shroom house

dabu

Hey guys,

Started a new environment model, hopefully to be completed by GDC, in a month. Im going off of my own art, a sculpture I made back in high school. Not an exact duplicate, just inspirational.

Wanted to make it higher poly, but not sure what a reasonable count would be, once all the details are in. Im guessing it will be around 15k, but I would go higher if it was appropriate, I'm still kinda new at this.

Working out the BSP right now, and then will add floating details on top of it., like doors, windows, little plants, etc
current count is around 2700 tris.

Feedback wanted, I'm not even sure how to go about texturing this thing later on, or if having floating geo is acceptable.

TIA

cheers

dabu

cholden

Fantastic start, always great to see environments.

Try not to lose the girth of the stalk at the top, and when you get to the top of the mushroom, warp it up a bit from the concept so that it looks more natural.

What type of gameplay do you intent to use this level with? Looks like a platformer style level.

If by floating geometry you mean putting map objects everywhere, this is very acceptable.
For example, all those 'rocks' around the windows, and stacked at the base could be the same object. For organic levels I've worked on recently, I'll model three or four rocks of difference size/style and copy them all over the place. These map objects don't have to use many triangles, so they won't eat up your budget. They can also cover much of the original level geometry, allowing the designer to clean up a lot of these polygons.

Not sure what you're looking for on texturing feedback, but I'd say try keeping it in one 1024 sheet, mostly 256s, and hand paint everything with big shapes, visible brush strokes to give it a lot of style and color.

dabu

Thanks Cholden!

I guess what I meant by texturing, is that I know you're supposed to use tiling textures, and I really don't know how to make stuff tile on something so complex as this. Though I guess I could just map it like a character, and then use the open bits to do smaller tiling textures, like on the winding walkway.

Platformer, or RPG, where the player wanders up the pathways to the various doors.

If this was next gen, would two 1024 maps be ok? Im not sure what the standards are these days.

cholden

For texturing this type of environment, I like to use a 'wall' texture (a darker, high in contrast/detail surface that the player can not walk on) and 'ground' texture (lighter, smoother surface) to represent where the player can go. Then build a transition texture to bring the two areas together, like this quick example:



Breaking up your mesh for this type of texture setup may make it easier to uv.

One thing with your pathways and some other parts, if you keep your edges for important areas (path outline) in a smooth clean shape, it will look much better in game. This is something I've recently been experimenting with to beautiful, intuitive results.

Going next gen, you're fine to push some heavier textures around.

BTW, I can give more specific examples on some things if you're intested just pm me.

dabu

Got my geo pretty well roughed out and am happy with the current design. The pink area is where the player can walk, with a little guy to indicate scale. The squares are a dock/pier.

Cut my base geo into separate parts for texturing, top, middle, and bottom.
Figure that there will be 3 tiling textures and 2 transition textures for in between each region. Still don't know what Im going to do for the roots though.


Now its time to add tons of detail.;)

currently around 4200 tris

check it

dabu

Holy crap this is taking forever,

Took a break over the weekend to save myself from RSI, and spent today mapping the stalk.

Started putting in some temporary textures to try to get a feel for what this thing is going to look like when its all finished.

Like the idea of it being in the middle of a lake, anyone know a place to get free hi res skybox textures?

cheers

dabu

Daz

Hehe cute. I think the layout of the planks of wood feels wrong. The look a bit like a kitchen like that. Wouldn't they just all be parallel? I dunno, nitpicking. And you're gonna fix the UV seams right?

http://www.1000skies.com/

Cubik

Rock barnacles on the top of the mushroom head? I hope those really are temporary textures

Love the way the roots has been shaped to form archways over the stairs.

I agree with Daz about the planks. Make them more random in shape! You need some rope to tie those boat fast too...

dabu

Hey guys,

Yeah those planks are totally temporary, still working out how much texture space to devote to the tops of the docks. Just threw the wood texture from the steps on there in the mean time.

Im changing the way Im mapping the stalk today, so it will look much better and use a bit more texture space as well.

You can tell they are barnacles? Nice Eye. Don't worry, its totally temp. +)

Thanks for the sky site Daz, are there any free ones on there? It looked like you had to pay...

