Monthly Environment Art Challenge - September & October (62)

kadeschui

Welcome, all! Time to kick off the next Monthly Environment & Prop Challenge for 2019! The big numero 62!!

Shout out to @Nasser @PastyPict and @Zlivingston for your participation in the Voting Thread! +5 internet pts to each of you

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 62:

- ENVIRONMENTS -

HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:

Artist: Unknown

HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:

Artist: https://www.deviantart.com/justinoaksford/art/Seed-Environment-7-304333486

- PROPS -

HAND PAINTED CATEGORY:

Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/okvOB

HARD SURFACE CATEGORY:

artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bot-radar-d455b714-e07b-40db-998a-30a23cb3945f



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.
  
• 
  

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!

jakemoyo

Hello all, decided to hop in, i'm definitely already excited with how this project is going. Still a rough blockout i can definitely tell that the curved architecture is going to be a big pain, should be a decent challenge.

Let me know what you think!

Zlivingston

@jakemoyo love the foliage!

Łukasz

Like the bot concept, giving it a try.
So far legs hp done, rest just a blockout:

Obscura

I decided to do the prop because I really like the concept and I thought it would be a cool challenge for how I want to do it. I'm going to do a displacement fapfap in Substance Designer, and I'm planning to do the entire thing like that. I'm going to use only primitives, displacement and opacity (Daniel Thiger style). Needless to mention that this is usually not the proper way to do something like this, because of many reasons...Today I blocked out the base of the wooden part. I'll block out the foliage next time. The overhanging bits (mushrooms, bent grass etc.) can't be done using the cylinder that I have so far, so those are going to be some planes with opacity probably.

displacement gif:

graph:

 

Obscura

day 2 part 1... I'm experimenting with the foliage. Needs a lot more work, but I got a working technique.

Nasser

Łukasz said:

Like the bot concept, giving it a try.
So far legs hp done, rest just a blockout:

Can I ask how you did the legs? They look amazing, I tried using a displace modifier with clouds texture but I ended up with a blobby mess.

Łukasz

Nasser said:

Can I ask how you did the legs? They look amazing, I tried using a displace modifier with clouds texture but I ended up with a blobby mess.

Sculpted the wrinkles manually starting from simple basemesh, I recommend checking this guides: https://cgcookie.com/exercise/672
I was thinking about using cloth simulation but it's not so easy to make it look good this way either

Obscura

More work on the foliage and colors. Thats it for today.

jakemoyo

@Obscura "hand painted prop"

Obscura: hold my beer.


That's looking sick though dude. I kinda wanna try something like that now. 

Obscura

@jakemoyo - Haha, thanks. What you said was so funny. Anyways, lets get serious... The green parts I'm not proud of, its actually very hard to tackle right using procedural methods, at least for me currently. Its hard to control properly. I want it to match the concept more. For example, I have problems with matching the direction/flow of the leaves. I found one way, but it involves too much manual work which kinda beats the purpose. I would need to place too many  vector maps. But on the other hand, I already did something too manual with the small flowers so I may end up doing the same for the green parts as well. Texturing the log itself was fairly straight forward though, and I think it even looks good and enough painterly, which I want on the whole thing. I was also trying to do the bottom moss thing using only the cylinder and smart displacement, but it only went ok but not well. I will try out some more things.

Regarding other peoples work, unfortunately I don't have much feedback currently because there isn't much things that I could comment on.

Your blockout is looking good. Where are you rendering this? If its Toolbag, I would highly recommend putting it in an engine, because its a full environment. And things (lighting especially) can work and look different there. For presenting single assets, TB is good but in my personal opinion its still somewhat misleading because usually an asset will look different and/or worse in an engine in most cases. And at the end of the day, its going to end up in an engine in production and it needs to look good there so its the best idea to try to make it look the best possible there. This challenge can be also a good opportunity to get familiar with an engine because a lot of studios requires you to set up the asset that you made in the engine, and again, things can work different there.

jakemoyo

@Obscura thanks man, yeah that was a screenshot from Blender viewport, that was kind of freestyle blockout I did just to get the juices going, I have a modular blockout that's pretty much all set up in UE4 right now. I'll post updates later.

I have also experienced difficulties with using vectors to get leaves to work out well so I know your pain. Maybe simpler is better, just like a large scale perlin noise into a normal mode to get some basic directionality? I'm sure you probably tried something like that but I'm sure it's doable with that method it would probably just take a lot of tweaking.

Obscura

This is how it breaks down to me and how I want it:

I will probably end up making a function with a vector map and shape input and manually setting them up.

