Environment Art Test Critique
polycounter lvl 14
Here's an art test I just completed over a few days and roughly 20 hours. All critiques are welcome. Should I put it in the portfolio? What would you think if you were reviewing it? Thanks.
Replies
One example I can give is the UE4 Sci Fi scene. Its a very good example of keep the environment clean and still having enough interest that breaks the overall scene. Here is the link to it if you haven't already seen it
[ame]
Hope it helps
I think your other work is far moore impressive than this. Just Balamb garden is a perfect reimagining of that old scene.
You could st least put as much effort into this as you did with your other stuff from your artstation.
I realize you are going for this "clean" scifi look, but stuff still looks undefined and im not sure what things in the scene are supposed to be.
They're inverted.
I like this image with the shapes of the supports, more dramatic lighting from the floor lights and side windows, although you might not want to do the damage - http://cdn.overclock.net/9/90/90241408_MassEffect32012-03-1817-46-54-25.jpeg
I checked out your artstation and I really like the Balamb Garden and the materials and shapes on that deadspace door though!
1. I was given a loosely painted concept similar to this. The most interesting parts of the scene were loosely rendered in the painting and I'm terrible at concepting on the fly. I was told it should take me 20 hours to do this so that was what I took (it's already turned in). The result was not spending more than a couple days on the high poly (design phase) so it looks like a boring square block.
2. Here's what I was shooting for generally:
http://techreport.com/r.x/2014_7_24_Early_Unreal_Tournament_concept_art_reminds_us_how_far_weve_come/ut-concept.jpg
The above works with such a simply color scheme real nicely because the shape/design is real good. Some subtle material definition wouldn't be too hard from where I am here, but its not worth it since the design is so weak. Again, I felt like I didn't have time with a 20 hour expectation.
3. Excellent catch on the normals being flipped. The ones I placed into Painter were flipped, while the others were fine. Those small little painted height details are hard to catch.
4. I've asked before and will again .. any thoughts on speed? It's awfully hard for me still to imagine getting a serious environment done well in 20 hours. This absolutely was rushed ... by force. I still need time to be good.
Even on the smallest of projects, there's research and pre-production work to be done. Here, it would have been a great idea to go find some good examples of hard surface kitbashing kits, modular greeble designs, more sci-fi concept that would help you hobble together something that those interesting bits in the messy parts of the concept could be. Drawing some more interesting designs than blocks is a start-- even if your 2D skills are crude (I honestly don't know if yours are or not), it's just quicker to throw 30 interesting shapes down on some printer paper and pick something that isn't a cube and gets the job done. You could also photobash some interesting pipes and stuff together. There's a lot of ways to go about this.
If you have to, a good idea to get quickly started and in the zone on a piece is to make a simple form you can fill out that covers things like what the purpose of the room is, what the focal point should be, the overarching mood of the scene and references/material/modularity/composition breakdowns. Just fill out those sections and go when you don't have time to ponder forever.
It really just feels like you didn't think about the overarching point of this one. For example, something that would have been cool to see with these restrictions is to have a cool, clean sci-fi door, probably the one at the end of the hall, be the focal point, having the other doors (which could just be the backside of the hero door, maybe) appear to be much more simple, toned down, maybe even locked. There are a lot of a ways you could take this, of course. It just would have needed a bit more thought. Spending a more considerable amount of time planning on paper rather than jumping into sculpting/modeling pays off later in hours saved getting things right on the first or second try, and in a better result overall.
Also, just a note, the scale is a little off. Stairs are huge, according to the door height they'd almost come up to my knees.
Finally, regarding the speed... Speed doesn't really matter right now. You'll be able to understand the speed factor when you get more efficient naturally, and for some people that takes time. Do look into more efficient workflows, though. And check out Tor Frick/Snefer's 1hr environment thread if you haven't, it's really interesting.
Keep up the good work, man.
Also I watch Tor's all the time. The thing I observe is that he can make up interesting shapes off the top of his head quickly. He doesn't have to stop.
No, don't put this in your folio...its significantly lower quality than your current work.
My first impression is that the overall room is poorly designed. I don't see a clear purpose for the room, and the thingies sticking up along the walkway towards the door have no purpose (and block entrance to the side doors). Also, as others have mentioned, there are general scale issues and things like that.
In general it seems there is very little thought put into your materials. Besides that shiny floor, everything else just looks like random shapes on a flat, unidentifiable surface.
I don't know any details about the test you did or anything like that, but I think your biggest fault here is you took off really fast without paying attention to where you were going. Getting that planning done up front will save you so much time in the long run vs trying to figure things out as you go along. Again, BagelHero nailed it, but don't focus on speed for the sake of focusing on speed. Just focus on doing quality work. Speed comes with experience.
Glad to hear you are taking everything in stride and focusing on what to learn from this. Definitely the right attitude to have
Ya, time to get back to that FMA scene!!