I noticed there is no green anywhere in the graphic elements. I think of you added some green elements it would round out the displays and soften up the look a bit.
I think that the ship model itself is done - at least for now. Any critiques are welcomed! Also, can please someone tell me if it is ok to publish such model on Sketchfab if I add a link to the concept art like I did here?
@Tnnv Excellent work, really captured the whole thing super well!
As for posting it around it is best practice to ask for permission from the concept artist before hand. The easiest way being to go onto their ArtStation page and message them through there. As long as you're polite I've found most concept artist's are flattered to see people using their work but there might be those who aren't comfortable with such things so it's best to be sure.
So work is taking up a shitload of time. I'm trying to do this afterhours, progress is slow. Today I worked on two concrete materials, ground and wall, tested out the roughness (tileable). No Diffuse.
2048x2048 (texel density of 5.12px/4m).
I think I'll continue creating the Tiling textures I need, so I can finish up the Bigger picture first. Before moving on to the secondary and mini details.
About to call it done. What do you think? More bloom, LenseFlare, Camera Dirt mask and Film Grain!?!
I think the scene itself is very "noisy". Almost as if the smoke alarm is about to go. You used the Concept as a reference and build your ideas around it, which is cool, the concept is a grim, dirty place, roughness on the concrete floor, Pillars that have chipped edges a place where a biohacker exists.. someone who's hiding from the world.. government, mafia.. family. The chair he is using, is a chair he found in a dumpster. The cables are leading to different outlets, maybe even to generators outside. The person who owns this place is someone who'd leave everything if caught, never to return. A person who can't and will not settle in one spot, because it's dangerous.
Your scene is telling me the opposite, we have to do with a professional hacker, who works for some kind of government, is funded with Servers, a clean place. Working with economic theft or maybe even creating illegal weapons. Someone who likes it clean and tidy, because this is where he or she spends most of the days without worry . The problem with this is, the amount of PP going on with bloom, Lensflare, dirt mask, and film grain.
Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/c/DekogonStudios/videos and the environments they have. All scenes are readable. Not so much noise, this makes the details in assets and texture a lot clearer.
also, this one was really feeling cool and grim, if you'd go back to this and just amp up the lighting around the workplace ( a lot of screens, there, so the emissive is going to be very high).
The roughness on the ground is superb here. You can see the bumps. While your last pictures feel like an in a game cinematic scene, this scene yells "in game" , which is awesome!
@wirrexx - Thank you for the detailed feedback. I was going for the cinematic look and I liked it looking gross and uncomfortable - like nothing good is going to happen here in this hacker basement. But I guess I got carried away with the camera FX and so I have dialed it back.
@reedcsy - Dude, this is starting to look awesome. Love the lighting on the back of the hanging monitor. Couple tweaks I think I would make.
I like the wire mesh hanging from the ceiling, I think it breaks the ceiling up nicely, but I feel like its too directional (road-like), like it is pulling my eye towards the ceiling and wall behind the screens. I would maybe add some horizontal elements to it for variety.
The floor is very flat, and I think could benefit with some subtle variation on the vertical axis, not much, maybe 1/2 inch or so just to catch the shadows, alternatively you could put some deep cracks in the concrete. Maybe just throw a pallet on the ground that the big cords go up and over.
I think the smaller back-facing monitor is too low and is sort of a distraction (like how would the person see it from the chair?). it gives me anxiety like the plug is going to fall out and its going to smash on the floor. (side note, monitors take two cords, one for power, one for video, so you could have a second cord interacting with the first, or maybe some sort of structure that makes it feel more secured to the ceiling.
I am also curious about what it would look like if you dialed back the emissive on the monitors slightly, like 10-15% lower so they aren't overwhelming the vertical lights, and maybe if there is a way to blur them slightly for the primary shot (I think they look sharper than they should at that distance.
