[UE4] Middle Eastern Town Environment

artizan

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/middle-eastern-town
Hello, this is my first environment attempt with all assets created by me. There was no single inspiration for me for this project, I looked at countless references from Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan villages and architecture while creating this project. There are six house variations, one mosque and one minaret model, and many many other smaller models. Also this project is my first experience with Unreal Engine 4. C&C welcome.

artizan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbmnNdWYWwY 
HighresScreenshot00008.png

diyipk

good!

diyipk

1

Finnn

Reminds me alot of the Sassanid Towns of Mount and Blade Warband. 
Looks great. You could work on your lighting though :] For example you could increase the indirect lighting intensity. Also does your scene need Ambient Occlusion. This will help your assets to blend in with your environment. 

Shirk

Like Finnn said, your scene needs some AO to help separate surfaces better. Combing both AO and DFAO would be a very good idea for this scene. 

artizan

thanks for the suggestion guys.

PeterK

Here's some real middle eastern town for you, kinda getting sick of seeing these damn mud huts and people claiming it's middle eastern towns. Sure, they exist, but you see so many representations of middle eastern towns like this that people seem to think it's all that exists, or is somehow the majority.

NikhilR

PeterK said:

Here's some real middle eastern town for you, kinda getting sick of seeing these damn mud huts and people claiming it's middle eastern towns. Sure, they exist, but you see so many representations of middle eastern towns like this that people seem to think it's all that exists, or is somehow the majority.

Those aren't middle eastern towns, those are middle eastern cities.

PeterK

Middle eastern "towns" don't look like these mud huts either.

BramScrum

PeterK

read what you just wrote.  "medieval European city", You didn't just call it a "European town". Put "European town" into google, and do the same thing for "middle eastern town". For the European one you see idyllic settings PICTURED, for the middle eastern one, you see hundreds of RENDERS of the same mud hut BS from artists.  Do you understand the implication of that?

And give me a break with the Triggered stuff, that's just a lame word thrown out by people looking to stifle meaningful discussion by making the other person seem unreasonable.

Nothing changes perception until someone speaks up. Nobody says anything so artists keep making mud huts and labeling them in a way that makes you think that's the way it is over there, all the while doing exactly what you did and mentally segregating those same types of European buildings with a time appropriate descriptor like "medieval"; you probably don't even notice you're doing it, and I've been watching this same thread for 16 years.

You think middle east, you think mud-hut, and it's partly because of this repeated careless representation by artists, over and over for years on end.

You're the one with the problem outlook , not me for pointing it out and asking you to consider being better.

Edit: You could try "Ancient Middle Eastern Buildings" if you must. And as a side, note, nobody over there thinks of themselves as the "Middle of the East"; the majority of humanity does live in ASIA after all.

Carabiner

I agree with @PeterK 's points here. I think when we reduce the Middle East to "mud huts" it cheapens really everything about the environment, which is something we should be very aware of as environment artists. There's incredibly unique architecture, design, and urban/natural interactions happening in the Middle East (and other non-Western places) that are more interesting to me than simply "mud huts".

I think part of this has to do with the OP's method of collecting reference, in that they "looked at countless references from Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan villages and architecture". Personally, I like to be more specific when I'm creating a representation of a real-life place. If you incorporate references from such a wide variety of places, it'll feel inauthentic. I'd approach searching for reference with a more targeted direction, both in terms of location and theme (for example, something like "Lebanese town with an agricultural focus").

Peter's earlier post definitely featured more urban environments than I think the OP was going for. Here's album of photos that may be helpful, which I took while in various parts of Turkey -- specifically featuring architectural or urban/natural interactions that I found interesting:

https://imgur.com/gallery/dspmIAW

PeterK

Carabiner fantastic ref, thank you!

artizan

I really don't understand the attack on this one, this project was created a year ago, I, myself, being from Turkey, live in the middle east, and there is no place in Turkey that looks similar to what I have created since there is no desert here, but I created this pack to sell as a generic middle eastern environment and wanted it to be suit for games in a more wide spectrum, be it a ww2 north african setting, an ancient babylonian setting, a crusade era medieval setting, more modern era setting that can be influenced by wars in syria, yemen, iraq, iran, afghanistan, etc.

Joopson

Regardless of the piece posted in this thread, it's a good discussion to have.

