Feudal Japan Environment
polycounter lvl 3
Hi all!
It's been a while since I used Polycount, but after joining an artstation challenge for the first time I realized that it can be such a great tool to get feedback and evolve as an artist with the community, especially when you're working alone towards a goal.
So I thought I'd start posting updates here as I couldn't finish the challenge in time as I had to take a break for almost a month during the challenge.
This is the concept I'm using (by David Honz) :
Final render:
Anyway feel free to c&c during the process as it's what I'm looking for!
Cheers!
It's been a while since I used Polycount, but after joining an artstation challenge for the first time I realized that it can be such a great tool to get feedback and evolve as an artist with the community, especially when you're working alone towards a goal.
So I thought I'd start posting updates here as I couldn't finish the challenge in time as I had to take a break for almost a month during the challenge.
This is the concept I'm using (by David Honz) :
Final render:
Anyway feel free to c&c during the process as it's what I'm looking for!
Cheers!
Replies
Will take a closer look to it, and see if I can break it up a little more
Last week was not very productive. The rowboat was done and that's pretty much it, now I'm going to make the different parts for the roofing.
Le boat:
Scene update:
The plan now is to begin with the gate!
Edit: but first I should do a mossy version of the roofing and have some fun with vertex painting!
The mountain will be an interesting challenge considering I've never done mountains before, so will be a great experience.
The Gate
My impression is that you could do it in 4 ways, either get/make an displacement map, world machine, zbrush it or make modular part and combine them into a mountain.
Not sure by how my results would be from either of them, I went with the zbrush path as I thought it would five me the control to create a structured mountain and also I feel it's pretty easy to get quick results and see how it will look. I got this result now:
And am pretty happy with it, as it got some nice shapes and shadows. Then of course vegetation will help a lot when added. The material right now is just a quick tri planar from textures.com->bitmap.
But would love to get both feedback and tips on this area as it really is something I'm very unfamiliar with!
Cheers!
It definitely looks better and better as you're going along with it, so that's good
.
That thatching on the roofs is really looking nice! I had a few ideas
for the hills I thought I might as well share when I was looking at
it, and although I have had some experience sculpting hills and mountains,
I don't know if any of this will help in your case.
One of the big things I've found for hills and mountains is trying to understand how the water collects into channels and flows on them, and as the water flows, it takes away part of the hill over time creating erosion lines and dips in the hill, a bit like these images: https://pixabay.com/en/mountains-sunset-haze-fog-mist-1752796/, https://pixabay.com/en/lofoten-norway-lake-landscape-3930290/. I think these are probably one of the biggest things that makes them look realistic and maybe the most important to get right. It's also what creates the variation of heights on the treetops, as can be seen the most in that first image. Even smaller hills like this will have those same kinds of things in them, just on a smaller scale because the hill is smaller: https://pixabay.com/en/tree-hill-landscape-nature-green-3398108/, where it's like the water is carving out a section of the hill. So trying to get a feel for how the water is draining and where it might collect can be a big help in realism because that's really what gives them their distinctive shapes in the real world as well.
The other thing is that I might add a bit more stepped cliffiness to the right side of the mountain, more like the way that these look: https://pixabay.com/en/canyon-bryce-canyon-national-park-3903242/, and a bit like this too, but it's not as stepped as the reference: https://pixabay.com/en/cliff-fog-mountain-rock-foggy-918670/. The way it is right now, even though the slope is sharper, it still is a smooth gradient, whereas the reference seems to look more like steps with small cliffs protruding out of the hill from erosion. At least to me it seems that way.
So those were the thoughts I had for it, and hopefully it helps
. Hopefully the rest of the project goes
well too!
Thank you for the great feedback!
I believe some of it will come through a bit more in the texture actually for the mountain I've started with.
As you maybe can see in this image I've been giving some time thinking on the direction that's been given by the water.
However it feels like with the size of this mountain that kind of information will largely be available through the "microdetails" and not too much in the shape? But I'll start dig into it, I've have some links now about the formation of mountains on my broswer as we speak which could come pretty handy!
Regarding the steps, as you can see I've got pretty deep steps (could probably flatten the shapes a bit more however) on the left side, and a smoother side with some different height info on the right.
Here how's it look when you're looking on it from the right side:
However can't say if it's right or wrong, the hardest part with mountains and references is that you only get one side and some hints of the other sides. Maybe you can see what I'm going for? I don't feel I can say too much at the moment as I don't hold the information yet haha (but soon!
But would love to hear what you have to say if you look at it like this. The part that makes me the most confused actually with mountains is the combination of sharp and smooth shapes.
But maybe I should go back and make some parts sharper, like the bottom part feels a bit smooth maybe and flatten the steps on the left side? Maybe I also want to exaggerate these height differations on the right as they aren't coming through so much when the camera is in front of the mountain?
Thanks again, really appreciate it!
1. this is really stemming from a difference in camera position, I think, but notice how reference building labeled 1. seems unsteady, almost leaning in slightly towards the camera. In your scene, this building and most everything else is very rigid, all resting on a perfect CG plane. I think giving everything a slight shake from this perfect plane, maybe even exaggerate it a bit, will help achieve this feeling of settling and decay.
2. big difference in perspective. The reference just feels better. Things are complimenting each other more nicely.
3. lower clouds, lower value, gives a sense of foreboding. As a player, I will be on guard here, and make my way cautiously towards the well lit hill. Your scene tells me "this place is safe, the bad shit already happened, and now its moved on over to screen right."
4. hills in distance are softer. The focus here is the village, so jaggy, eye catching rocks should be avoided back there, IMO.
Edit: Looking at the picture you did again, I now understand what you were referring to! Could be worth checking out!
Have been having some trouble with the gate for sure. One thing is that in the reference the roof looks skewed, it's like the bottom part is pointing towards the pier in the middle while the top is pointing towards the village. But been trying to follow the lines with the roof and the pier poles (noticed now that I haven't updated this with the final mesh however) and in the same time follow the reference layout (on a separate image) to get it too make sense in the world. But I agree that it for an example feels like it's way further away and will see if I can make it better, it's been by far my biggest headscratch during the blockout!
Yeah, this is something I'm aware of. Just waiting until a later stage to get all the assets in there first before polishing. I did however change it a bit a few days ago, but now it's more cloudy and with no open sky, but better mood.Yes, that's just from the blockout
Thanks for the feedback!
You're welcome
Ah, yeah, I see those steps now. I couldn't quite tell when I was looking at it before. The main thing I was noticing was that the profile of the hill was looking different from the reference image, like I show in the image below with the thin red lines, which is great if you were wanting to do it that way and like it more like that, but may need modified if you had been trying to follow the reference as close as possible. Accentuating the cliffs on the right side, like you mentioned, would be one way of doing that:
Looking at your images though, I think you're off to a good start with it for a base and have some good shapes starting on it. I find that it usually takes me several times of going over it until I start to have a shape and profile that I like, but in the meantime, you start to get a feel for features that seem right and like they belong, while others that don't look right and have to be change, and I guess it gives good practice. So I would say just keep going with it, and maybe just think about specific things you don't like with it, and work on those areas more, while maybe accentuating parts you do like. I guess the only thing that feels a little strange to me is how oval the profile of the overall hill seems to be when looking at it from the front, but that could just be me and come down to what I like for a hill.
You are right too that a lot of the gradual erosion with a hill like that is probably going to be in the smaller details. Even so though, I think it is still possible to have some large channels on the hill form, maybe kind of like this hill: https://pixabay.com/en/flock-sheep-mountain-rain-nature-999558/ where some parts of the hill are going to be softer than others, so those areas get worn away more, creating deeper channels, while other areas are very strong like the rock protruding out, and those areas stay protruding out. That might be kind of where you could get a more large erosive effect on it and maybe have piles of large rocks somewhere on the hill, underneath an area that fell, creating a channel in the rock. That's a lot like the landslides I mention below too, only in a smaller scale.
With all the sharp rocky areas, one way those kinds of things get created are from things like landslides or times where the soil can't stay together, so a chunk of it comes off, like on the left side of the big hill in this image: https://pixabay.com/en/mountains-landscape-valley-creek-1149580/ leaving areas at the top that's all sharp and where rocks and things are exposed. This other image shows it really well because you can still see the chunks that fell off on the right, while the cliff face is left standing on the left: https://pixabay.com/en/landscape-scotland-nature-540116/. With that first image, you can also see on the right side of the large hill where the soil is coming detached, but not as much as the left side, so the cliff faces are smaller, but the principle is the same. This image has those smaller rock faces too from the soil falling down the hill on the left: https://pixabay.com/en/mountains-landscape-meadow-nature-919040/.
Another way those things get created are from large amounts of water going through the area. I believe that's the way that people think areas like this: https://pixabay.com/en/monument-valley-utah-landscape-1081996/ in Monument Valley were created, where the tops of the mountains all seem to be the same height. So the theory is that it was once flat, then large amounts of water came through and gradually took pieces off until all that was left were these pillar type shapes. I could be totally off on that, but I think that's how it's believed those were formed. Irregardless though, it's still the same idea where you have chunks of the hill being taken away, and what's left is what was underneath the hill, which is all the rock and things. The Grand Canyon would be another example of water gradually carving into the earth, creating cliffs, while the tops of those cliffs are all at the same height because it was once flat.
Still another way is from pressure going on underneath the ground, from I think the movement of the tectonic plates. This causes a huge chunk of the ground to start being raised because of another chunk of the ground going underneath it. So you have two large chunks going against each other, and one goes up while the other goes down. I don't know for sure, but I think this is how things like this image get formed: https://pixabay.com/en/scotland-landscape-mountains-hills-1761292/, where it looks like a huge flat piece of the ground is tilting upwards and creating a cliff where the other part of the ground was going underneath it over long periods of time. Probably a cliff face like this was made from that as well: https://pixabay.com/en/cliff-adventure-above-hiking-1822484/. If my memory is correct, I think I remember something about Mount Everest being formed in a way like this too, but I could be wrong.
So those were some of the ways I thought for how they get formed and why some areas are cliffy while others go down gradually. I think pretty much any way you look at it though, all of those rock type faces get formed because of what was underneath the topsoil becoming exposed, leaving the rock showing. So one way to go about sculpting those sharp areas is that you could try thinking about it as though a chunk of the mountain or hill fell off, leaving areas that were underneath the topsoil exposed. Then since the rock is more cliff faced, there isn't any way for new top soil to form over time, so it then leaves the rock exposed, creating sharp areas where part of the hill used to be.
I don't know too if maybe almost making up a story of what you think might have happened to the hill over the years might help. Like when looking at the whole area in the reference, it kind of seems like it was once fairly flat, because a lot of the hills seem to be a similar height. Since the village looks like it's on a river or lake, maybe water from the whole surrounding area started gathering into a river. Then over time in the areas the water was gathering from, since there wouldn't have been large volumes of it in any one area, it cut into the soil creating hills like what you see off in the distance in the right of the image. Where the water was gathering into a river though, it created cliff faces like you see with the large hill on the left because of the large volume of water.
Maybe too another option might be that part of the ground started lifting up with that hill on the left, while another part was going down under, creating a cliff type face similar to some of those I showed above in the third way cliffs can form. With that sort of thing, you would have a fairly flat top on the hill going down gradually behind it, like the flat land got tilted. Then your cliff faces on the front might be staggered from different amounts of wear happening as the land was tilting over long lengths of time. Just that sort of thing of giving the area a story of what you think might have happened, kind of giving it a history. I've found doing that sort of thing can help quite a bit in sculpting hills and mountains.
I know just what you mean with it being hard to know what might be on the other side of the hill, haha. One way that you can kind of get a feel for those areas is looking at the general area that the hill is in. Since it's in a lake type area, I would start with reference of lakes, and since you know there is a cliff face on one side, you could start with cliffs that are right next to lakes to try to understand what the general area might be like. Also, since a village has been built along the shore, there is a high chance that the area to the left of what's in the reference that you can't see probably has a gentle slope going down to the shore, similar to the hills off in the distance, because you don't normally build villages in areas that are difficult to access.