@wirrexx - Thank you for the detailed feedback. I was going for the cinematic look and I liked it looking gross and uncomfortable - like nothing good is going to happen here in this hacker basement. But I guess I got carried away with the camera FX and so I have dialed it back.
ooff, the new one looks a heap better! Wow, yes now this is inviting for me. See if you can do something about those black blacks in the shadows, but this is what I would say is not only looking inviting to me, but I can see your textures better, the roughness, the texture of the concrete and my eyes feel more rested on the main piece!
Are those meshes missing shadows? or is it just me (had to brighter up the picture)
@particleman1010 Good crits, thank you. I addressed several of them. Added a drop ceiling, with panels missing. and the cable conduits to the floor. I am still going to play with the monitor material, it isn't quite right.
@wirrexx Your're right, they are missing shadows! I lowered the shadow resolution to make them softer, and I lost those shadows. Thank you again.
@particleman1010 Excited to see your texturing, the modeling so far looks fantastic!
One recommendation for the bake is you probably should be using "Matching by Name". It will take some time to set up considering how complicated the model is, you have to name every piece in the high and low poly, but once you have it set up properly it will completely eliminate the normal map artifacts you have on things like the close up wire in the bottom right.
@reedcsy Loving your piece so far! I love the creative liberties you took to deviate from the concept and make it your own.
Do watch out for the lighting you've got on the right there though. It's a different color than the main light source so it draws the eye a bit too much and it being so open removes some of the nice framing you get from those pillars.
@ParticleMan The model is looking good! You should create a High poly mesh to bake out all the maps in Substance painter. To really take advantage of all the "smart materials" and their mask generators, you need "Curvature, thickness, Position, and such". Also the Ambient Occlusion in Substance is very different than most packages, it is more texture based than object based - and its highly affected by curvature/ normals. I do my High polys in Zbrush, its the quickest way I know.
@particleman1010 AO should still be baked correctly. Here is a quick test I put together with the Frontal and Rear distance exaggerated to make it more obvious.
Here is how I had it setup in Blender. In this case I had all the objects bake separately but as mentioned in the documentation if you need certain pieces to be baked together you can add a name at the end and it will treat them as one object during baking. (Also keep in mind I change my suffixes that Painter looks for to _LP and _HP but by default I believe they are _low and _high.)
I actually am using this exercise to experiment with a hybrid approach where not everything has a highpoly. I wanted to originally use something like trim sheets to handle the repeated details, but quickly realized my knowledge gap on that and had to abandon that concept.
Instead I have just stacked many of the similar details into the same UV space in different UDIMs (6 total). So for stacked UVs the baking really isn't going to work, I am going to attempt to bridge that gap in Painter and see if I can tie it all together. The sphere and all the large components have a proper highpoly to bake from.
The point of the exercise for me is to see what really needs a bakedown vs what can be made more time efficient with texture work.
Hi everyone! This is my first time posting on this forum and participating in a challenge.
So far the pieces I`ve seen look pretty awesome!
Here is my blockout and lighting setup in UE5, with some placeholder texture on the screens.
In this phase I tried to stay as close to the concept art as possible, but I will probably discard some objects (like the stool) in favor of ones that are more effective to be reused, like server banks or oxygen tanks. The cables were made with a simple cylinder module directly in Unreal by using Splines, which I`d never done before and was actually easier to setup than I expected.
@Pinkfox - Thanks for the baking tip, definitely led to less clean-up work.
Material assignment is done, with some basic masks.
Desperately hoping I can put enough texture quality on the sphere to distract from the lack of a bake on the rusty stuff, as well as the stacked UVs (there are quite a few). Should be interesting. The copper fins are a disaster, not sure what I am going to do about those, definitely shouldn't have used the same UV space for those (live and learn).
@ Pinkfox I agree, that lighting was throwing off the whole balance of the image. I'll try to keep the limited color pallet.
@wirrexx Substance is a blast once you get your workflow dialed in, keep going! -Maybe try painting some "height" details on their for bolts and small details.?
More progress. Still trying to decide how to frame my cameras, so I can realy see where I need to detail more. I think I need a custom zbrush pass on the pillar, the materials are just not holding up.