Many people look toward other 3D art as their inspiration and reference. Game art can be very self referential, which I think leads to some boring design choices, and boils down whole cultures into cliches and tropes. Which is terrible, especially for those on the receiving end.

It's important as artists, if we wish to move forward as individuals and as a field, to look at the actual real world for reference. To study architecture, building techniques, natural processes like erosion, patterns of lichen growth on stone, where moss and mildew grow, where dust gathers, how furniture is built, how things wear down over time. To look at actual cultures, to look at actual places. Recreate real things and places as closely as we can.

Because the more we observe, the better our art will turn out. You have to know how things work if you want to build things that could work. This is true whether you want to make medieval stuff, scifi stuff, fantasy stuff. Anything you can make will be improved by understanding the world more.

If I have to look at another medieval chair with no joinery, or a wooden cupboard carved out of one piece of wood, I'll die.

Ashervisalis

@artizan I'm with you here. Seems like people are upset just because you didn't note the time period of your town, and blowing it a little out of proportion. Don't think too much of it.

Your work kind of reminds me of the desert map from Battlefield One. One thing which sticks out to me is the over use of the same material for the outside of the walls. It gets a little repetitive and feels like each building isn't unique enough.

PeterK

@Ashervisalis Let me go ahead and disagree with you there. It's not just about noting the time period. It's about this implicit bias regarding middle eastern civilizations that this thread just re-enforces. Google indexes these sites, and when people search "middle eastern town", you get a vast array of mud-huts, which are downright unrepresentative.

Noting the time period in the thread title is just 1 meaningful step to indexing things properly and shifting attitudes. Or are you of the mind that only things that pertain to you or your people are important and should be fought for? Nobody else is allowed to have an opinion about their background and how it should be represented without being dismissed as trivial  like your post just did?

Having been born over there, I see this as a problem. You're listed as being from Vancouver, imagine if every time someone searched for Vancouver all they got was pictures of Moose and Maple syrup. Or Are you of the mind that only stereotypes that apply to you personally are important and should be corrected ?

@artizan : it's not an attack. It's a discussion. I am not "offended", not "Mad", none of that. I think it's important to read my comments with a normal "tone", and not infer any hostile intent. I've always said that if people want something represented better, they need to speak up, and also to represent it the way they think is meaningful in their own works. I try to include some Persian influence in some of my work, because I think it's important to at least have the discussion.

I've lived in turkey for years, and people there say it's Europe one day, and middle east the next, So I dunno how to discuss that in a meaningful way with you. I just think it's important to have a look at what we do when it comes to representing something like this, that's it.

I offer no hate, or disrespect to anyone on this thread.

Alex_J

I don't think the ancient village stereotype is negative in anyway. I've spent some time in the middle east, and part of the charm is how so much of ancient cultures has survived. Until the 50's, Afghanistan was a popular tourist destination because of it's old world charm. That's why europe is a popular place to visit too -- it's got a lot of the old world charm as well. 

I think everybody but real low-info backwoods rednecks know that much of the middle east is a thriving metropolis. But who cares about cities? They all look the same. There is a lot of mystery and beauty in the rural and ancient middle eastern architecture. It's cool. 

PeterK

@BIGTIMEMASTER I agree with you, calling them ancient is a perfectly fine way to proceed. The topics/threads I'm talking about never call these places "ancient", they always just offer up the art as "here's a middle east town". Thing is that even the low information voters google things like "middle east town" out of curiosity if nothing else, and if all they ever see is mud-hut renders, and not images of the actual places, they continue in their bias and often time negative thinking.

Alex_J

Yeah, but they are morons anyway. What do you care? 

Ashervisalis

@PeterK I can see what you're getting at, but I still feel you're overreacting. If someone were to create art with the title "North American Town", and it looked like a gold rush era, far north town with run down shacks and the like, I wouldn't start posting in that thread about how sick I was of seeing art representing Canada that way. Artizan, who is actually from that area of the world, is very obviously trying to create a representation of non-modern architecture, and frankly, you've come into this thread in an abrasive way. It's great you're willing to stand up for what you believe in, but using phrases like, "getting sick of seeing these damn mud huts", "the same mud hut BS from artists", "repeated careless representation by artists" is definitely overreacting and the phrasing is insulting to the artist. How you are wording your 'non-hostile discussion' does come across as hostile, regardless of whether you believe he should be reading it in a 'normal tone' or not.

