Medieval Town

z0mbie

Hi guys, I've been working on some medieval inspired assets with the intention of creating a level for a video game. This isn't part of an actual project and it's primarily to improve my portfolio.  Any comments and/or critiques are more than welcome!



The other model I've been working on is a watermill:

I've also roughed out a draft of a level design where these assets will be placed as so:

I've read around and I know that there is no specific limit for the polygon count, so I'm not concerning myself too much with it. I am trying to be as conservative as I can with the polygon count of each asset so that if I decide to sell them or use them in the future, I shouldn't need to tweak them too much (in theory). If this were a real project, it would be for desktop/console.

z0mbie

This evening's efforts. Added materials to help the layout read a bit better and added a middle "market square". Not sure if it'll stay like that or be open plan. I'll make more conscious decisions when I get rid of more (or all) of the box place holders. 

AnArtAccount

Looks nice! Looking forward to the rest of it

z0mbie

Thank you!

Larry

I do not know your background, but i kinda guess you took a big project to make for a portfolio. Such projects can take up months if not years to complete,so good luck with finishing it.What i recomend is, you'd better start making a good house as a portfolio piece, finish that completely, then go for another one.Don't aim for such big projects but rather aim for good props, but keeping your whole scene in the back of your mind.I would also say you could make modular parts to reuse, and build the whole scene out of 10-20 objects/props.

On the technical side...
Currently all your objects seem to have 90degree corners, which is not the best choice. When people say don't worry about polycount, that means you could bevel those edges to catch the lighting better. There are some weird over-stretched triangles in your watermill balcony which might cause artifacts or bad texturing. You don't need to make the whole balcony 1 object, you can create 1 railing, and 1 railing column, and re-use them throughout your whole scene.That is the idea of "modularity". Rather than having 1000 objects to work on, you make 20 main objects and you copy paste them everywhere.

Having said the above, i really like your watermill architecture and detailing, i would say for now finish that piece completely, show it here and we can post our thoughts. I apologise if by any chance my critique was demotivating, it's good when someone takes a bigger project to challenge themselves and i believe you could achieve it in alot of time, but try taking one step at a time!

z0mbie

Thank you @Larry. Funnily enough I've been looking a lot into modular environments and am aiming to apply that thought process to this project. 

I've already unwrapped and textured one of the houses (http://z0mbie.artstation.com) although I have since re-modelled it to include an interior. I intend to do what you have described but I wanted to first get an understanding of what I wanted the final piece to look like rather than go through the modelling, unwrapping and texturing phases of each asset. The screenshot below is basically the audition phase for the assets that will go on through to the finished piece, if that makes sense.
Regarding the bevel for the corners, I can understand that for curved objects that aren't completely square, but would that apply to houses that typically have those 90 degree angles?

Many thanks for your feedback!

z0mbie

To add to my last question, I've created one of the houses as a modular house. Regarding the technical aspect to your critique, I can't have the edges be smoothed because then the assets wouldn't line up properly:

So should I create additional "tiles" to act as end pieces and chamfer the edges of those? Or am I misunderstanding what you meant?

Thank you!

Larry

For houses its a bit different. You can either have a modular wall corner, or a column hiding the hard edge. .The way you are currently making this, if you also want to model the interior, will give you some problems. If its just exterior, it can be okay but a rather bad quality for a game of this generation. Unless you go for a specific style that makes it acceptable. 

Nonetheless I encourage you to continue the way you do at the moment, but take some time and search about "hard edges" and what happens withthem and the lighting.

Larry

Oh and by the way, the windows are often placed on walls without window holes! For alot of reasons. If your wall has a window hole, the viewer will be able to see the interior and they can see that your walls have no thickness and that your house is empty. You will have to deal with a lot less if you just place a window over a closed wall and just paint the glass and some emissive light on it.

z0mbie

Thank you for your feedback, @Larry. I've done a bit more research regarding modular environments and this is a result of that.

If I can get this process right, I can see this being much quicker in achieving what I want so I definitely want to head in this direction. Of course any and all feedback/critiques are welcome and have been invaluable so far.

Thank you!

Larry

ok i gave a reply but then scrapped it, and here i go again

The way you are building this can work.
One thing you need to be aware of when importing very thin meshes in a game engine, is that the light will start bleeding on the inside. But the way you are making this, it might be okay. The light will bleed on the inside from your exterior wall meshes, but it will not bleed on the interior wall meshes. But you need to close your interior space completely. I think this will complicate your mesh a little bit, especially for a simple parallel house. Sometimes and i think in this case as well, it is better to build the exterior in 1 object, and keep the interior modular, and design it as you like with your modular pieces.

The way you can approach this without having issues in a game engine, is by lets say you make the house 6x3 meters, and all your interior modular wall pieces can be 1meter in length, and you decorate/rearrange the interior. I have been trying to make my first "correct" interior modular scene as well, after many failed attampts :P 

http://polycount.com/discussion/192944/wip-victorian-steampunk-environment#latest

The whole room itself is 1 object, and on the inside i have been making columns and walls to place (picture on the right side)

You can make it simpler than that of course, but i strongly suggest you keep the outer part as a single mesh to avoid lighting issues.

z0mbie

Ah I see, that makes sense, thanks!

Also your work is incredible!