Monthly Environment Art Challenge - March and April 2018 (53)
greentooth
Welcome all! It's time to kick off the Monthly Environment & Prop Challenge #53!
Incredible work by all - as always special thanks to everyone who participated in the voting process this time.
Remember if you don't finish in the time allotted, just keep plugging away and post when your work is finished. There's always some good progress that falls off the radar - we want to see your work! So keep going and finish those pieces!
Without further ado, here are our options for Challenge 51!
HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:
artist: Dorje Bellbrook
HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:
This month I decided to include both top-voted pieces for this suggestion. The actual voted piece was the second. The first, however, gives an indication of overall style and texture. Feel free to do either model, but, in this instance, I felt they paired very well.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/G01N4
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dq6DJ
HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:
artist: Epic-Soldier
HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:
artist: gotsnake
Incredible work by all - as always special thanks to everyone who participated in the voting process this time.
Remember if you don't finish in the time allotted, just keep plugging away and post when your work is finished. There's always some good progress that falls off the radar - we want to see your work! So keep going and finish those pieces!
Without further ado, here are our options for Challenge 51!
HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:
artist: Dorje Bellbrook
HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:
This month I decided to include both top-voted pieces for this suggestion. The actual voted piece was the second. The first, however, gives an indication of overall style and texture. Feel free to do either model, but, in this instance, I felt they paired very well.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/G01N4
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dq6DJ
HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:
artist: Epic-Soldier
HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:
artist: gotsnake
If you want to change up either concept a bit, as some people wanted, then feel free. Interpret these concepts to your liking.
Please read all the rules before starting.
When you are just starting out making a scene, it can seem complicated or imposing, so take the time to break it down.
Think about how you can re-use assets, re-use textures, break it down as simple as possible and plan it out. A lot of people will break it down in their own way when they start out their challenge. Gather some reference images as well for different parts of the scene, maybe gather some refs and make it your own.
Take your time planning and blocking out, it will set you up for success later on.
Here are some specifics.
- Try to post one critique for every post that you make. This will make for a better learning environment and help us all grow as artists.
- You must use a game engine to present your work. Unreal Engine and CryEngine are very common engines that can be used but feel free to use any alternatives that you want. (Marmoset Toolbag is allowed as well)
- You must try your best and finish as much as you can in the time frame provided.
- Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique. We don't need to have 1000 disjointed threads littering the forums.
- I would strongly encourage you to go and look at other games and see how they make their assets as well as get concept art to give it your own feel, but it must stay very close to the concept, if not super close.
All that matters is that you learn while being able to effectively critique others, as well as accept critiques on your own work. Remember to have fun. Cheers!
Replies
I think I might join too! WOOH
I'm going to attempt both props this time: The hand painted prop will be done in ZBrush for the high res, and I think I'm going to use Modo for the mech since there are a few tools from Pushing Points that I'd love to employ.
@MrBFox, your rear concept is very similar to what I have in mind for the mech should I be able to tackle it.
Actually..... I've already started with the staff in ZBrush, but will take another stab at it because there are some major problems with it. I need to get more familiar with sculpting techniques since I tend to do more hard surface modeling.
Do you did the complete thing in zbrush or do you did a low-poly blockout in Max/Maya first?
Here is my Max blockout I want to use as a base for the work in zbrush (details like the stars are still missing)
As for my own staff, I have only used ZBrush. I do have the star and jingle bell created, though not pictured. It was an interesting process, but I made the star from a Gear3D and the jingle bell was an exercise in Live Booleans. The moon was initially made from a torus.
I created the staff initially by placing zspheres, converting it over to an adaptive mesh, and going from there.
This is the first monthly challenge I've participated and I've been keen on creating a sci-fi environment lately, so I've started working on the hard surface environment. Here is my progress so far.
Here's my update after a day. I have to say that I'm kind of mixed on the results. Considering my irregular use of ZBrush, especially for things like this, I have to say it seems like a bigger challenge than I originally anticipated, though that comes with trying to understand how some features work. My biggest hang ups are with getting things to work like Merge Visible Subtools, Converting Live Booleans into Subtools and using the Curve-based IMMs for the ropes.
No doubt ZBrush can give you some amazing results, but it seems like an acquired art.
As for the curve based IMMs, I think that it's reasonably good for drawing curves for things like belts and bandoleers on characters, but for dealing more with free flowing curves like shoelaces or knots, building the curve in another program like Maya or Modo is a better way to go.
Since I'm a bit pressed for time this weekend I'll probably use Modo for retopo and baking rather than Maya. It's been a long while since I've used Maya, and I'm reasonably well versed in Modo, so I'll working on knocking out the low poly and then take it into Substance Painter. Finishing render will probably be done in Toolbag.
Base Mesh in Max is nearly done (not yet happy with the rope thing at the bottom).
Have to fix this and then up to zBrush
Finished the sculpt and did some texture experiments.
Diffuse Map is: base colors + AO (multiply) + NormalGreenChannel (overlay & modified) + some minor tweaks (and copy pasted moon decals^^).
I think that's a good start and I will work on from this.