Got more work done. Really starting to hate the objects that are blocking the view. Thinking about removing the diagonal one and that low-res steel triangle (or maybe just shrink it to like 30% of its size). Also thinking maybe I over-grimed the sphere.
@particleman1010 - Awesome work man! I think removing that extra piping was definitely the way to go. Really inspired to keep chipping away at my model. Can't wait to get back to it this weekend.
Also, I'm curious how you went about doing the welding. I figured it would be something I'd have to sculpt in zbrush, but that does seem pretty time consuming. Is that the method you used?
@reedcsy - Great work! I love how you made the concept your own but still stayed true to it. The lighting is coming off really well.
Question, are these all outsourced assets or self modeled?
Actually one more question for you @particleman1010 or anyone else, when it comes to the pipes. What would be the best way to go about placing them on the model? Do you guys just make a spline and manipulate each vert or is there a more efficient method? I was even thinking of importing the model into zbrush and using imm brushes and the move brush but that doesn't seem too much faster either.
BTW, I just learned all this new camera/rendering stuff in Unreal. Mostly thanks to this one guy's youtube Channel. It's GOLD. https://www.youtube.com/c/WilliamFaucher
Almost done with modeling, still a few small details left. Wanted to get a sense of the lighting before I move to textures. Used a placeholder image on the screens for now. Pretty happy with it so far.
Reached the point of diminished returns, gonna call it. Feel free to continue critiques, useful for next project for sure. Thanks to all the other participants and good luck with your submissions.
So i'm quite late on this challenge - i've chosen the invisibility device concept to work on - i hope i finish in time This is my first time creating an asset from a concept art - a nice challenge Anyway here's yesterday's work :
@particleman1010 Excellent work! You captured the concept extremely well with such a complex model.
Only critique I would have is to watch your texel density in a couple places. At the bottom all the metal on the right side seems to have an even texel density but on the left the brace with the two white bobbles on it seems to be a much lower density. In this case I don't think it's a major issues since it's not the focal point, just something to watch out for in the future!
@particleman1010 Excellent work! You captured the concept extremely well with such a complex model.
Only critique I would have is to watch your texel density in a couple places. At the bottom all the metal on the right side seems to have an even texel density but on the left the brace with the two white bobbles on it seems to be a much lower density. In this case I don't think it's a major issues since it's not the focal point, just something to watch out for in the future!
hey there, I decided to join in halfway! still working on blackout and testing scales. creating cables using splines and made some blueprint for hanging tablets/monitor. I guess I'm at 90% 3d blockout. I tried to make it as close to the concept as possible
its been great looking at everyone's progress, I'm surely learning a thing or two here. keep it up!
Hello everyone! This feed is full of amazing works. You're doing great, folks. I would like to share my high-poly sculpts with you. When creating them, I actively used Dynamesh, ZRemesher, and Nanomesh. Actually, that's my favorite phase of modeling. I will appreciate the critique. Thank you.
@ElyesBens It's not uncommon for people to keep plucking away after the challenge is over. (In fact it's encouraged!) Especially since there is such detail there I'm excited to see it taken further!
@MikeKhine Beautiful sculpts you've done! Excited to see how they'll look once you've got them assembled.
Only critique I'd have is that your coin piles are a bit strange. The bottom one I think is good, particularly on the left side, but the ones next to the chair overlap a lot and the coins don't sit naturally. Coins typically pile horizontally (give or take maybe 30 degrees of roll) as that's how they're most stable.
@ElyesBens It's not uncommon for people to keep plucking away after the challenge is over. (In fact it's encouraged!) Especially since there is such detail there I'm excited to see it taken further!
@MikeKhine Beautiful sculpts you've done! Excited to see how they'll look once you've got them assembled.
Only critique I'd have is that your coin piles are a bit strange. The bottom one I think is good, particularly on the left side, but the ones next to the chair overlap a lot and the coins don't sit naturally. Coins typically pile horizontally (give or take maybe 30 degrees of roll) as that's how they're most stable.
Thanks for your useful feedback, man. I agree the coins should lie in a different way.
