handpainted medieval village - shadow theatre

RainbowRat

This is a project I´ve been working on in 3d class last semester. I finally wanted to practice handpainted textures on low poly models because I really adore their look (so many awesome projects here on Polycount) and wanted to be able to create interesting, seamless textures myself. I haven´t received any feedback from my professors and thus don´t know what went good and what bad.

Do you like the concept overall?
Do you have any tips on the lighting? To make it more atmospheric or interesting? ( I think I went pretty dark in some areas..)

I was pretty limited in time and decided to copy paste the same house and make several assets to break the repetitive look. Due to time limitation I also wasn´t able to model the critters that cast the shadows, so I tested something sneaky...











The big revelation



Simple alpha map with a black shilouette and a spotlight.



As for the edges of the roof, I guess I should have just copy pasted the tiles all over. But is there a poly-count-friendlier way? Since it was just a render in the end, does that even matter?



The last texture actually didn´t make it, the "fake 3d effect" didn´t work out.



All scenes took place at the same time which didn´t really add much to the render time, but I guess that should be avoided when working with AO, higher res models etc.?


I´m really curious to hear your opinions/critique since this is my fist scene and first real 3d project. I decided to go into a more character oriented direction though, but I really want to know my mistakes on this one and how I can avoid them!

higher res of the images http://www.rainbowrat.com/projects/6312086

allmighty_thunder

I really like the look of this, have you considered having the shadows animate?

RainbowRat

allmighty_thunder said:

I really like the look of this, have you considered having the shadows animate?

Hehe no I didn´t, but it´s a cool idea! Since I want to dig into characters and thus rigging and animating, maybe that could be among my next goals! : D

SylveriaDreams

Looking at your textures - the values need some work. The shingles and brick do not have enough contrast and the wood planks are too dark. It is good practice to look at your work in black and white to make sure your values are in check.



I quickly adjusted the levels and got this:


As you can see - the texture is already more clear versus the original above it. 

Another tip would be add more color variations in your textures. Instead of just blue for instance on the roof shingles- maybe add some green mold or some brown to show where the blue paint has chipped off. 

You have a good start here. Just keep at it and you will improve.  

RainbowRat

Argh yes of course, why didn´t i see this! shingles really needed some more contrast. I revamped them a little, will do the bricks next

mcgillchris

Awesome hand painting! Do the walls have any normal maps on them?

RainbowRat

mcgillchris said:

Awesome hand painting! Do the walls have any normal maps on them?

I tried creating normal maps for the tiles but i looked really bad.. I used crazy bump to generate them but I´m not sure if I was simply too stupid or if normal maps simply didn´t work well with those textures. Anyway, no normal maps here

RainbowRat

guess i´ll rather open a sketchbook for future improvements on this, don´t wanna spam the 3d thread with 2d texture edits : P
anyway thanks guys!!