!
Then for your tree branches is it supposed to be seen from close up view? When I look at them from a distance or if I squint my eyes, it doesn't seem that odd. Now for a close view out of context as mentioned before, maybe the thickness of the leaves is too much. I had similar problems before while modeling thin feathers in zbrush (if your did that in zbrush..)
Maybe it's just me but the color variation of the leaves is probably too subtle or too broad compared to the variations of the bark (which is great btw
Hope it will helps you in any way, and thanks for posting your work and workflow on the ground texture work.
For the leaves texture, I think two things could use improvement.
As someone said, the leaf edges are too thick. They're looking more like leaves made of cake frosting. Also the leaf veins and surface detail are strangely laid out, looks like a Zbrush alpha straight from a photo, not sculpted properly.
The bark looks a lot more like dirt at present. Too lumpy and uniform. I think it might help to look at real branches. They have growth rings, little scabby bits where insects bit and it grew over the damage, leaf-sprout nubs here and there, occasional dead twigs, etc. Here's a pic.
Keep going man, they're looking great!
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/EnvironmentSculpting#Tiled_Cliffs_and_Grounds
https://gumroad.com/purepolygons
There's also the Building Breakdown and some other free goodies on there. Enjoy!
- Jacob