Goblin Escape! - Stylized Mine Environment (Blizzard Student Art Contest)

Enhirement

Hi Polycount!

This is my first post here, thanks for taking the time to read this. I have been working on a goblin mine scene for a few months and would absolutely love any feedback on how to improve this. I am currently in Unreal Engine, using maya + 3d-coat/PS to paint.

Thank you !

Enhirement

Here is a link to my progress over the last few months working on this project, for those interested.
Link

DanielR17

Hi Enhirement! 
The first thing you should do now is work on the lighting. It's possible that your textures are too dark too. There's a lack of ambient lighting / moon. I'll follow your progress on this one. 

Giacomo X

What DanialR17 said...I had to stare at the image for few seconds to figure put what's happening in the picture--right now it doesn't read spatially at all.  If it were me I'd try to light it so there's 1) a clearer definition of 3D form and 2) an obvious separation between foreground and background. 

Enhirement

DanielR17 said:

Hi Enhirement! 
The first thing you should do now is work on the lighting. It's possible that your textures are too dark too. There's a lack of ambient lighting / moon. I'll follow your progress on this one. 

Giacomo X said:

What DanialR17 said...I had to stare at the image for few seconds to figure put what's happening in the picture--right now it doesn't read spatially at all.  If it were me I'd try to light it so there's 1) a clearer definition of 3D form and 2) an obvious separation between foreground and background. 

Okay, I tried messing with the lighting a bit more. Added a spotlight for some moonlight, lowered some intensities and gave the trees some light from the lamp. How is this looking?

Eric Chadwick

Please don't use PNGs.
http://polycount.com/discussion/63361/information-about-polycount-new-member-introductions/p1#make

DanielR17

I'd recommend this two-part article, by Rogelio Olguin and Corey Hill: https://environmentart.wordpress.com/2016/06/13/texturing-values-for-environments-part-1/ / https://environmentart.wordpress.com/2016/06/25/texturing-values-for-environments-part-2/

Maybe it'll help!

Enhirement

Eric Chadwick said:

Please don't use PNGs.
http://polycount.com/discussion/63361/information-about-polycount-new-member-introductions/p1#make

My apologies, I have edited the images to be the correct file format and size.

Enhirement

DanielR17 said:

I'd recommend this two-part article, by Rogelio Olguin and Corey Hill: https://environmentart.wordpress.com/2016/06/13/texturing-values-for-environments-part-1/ / https://environmentart.wordpress.com/2016/06/25/texturing-values-for-environments-part-2/

Maybe it'll help!

Sweet. Thanks for these. I believe I'm going to do another pass over all my textures and be certain they are the right brightness and quality.

gc3d

Hey, I'm new here as well so I hope you don't mind me commenting! I love your concept for this but I think you could push the rock textures at the back a little more as they almost look untextured compared to the grass and the rest of the scene. Maybe something like this?

Enhirement

gc3d said:

Hey, I'm new here as well so I hope you don't mind me commenting! I love your concept for this but I think you could push the rock textures at the back a little more as they almost look untextured compared to the grass and the rest of the scene. Maybe something like this?

Yeah, being completely honest, I didn't really texture them at all. I just did a little color vari and AO bake with some grass. I can try this, but my rocks are really round so I don't know if there is a good way to texture them that well. I tried duplicating and placing them around to break it up.
 
What do you think about this?

gc3d

That definitely breaks up the grey a great deal! Good job!

Enhirement

Here is an update shot before I go on winter break and some concept plans for the next few weeks.

(Swapped color pallet to orange and dark blue)


Concept: Rockets strapped to cart, metal docks mixed with the wood ones. 

Enhirement

WIP Rocket texture.

 

AtticusMars

Composition is really confusing imo, no matter how many times I look at this I think the mine cart is flying toward the portal. If it weren't for the fact that you put the rockets on the cart in the other direction I would have never thought to even consider otherwise, and they aren't very noticeable. Most of the cart isn't very noticeable and the fact that it is so large and coming at the camera makes it a bit confusing where the focal point of the piece is supposed to be.

Enhirement

AtticusMars said:

Composition is really confusing imo, no matter how many times I look at this I think the mine cart is flying toward the portal. If it weren't for the fact that you put the rockets on the cart in the other direction I would have never thought to even consider otherwise, and they aren't very noticeable. Most of the cart isn't very noticeable and the fact that it is so large and coming at the camera makes it a bit confusing where the focal point of the piece is supposed to be.

Hey, I agree. Thank you for the crit. I made the rocket bigger, and put brighter lights / emissives on the cart and darkened the portal / lamp-post. Do you think this makes it less confusing?

Maybe DoF or motion blur would help?

emerald-shine

Hi, Im not an enviroment artist, so theres not much I can offer in terms of critique. I just wanted to say I really like this enviroment. The hand  painted textures mesh really well with fantasy theme. I especially like the rockets. They are simple but effective. looking at the image, my eyes are drawn to the portal. I assume the focal point is the minecart yes? I think if you made the mine cart bigger it might help draw th viewer to it more.