Daz

Well, yeah technially you should be paying I guess, but I'd read the licensing agreement or shoot him an e-mail. Im sure for personal portfolio use there'd be no charge to grab some of these that don't have watermarks http://www.1000skies.com/partials/index.htm ( but I could be wrong )

cholden

Wow, those walkways and proportions with the character look very tight (head barely ducks under some roots). I'd double the scale of this area so the character has more breathing room walking through all those tiny ledges.

That's a lot of stairs, how about breaking it up some with angled slopes? Stairs can eat a lot of polygons, but that's not so much of a problem these days.

The head of the mushroom would look great if you brought it down (a couple player heights), rotated it back a bit so that the bottom faced more toward the dock, and warped up the shape a bit. Don't be afraid to get wild with the shapes on this, crazy stylized mushrooms as game environments have come a long way over the years.

dabu

Hey Guys, thanks for the continued feedback and critique. Still have a ways to go, but I finally have a good idea where I want to take this.

Ready to start bringin in the rest of the textures for the base and will get started on the cap once thats done. Then I have to makes tons of plants. The feel should be really misty foggy, green mossy, mystical foresty feel, like the gardens in Kyoto.



Still working out the rest of the textures and will be adjusting the color of everything once all the textures are in. Still not done mapping those roots!







cheers

dabu

Sa74n

great work! love the idea and how you've done it so far

MAT-ST

Looking great! I love the concept. I wouldnt mind living there. I think the stairs might be too uniform as they are now. If this was lived in, some may be missing or broken in half or damaged. I guess you could be doing that in the texture but it's something to think about.

dabu

My shoulder is going to explode, but its coming along, really starting to tie altogether, now that Ive got some moss action going on.

I am tossing around the idea of using a second and maybe even third step texture to make them more unique. They are only 128s so I really don't have an excuse not to.

Textures are still unfinished, but I'm starting to love this thing. Anyone know a good technique to make the water dark and murky?

More to come after the weekend, and thanks for the continued feedback.

cheers

dabu

HonkyPunch

that would be pretty friggin' sweet as part of a level in some game.

KDR_11k

Yeah, add a shock rifle and a minigun, perhaps a few health and adrenaline pickups!

ElysiumGX

Oh wow. That's beginning to look awesome!

Lore

It’s looking really cool. I really like the design. I have a few suggestions. I'm assuming you don't have a poly limit.

Add in some type of lantern light on post or on hooks that are hanging off the roots. Go with some type of steal latten with a lot of open light space with metal trim that sort of repeats the root like pattern. I’m thinking of lighting the stair area like a hallway of some sort.

The realistic design of the dock area bothers me. First let me start with the dock. The walking planks should be supported by some type of under wood construction. Running on 4x 8’s that are perpendicular to the planks would make this area much more believable. Plus the posts look to perfect and tall. As if they serve another purpose. Either they are for a sign or banner. Their isn’t enough post to place a roof over top of it so thats out. Either put a sign up or shorten them. Plus make the top caps of the cylinder uneven. Move a few verts down to make the top appear as they are not cut so perfectly straight or there has been some wear on them. I would also add some middle supports, right before the bridge. This would give the little slip something to tie up to or put in some sort of bracket on the planks.

The bridge needs more to it. In order to get wood to bend like that you have to do one of two things. Cut it that way in which you cutting along the grain. This means it will split during the cutting process or it wont support any weight as you had cut along the grain. The other method is to steam or soak it in hot hot water and slowly bend it into shape. But with consistent weight on top will eventual snap the board. Curved wood should only be used as trim not for support. So add in some support underneath the bridge. This can be done really ease with some extra wood. Plus you can run a handrail off of the one side to give some center weight to the wood area in the water.

But this all mute as you can pass it off as the wood has been enchanted. Having uncles and a brother who are both architects and builders, you learn a few things.

I really like the grass texture and the roots acting as archways and the overall open spacing of everything. Very Frank Lloyd Wright-ish. Good luck on the skybox. My best suggestion is create one yourself. Grab a camera and find a forest canopy. I’m in a desert and their definition of forest here is two trees within one mile of each other.

dabu

Spent Monday and Tuesday learning unrealEd, love the terrain feature, so easy! Too bad I won't have time to get anything into it before GDC.

