The Bi-Monthly ENVIRONMENT ART Challenge | January - February (70)

alytlebird

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! We survived 2020 and made it to 2021! That means it's time to get started on our first challenge of the year, for January & February 2021!

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 official options for Challenge 70:

- ENVIRONMENTS -

HARD SURFACE ENVIRONMENT:

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

STYLIZED ENVIRONMENT:

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

- PROPS -

HARD SURFACE PROP:

Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/d8yLnQ

STYLIZED PROP:

Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/KaXl1r


No Wildcard concept this cycle!

Please read all the rules before starting:

-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.

-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. 

-It is recommended to 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)

-If you want to change up your chosen concept a bit, then feel free! Interpret these concepts to your liking, especially if your aim is to add storytelling elements.

And here are some recommendations:

-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.

-We 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.

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!

Good luck!

miriuk

Nice concepts, as this is my first one I will do the stylised environment 

alytlebird

miriuk said:

Nice concepts, as this is my first one I will do the stylised environment 

Glad to have you on board! Keep in mind, the challenge hasn't actually started yet; we're in a voting period where people can suggest different concepts for the various categories. If you like a concept or want to suggest a different concept, you can post a picture of that concept and that will be counted as a vote. We will use whatever concepts have the most votes by the time I post the official Challenge thread on January 1st.

Pinkfox

I really enjoy the concepts you've picked out for this time around!

The stylized prop doesn't seem quite as exciting as the others so I'd propose something with a slightly more interesting form, but I'll probably do the hard surface prop this go around so definitely disregard my suggest if anyone who plans to do the stylized prop speaks up. :P

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/KaXl1r

Decordova360

alytlebird

Hey everyone, welcome to 2021!

I've retooled this thread to serve as the official challenge thread for this cycle! Only one concept changed from the original suggestions (the stylized prop, big thanks to @Pinkfox for that).

Looking forward to seeing what everyone makes over the next couple months

miriuk

I'll start this one today, anyone will do the same? Why when we click on challenges go to olds challenges, #68.?

icegodofhungary

I need to do something to build confidence. I've gotten stuck on other projects because I feel like every decision is the wrong decision. So I need to work on something with actual concept art that I can lean on and not improvise too much. I'll take Faldor's Kitchen. Been working on the graybox since mid morning.

Treating it as a little world-building vignette level in some first person game. The player is meant to go through this little area inside a larger manor (if you look at the artist's page there's an exterior shot of the house this is in). So I have two paths through. One comes in a door, wraps around the perimeter of the room crossing in front of the fire place and out the other door. The other cuts straight across the room. So you can take a scenic path and look at the enviro as you play. Or you can just rush straight through to so you can kill more dudes or turn in a quest or something.

I've tried to consider composition in 3D space as the player moves through. Arranging furniture and props to push the player and the eye through the two paths. The fire place will be a major visual point of interest in the room so I've tried to keep that in mind as well.

Got some references too and will add more as I get into modeling and texturing stuff.

Pinkfox

I'll be starting on the Steam Carbine a little later this month but I'm excited to see where everyone goes with this challenge!

@miriuk It's likely that it has to be manually updated and the people that have the ability to change it just haven't thought about that particular button at the moment. It is stickied in the "3D Art Showcase & Critique" section so it should be easy to find there in the future.

Saaamoth

Nice concepts! I'm very tempted to go with the hard surface one too

miriuk

I already started to block this concept, now I'll looking for reference to create assets, three and details, pls guys let me know what do you think so far.

Thanks

NikkitaRacquel

This is my first time looking at any Polycount challenge. I'm keen to have a go but I'm just curious why everyone doesn't choose their own concepts instead of choosing from a set list. I also agree with a previous comment in that the stylized prop is a bit lackluster compared to all the other choices.

alytlebird

NikkitaRacquel said:

This is my first time looking at any Polycount challenge. I'm keen to have a go but I'm just curious why everyone doesn't choose their own concepts instead of choosing from a set list. I also agree with a previous comment in that the stylized prop is a bit lackluster compared to all the other choices.

Welcome, we're glad to have you!

The main reason we have this format is because working from the same pool of concepts allows people to learn from each other by discussing their varying approaches to different elements of each concept. This also isn't a structured competition, no winners or prizes, just a challenge to improve our skills as artists, so the format supports that goal.