Enhirement

emerald-shine said:

Hi, Im not an enviroment artist, so theres not much I can offer in terms of critique. I just wanted to say I really like this enviroment. The hand  painted textures mesh really well with fantasy theme. I especially like the rockets. They are simple but effective. looking at the image, my eyes are drawn to the portal. I assume the focal point is the minecart yes? I think if you made the mine cart bigger it might help draw th viewer to it more.

Hi there, I've added a few changes. I made the minecart bigger, and I believe the fire emissive draws the eye better. What do you think?

 

Tzur_H

I have to agree with AtticusMars, it does look like the cart is flying towards the mine and not from it.  The addition of the rockets does help but I think you can push it even further by reducing the opacity of the light beam from the headlight, as well as having a longer, curvy trail for the rocket smoke, and have that fade away with a gradient as it gets closer to the mine. 

PolyBrother

I think the camera perspective is the issue, if the problem is still that the cart seems to move towards the portal, and not away.

Try bookmarking some different angles, zooming out more, or panning more to the left, and compare them with snapshots. 

Perhaps it would be more natural if the cart had more negative space around it.

Enhirement

Hey there everyone, I made a few minor changes, and tried a different angle. (Cloud cards not corrected on 2nd shot). Do you think more negative space like this looks better? It's kind of cutting off the right side of the image now, but for the sake of clarity I believe that's alright.

 

Azaraen

I like the top one on your latest work.

I think at the moment, your metal on the minecart is the thing that sticks out the most to me. It is not very WoW styled metal.

Some examples:
http://jordtron5000-blog.tumblr.com/image/54097576796
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/wqmlO
https://youtu.be/tQc5KyijzrY?t=1660  (This a great video to watch entirely, but they had a section where they showed the iron horde texture style)

I suggest looking at the metal in WoW, and try to make your cart metal look more like it. And maybe add some of that typical sword cuts into the metal like WoW does.

Enhirement

Evolvyn said:

I like the top one on your latest work.

I think at the moment, your metal on the minecart is the thing that sticks out the most to me. It is not very WoW styled metal.

Some examples:
http://jordtron5000-blog.tumblr.com/image/54097576796
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/wqmlO
https://youtu.be/tQc5KyijzrY?t=1660  (This a great video to watch entirely, but they had a section where they showed the iron horde texture style)

I suggest looking at the metal in WoW, and try to make your cart metal look more like it. And maybe add some of that typical sword cuts into the metal like WoW does.

Thank you for these. I actually had a metal mask on the cart. Here is what it looks like without the metal map. Do you think it still looks non-wow like?

Enhirement

Hello everyone! Here is an update to my scene. I adjusted some textures to models.

Enhirement

Update! Lighting has been attached to a skydome and such. Other fixes to cloud cards, and the portal brightness. You might notice that the scene is lighter, and you can actually see the background area now.

mcgillchris

Looking good! Have you tried throwing in a very subtle fog?

Enhirement

mcgillchris said:

Looking good! Have you tried throwing in a very subtle fog?

Thank you, I threw in an exponential height fog. Tell me what you think! (Also, added a rim light for trees, and changed the minecart light.)

 

Enhirement

Added depth to the scene by making the portal transparent, showing props and a cave behind it. Also cleaned up in the top area with some smoothing edges on the rocks to make it less harsh to the eye.  Please let me hear your thoughts.

Enhirement

Hey guys. I've updated my scene to look more pleasing to the eye in a lot of areas. At the moment I'm leaning towards more story elements. Trying to play with the placement of dynamite, and finding some reference for gnomeish assets.

Enhirement

Update to my scene!

X-One

Generally, I think the assets look pretty good. That said, I think the sky and cliff face are too close in value, hue, and detail frequency. It's making it a little bit more difficult than it should be to read the image. I would consider adding some earthtones into the cliff face, or adjusting the sky in some way.

Enhirement

X-One said:

Generally, I think the assets look pretty good. That said, I think the sky and cliff face are too close in value, hue, and detail frequency. It's making it a little bit more difficult than it should be to read the image. I would consider adding some earthtones into the cliff face, or adjusting the sky in some way.

Added a bit of green instead of blueish tint. How does this feel?

X-One

Sorry, I may have been unclear. I wasn't talking about the canopy. This is more along the lines I was thinking. I may have gone a little overboard to illustrate my point, but I hope you understand now.

Enhirement

X-One said:

Sorry, I may have been unclear. I wasn't talking about the canopy. This is more along the lines I was thinking. I may have gone a little overboard to illustrate my point, but I hope you understand now.

No I understand, the rocks were hue shifted to green, but they weren't as clear. The canopy was just changed too. :P

Enhirement

Update! Rocks removed for clarity. Metal assets and bolts added. Ambient Occlusion added.

Enhirement

Finishing touches!

 

Enhirement

Update Shot - Portal Removed, Dynamic Lighting added, Minor changes to lit areas and props.

Enhirement

Hey everyone! Calling this piece done for now. Thank you all for the feedback.

If you would like to view my full post on ArtStation, here is a link.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qBomD