Starting my first environment. Help appreciated.

Justinww001

Hi,

So I just started a personal project and so far I think things are going well (maybe). I am attempting to recreate this location:

https://goo.gl/maps/z3ko4pKDVfSyEKxp6

I'm trying to wrap my head around how I should progress with this. As of now, I've modeled the tudor homes very basically, but I was hoping to get some feedback regarding whether they are headed in the right direction or if there are some things I should change geometry wise. I just want to make sure that I am breaking things down in the most efficient manner for when it comes time to texture.

My progress shot:



I've watched a lot of Quixel's videos on the environments that they've made (primarily looking to see how they do the models). For the most part it seems like they keep their models very simple with the exception of added sub divisions for vertex blending. Being new I'm trying to take this approach but I honestly don't know how far I should go with details for the base meshes of the houses. Should I leave the houses simple and boxy and rely on separate additive details like beams, trims, textures, decals, vertex blending, etc. to make it realistic? If not then do I try to squeeze as much geometry as I can into the base mesh?

I'm even having trouble figuring out whether or not I should actually model the roof windows into the actual roof or leave them separate. I'm not entirely sure if I should keep the houses separated into 3 sections like lower, upper, and roof or if I should just model each wall individually...idk. any light shed on the subject would be super helpful or recommendation to tutorials and what not. Also, this will be a show reel so you won't be able to actually go inside. It's purely exterior.

Alex_J

Biggest thing that slowed me down from learning as a beginner : trying to understand things perfectly before doing them.

90% of the questions you have right now you will very quickly answer yourself by blasting forward into the texturing. Just go wiht the understanding that you are going to make mistakes and then you'll want to come back and redo things. This is where smart back-up comes into play. It's a very important discipline to develop. Even once you know what you are doing, you are always going to be redoing things many times. So you have to design your workflow to accommodate for that. If you are ever at a point in your workflow where you feel like you cannot easily go back and change things, you are doing it wrong!

As for all the specific questions about windows and whatnot, do it all. See how each one turns out. Each one is a different way to accomplish the same task. Like different tools in the tool belt. The more tools you have and know, the better.

Another method if you aren't quite as adventurous is to just find every tutorial you can covering anything remotely similar to work like this, and run through them. The goal is to just soak in as much different techniques as possible. As long as you are paying attention and actively trying to learn, you will pretty soon get to a point where all these possibilities are swirling in your mind and you'll be like, "aha! this is the smartest way to build that house!"

Then you go and try it, and of course it wasn't the smartest way, but now you've figured out one more new thing. And so on and so on.

If you want more specific answers, you got to be very clear about what your precise goal is. Where how and why it's going to be rendered.