I've began working on the staff and I'm still asking me many questions about hand painting. So I decide to post a wip of my version to, I hope, get some feedback, there is really good versions here so I'm feeling small in comparison but I have to start somewhere
model
my progress so far
have some problems with the moon to figure out what looks the best, i think it needs some depth so i think i need to sculpt it
and the bandages need some work..
but overall i like it
Finished the initial proportions and general shape blockout and have started refining.
Progress so far, blockout the shape and fast texture on some part.
@Dethling, I'll start with yours first. You've done a reasonably good job with the sculpt and so far your maps are off to a good start. I think that the wraps are well done in terms of capturing the detail of where the breaks are. I think that if you're able to accentuate this with the wood of the staff and the ropes, I think you'll be set. As it is right now, the bark details are a bit too washed out / faded. As for the little trinkets I think that painting in some specular highlights will help to make them pop a bit more. You're doing well and I think that this will be a good piece in the end.
@pixelheld, You have a good beginning. I don't have much in the way of critique at this stage in the game, though I do think that you're right about going back to refine the sculpting details for the wraps. One thing that I have been learning, though am still a bit far from perfect, is that stylized artwork typically is exaggerated a lot more than going for the subtle details of hyper-real models. I do think that for the wood texture you might want to simplify it and get rid of the grain. It seems to be a bit much. I think what Dethling has would be a good example for how he's approaching his texture details.
@Dieedi, Excellent modeling work so far. I think that you've done a good retopo job and that you're off to an excellent start with the textures, particularly with the wood. You may want to see about playing with contrast to see if you can emphasize the recessed areas further. The Crescent moon, could use some more polygons to help round out the silhouette, though I I don't know if that will seriously mess up your UV map.
Everyone else is doing well and I will come back to share my own work and further crits later (hopefully tonight).
Keep pushing forward, Polycounters!
So far the only maps I've used are Albedo, Normal, and AO.
It seems you have some errors in your bake and that the details aren't transfered correctly (especially around the cloth part, the top rope and the feed.
I would check if you can get a cleaner bake (maybe try to use the substance painter baker). Also the colored version has a very clay feeling to it. I would definitly work on the material definition and also add a little more shadows (and tune down the light in marmorset^^).
And it's cool to see you all working hard on the concepts, the first ones made very good!
@Donny The textures are looking good, I think a little rust would be great on it too.
I Just started this today, using ol' SUB'D methods.
Cutting in the primary shapes and going to secondary later on. Should be easy enough to create everything in the mesh without using floaters, which is what i want to do. This will be great way to further better my workflow Annnnd have fun with the new release of Substance Painter!
I wound up also including metallic and roughness maps. Ditched the AO map for now.
Below is a better image tweaked in Marmoset. This seems to be a lot better IMHO.
And one "clay" wireframe overlay.
Looking great though!
I do agree that the wraps themselves leave something to be desired, though I'm not sure if it's something that should have been addressed early on at the sculpting level. For example, they don't really look like they overlap each other and that was something that I had trouble figuring out until I had spent a day or two away from it. To be honest, I'd say that there are a few things that I botched when sculpting that I just didn't pick up on until someone else had pointed them out, such as the branches needing to be a bit thicker and perhaps have them wrap more tightly and closely to the moon. I think that part of that had to do with smoothing the model, the initial thickness was lost. In any event, it's something to be aware of in future projects.
At this point, I'm considering doing the Hard Surface Prop as that's a bit more my speed. It looks like I'll have plenty of competition on that front as well!
@MrBFox, I look forward to seeing how everything bakes out since I tend to not have as much luck with using floaters. It seems like you have a good breakdown so far with what you need.
I've been having some trouble with deciding how to go about modeling this and have been switching back and forth between Mesh OPs on one model, and Sub-D on the other.
Unfortunately I must be REALLY tired because I just reopened Modo and realized that I had forgotten to save the MeshOps version of the mesh, so what I have is old.
Anyways, here's the subd:
Here's the MeshOps:
There's a lot of bumbling going on with the MeshOps as I had changed from Quadball to Globe (Quadball looked more cubical; the curvature wasn't doing it for me), and most of the subtractions were cleaned up and more in a refined state. It shouldn't be too hard to reconstruct, but there are a few things that I need to try just to get used to a boolean workflow.
anyway, heres the current progress, got the maps exported and the model brought into unity for look-dev.
@slam_nine, MY GOD, that is absolutely gorgeous work! Those textures and material definitions truly make me envious. Everything is very clean, yet not overly sharp. I'd love to know how you went about creating this miniature masterpiece!
Okay, update time: This is within 2 hours and 20 minutes, though I've been kind of dragging behind on this as I'm constantly trying to play with proportions and make tweaks to the MeshOP Booleans. I'll probably just noodle on this little by little throughout the week, but hopefully will have the high res modeling done before the week is out!
Still trying to get some size and placements adjusted. I won't be working on the background just yet until I get this center piece more finalized.
@jewski-bot Thanks! The basic shapes on your hard surface model are looking good. I'll keep my eye out for the updates!