Monthly Noob Challenge January 2016 (36)
polycounter lvl 9
Hello everyone and welcome to the Monthly Noob Challenge for the month of November.
Hello everyone. I am the new host of the challenge, and I'm glad for the opportunity that Wulf passed to me. I hope I won't disappoint you for the coming months !
This month and the next to come will include environment(exterior and interior) and prop. It's all up to you which you choose to do.
Again I'd like to thanks to those who helped choosing the proper concepts for this challenge, and I hope you enjoy yourselves making them.
Join our Skype group if you want! Add me on Skype and I will add you to the group.
Me: oli-graphics
You don't have to join the Skype if you don't want to, and you don't need to ask to participate in the challenge, just start working and post your progress in this thread!
Artist: unknown
Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artist/nja3d
Artist: https://www.behance.net/GiovanniMaisto
Feel free to approach either of the concepts however you like but I'd recommend making it as modular as possible to save time and keep things optimized. It's really up to you, and as long as you are learning, it doesn't matter right?
Also if you want to change up either concept a bit, as some people wanted, then feel free. Interpret these concepts to your liking.
There are some things that I would like to point out to for newcomers.
If you only want to do a few props as best you can, then feel free to go ahead and do it. This way you can gradually work on building up to a full scene before diving head-first into the whole ordeal.
Please read all the rules before starting.
When you are just starting out making a scene, it can seem complicated or imposing, so take the time to break it down.
Think about how you can re-use assets, re-use textures, break it down as simple as possible and plan it out. A lot of people will break it down in their own way when they start out their challenge. Gather some reference images as well for different parts of the scene, maybe gather some refs and make it your own.
Take your time planning and blocking out, it will set you up for success later on.
Here are some specifics.
- Try to post one critique for every post that you make. This will make for a better learning environment and help us all grow as artists.
- You must use a game engine to present your work. Unreal Engine and CryEngine are very common engines that can be used, but feel free to use any alternatives that you want.
- You must try your best and finish as much as you can in the time frame provided.
- Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique. We don't need to have 1000 disjointed threads littering the forums.
- I would strongly encourage you to go and look at other games and see how they make their assets as well as get concept art to give it your own feel, but it must stay very close to the concept, if not super close.
All that matters is that you learn, while being able to effectively critique others, as well as accept critiques on your own work. Remember to have fun. Cheers!
Replies
These are always good because you have limited time and you would be surprised how good your work could end up being. Just give it a try, it can't hurt.
@Markovnikov Try not to limit yourself, because now and then you will have to face things you never see coming. Never question your ability, cos you don't know what you don't know. So, why don't you think outside the box and just start something, it won't hurt at all, you don't need to finish it. You never know till you try it
And remember, every artist was once an amateur.
About the most I could do is produce a half-finished low-poly model and watch you all patronisingly pretend to fawn over it.
I am as noobish as it gets, but I will try my hand on the kitchen Scene. Don´t expect anything great - but the relativly simple shapes and flat colors give me the impression that I might be handle some of those, learn something about Mapping and Texturing on the way, and have some fun while doing it.
Maybe I won´t get far - but as a legendary Butler said two days ago: "I´ll do my very best!"
Have fun all of you - I am looking forward to see what magic you´ll be working!
No seriously man, look at it. Its made up of boxes and many simple shapes. You don't need to texture it, just make the finished high poly, piece by piece.
@mrgesy And cloth wings. I.e. the bane of many an artist's existance.
You can only learn by trying something new, so I decided to take on the exterior (Environment) challenge.
Trying to get over perfecting proportions and styles before I hit the texturing, and just nonchalantly continue with this.I've got a few ideas on how I could work around it. I don't like the idea of downloading premade stuff. Where's the fun/challenge in that
1 for the archetectural features.
1 for the floor (512?)
1 for the pots, jars and crockery.
1 for the larger wooden features.
1 for the smaller wooden features.
1 for set dressing and soft objects.
1 for the cooker/metal pots,pans.
i planned it out like this.....
does is seem like overkill?
I'm new here, and pretty much new to making game assets as a whole. Here's a WIP, and one question!
Does this rule out Marmoset Toolbag, as it's not a game engine strictly speaking, or would it be an acceptable option? Please excuse my ignorance as I'm a total noob at this game stuff.
Here's where I'm at so far:
Cheers, and happy new year!
@Zolizzo as far as I know marmoset is supposed to be an engine, to preview your model, so yes, that's acceptable as well. I think that rule shouldn't be there at all. It'd be better if the rule was to use any kind of render engine or real time engine instead of just that mentioned there. In this case, you can use whatever you want to present your work
First lighting pass is...well lighting takes me the longest for a reason
I either end up with harsh shadows or washed out shadows. *sigh*
Are you using Unreal Engine?
This might help:
- Add a skylight / or increase the intensity. Or Add a Ambient cubemap.
- Increase the lightmap resolution of the assets.
- Increase the bounces in World settings > bounces to something like 50-100
- Lower the level scale in World settings. (Maybe optional)
- Are you using a postprocess volume? (Color correct, crush shadows, global illumination, Ambient cubemap)
- You van also Increase the GI intensity in details panel of the directional light.
Good luck!
@rapscallion are you not worried about it borking UVs etc?
Made some prgoress wit hthe prop. Worried I might have borked the proportions a bit. Gonna take a break and figure out how the heck the wing construction works before moving on to all the rivets. I'm also unsure as to whether or not I should go for the high/low poly hand-painted combo or brush up on my cycles rendering for this little guy.
I'd offer critique, but you're all way ahead of me on the curve so anythign I say will just be obvious.
I see most of you are blocking the scene out in max. Once you guys complete the blockout stage. Do you export the individual blockout pieces to create separate files for each piece that you model and detail individually?
or do you have like a "master scene" in max which you build up and detail all your props together in one scene?
I'd appreciate it if someone could help me understand better the workflow between managing a scene between max and unreal.
And I apologize if I'm asking a very stupid question. :P
It exports all individual assets on the origin (0,0,0). And it takes the position, rotation, scale and scene name of each selected object and you can paste that in Unreal.
So I do most of the assembly of the assets in 3Ds max. Because I prefer the snapping options there. Using this plugin I can still use instances in Unreal.
Just got to detailing today, will continue tomorrow. Already learned a bunch about working between Maya and ZBrush in a tidy manner.
@artrynk - really liking your block, looks like you've got the ratios down pretty good!
@markovnikov - Come on dude, chin up! You're doing far better than I'd expect seeing how you talk about yourself! you still have loads of time too
Here's what I got so far, not looking forward to UV unwrapping all this