PeterK

@Ashervisalis I'm from that part of the world, So this isn't some example of an outsider getting worked up over something they have no real stake in.

And if this was the first , or 10th thread I'd seen like this, you would not see abrasive words from me. Being that this same kind of thing has been posted to the point where search engines are saturated with renders of mud-huts as the norm, yea I think it's a problem.

Run the Google searches yourself mate. Put in "middle eastern town" and you're awash in renders of mud-huts. Put in "North American Town", and you still get actual pictures as the majority. This is the key difference here, all "western" civilizations are ACTUALLY represented, where as we get a caricature of Arabic/Persian/Turkic civilizations.  Hard words I used aside, When the caricature outweighs the reality of a place/culture, haven't we perhaps tilted the balance in a nonconstructive way?

Ashervisalis

@PeterK Repeated exposure to artists creating non-modern architectural work should not condone you to be insulting to the next artist who does this. When I tell the artist to not think too much of your critique, its because I don't want him thinking of his art under your label of 'mud hut bullshit'. Imagine someone else steamrolled your artwork with a barrage of insults.

Secondly, the ideology that artists should be restricted on what they create based on the number of similar creations in the past is preposterous. If Google Images is only showing medieval architecture when you search 'middle eastern town', that sounds like an issue with Google, not an artist creating work representing medieval middle eastern towns. Maybe in the future, suggest altering the thread/artwork's title in a patient and polite way?

PeterK

@Ashervisalis My first post on Q2pmp (polycount's forerunner) was met with the founder of this site calling my work utter dogshit. Later on, I was also treated to a critique by Paul steed (or id fame) calling my work garbage. May he rest in peace.  So, I frankly find the current crop of "don't even nudge my feelings in the wrong direction" type criticism somewhat lamentable.  So, to tie what I said about a topic to the artists specific work (which is "okay"), is a stretch.

"Secondly, the ideology that artists should be restricted on what they create based on the number of similar creations in the past is preposterous."  this is putting words in my mouth and setting up a straw-man argument;  outright sidestepping everything I said above. Stay on topic and quit moving the goal post to something you can argue against.

"that sounds like an issue with Google"  is the preposterous bit, it's an automated indexing algorithm which uses threads like this to populate it's content and search results; which is why you see all the hut RENERS. The more mud-hut images tied with text like "middle east blah blah" you see on the broader net, the more Google will hone in on that as the representation. Don't be ridiculous.

Argue my points, not my tone. Arguing tone is way down there on the list of valid discussion points. So far you tried to move the goalpost, put words in my mouth, set up a straw man, and then argued tone. All we're missing is ad-hominem for this to truly go off the rails.

The more threads like this, the more google shows this type of image in it's search results, and considering most of the world uses google to search things, this is what they see, middle east as mud-hut backwaters, and people should do better.

Alex_J

Peter makes valid points, but I'm not sure how much of a real change you will make by berating some random artist (not meant to be derogatory towards OP, just big perspective) who is just trying to make some cool art that is derivative of other things they've seen and liked. 

I'd look for ways to be more influential, and in a positive way. Nobody wants somebody telling them they are being a bad guy when they had zero ill-intentions. It's not that hurting peoples feelings is the greatest sin -- it's just that if you act offensively it is natural for them to act defensively. So you lose that constructive dialogue you really need to actually change a persons perspective.

Instead, look at Disneys approach to bringing more diversity and inclusiveness into the public eye. Maybe Peter can work on turning around stereotypes by bringing something new to the scene, like really cool environments of modern, high tech middle eastern cities. Only so much one person can do, but doesn't mean you shoulnd't try. I can tell you -- me personally -- I eat up anything new like a starving dog. I never gave a damn about any of Disneys old stuff, but as an adult I really enjoy their new movies. Simply because its new stories we haven't seen. I've never seen stories about the bold sailors who discovered hawaii before. Or knew anything about Mexicos "day of the dead." By telling very simple and relatable stories, but setting thtem in these unfamiliar (to the western audience) environments, its like, entertainment perfection.


Back on topic, I feel a major thing lackign from the OP's enviro is more noise and stuff on the ground. It's just like one flat material. 

PeterK

@BIGTIMEMASTER You're right; I'll do more art about it.