Spend today making some nice windows and doors and other details (btw, lore, the supports under the arched bridge are planks butted against each other and cut at slight angles), and fixing the base mesh. Also began re texturing the trunk. After checking out the assets used in UT2k4, I decided to bump the texture res up a little, so the roots now use a full 1024 map, so they should be a lot less blurry after I remap them. Also made everything a lot more mossy, I might have to dial it back a bit.

more to come.

Daz

This is starting to look really good Dabu. Is there much you can do about the big difference in texture resolution between the branches and the stone paving? The shot 2nd from bottom is where it's most apparent I think.

dabu

Yeah that texture will be much sharper once its remapped. I doubled the effective texture size that that piece uses to a full 1024 x 1024 square. I feel like I made it too green overall and want to go back to the previous style where there is more bark showing.

dabu

Finally spent a solid day on it, coming along quite nicely, though all the alphas on the plants seem to slow down Maya considerably, which can be frustrating. Really like the dusky fog effect.

I can't seem to get more than 5 or so lights in in the scene at a time, does anyone know a fix for this? I would simply bake the verts and delete the lights, but I don't know how to do this. I would also like to place lights so it looks like the windows are on and glowing. Any suggestions? I'm using Maya 5.

Over the next few days I will finish the boat, the potted plants, the cap, light it and get it on my site.

Thanks for viewing, and keep the suggestions coming.

cholden

Very cool outcome! Maybe a bit more atmospheric lighting coming off the water and lights beaming out of the windows would push it to a whole other level. :P

Daz

Very nice outcome Dabu. Chris has some great suggestions there with the lighting.

I'm not sure what you mean about the light stuff. Why can't you get more than 5 lights in the scene?

D63

That rocks. Kinda reminds of some of the houses in Morrowind, only better. Nice going. I like the idea of having light beams coming out of the window too.

dabu

cheers guys! The alpha plants really added a ton to it. I like your ideas, cholden, but I don't know how to implement them, I used an ocean shader for the water surface, because I liked the way it looked. What would be a better way to make the water look like it was emitting light?

For making the windows glow, I could build light beams out of geometry and just alpha the verts, using paint vertices, is this a good way to make beams? I would rather create actual lights that produce this effect, but I don't know how.

Daz, after I have 7 lights on and active in the scene, any others I create don't have any effect till I delete a previous light. Its like I can only have so many active lights in the scene at time. I think there's a way to turn this limitation off, but I don't know how.

Daz

Oh wait you mean in terms of the realtime viewport display? Yeah there's a limit to how many Maya will use to light the scene in a viewport. But it wont affect a render. Check your mail btw.
And for the windows I think an actual volumetric shaft of light poking out *might* be a bit overkill. But If you wanted that you can try the volume lights in Maya. Can't you just add a glow to the actual light source?

One thing that doesn't seem clear right now ( unless I missed it sorry ) : Do you want to end up with a super fancy render, using all the bells and whistles that something like mental ray offers? Or are you going for much more of an 'in game' look?

killingpeople

that is looking good!

Kashaar

Wow, looks great!
As for free skybox textures... Why not make some yourself? http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen <-- Awesome program, very powerful... just look at peoples' galleries

Lore

Dabu, it’s looking really sweet. I’m really digging the moss, lily pads and the atmosphere effect. You have such great detail, you have done a great work here, but the head (roof) of the shroom is looking pretty plain. Maybe some hanging vines with flowers from the rafter like area. But my major issue is on the top. The only thing I can think of is adding in a skylight or a attic window to break it up. Maybe someone else might have a better suggestion.

It’s really looking cool, like something out of dark fantasy novel.

dabu

Thanks for the kind words, yall.

Daz, I really want this thing to look as in game as possible, so I was only gonna use viewport grabs. Even on my 3 ghz p4, renders seem to take forever with so many lightsources. Is there any way to put more active lights in the scene at once? I tried using a light to brighten one of the windows, and I like the effect, but I can't have enough lights at once to lighten all the windows this way. Could I just bake the lighting into my verts instead? If so, how do I do this?

I don't know if I will add any windows to the cap, but I was gonna warp it out a bit using a latice deformer, and would there be any way to add some glowing spots to it?

Daz

Exactly how many lightsources are you talking about when you say 'so many' ? Like 5 or so? What are they pointlights? I've no idea why your renders are taking so long. What kind of timeframe are you talking about here? With that spec machine a 'low poly' ( as in in-game ) scene like this with a few lights should take seconds ( as in, under a minute. I don't necessarily mean like 2 or 3 seconds ;-) ) to render in Maya software. Unless you are raytracing all those lights of course.