Just bit of update from me, pushing through last week (or a week and 2 days) of the challenge! - finished with monitors/screens and metal works, I think the scene looks far better with finished screen textures. - struggle a bit on floor material, its kinda wet but also dirty/dusty? I'm sure I'm gonna tinkering it later - uses deferred decal for pillar edges. neat trick!
@MikeKhine : nice sculpts! if I can squeeze some critics is that the size of the wood pillars and stone gate are a bit too small for me (compares to the throne and coins for example). in the concept, the throne is smaller than the gate or the wood pillars.
I may flesh some more things up later, but I think I'm finished for now. Really enjoyed doing this, and I learned a lot through it all. Definitely going to try and do more challenges in the future and try and push myself
Just bit of update from me, pushing through last week (or a week and 2 days) of the challenge! - finished with monitors/screens and metal works, I think the scene looks far better with finished screen textures. - struggle a bit on floor material, its kinda wet but also dirty/dusty? I'm sure I'm gonna tinkering it later - uses deferred decal for pillar edges. neat trick!
@MikeKhine : nice sculpts! if I can squeeze some critics is that the size of the wood pillars and stone gate are a bit too small for me (compares to the throne and coins for example). in the concept, the throne is smaller than the gate or the wood pillars.
Thanks for the feedback. In a real scene, the scale is ok. It's just screenshots from ZBrush with a different scale to fit the canvas of the image. p.s. Like your work, mate. Keep going!
It's been so fantastic to see the great work across the entire challenge for this one! I've loved seeing the progress and completed pieces from so many people and I hope that those still working will keep plucking away as it would be wonderful to see them finished even if it runs past the clock.
This challenge is nearing its end though so it's time to get voting underway for the September to October challenge. Please feel free to come make concept suggestions and vote on your favorites even if you can't participate in the upcoming one.
If you're still working on your piece please don't feel pressured, just keep working on it at your own pace. The thread will stay open so don't be afraid to post updates in here and definitely post the final once you're happy with it!
Ah man, Bryan here, i just found this thread, seeing some really sweet results! if anyone's still working on their cursed bard environments , feel free to hit me up with whatever you might need!
@hasgan Looks excellent! Love the detail in the robot hanging on the wall and you've captured the elements from the concept extremely well!
The only critiques I'd have are the following:
The pillars, particularly the one on the right, is either missing alpha information or it isn't working properly. If it's the latter then you might be dealing with Unreal discarding the alpha channel when a texture is tagged as a normal map. Switching it to linear color would fix that issue and then you'd just need some quick shader changes to make it work properly. DiNusty talked about it briefly here: https://youtu.be/Aihha0sAOJI?t=397
It would probably be worth it to play around with the post processing a bit to try to increase the contrast and maybe saturate the colors a bit more. If you have Photoshop try playing around in it and then replicating it in the post process volume. (You could use a LUT but you'd lose HDR on it.)
Super excited to see the final product though! Definitely a killer piece.
@Pinkfox dude thanks alot! I was searching for trim edges decals videos because I remember watching @DInusty using it while doing his last environment , didn't think that he uploaded it also on youtube (I found his 2016 videos I think). I will look the thing with color space that you mention
I'm still not on post process part (will do it nexweek maybe) but it definitely lack contrast not like in the concept. thanks for the input!
Replies
Some progress
More bloom, LenseFlare, Camera Dirt mask and Film Grain!?!
I think that the ship model itself is done - at least for now. Any critiques are welcomed!
Also, can please someone tell me if it is ok to publish such model on Sketchfab if I add a link to the concept art like I did here?
I think I'll continue creating the Tiling textures I need, so I can finish up the Bigger picture first. Before moving on to the secondary and mini details.
I think the scene itself is very "noisy". Almost as if the smoke alarm is about to go. You used the Concept as a reference and build your ideas around it, which is cool, the concept is a grim, dirty place, roughness on the concrete floor, Pillars that have chipped edges a place where a biohacker exists.. someone who's hiding from the world.. government, mafia.. family. The chair he is using, is a chair he found in a dumpster. The cables are leading to different outlets, maybe even to generators outside. The person who owns this place is someone who'd leave everything if caught, never to return. A person who can't and will not settle in one spot, because it's dangerous.