As far as the stylized prop concept, if you have any suggestions for concept art we could use in future Challenges, we have a voting thread that goes up a week before each new Challenge cycle where participants can post concepts they're interested in, and then everyone can vote on what they'd like to make. If you're around in late February, our next voting thread will be up and you can post there! Or if you have some other concept ideas you'd like to suggest now, feel free to PM me.

Saaamoth

Hey there, I've spent some time on a blockout of the steam rifle, just to get an idea of the volumes. Even though it's a fancy steampunk one, I don't know a lot about guns, next step is finding more refs!

kwagner

icegodofhungary said:

I need to do something to build confidence. I've gotten stuck on other projects because I feel like every decision is the wrong decision. So I need to work on something with actual concept art that I can lean on and not improvise too much. I'll take Faldor's Kitchen. Been working on the graybox since mid morning. 

The best advise I got, for me having that issue, was "don't get it perfect, just get it done" and then "you can edit a bad book but not an empty page." Even if one part just isn't coming together the way you want, go focus on another area of the scene. Your blockout looks solid so far!

icegodofhungary

@kwagner Thanks for the advice and encouragement.

I am sticking with the graybox longer that I usually do just to make sure the scene feels good before getting into the details. Adjusted the layout to add the little alcove from the concept. Probably wasn't needed but I think it adds some more depth to the design of the scene.

SomeAB

I think I will go with the stylized house.

Saaamoth

@icegodofhungary Looks very good so far 

PacoCasares

@icegodofhungary That is looking like a great start! Fantastic Blockout! I wished I did that haha.

I have decided to do something very simple and straight-forward. I want to practice doing stylized hand painting in PBR with extremely basic sculpting with the aim of finishing it for a class demonstration. Because I do not have a lot of time in my hands, I wanted to make a safe bet to start to make something incredibly easy. 

Currently, I am aiming to do blocking, the Next post I aim to have the models fully blocked out and ready to take into Zbrush. I plan to practice on the blocks/sphere first to try my best to get my stylized approach as close as possible to the concept while backing it up with some reference.

saturated_hat

My first time working from concept art.

Some parts of the concept really don't make sense like the corner by the door and the chimney.
Funny that you only notice that once you try to make it 3D!

Then on some other parts I'm really impressed that the artist got the perspective just right like the boxes in the back don't overlap at all.
Very interesting experience so far.

saturated_hat

@icegodofhungary Looks great, I see that you also changed the corner by the door.
Is that UE4? I like your rafters, they are wonderful.

PastyPict

I've chosen the hard surface environment Faldor's Farm Kitchen. Just done a quick and dirt greybox. Helped me realise proportion issues with modular wall segments a head of time, so I glad I didn't skip this step. The next thing I'll do with either be a ground material or model and texture the chimney since it's more or less the centre piece, or I might model the walls first so I can solve that proportion issue.

jaker3278

I have chosen Faldor's Farm Kitchen but i am going to augment the design to be a full house so i can put it in my game. Here's what i have so far an apothecary table and the beginnings of the house. 

Pinkfox

Was finally able to get the high poly for the steam carbine done. Got to hand it to @Saaamoth, you're extremely fast at modeling! It took me a few days to get everything together for it.

I did make some modifications in a few places, mostly personal preference things that I felt would make more sense or the removal of bits that didn't seem to serve a purpose. I did notice however that the concept has the bolt handle on the left side while every real-world example I found has a right sided bolt handle. So I flipped some stuff around to match more with how it appeared a person would use a more traditional bolt action rifle.

Anyway, from here I'll be working to get the low poly together and plug it into Substance Painter!

MikeKhine

Hello everyone!
It's My first challenge and I'm excited to start.
I'll go with Stylized Environment. Have a nice day everyone)

jaker3278

Near the end of day two on the Kitchen. 

Pinkfox

Got the low poly and UVs done and got it into Substance Painter to make sure the high poly was baking onto it well!

There are definitely places where I could shave off a few more tris to get it down a little more, but I'm approaching it from a first-person shooter perspective so I wanted to avoid compromising too hard on something that would be close to the screen for a long period.

Hoping I'll be able to wrap this up by the end of the weekend though now that texturing is the only thing left!

jaker3278

Kind of getting there with this mini project, its made for my game in called Hereford 1642 you can see more here at www.hereford1642.co.uk its downloadable now to explore. 

ellis_3d

Hey everyone! I'm a little late to the party  but Its my first time doing one of these challenges and I can't wait to get started. I've decide to go with the Stylized Environment, it's something that I've wanted to get better at for while now! No time like the present!