I used a noise to define the distribution which works ok but it still doesn't give the look I want on the bottom. However, I could be ok with it on the top. But the current flow is bad. I'm trying to show the correct way on the image attached.

jakemoyo

@Obscura So wait maybe you could try some thing like this?


it gets a result kind of like this but i just used the same gradient as a vector map and also as a scale multiplier to give the center leaves more of the effect of coming straight out instead of pointing any which way. You could probably boost the luminance of those middle ones so the displace further. Idk this was just a goof to see if could help figure something out so let me know if its useful.

jakemoyo

So, quick update, this is my blockout; all done in a more "modular" way (read: not really modular ), in UE4 i have an HDR and some some 2 second lighting but its mainly been a struggle to get these pieces to work with eachother. Circular and modular assets do not play well together, thats been the main struggle so far. here in a bit Im going to start making my textures and a few trimsheets and see if I can make these pieces happen. Ive spent a good amount of time on my blockout, so i feel like a lot of my hurdles and road blocks i would have encountered down the line I've already come across and started to get ideas about how to tackle them. Ive already spent about 4 times as long as i normally would on a blockout and Im defintiely feeling like im reaping the rewards of thorough planning.

jakemoyo

Quick Update: Been working on textures the past few days, not a whole ton, been busy with work, But Just a trimsheet and tiling marble material. I always like to get my textures setup so then i can just fly into modeling right away and never look back.
Trimsheet

Any critique is welcome!

Raph

Decided to try working on this environment. Slowly wrapping up the block-out. I feel like I have some catching up to do if im going to reach the deadline. I opened the space up to feel more like a plaza. 

Raph

jakemoyo I really like the roughness on your marble material. Blockout is looking good, I think the handrails on the second floor are looking a little short.

jeffry

started with this one, how would you approach all the vegetation at the bottom ?

Łukasz

Almost done with modelling, 

(legs not yet retopologized )

jakemoyo

@lukasz i think you should have left those edge loops on the head, IMO the faceting is way too strong for whats supposed to be a perfect sphere. Youve got the essentially the same amount of edge loops on the cylinder shape on his chest as you do on the entire head-ball shape. Youre making great time on that though keep it up!
 
@raph Noted! sweet blockout so far! will be interesting to see which way we each take the concept.

Update on my level thus far, Finished up  the main materials and am now just working on making all of my modular bits, which, since i spent extra time on the blockout is coming along pretty quickly. I'm just going bit by bit so its hit or miss as for which parts are ready or still in greybox stage.

HAWK12HT

Hello everyone, so going for this radar asset. Did just few design changes from functional point of view, also did a initial look dev of final lighting I would like to use for this. I am kinda inclined toward Russian KV-2 tank as this concept reminds of that bulky tank. 

My goal is to learn a bit Marvelous Designer for the leg part and try to do this as fast as I can over the free weekends I get. 


@lukasz pretty awesome dude, super fast progress really love your approach to making an offset circle on head haha! I might follow this same approach. 

@jakemoyo cool progress mate! would suggest adding a bit of texture variation on arches mixed with roughness to break up tiled look. 

@Obscura dude wait up haha, really insane progress with designer.  

HAWK12HT

Well gave MD a go this specific set I did to get an idea about fabric covering on leg joint are with big pin. 

Łukasz

@jakemoyo @HAWK12HT thanks a lot for the feedback, added more loops on main ball and started painting.
Just a quick render from painter, will make real time when its finished.

Łukasz

Render from Unity
Sketchfab and more pictures:
https://skfb.ly/6NOqE
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aRV358

HAWK12HT

Here is my initial blockout progress, couldnt help but to focus on functionality after several adjustments I am going for rotatable radar eye socket. Happy with what I have with the main sphere gonna focus on mid and legs section next. 

rexo12

Saw the reference for the orb-bot and thought it would be an interesting challenge to do, as I've been in a bit of a rut lately. The proportions are kind of all over the place (especially with the main body), as I found it quite hard to interpret the reference. Lot of very challenging (and rewarding) shapes here.

Don't really intend to finish this by the end of the month (more just something to do) but we'll see how it goes.

Auldbenkenobi

jakemoyo said:

@lukasz i think you should have left those edge loops on the head, IMO the faceting is way too strong for whats supposed to be a perfect sphere. Youve got the essentially the same amount of edge loops on the cylinder shape on his chest as you do on the entire head-ball shape. Youre making great time on that though keep it up!
 
@raph Noted! sweet blockout so far! will be interesting to see which way we each take the concept.

Update on my level thus far, Finished up  the main materials and am now just working on making all of my modular bits, which, since i spent extra time on the blockout is coming along pretty quickly. I'm just going bit by bit so its hit or miss as for which parts are ready or still in greybox stage.

*PICTURES*

This is looking gorgeous man, really inspiring.

BananaManyana

This concept was fun to work on, its a little rush so I'm not to happy with my topology and unwrapping aaand I couldve spent more time on the texturing.
Quickly brought it in to Unreal Engine for some screenshots

MrBFox

jumping in with the hand painted category, working in Blender. Done an initial blockout trying to match the concept, don't think I've quite got hang of camera matching even with using some tools like fspy. Does the Eevee renderer count as a realtime application for the final result or would it best to bring it into Unity or UE4 at some point?

jeffry

Challenge completed rendered in Marmoset

jeffry

kadeschui

Hey crew! I have posted the new voting thread for November and December - head on over and post your concepts!!

https://polycount.com/discussion/215291/monthly-environment-art-challenge-concept-thread-november-december-2019/p1?new=1

Thanks!

~kade

kadeschui

Hey Team! I have posted the new Challenge Thread - time to get modeling!! 

https://polycount.com/discussion/215397/monthly-environment-art-challenge-november-december-63/p1?new=1

~kade