Monkey camp

trth

Edit: Finished version:
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See bottom for textures
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I'm trying to make a small scene for which I only have this very loose sketch:


The render I have in mind is a bit catoony, not very realistic, similar to this other scene I made:
https://sketchfab.com/models/dbcab14eef1f4d07ae0b8546cbdfb1ab
 
It's hard for me to divide this into concrete steps, I don't really know where to start but I've been advised by a pro to start making rocky shapes, which I did, and tried assembling them. This is what I came up with so far:

But I realize it's not really like the concept, and I'm not sure if it's going anywhere.
Do you think this block mesh is good enough to continue adding details and textures? Or do you think I should start over? Any other advice ?

Tetranome

I think the rock forms on the 3d model are much more interesting than the very rounded concept. The little wood overhang is a nice touch that I would get into your model though!

trth

Thanks Tetranome, I restarted from scratch and made this sculpt. I'm not sure about the scale of details, don't really know what I'm doing.


I baked AO and cavity from xNormal with the idea of using them as a base for hand painting. What do you think about the scale? Do you think I need more or less detail in the sculpt? I'm afraid the more detail I add in the sculpt the harder it will be to hand paint but I'm not sure.

trth

I made two wood planks textures, but I just realized I wouldn't be able to use them directly. I'd like separate planks so I think I'll have to take their thickness into account.

trth

I think I finally got how to do the planks. What do you think about the ropes?

trth

Working on a little monkey to put in my scene

trth

I've now spent soooo much time on this fur texture, I'll stop there, I start seeing fur when I close my eyes. It took me maybe 6 iterations to get there, I've never tried to paint fur before. I'm attaching the texture, even though it's quite messy. For the face, I decided to mirrors the UVs midway, hence the weird incomplete face.
Tell me what you guys think.





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trth

Hey Evan,
Thanks for this great comment, I think you're very right. Apart from this first concept I don't really know where this is going. I'm at a level where I don't fully control what I do, so even when I reach a cool result, usually it's not what I originally setup to do. Also this is quite ambitious for my level so I'm learning a lot as I go, and there is sometimes a huge difference in quality between when I start and finish an element.

So yes, what I have so far is the planks, a monkey and the rocks. I think the rocks sculpt I posted is not really representative of the level of detail I have in mind. In the end I was more going for hand painted diffuse-only cartoonish style, more like the monkey is.
Right now I wanted to go back to the rocks a little bit to see what kind of texture I could give them.
My dilemma is between doing everything in the texture directly in 2D (like I did with the monkey, with the exception of a very light AO overlay), or sculpt details, bake them and use that as a base for a diffuse texture.

About the monkey being blobby, do you think it's a problem? In some way I prefer its style to the rocks, not sure why. I've added a Sketchfab upload of it.

Thanks again for the critique

ashraful mobin

the texture on the monkey is awesome.

trth

@ashraful thanks
@Evan: after agreeing with you, I completely failed to take your advice into account, and started texturing the rocks by projecting bits of a real photo in Blender. It's too realistic for the style, but I'm wondering if maybe I can use it as a base for a more stylized rendering later? I just don't really know how to start texturing these rocks, and a blank AO is a bit intimidating.
This was more of an exercise, do you think I should start again with a more stylized texture as a base? I don't think I can use a tiling one in this case, so I'll have to be a manual process, I think?

trth

Ok, haven't given up on this yet :-) Here is a second attempt at a reference sketch. I'm thinking I can maybe make some modular rock layers and assemble them, at least as a starting point? And I'll try to keep the style in accord with the character.


I've also gathered some reference pictures for the rocks, but I don't know yet how I'm going to translate that into 3D. I guess I could spend some time painting in 2D trying to come up with a style that fits, but I'll be reaching the limits of my 2D rendering skills quite early.

trth

Mega reboot, probably more than the 10th version!
I think I finally found a proper style for the rocks. I restarted without any sculpting, here is what I've got. I managed to reuse some of the rocks done early. The overhang will be replaced with the planks once I'm happy with the layout. Two quick renders, one just with the light to get the mood.

I would have liked a small puddle next to the tree, but I'm not sure how to do it and with only diffuse I don't know if water will render well.

 

trth

Calling it done. I've spent a lot of time and made many mistakes, but at least I learned a lot:

- Should have made up my mind earlier about the style. Still not very consistent
- Tried different techniques for the two monkeys, and the styles don't match. Oh well
- When doing hand-painted details, it's better to not have too much detail in the geometry (eg cracks) before painting, better add them when you have a better idea of what you're doing.
- Too much detail on the characters for the scale, although it was fun to make
- Because the geometry of the rocks is very simple, baking a realistic lighting didn't work, it was conflicting with the hand-painted details
- Better have good references and an idea where you're going before you start, at least at my level
- etc
But thanks for the help everyone, I appreciate that you take the time to help beginners even when there are so many pros here doing super inspiring stuff :-)

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Final textures used on Sketchfab: