Foliage & Lighting Improvement Thread - seeking critique

tinyworlds

Why this thread
I want to bring my environment art skills to an industry level & learn things we didn't get thought in school.
Also I'm currently in between Bachelor and Master & living with my family. This is a great opportunity to really push me & create new work.
By sharing my progress here, I'm hoping to get some criticism to improve my work

Skills I want to improve

• Learn Unity HDRP or Unreal
• foliage creation
• lighting
• modular workflow (kits, trimsheets)

The Plan

• work on projects that support those goals
• first: short 1-2 weeks projects to build discipline & momentum
• later a big project to really push my skills

For the start, I re-lit this environment from a couple months ago. A cozy cabin of a witch and her cat.



Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1naayX
Criticism is much appreciated!

tinyworlds

WIP white clover (Trifolium repeas) study from today. Doing a tiny project to improve on my foliage skills/ goal : )
Clovers seem like a nice start to learn the workflow as they are relatively simple & it's easy to gather my own reference. Plus they are super cute ^^

Highpoly done in Blender 2.8 and textures baked & made with Substance Designer.

Followed this workflow for the most part: https://gumroad.com/l/vuUUX

Gonna add some more variation tomorrow (dead parts, bending, stems, etc.) and arrange the clover properly in a group (right now just for testing).
Would love some feedback as this is my first time doing this foliage workflow.


Here is my reference from the garden. Used a graycard for accurate whitebalance, so I could pick colors from the photos via Substance Designer. Feel free to use for your own needs : )

Last but not least, here is a peak at my moodboard : ) Using the key references + AAA benchmark + lighting approach.

tinyworlds

Took the  clover I made earlier & made a little scene for Sketchfab's Low Poly Plant Challenge: https://skfb.ly/6LAZN

Here is some of my reference:

During modeling & texturing I had the little pot next to me & observed how it interacted with light. That helped a lot to get the roughness, height etc. right.

Also I'm still working on making a version to place in an environment.

Used the Blender particle system to create clusters from my high polys and then baked in Blender. Sadly I lost some details (veins) as I had to reduce polycount quite a bit for baking (my laptop can't handle it). Texturing is done via Substance Designer.

Also got the feedback to cut the models a bit closer, to reduce overdraw. Any more feedback is appreciated Probably gonna wrap it up pretty soon.

tinyworlds

Calling this study done! https://www.artstation.com/artwork/W23o42

There is a 4 leaf clover hidden somewhere if you need some extra luck

KingKellogg

looking good, maybe some edge browning to make it look a little less perfect

tinyworlds

Thank you @KingKellogg ! I added some (very slight) edge damage with discoloration in Designer as you can see below. But I guess the green itself is still too uniform. The edge damage doesn't really change that too much right now. Will see what I can do about that Thanks for the feedback

KingKellogg

Of course! If you ever need more critique, feel free to tag me. Ive been around bushes and plants my entire life. So I am picky!

tinyworlds

Finished this little piece to welcome people to my 3D art newsletter : ) Wanted to do something like this for a long time!

If you're interested, here is the most recent newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/221962d1b73c/cozy-cabin-3d (subscribe button at top left) Besides my 3D art I also include gameart tips/ resources always

tinyworlds

Working on a new foliage study (Melissa) to apply learnings from Patrick Gladys awesome course: https://gumroad.com/l/levelup_blueberry Wanted to give it my own twist and apply it on a plant from the garden

Today & yesterday I collected reference images (branching structure, healthy/ dead parts, individual leaves, silhouette, etc.).

From the source photos I extracted a couple of leaves & removed shadows and highlights for the Albedo. I also created versions of the same leaves for dried/dead and backside parts. This allows me to easily shift UV (was from Patrick's tutorial).

Then I used the Albedo to make the first leaves for the highpoly. The idea is to later bake the color information from the highpoly as well.

Used Twist/ Bend (SimpleDeform) modifiers and curve modifiers in Blender to speed up the workflow.

Will post some more progress later. Can definitively recommend to check out Patrick's foliage tutorial. It's by far the best I saw so far & he is a talented artist.