(Finished) Smoky Mountain Environment

tythomas063

Hello, everyone

I have been working on this environment since I always love the forest plus I want to learn how to make modular assets for houses, lighting for outdoor, and foliage. So I decided to use the concept art, Smokey Mountain Series,  by Mario Stabile ( https://www.artstation.com/stabile ).  I really want to push myself to create a personal work that is up to AAA quality. 

It is still in work in progress and I'm still planning to add more small props to fill up the scene while adjusting the lighting. I'm still struggling to fit the lighting to the concept art.  

Any feedbacks and critiques would be very much appreciated. 

Cheers! 



Concept Art:



My work: 

Alex_J

Cool project. I can hear the dueling banjo's. The tree's seem a bit uniform and also the branches feel too thick, and could probably use some more resolution to avoid an inconsistent lo-poly feel when compared to the building.

Lou_

Yeah I would say that foliage is a big part of getting an awesome sell on this piece. I would look at ecology as this can really help sell the realism of wildlife and plants. For example grass is often accompanies by many other variations of grass or other plants (length, heath, if people have walked on it). Using an ecology as reference to build up layers of foliage is the best way to have a convincing scene 

tythomas063

@BIGTIMEMASTER

Thank you! I added more edge to increase the resolution of the giant tree regarding your feedback. I forgot to add more resolutions on other trees which I will do that tomorrow.  I also tried to set up the giant tree with several different sizes with foliage tool to avoid the uniform looks. Hopefully, that looks better but I'm still going to try to fix it as much I can. 


@Lou_

Thanks! I created several variations of the grass regarding your feedback including flatten, crooked, and almost straight up. I definitely need to practice more on creating several foliages to improve the look of the wildlife and plants. 


Here are the new screenshots! It is still a work in progress. Some of the stuff needs to be textured and I need to make more small props for the porch. I'm thinking about creating the wind chimes, a small table next to the chairs, and a few other things. I'm also going to add several decals of blood and sigil or some kind of symbol to add more storytelling. 

The wall is modular which is why you can see the seam. Everything snapped together well enough and there is no seam in the texture. I think the issue is the build quality that is in the preview. Hopefully, the seam will disappear once I increase the build quality to the production.


Any feedback will be very much appreciated! Cheers! 

Carabiner

I like where you're going with this. The proportions of the main house, and therefore the entire scene, don't really match the feel of the concept. In the concept it looks taller and skinnier - maybe a camera angle thing too - which contributes to the whole scene being read as more vertical.

tythomas063

@Carabiner

Thank you! I agree and to fit the scale to the concept art is the challenging part for me. I fixed the house by making it skinnier as much I can. I also played with camera's FOV little. I think there is an improvement but it is not perfect though. I'm planning to move camera angle to fit that composition to the concept art once I'm done with this project. 


Hello, everyone.

Here is an update. I felt that my screenshot did not match the concept art well enough. So I blurred the concept art and screenshot to compare the colors. I realized that my screenshot looks too dark and blueish while the concept art appears more brownish and lighter. Then, I adjusted the light color and used color grading LUT which helps a lot.  

Let me know if the emissive is too distracting on the sigils decal. 

The project is almost done but I need to make a few more things like the door by the cave/rock. I also need to add the fence on the porch in above. I gotta figure out how to add fog sheet on the ground around the environment. 


Any feedback would be very appreciated! 

tythomas063

Hey, everyone

Here is my update of the Smokey Mountain. I made several changes and added recording of "gameplay". Let me know what you think 

Cheers

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/300675381" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>

<p><a href="">SmokeyMountain_1</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user56604512">Tyler Thomas</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

tythomas063

Got busy with the final exams at my school lately. I came back to this project to make a few changes after getting several feedbacks in Ten Thousand Hours facebook group. People were stating that the abandoned houses should have little more dirty texture. So I added decals of the dirt around the house. But I lowered the intensity of the dirt in order to avoid too much of noise overall. 

I'm calling this project done! Thank you, everyone, who gave me feedback throughout this project. I'm super happy how this project turned out! 


Cheers!