So you can kind of imagine the general area to be something similar to part of this image: https://pixabay.com/en/schrecksee-bergsee-allgäu-2534484/ where that somewhat island out in the middle of the lake might be the cliff face area in your reference. Then the village might be in an area kind of like what's on the left side of the island where the ground is almost level with the water. Then using that you can get some ideas for what the whole area might look like. Here is another image of something that is similar to your reference without the cliffs being an island: https://pixabay.com/en/coast-beach-rock-stones-lake-192979/ where the cliff face out in the water would be similar to your cliff face, and the village might be down along the shore where the camera is. With this image, you can also see how the cliff face in your reference might transition into a gentler slope off behind the village. When you compare the left part of the cliff to the right part on the very right side of the image, you can see where the slope just gets more and more smooth until on the right side of the person taking the image, the slope is probably just the slope of a normal hill, which is also how the person might have had access to the shore, and villagers would as well in your reference. Here is another one that is similar: https://pixabay.com/en/sunset-dusk-lake-coast-water-sea-192980/
So using things like that you can kind of extrapolate what the things you can't see might look like and it at least gives you a starting point that can then be refined later on. One thing you could try that I've found to help is to try to make just a quick sculpt of some of the surrounding area, just to get a feel for how everything might function and connect together and how the scale of things might be. I've always had a harder time sculpting something that is just a piece of something else, or right on the edge of a landscape or something like that, and it seems to be easier when you have a larger area, then what's visible by the camera becomes a part of that larger area and kind of falls into it's place, you might say, and it just makes it easier to know what it should be like.
So I don't know if any of that will help, but hopefully it does
. Maybe the most important thing is just to have fun with it and
have fun telling a story through your sculpting 
First of all, thanks again! That is a post I will return to whenever I lose faith in humanity.
Alright, so what I've done when creating the mountain, is that I built it more or less completely from another reference with a mountain next to a lake. And haven't really followed the concept art as it is very diffuse to analyse the mountain from it. I've then as you've recommended also tried to think about the story and how it was shaped like this.
So this is the mountain I've been sculpting after:
However reading through your post, you're right that I should put a larger consideration to the environment around it and how that has helped out to shape this land. And looking at this ref, I should change the direction of the steps I made as the steps here, just like the concept, is looking towards the water while the smoother slopes are close to the land.
I've also got some info about what's next to the village on the left! There should be more buildings and some farm fields right behind the village. So my guess is that the land should probable be pretty flat next to it! And there is a river coming in from the lake between the village and the mountain where you could cross a bridge to get to a temple.
But yeah I should as you said probably go back to it a few times, to adjust it until everything feels right. I'm seeing some new stuff that I've missed before just now by watching it.
And just to give an update as I've been dead silenced for the last week. I've been adding floors to the houses and textured them.
I've also made a birch and a black pine tree.
Low polys:
I've also done a high poly leaf and a branch for the alpha texture, which is something I'm going to continue with right now.
After having finished these I will return to the mountain and also work on the material for it before doing the hills in the background.
Here is how the material look in designer.
I then created 3 variations of each leaf to get some different bending variation.
I then added them to the branch which I also cut up to three different variations and also did some variation to my "main" branch.
This is how the tree looks right now in engine:
Now I'm going to bake the stem and then take it to painter as I want to make it a little rough at the bottom. Then I'll start with the texture for the pine tree.
Alright, so what I've done when creating the mountain, is that I built it more or less completely from another reference with a mountain next to a lake. And haven't really followed the concept art as it is very diffuse to analyse the mountain from it. I've then as you've recommended also tried to think about the story and how it was shaped like this.
So this is the mountain I've been sculpting after:
I've also got some info about what's next to the village on the left! There should be more buildings and some farm fields right behind the village. So my guess is that the land should probable be pretty flat next to it! And there is a river coming in from the lake between the village and the mountain where you could cross a bridge to get to a temple.
But yeah I should as you said probably go back to it a few times, to adjust it until everything feels right. I'm seeing some new stuff that I've missed before just now by watching it.
You bet, I'm glad to try to help! Haha, I give the credit to knowing Jesus
. His love
really does change you as a person, if you let Him.
That's a great story for it
, and a great reference image you found! That is tough how
obscure the mountain is in the concept art, but that really helps having an image like that.
Yeah, I've found that if you keep at it, and keep trying to figure out specific things you don't like about it that you can then change, you can usually get something that is looking nice by the end. It's just getting through the stage that it looks a bit like a muddy mess that can be a little difficult and where you want to give up the most. That's great you're already seeing stuff to change on it though. Hopefully you'll be able to get something that you're happy with by the end!
I feel like I have some problems with the mood and the pier feels pretty boring imo.
I have recieved some stuff earlier here which I should return to now that the pieces are starting to fall in place.
Yeah have adjusted that and the previous feedback now.
That's not a bad idea! I was thinking of having some floating reed close to the beach, could be sweet to add foam to it.
One problem however I have atm with the water shader is that it gets paler the larger the plane is, so atm I've devided it to multiple planes which aint optimal, especially if I want to add a foam effect. If anyone knows why that's happening I would love to hear a solution for it.