As for attempting to bake anything in ( shadows, lights etc ) I would use mental ray. It's very easy. Check out jeffro's tut. You could set up a handful of lights, and even use G.I. and or F.G and just basically bake into the verts or into texture. I've been testing this workflow on some vehicle stuff at work and it's really very cool and simple.

But I understand your want for it to look more 'gamey' however yeah. Unfortunately you are stuck with the amount of lights you can display in the viewport. It is hardcoded afaik for obvious performance reasons.

For glows that work in realtime, you could make an alpha channel blob/glow texture, assign an incandescent material to it and apply that to sit on a plane in front of your light source. Personally however, I would simply squirt it on with the airbrush in Photoshop. Much quicker

edit: forgot Jeffs tut url:

http://www.jeffparrott.com/mentalray_01.html

dabu

Warped the top out, still needs to be completely stitched, but its looking good enough. Textured the boat, that was fun, took about 2 hours. Added some hanging vines/moss to the chimney, and added some potted plants, though they don't really match color wise so I may have to change them.

Well, I counted and it seems that I'm allowed 8 active lights in the viewport at a time. I have 2 area lights at the top that illuminate most of everything, and I'm using point lights with decay in front of the windows and doors. I also put incandescent white material behind the windows to make them brighter. After 8, added lights don't have any effect. My work around is simple though, I just delete lights I don't need when taking screen shots. Not the best method, but it works for now.

That glow technique worked like a charm for making glowing spots, and it was a really fun texture to make. I tried playing with the render globals and now it renders reasonably fast, but self illuminating all my textures makes them really white in the render, so I think Ill just stick to viewport grabs, since I've dialed everything out to look as good as possible in real time.

Thanks for the link to the tut, I will have to use it on my next piece. I'm thinking a warehouse party for my ravers to dance in.

Now to get this thing onto my site +).

Daz

It looks really rather spiffing Dabu.
Perhaps a warmer colour than white could work better for interior light sources.

Btw, If you ever want a '100% self illumination' look for textures in renders in Maya, use ambient colour instead of incandescence which is additive. That way it wont actually make your textures whiter If that makes sense.

MoP

This looks really good. I love it. Great atmosphere... nice work!

Scott Ruggels

I have been really enjoyign the progress on this. The model is very solid. So, ar there interiors to this, and are you going to make i part of a UT2K4 level?

Scott

dabu

Cheers you guys, I'm flattered.

Daz, I tried playing with warmer colors for the window lights, but they just weren't bright enough, though I could actually remove the window glass. I want to tweak more but since my site is flash based, its gonna take a solid day to update it. Sigh.

Scott, I would love to do interiors, design furniture, etc, and get it to be a playable level, but for now, it will simply be how it is. Maybe after GDC when I have some spare time, I will try to bring it into UT2k4.

John Warner

hey! good stuff man! awesome to see something go from concept to proof there of

great work

dabu

Thanks John!

Got rid of the window glass and played with the lighting a bit, better me thinks, though its hard to make the colors meld, since the cap has this whitish purplish glow and the windows are now orange. Tis warmer though.

Joshua Stubbles

Shaping up really nice actually
I'm liking the lighting so far as well, very moody. Might be just a smidge too dark though - can't see the finer details of the tree.

Lore

I like the lighting. And its really cool how far it is now with all the work you put in to it. Maybe you should have this evening scene as it is now. And then create a early-noon where the fog is burning off but is hanging in patch’s to give a slight contrast and we can see all the nice detail and time you have put in to this.

MoP

I've said it before but I'll say it again more forcefully now:
I really like this a lot. It's a lovely scene. Superb work!

Sa74n

wow.. didnt think it would come out that well when i saw your first pics

PeteJ

well that lokos super sweet, didnt think it wpuld turn out this nicely rounded
is there a little dude or dudette to live in your normus shroom?
rockin. carry on

Lore

Cuban_pete, tell me. Can you not go wrong with Shrooms?

dabu

Wow, thanks for the positive comments. I thought it was done, guess theres always room for improvement. Indeed there is a dudette to live in the shroom, thats what I want to work on next, heres the inspirations for her, shes wearing my cloak, btw She'll be a lot shorter though, and more of a cartoon style character.