Your scene is telling me the opposite, we have to do with a professional hacker, who works for some kind of government, is funded with Servers, a clean place. Working with economic theft or maybe even creating illegal weapons. Someone who likes it clean and tidy, because this is where he or she spends most of the days without worry
- I like the wire mesh hanging from the ceiling, I think it breaks the ceiling up nicely, but I feel like its too directional (road-like), like it is pulling my eye towards the ceiling and wall behind the screens. I would maybe add some horizontal elements to it for variety.
- The floor is very flat, and I think could benefit with some subtle variation on the vertical axis, not much, maybe 1/2 inch or so just to catch the shadows, alternatively you could put some deep cracks in the concrete. Maybe just throw a pallet on the ground that the big cords go up and over.
- I think the smaller back-facing monitor is too low and is sort of a distraction (like how would the person see it from the chair?). it gives me anxiety like the plug is going to fall out and its going to smash on the floor. (side note, monitors take two cords, one for power, one for video, so you could have a second cord interacting with the first, or maybe some sort of structure that makes it feel more secured to the ceiling.
- I am also curious about what it would look like if you dialed back the emissive on the monitors slightly, like 10-15% lower so they aren't overwhelming the vertical lights, and maybe if there is a way to blur them slightly for the primary shot (I think they look sharper than they should at that distance.
Overall I love how its coming along, looks great!Good crits, thank you. I addressed several of them. Added a drop ceiling, with panels missing. and the cable conduits to the floor. I am still going to play with the monitor material, it isn't quite right.
@wirrexx
Your're right, they are missing shadows! I lowered the shadow resolution to make them softer, and I lost those shadows.
Thank you again.
One recommendation for the bake is you probably should be using "Matching by Name". It will take some time to set up considering how complicated the model is, you have to name every piece in the high and low poly, but once you have it set up properly it will completely eliminate the normal map artifacts you have on things like the close up wire in the bottom right.
https://substance3d.adobe.com/documentation/bake/matching-by-name-182256530.html#section3
@reedcsy Loving your piece so far! I love the creative liberties you took to deviate from the concept and make it your own.
Do watch out for the lighting you've got on the right there though. It's a different color than the main light source so it draws the eye a bit too much and it being so open removes some of the nice framing you get from those pillars.
Will it still render the AO correctly if it is split out into separate meshes?
The model is looking good!
You should create a High poly mesh to bake out all the maps in Substance painter.
To really take advantage of all the "smart materials" and their mask generators, you need "Curvature, thickness, Position, and such".
Also the Ambient Occlusion in Substance is very different than most packages, it is more texture based than object based - and its highly affected by curvature/ normals.
I do my High polys in Zbrush, its the quickest way I know.
Here is how I had it setup in Blender. In this case I had all the objects bake separately but as mentioned in the documentation if you need certain pieces to be baked together you can add a name at the end and it will treat them as one object during baking. (Also keep in mind I change my suffixes that Painter looks for to _LP and _HP but by default I believe they are _low and _high.)
I actually set it up that way originally, then combined my objects for no actual reason. I will rebake tonight with the objects as separate elements.
@reedcsy
I actually am using this exercise to experiment with a hybrid approach where not everything has a highpoly. I wanted to originally use something like trim sheets to handle the repeated details, but quickly realized my knowledge gap on that and had to abandon that concept.
Instead I have just stacked many of the similar details into the same UV space in different UDIMs (6 total). So for stacked UVs the baking really isn't going to work, I am going to attempt to bridge that gap in Painter and see if I can tie it all together. The sphere and all the large components have a proper highpoly to bake from.
The point of the exercise for me is to see what really needs a bakedown vs what can be made more time efficient with texture work.
Hope all that makes sense.
So far the pieces I`ve seen look pretty awesome!
Here is my blockout and lighting setup in UE5, with some placeholder texture on the screens.
