[FINISHED] Sonic Adventure 2 - Chao Kindergarten Exterior
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mz0qGY
All finished!
-ORIGINAL POST-
Hey all, hope everyone's doing well. I've been working on a rendition of the Chao Kindergarten exterior from Sonic Adventure 2, and I'm starting to run out of ideas to improve the scene. The initial goal was to create a faithful reacreation of the map, but I eventually decided to take some liberties, mostly the surrounding scenery.
The original (for reference)
There are a few smaller things to do:
- Do a pass on the chimney material
- Add bushes extending out from behind the building, to match the original map
- Remove some foliage where there's clipping (mainly the grass), or where there's too many flowers packed together
- Dress up the playable area outside of what is pictured (nothing major, paint in foliage, add some rocks)
- Add smoke to chimney stacks
Beyond that, nothing's jumping out to me at the moment - most likely from staring at the thing too long.
I was curious if anyone had any pointers about the lighting or composition. The focal point is the kindergarten building - is the eye effectively drawn to it? Could the lighting be spiced up more?
I'd really appreciate any feedback on this, cheers.
Replies
Hey, this is really amazing. Sonic Adventure 2 was the defining game of my childhood and I spent a lot of time raising chaos, so seeing this put a real smile on my face. 🥲
Since you asked for suggestions: the patio/porch(?) area is unlit and makes the building look unoccupied and maybe a little spooky. I see you modelled the lanterns, but maybe you forgot to make some emission maps and to add some light sources. That goes for the windows as well. If it were me, I would also want to find some way to light up the area around the door as well, either by adding some extra lanterns or just by faking it with an unexplained point light.
@jgarrison - Really glad it's resonated with you! I've only recently played the game for the first time myself - Robotnik's "Yosh!" voice clip has been stuck in my head ever since.
Thanks for the feedback - excellent suggestions, and I'm glad to have reworked the areas you've mentioned, I feel like they've made a difference. I've added an emissive map to lanterns and panned the roughness texture of the trim sheet they belong to, across the emissive map to introduce some flickering to the lanterns.
I've also reworked the textures I was using for the fake interior and curtains that's projected onto the windows. Also added some non-shadow casting spotlights shooting out from the windows with a light function that projects a window frame 'shadow' outward. All in all, I'm much happier with the result, and hopefully the place look a little more inviting.
-What the windows were like before-
-And after-
I'm still trying to suss out placing more emphasis on the door in a way that looks natural to the scene. For the moment, I've settled on a fake bounce light from where the sun hits the nearby flooring.
Chimney smoke has been added using a cylindrical mesh that is being offset by a noise texture, all wrapped up in a translucent material.
I've also added a gateway going back to the Chao Lobby, with the 'Lobby' text being Frankenstein'd from the existing material I used for the 'Kindergarten' sign. This was done just to provide an endpoint for the path, although I've expanded the area as a result, adding in a Chao-shaped pond. I'm still very much working out the lighting and composition for these added elements.
The lighting has been touched up a little - I've cranked up the bloom and tried to push the overall lighting in a warmer direction that hopefully feels more fitting for the cutesy world of the Chao.
The trees behind the kindergarten have re-arranged to better frame the building, and have the composition travel upward to a more a defined point.
From here, I plan to work over the new area surrounding the pond and gate, dress it up with rocks, foliage and possibly introduce a portal effect for the gateway - feeling pretty good going forward!
you killed it! wow great job!
Wow, those changes had a big impact on the feeling of the scene. Very impressive! I love the chao-shaped pond as well. If SEGA ever made a Sonic Adventure 2 remake I doubt they would put a tenth as much love and effort into this environment as you have.
@jgarrison Thanks for the kind words!
Little update - the pathway's bricks have been reduced in scale and their normals have been adjusted to relax how bumpy and uneven the path was. I've also adjusted the material itself - too much AO-based coloring was seeping into the base color, this felt at odds with the rest of the materials in the scene.
I've dressed up the swirling pathway a little more, adding small fencing and leaf decals around the edges, along with additional foliage and some Chao containers stacked up near the lobby portal. Speaking of, the Chao Lobby gateway now has a portal, made using a combo of a plane with a distance field-based glow and some particles with a vortex force applied to them.
I've added extra lighting along the path to try and guide the eye along it more easily. I also reworked the lighting for the trees. Previously, I had a non-shadow casting directional light affecting only the trees, with a strong subsurface color applied to the trees as well. This looked fine initially, but as I introduced more shaded areas into the scene, the brightly lit trees started to feel out of place; not glued to the scene. Subsurface color has been calmed down, I've ditched to extra directional light and I've opted to place spotlights on specific trees instead, mostly near the kindergarten building. Hopefully this not only makes the scene feel more cohesive, but also helps direct the eye to the building.
Beyond that, I've done a lot of shifting around rocks, trees and landscape to try and fill out and frame the scene better. I think from here I just want to re-introduce some more grass to the pathway (make it look more worn like it has in previous shots), polish up the normal and roughness maps of the Chao containers and then dive into the post-process settings.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mz0qGY
Alright, I'm calling this one done! Overall, the scene has been pushed in a warmer and more saturated direction, modified the cloud material so that I can actually position the clouds for screenshots, polished up some smaller materials and added extra trees to frame the wide shot better. I've spent some time creating a cinematic flythrough of the environment, along with some quick renders of most of the materials and models used in the map.
this turned out, super gorgeous!
@wirrexx Thanks a bunch! I'm really glad I finished this one, it's got me all excited to dive into another project.