MikeKhine

Post # 1.
Hi guys. Finished modeling the building and the terrace. I decided to make the scene that will be seen from one angle, which allowed me to get rid of unnecessary faces outside the field of view and significantly reduce the space on the UV map. To further free up space for UV's, I removed one-half of some of the objects, also I increased the texel density of those surfaces that will be practically invisible, and straighten UV shapes were possible. 

At this stage, I found one big mistake. I got too carried away with removing unnecessary surfaces and did not think about the fact that there will be the sunlight in the scene, which will give unnatural shadows if it is placed in the wrong position (there is light from the sun on the pipes behind the house, although there should be a shadow)

I tried to do a good job of reducing the number of polygons on the meshes, keeping their shape (5300 Tris).
Thank you.

Pinkfox

Well, my goal of finishing during the weekend definitely didn't come anywhere close to materializing but I'm happy with where it's going so far. The wood portion is completely finished and the black steel is 90% there. Still need to give the bronze some TLC and get the rest of the materials like the scope caps, steam tubes, steam tanks, and others in place.

(Sorry for the terrible screenshot, I didn't want to go through the render process for a WIP shot but hopefully it all still comes across!)

Saaamoth

Hey @Pinkfox that is coming along very nicely ! The choice of flipping the handle on the side is interesting, I tried to figure a way of having the gun function like a normal bolt action rifle but there's not a lot of space to pull the mechanism back. I'm still building the high poly right now, hope to finish it next week-end.

Pinkfox

@Saaamoth Yeah, the bolt issue is definitely the biggest oddity in the concept thanks to those tubes. I ended up adding a little splitter in the cavity below the end of the bolt to separate the tubes. It would still clip the tiniest bit (can see it a bit in the middle shot) and probably still be a pain to use in reality but I felt it was good enough that it wouldn't be noticeable.

icegodofhungary

@jaker3278 You work very fast!

@MikeKhine Looks good so far.

@Saaamoth Thank you!

@PacoCasares Thank you!

Since last time I posted I took my blockout and adjusted the modular pieces to be more universal. It changes the proportions of the room a little bit but it still feels good in engine. I was trying to figure out how to do the tudor style walls. I first tried to just sculpt out a tiling texture and use that. But the result was a little too flat looking and it was hard to get a good texture density without a huge texture. So I broke it up into the boards and plaster/clay parts. I sculpted a few boards that I could reuse as well as a plaster/clay atlas. In the future I would like to work out a way to get the best of all worlds, between perfect modularity and a natural, realistic look.

I then decided to do the trusses, windows, and roofing as a trim sheet. I haven't built the windows yet but the trusses, ceiling, and the little buttress things are done.

I also made a tudor brick texture so I could draw attention to the room opposite the fireplace using contrast in materials. I also feel like the bricks are going to go great with some foliage and the metal cookware.

I interpreted the floor as a regular flag stone. Then I did stone block texture for the wall. They don't appear too damage or aged in the concept, so I tried to go easy on the sculpt and not put in too much wear.

Mazzletov

Very nice approach. I am also trying the environment piece but really struggling with the lighting. I can't get the atmospheric lighting inside. It is still dark with strong sunlight coming trough the windows. How will you approach the lighting for this piece?

icegodofhungary

Mazzletov said:

Very nice approach. I am also trying the environment piece but really struggling with the lighting. I can't get the atmospheric lighting inside. It is still dark with strong sunlight coming trough the windows. How will you approach the lighting for this piece?

I'm using Unreal. First I turned off the fire place lights and had only the default skylight and directional light (sun) from the FPS template. That way I could adjust my sunlight coming in the windows as much as possible before adding any more light. You have to play with the indirect lighting strength setting of your lights. You also need to make sure you have more than one bounce in your lightmass settings tab. I usually do 20 indirect lighting bounces and 10 skylight bounces. Once you get past 4 or 5 bounces, adding more doesn't cost you any significant bake time. But you need those extra bounces to make sure light is getting into the dark places.

So then I kept increasing the brightness of the directional light that simulates the sun. I also slowly increased the influence it has on indirect light. This starts to kill the realism of an outdoors scene, but it's needed for this indoor scene. Then I also did the same for the skylight though you'll get diminishing returns on that really quick since most of that light will never bounce its way into your room.