Here is one smaller plane next to a large one for reference.
Some other ideas I have right now is giving some extra branches for the birch, maybe adjusting the layout a bit aswell as adding at least one additional version of the roof and probably add some grass to the mountain where the trees stand.
I don't know what might be happening with the water, but one thing I noticed while looking at the image is that it's missing some kind of mist, like this: https://pixabay.com/en/canim-lake-british-columbia-canada-67283/, coming up off the lake or river, which seems to very faintly be in the concept image when you look at the houses further away and also seems to add some of the atmosphere to the scene. I don't know how you might add that if you end up wanting to, but maybe doing a bunch of flat planes that had several cloud or steam type textures applied to them might work for it. A particle system originally made for smoke, then modified to look like steam could work too.
For the mood, it may help to darken your skylight too in order to darken the shadows, so there is more contrast with where the light is. Distance Field Ambient Occlusion set to a fairly dark value can be a big help as well if you're not using it already. Those were some of the things I thought of...
Here is how it looks atm.
Yeah, I should probably at least play around with it. I thought the line could do, that you behind the gate close to the backround mountains.
But should probably have some floating around the village. Should be no problem
Yeah, I think I played around with it a little earlier, but should probably give it another look!
Thanks again!
A friend of mine just found the issue! I had to turn off "apply fogging" on the material apparently!
Yeah I know that and tried overriding it, but it didn't help this time
But open for some last minute feedback haha, it's always so hard to let a piece go! And thanks again to everyone posting here, means a lot!
You're very welcome, I think it turned out great! Yeah, it's tough to let them go sometimes...
Decided to add shells (I believe it is) growing on the pier.
Then I'll be done! 😅
Alt lighting:
Close-up of one of the buildings
House Breakdown
House Closeup
Nature Breakdown
Smaller parts Breakdown
Edit: Haven't read through the whole thread, but the patches of reed at the sides of the roofs look strange to me.
Thanks! Haha, cool I wasn't sure if I would post it, but seems like a success then!
Yeah I know what you mean, probably something I should revisit for later when I'm planning to expand the environment. Adding something to the piers primarily.
Hmm, could you be a little more specific? Is it the stepping on the sides you mean?
Regarding the lighting, I can see that it ain't the same, but the same thinking have been applied, where the 1 areas have a high value and the 2 areas is low. The biggest difference for me aint the contrast but the color values. Where David have used cold values like blue and green in the shadows and white light from the sun. I decided to go for another approach, where it's supposed be the sun coming forward after a storm. A reason for this approach was that the building to the right of David's concept is almost pink, which with the gate and the rest of it fitted better. But I didn't wan't my building to look like that, and took more inspiration from references which lead me to go for a warmer light instead which imprroved the contrast in the picture. You can see a few posts up how it looked before, when I used a cooler temperature for the scene.
A - Had forgotten to add a planar reflection, thanks! The nuance of the water ain't as interesting by it however, hmm!
Regarding B I don't really now what you're seeing in the concept, more than mud tbh? I can see some color variation though.
I've got both some vegetation, reeds and rocks on the mud texture aswell as a wet painted texture down at the shore line and have placed fallen reeds on the ground.
I added another reed and changed the location of two of them now , so hopefully it's a bit better! I don't want it to be too noisy either.
This is the ground texture I'm using btw:
EDIT: The biggest issue for me atm is probably what Noren was pointing out. The left side aint to interesting to look like where the mountatin disappears. I've tried playing around with it a little, moving the camera making the roofing like in the concept hiding the sky. The problem is that I feel like it is making the mountain feel less important, as I feel it's pretty majestic atm. I tried moving the mountain aswell, but I guess it is something with this angle that makes it majestic. Will see if I can find some solution to it.
Here is an example of it:
I also noticed that I''d missed making the thatching double-sided. JEEZ!
So I had to some changes to the arrangements. Here is how it looks now.
Tried reducing the FOV before, but it makes everything just feel a bit weird if you know what I mean. The village just comes closer, and imo some of the areas I personally like gets cut. But will probably call it done now after I've fixed some of the landscape back at the village. :P
Thanks again!
Sharing is caring as they say!
Right now there's too much pull towards the mountain. All of the focus is being pulled there at the moment. One thing that would also help is adding some fog cards between the background buildings and the mountain to further separate things.