In this phase I tried to stay as close to the concept art as possible, but I will probably discard some objects (like the stool) in favor of ones that are more effective to be reused, like server banks or oxygen tanks. The cables were made with a simple cylinder module directly in Unreal by using Splines, which I`d never done before and was actually easier to setup than I expected.
Material assignment is done, with some basic masks.
Desperately hoping I can put enough texture quality on the sphere to distract from the lack of a bake on the rusty stuff, as well as the stacked UVs (there are quite a few). Should be interesting. The copper fins are a disaster, not sure what I am going to do about those, definitely shouldn't have used the same UV space for those (live and learn).
@wirrexx Substance is a blast once you get your workflow dialed in, keep going! -Maybe try painting some "height" details on their for bolts and small details.?
More progress. Still trying to decide how to frame my cameras, so I can realy see where I need to detail more. I think I need a custom zbrush pass on the pillar, the materials are just not holding up.
Pardon the ending, I didn't know how to end it.
Also, I'm curious how you went about doing the welding. I figured it would be something I'd have to sculpt in zbrush, but that does seem pretty time consuming. Is that the method you used?
@reedcsy - Great work! I love how you made the concept your own but still stayed true to it. The lighting is coming off really well.
Question, are these all outsourced assets or self modeled?
Those are just Substance Painter welds, i would actually recommend doing them in zbrush since they don't really look that great.
For the pipes/wires/cords I think they just kind of suck in every program. Find the most efficient method you can and just do them one at a time.
hey thanks, -None of it is purchased or outsourced. I made all of it in the past few weeks.
https://www.youtube.com/c/WilliamFaucher
This is my first time creating an asset from a concept art - a nice challenge
Anyway here's yesterday's work :
Only critique I would have is to watch your texel density in a couple places. At the bottom all the metal on the right side seems to have an even texel density but on the left the brace with the two white bobbles on it seems to be a much lower density. In this case I don't think it's a major issues since it's not the focal point, just something to watch out for in the future!
its been great looking at everyone's progress, I'm surely learning a thing or two here. keep it up!
I would like to share my high-poly sculpts with you. When creating them, I actively used Dynamesh, ZRemesher, and Nanomesh. Actually, that's my favorite phase of modeling. I will appreciate the critique. Thank you.
Only critique I'd have is that your coin piles are a bit strange. The bottom one I think is good, particularly on the left side, but the ones next to the chair overlap a lot and the coins don't sit naturally. Coins typically pile horizontally (give or take maybe 30 degrees of roll) as that's how they're most stable.
- finished with monitors/screens and metal works, I think the scene looks far better with finished screen textures.
- struggle a bit on floor material, its kinda wet but also dirty/dusty? I'm sure I'm gonna tinkering it later
- uses deferred decal for pillar edges. neat trick!
@MikeKhine : nice sculpts! if I can squeeze some critics is that the size of the wood pillars and stone gate are a bit too small for me (compares to the throne and coins for example). in the concept, the throne is smaller than the gate or the wood pillars.
p.s. Like your work, mate. Keep going!
https://polycount.com/discussion/227712/the-bi-monthly-environment-art-challenge-concept-thread-september-october-74
so here's my piece so far
I think I will adding more trash and cables
adding a keyboard(s) and mouse and things you can find on the table
makes the floor texture pops.
feel free to tell me any feedback or critics
the next post will be my final post
- The pillars, particularly the one on the right, is either missing alpha information or it isn't working properly. If it's the latter then you might be dealing with Unreal discarding the alpha channel when a texture is tagged as a normal map. Switching it to linear color would fix that issue and then you'd just need some quick shader changes to make it work properly. DiNusty talked about it briefly here:
https://youtu.be/Aihha0sAOJI?t=397 - It would probably be worth it to play around with the post processing a bit to try to increase the contrast and maybe saturate the colors a bit more. If you have Photoshop try playing around in it and then replicating it in the post process volume. (You could use a LUT but you'd lose HDR on it.)
Super excited to see the final product though! Definitely a killer piece.I'm still not on post process part (will do it nexweek maybe) but it definitely lack contrast not like in the concept.
thanks for the input!