The next step was adding light portal volumes to the windows and to the openings of each wing of the kitchen. These volumes propagate light further than it would bounce naturally. They're made almost exactly for this kind of scenario, where you need light to get into a dark area.

Then after getting the sun as high as I could without it looking bad, I focused on the fireplace lights. These are by no means final but I did the same process. I slowly cranked up the brightness and the indirect lighting strength. I did it just enough to illuminate what is needed. It's okay to have dark places in your scene. Contrast is good. You just need enough light to see and to look natural. My fireplace lights are actually too bright and I'm going to have to re-work everything again once I get the room filled with props and do my final bakes.

Then I finally ended up adding rectangular lights at all the windows and colored it a very pale blue to match the light from outside. I then did the same thing of increasing the brightness and indirect light strength. When I got to a point that looked realistic I stopped. It would be very easy to over-do these and end up with something very unnatural looking. I only added them as a last resort since I took the sunlight as far as I could.

It's definitely not an easy scene to light. In real life this room would be pretty dark. You could try to compensate with the candles in the scene, on the table and in the chandelier. Even though they're not lit in the concept, it's okay to add stuff like that if needed. That's something I might try later on if I can't get the brightness to work out properly.

You also have to think in terms of light hierarchy. People usually only use the lights they need. So in this kitchen, the main source of light would be daylight since it's medieval times. So that should be the most influential/strongest light in your scene. You should try to light as much as you can only with the daylight from the windows. Then you add supplemental light as you need it. So the fireplace is supplemental because it's not nearly as bright as direct daylight. But it's bright enough to cast some good light if it's a roaring fire. Then the third tier of lighting would be stuff like the candles. Things that only give off very local light that you can use to draw attention to certain areas.

ellis_3d

Hey Gang! I just finished doing my basic block out and a little bit of lighting to see how it looking in unreal. I'm happy with it so far. Going to start to doing some high poly work. Let me know what you guys think!

PatSaenzG

New year, new challenge. I decided to go for the stylized prop (the Cauldron) since I wanted to practice that along with making PBR hand painted textures. The modeling along with UVing is done, depending on feed back I'll proceed with texturing in Substance Painter. 

Front 



Side



Back



UVs

Mazzletov

icegodofhungary said:

Mazzletov said:

Very nice approach. I am also trying the environment piece but really struggling with the lighting. I can't get the atmospheric lighting inside. It is still dark with strong sunlight coming trough the windows. How will you approach the lighting for this piece?

I'm using Unreal. First I turned off the fire place lights and had only the default skylight and directional light (sun) from the FPS template. That way I could adjust my sunlight coming in the windows as much as possible before adding any more light. You have to play with the indirect lighting strength setting of your lights. You also need to make sure you have more than one bounce in your lightmass settings tab. I usually do 20 indirect lighting bounces and 10 skylight bounces. Once you get past 4 or 5 bounces, adding more doesn't cost you any significant bake time. But you need those extra bounces to make sure light is getting into the dark places.

So then I kept increasing the brightness of the directional light that simulates the sun. I also slowly increased the influence it has on indirect light. This starts to kill the realism of an outdoors scene, but it's needed for this indoor scene. Then I also did the same for the skylight though you'll get diminishing returns on that really quick since most of that light will never bounce its way into your room.

The next step was adding light portal volumes to the windows and to the openings of each wing of the kitchen. These volumes propagate light further than it would bounce naturally. They're made almost exactly for this kind of scenario, where you need light to get into a dark area.

Then after getting the sun as high as I could without it looking bad, I focused on the fireplace lights. These are by no means final but I did the same process. I slowly cranked up the brightness and the indirect lighting strength. I did it just enough to illuminate what is needed. It's okay to have dark places in your scene. Contrast is good. You just need enough light to see and to look natural. My fireplace lights are actually too bright and I'm going to have to re-work everything again once I get the room filled with props and do my final bakes.

Then I finally ended up adding rectangular lights at all the windows and colored it a very pale blue to match the light from outside. I then did the same thing of increasing the brightness and indirect light strength. When I got to a point that looked realistic I stopped. It would be very easy to over-do these and end up with something very unnatural looking. I only added them as a last resort since I took the sunlight as far as I could.

