Monthly Environment Art Challenge - September & October 2018 (56)
greentooth
Welcome, all! It's already time for the Monthly Environment & Prop Challenge #56!
HUGE SHOUT OUT TO @alytlebird AND @Urzaz for their help finding these excellent concepts this month.
Apologies as I got swamped moving this month and didn't follow up with the Voting Thread. I'll get us back on track for Nov-Dec challenge so everyone has a chance to cast their vote on the concepts
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 56!
artist: https://www.artstation.com/mb14
HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:
artist: https://artstation.com/pablonotpicasso
This month we have something a little different for our handpainted prop category - Choose your own!
I felt this scene went well with last months prop, and thought folks might like to get creative incorporating their work, or selecting some of the scene's props to create mini-dioramas. We'll give this a shot this month and see how it works out
artist: https://www.artstation.com/erinros
HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:
artist: https://www.artstation.com/jroid
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.
HUGE SHOUT OUT TO @alytlebird AND @Urzaz for their help finding these excellent concepts this month.
Apologies as I got swamped moving this month and didn't follow up with the Voting Thread. I'll get us back on track for Nov-Dec challenge so everyone has a chance to cast their vote on the concepts
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 56!
- ENVIRONMENTS -
HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:artist: https://www.artstation.com/mb14
HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:
artist: https://artstation.com/pablonotpicasso
- PROPS -
HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:This month we have something a little different for our handpainted prop category - Choose your own!
I felt this scene went well with last months prop, and thought folks might like to get creative incorporating their work, or selecting some of the scene's props to create mini-dioramas. We'll give this a shot this month and see how it works out
artist: https://www.artstation.com/erinros
HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:
artist: https://www.artstation.com/jroid
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.
- Well, that's about it. If you think that any rules should be changed, or there should be new additions to the rules, please let me know. As always, please feel free to provide feedback / suggestions in this thread or by messaging me directly.
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Replies
Also just a recommendation, make sure you're considering the scale of the structure in the background. The cylinder you've got up close might represent the human in the foreground, but notice the second human figure on the top of the platform on that structure... Honestly I'd probably just grab the default Maya human and throw him in both spots, make sure the scale works that way. It's easier to work with a human model rather than a cylinder representing a human.
@Urzaz thank you. Yeah, I think ZBrush can help a lot with these huge cracks/rocks too. I think it is possible to depict the main shapes of the dunes with a very few right placed vertices, and then sculpt over it
Starting the blockout, I'm not happy about the part that the dish itself swivels on though. It's more complex than it looks, anyone have an idea on how to get that shape?
I was also thinking about ditching the reference at this point for the wood structures and make them after my own head
I might be wrong, but from a quick glance I think you've got the right shape from how I interpret that part on the concept, but I think you might have rounded the front and back edges a little too much; I think the curve is mellower than that. Here's how I think that shape might look in plan view:
Another note for other people making this prop - there appears to be an electric motor which presumably drives the tilt/rotate mechanisms round the back. This may or may not be an important detail:
@B_P_L, good eye pointing out the electric motor. I saw it but am not entirely sure how to connect it to the base. Building a seat for it to rest on isn't too hard, but trying to figure out what it hooks up into is another matter. I took a look at a bunch of satellites and don't see any exposed motors on any of them so I'm guessing it's artist's discretion.
Anyways, here's an early test bake on the satellite dish itself in Substance Painter. I still need to do the high and low res parts for everything else but wanted to get an early trial going so I can anticipate just how well everything will bake. The material is just the fiberglass smart material with no modifications. This definitely will NOT be the final mat, just something to help capture the spirit of the prop!
Got a bit of time today to work on the base a little, here's my progress so far...still a long way to go!
@halldor The landscape material is something of a work-in-progress I've had going on for a while. It's got a few things going on in there so I can't really give you a full breakdown right now, but I can tell you it's made of one albedo and two normal maps; one is smooth and the other is kinda rough/rocky, the rougher one blends in according to slope angle. To be honest you can get a similar result by manually painting in a shader with height LERP blends.
Oh shit, wrong Thread. Admin can you please delte or move to "WAYWO" Thread? Thank you!
@Uncle_Gun It's kinda hard to give you detailed feedback from the image you posted (too small / dark) but the first thing that jumped out at me was that the cylindrical objects I've circled here feel way too skinny to be able to securely support a large piece of military equipment like this, but other than that everything looks in order - keep it up.
messing with the post process volume in UE4 and i feel like it just washed everything out, made it all red. Is there a way to get that kind of martian, "everything red" effect without just burning out everything?
Can anyone Tell me how to fix this problem
if i want to maintain the texal density I would have to break the object in 8 peace's or something
But other than that - I'd say to not worry so much about consistency of UV real-estate, some areas will need to be squeezed smaller than others sometimes and there's no way around it, you just have to learn to hide/conceal those areas.
The bottom of this asset is going to be buried in the ground, right? So - right there, you can put seams and have shrunken UV islands in those spots. Also - round the back of the asset, are you planning for people to see round there? If not - put your seams and smaller UV islands there. The back of the turbine blades - they're not going to be seen, so squeeze them to be really tiny. Also - if you're 100% sure a face is not going to be seen at all - delete it! It's just taking up precious UV space.
Finally - you're using UE4 for this project, right? - learn about the DetailTexturing node if you don't already know about it. This can help out when you're really stuck for texture density on a large asset. See link below:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Rendering/Materials/HowTo/DetailTexturing
I am trying to wok like I was actually working for a game, I did end up break the object up to 4 different parts.
it's not desired texture resolution but I think it will work out like that
This is an example from a book I have of the kind of asset that is complicated enough to need to be split over more than one texture set.
jehheb I'm doing that but that is cool what book is this look super cool
Did you bake out your Engine before Texturing?