Hey mate, I did a quick adjustment on top of the last shot:
I just believe that colors need to be a bit more vibrant since it's a beautiful day. You could probably boost the yellow on the foliage SSS and make the dirt more reddish perhaps? And bluish shadows could help too.
If you're feeling that it's a bit too flat, perhaps you could add some elements to help guide the eye through it. Right now it just looks like an empty field (albeit a beautiful one) with no much narrative going on. Maybe a path or road going all the way into the mountains? Maybe some tents, some sign of activity?
nice work, although the thing i noticed is that the birch branch plane texture seems to be getting cut off, or is it just me? i dont think the mesh fits 100%.
im trying to learn speedtree over the summer to get some good looking trees, any tips? im finding it hard to get the placement of branch planes to look right.
also did you use speedtree for your grass?
@Bruno Afonseca: Thanks for taking the time to do a paint over! I made the scene more saturated and cleared up the grass that covered the dirt path. It is a good suggestion to add some props. The scene doesn't really tell a story as it is. Though I will have to consider this scene done with other projects coming up.
@Adelphia & @skodone: You mean that the branch texture does not blend with the trunk texture? The tree was made in Speedtree and since the branch is thinner than the trunk I don't know how to make that blend better. Thanks for pointing it out though!
Finding a good reference is important. Also when you make the leaf texture try to make two with different shapes. Otherwise it will become very obvious that it is a plane. For example the big maple I made have one circular leaf shape which does not look to well.
I have done some final tweaking and will consider the scene done! Thanks a lot everyone for your valuable tips and feedback. The scene would not be what it is without you!
Really loveing the visual style and feel of the last image nice work
no the branch is okay its the leafy branch texture on the cards.
I did a paintover so you can see what i mean, the parts circled are being cut off by your mesh
One thing I would say; I'm not sure if you need to bend your alpha cards so much. Personally, I find that makes them look wobbly upclose, while doing little for the shape or shading.
I'm late in this post, but whoa! I really love you breakdown and the results! Congratullations Oskar, keep the good work! You inspired me and I'm sure much more people too I would like to say that sometimes your trees seem to have weird shadows and that is probably because of the normals, maybe is a LOD thing too. Do you unified the normals?, are they pointing out from a same spot? Idk whether Speedtree do so automatically. In my eyes, you project reminds me the New Zelda for WiiU trailer footage (which is SUPERCOOOL), I think that it is still a bit cartoony rather than realistic, but that is not bad at all, is just a different style. I think that sometimes we fall in the error of making nature too idilic, in the sense that every time it is sunny, with perfect blue sky and white yummy clouds, white lovely flowers everywhere, vigorous grass and that is not reallistic at all (and it can lead to a more cartoony sense of the scene).... normally where the nature is green and vigorous is where the weather is worse (cast sky, no sun, tons of rain, everything is wet) I'm from Spain, and the nature is not at all like this (everything is dry =( ), but the Sun is always burning our skin and the sky is blue!! But again, this is more a postmortem thing rather than WIP critic, you did an AWESOME job thanks for sharing
I'm late in this post, but whoa! I really love you breakdown and the results! Congratullations Oskar, keep the good work! You inspired me and I'm sure much more people too I would like to say that sometimes your trees seem to have weird shadows and that is probably because of the normals, maybe is a LOD thing too. Do you unified the normals?, are they pointing out from a same spot? Idk whether Speedtree do so automatically. In my eyes, you project reminds me the New Zelda for WiiU trailer footage (which is SUPERCOOOL), I think that it is still a bit cartoony rather than realistic, but that is not bad at all, is just a different style. I think that sometimes we fall in the error of making nature too idilic, in the sense that every time it is sunny, with perfect blue sky and white yummy clouds, white lovely flowers everywhere, vigorous grass and that is not reallistic at all (and it can lead to a more cartoony sense of the scene).... normally where the nature is green and vigorous is where the weather is worse (cast sky, no sun, tons of rain, everything is wet) I'm from Spain, and the nature is not at all like this (everything is dry =( ), but the Sun is always burning our skin and the sky is blue!! But again, this is more a postmortem thing rather than WIP critic, you did an AWESOME job thanks for sharing
Thank a lot n6uj! Yeah it could be that, or that the distance field shadows needs to be tweaked. There are so many things in this scene that can be improved. When I was done with the scene I almost wanted to do the whole project again from scratch since I did so many mistakes along the way and learned so much! Haha thanks! Yeah the forest scene turned out very cartoony especially the colors. Thank you N4uj and sorry for the late response!
Replies
I just believe that colors need to be a bit more vibrant since it's a beautiful day. You could probably boost the yellow on the foliage SSS and make the dirt more reddish perhaps? And bluish shadows could help too.
If you're feeling that it's a bit too flat, perhaps you could add some elements to help guide the eye through it. Right now it just looks like an empty field (albeit a beautiful one) with no much narrative going on. Maybe a path or road going all the way into the mountains? Maybe some tents, some sign of activity?
im trying to learn speedtree over the summer to get some good looking trees, any tips? im finding it hard to get the placement of branch planes to look right.
also did you use speedtree for your grass?
@RashedAlmetrami: Thank you! I corrected the clouds as you suggested.
@Tetranome: Thanks alot!
@Bruno Afonseca: Thanks for taking the time to do a paint over! I made the scene more saturated and cleared up the grass that covered the dirt path. It is a good suggestion to add some props. The scene doesn't really tell a story as it is. Though I will have to consider this scene done with other projects coming up.
@Adelphia & @skodone: You mean that the branch texture does not blend with the trunk texture? The tree was made in Speedtree and since the branch is thinner than the trunk I don't know how to make that blend better. Thanks for pointing it out though!
Finding a good reference is important. Also when you make the leaf texture try to make two with different shapes. Otherwise it will become very obvious that it is a plane. For example the big maple I made have one circular leaf shape which does not look to well.
As before all pictures with breakdown can be found at my website:
http://oskarselin.com/forest.html
Screenshots:
no the branch is okay its the leafy branch texture on the cards.
I did a paintover so you can see what i mean, the parts circled are being cut off by your mesh
One thing I would say; I'm not sure if you need to bend your alpha cards so much. Personally, I find that makes them look wobbly upclose, while doing little for the shape or shading.
I would like to say that sometimes your trees seem to have weird shadows and that is probably because of the normals, maybe is a LOD thing too. Do you unified the normals?, are they pointing out from a same spot? Idk whether Speedtree do so automatically.
In my eyes, you project reminds me the New Zelda for WiiU trailer footage (which is SUPERCOOOL), I think that it is still a bit cartoony rather than realistic, but that is not bad at all, is just a different style. I think that sometimes we fall in the error of making nature too idilic, in the sense that every time it is sunny, with perfect blue sky and white yummy clouds, white lovely flowers everywhere, vigorous grass and that is not reallistic at all (and it can lead to a more cartoony sense of the scene).... normally where the nature is green and vigorous is where the weather is worse (cast sky, no sun, tons of rain, everything is wet) I'm from Spain, and the nature is not at all like this (everything is dry =( ), but the Sun is always burning our skin and the sky is blue!!
But again, this is more a postmortem thing rather than WIP critic, you did an AWESOME job