It's definitely not an easy scene to light. In real life this room would be pretty dark. You could try to compensate with the candles in the scene, on the table and in the chandelier. Even though they're not lit in the concept, it's okay to add stuff like that if needed. That's something I might try later on if I can't get the brightness to work out properly.

You also have to think in terms of light hierarchy. People usually only use the lights they need. So in this kitchen, the main source of light would be daylight since it's medieval times. So that should be the most influential/strongest light in your scene. You should try to light as much as you can only with the daylight from the windows. Then you add supplemental light as you need it. So the fireplace is supplemental because it's not nearly as bright as direct daylight. But it's bright enough to cast some good light if it's a roaring fire. Then the third tier of lighting would be stuff like the candles. Things that only give off very local light that you can use to draw attention to certain areas.

Thank you. I will try this when I get home. I created the blockout and some basic textures but can't get the lighting to interacht properly! Will update

Pinkfox

@PatSaenzG One thing I might recommend before you move on is making sure your UV islands are rotated relative to each other. For example I'm guessing those big curved pieces are the cauldron body. If you end up apply a tiling material that has a direction to it you've then got one part that's appearing vertical while the other appears horizontal and they won't match up. There are a couple places I neglected that myself on the Steam Carbine and it can be pretty annoying.

@ellis_3d Excited to see where you go with it!

@icegodofhungary Looking very nice so far! I especially like how you've captured the trusses so well, really sells the look.

ellis_3d

icegodofhungary  You are killing that environment!! Smart move with the modular pieces! Your lighting is also looking really good even at this stage! Keep it up!

Pinkfox

Got the materials to a point where I'm happy with them. Just need to get the lighting in place to actually present it properly and I'll be calling this one done!

There are a few places for improvement that stand out as I'm getting to the end. I feel I worked some of the areas in the material to the point they ended up feeling softer than they should be, but just something I'll have to keep in mind in the future. I also think I ended up removing too much from the stock and made it feel a bit plain back there but I didn't notice until UVs had already been done and I didn't want to backpedal so far to fix that. Just my thoughts on what I could work on, happy to hear from others, too!

Mazzletov

I tried @icegodofhungary his advise on lighting. It helped a lot to increase the indirect light bounces and increased their intensity! 

The current blockout.



This evening I quickly textured some props to get a feeling on what style I will use for texturing. Not sure yet if I will go realistic or stylized. Anyone got advice on this topic?

 
I am feeling quite overwhelmed as I have never done a large project.

SLIVIZ

Hi guys, long time no see!

I decided to take part in this challenge. Here is my progress so far. I haven't made game ready assets before so trying my best to keep it low poly not entirely sure if what I am doing is correct or should I just carry on modelling high poly then work backwards and clean up/retopolgise?

Pinkfox

Just posted the finished piece on ArtStation!

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/eaZe4D

Definitely going to keep checking in though, lots of exciting things happening this time around!

K0une

Hello, everybody!

Pinkfox, you did great job! 

I try to did stylized prop. And learn blender at the same time. Wish me good luck!

Potatomaru

is it okay for me to use some of this art as a reference for a personal project?

GarethTheDestro

I'm late to the party so sorry if I missed this somewhere, but is the deadline the end of Jan or the end of Feb?

alytlebird

Potatomaru said:

is it okay for me to use some of this art as a reference for a personal project?

We don't own or have exclusive rights to any of the concept art used in these challenges, so you won't be stepping on our toes if you use it for your own work!

GarethTheDestro said:

I'm late to the party so sorry if I missed this somewhere, but is the deadline the end of Jan or the end of Feb?

This challenge cycle will end on February 28th, but everyone is more than welcome to continue posting updates if they work on their projects beyond that point.

GarethTheDestro

alytlebird said:

This challenge cycle will end on February 28th, but everyone is more than welcome to continue posting updates if they work on their projects beyond that point.

Awesome, thanks!  Here's where I'm at so far ...

MikeKhine

Post # 2.
Hey guys! Finished working on a high poly mesh of the house. Still need to create high poly for props. I try to stick to the Heroes of The Storm style. Deciding to get rid of surfaces that would not be visible in the render, I made a mistake. Because in ZBrush it made it difficult to work properly with high poly. Also, I should have done the UV after sculpting and retopology, as some objects have been changed and now do not correspond to the original parameters. Because of this, I wasted a lot of time.

I asked for help from an artist friend and he explained to me some points quite clearly, now I have a clear understanding of what to do next.

Have a nice day!