Haunted House Environment
polycounter lvl 18
model so far, would 1 texture per building and one for all the other stuff like wooden fence and metal stairs be acceptable?
and whats max resolution i should go on anything??
the final look will be the 2 foward building will be made of old wood and the two will be made of old brick,to show a house that has been expanded over time, i kinda liked the time of year of the haunted house from the shining so the floor will be mainly snow and dried grass
ill be adding some more secondary details also to give it more character,suggestions to raise the sacry value of the scene will be appreciated
Replies
Maybe some broken down bits on the buildings. Like a corner broken down, and all dark & scary inside. Imagine a huge funnel web spider dwelling. Cobwebs, open graves, etc etc. All very creepy.
Can't wait to see it textured
so some of the things ive placed so far after this screen is an axe on a stump near logs and a broken swing set with one of the seats slanting down due to the broken chain
how about the textures??
never really made a scene like this and dont know whats acceptable resolutions
As far as the textures go, it depends on what this is for.
If this small set is an entire level on PS2, try and stay under 1MB for all textures (4&8bit). As far as sizes go, I've noticed that some engines have trouble rendering anything larger than 256x256 on PS2, but others can do it fine.
If I were you dude, I'd do next gen materials for this and make sure it see's its way to a real-time engine.
As always you are welcome to lean on me for any help or advice you need, I'd be glad to do whatever I can.
-R
Some can say "oh, let's go with a 1024, this is not going to be pixelly", but they don't add details and spend not the work required for such a huge texture.
If you render something good in 256, you will have no problem to work in higher resolution in the future.
Great work on the mod btw
Good work so far,much more orginial than your standard haunted house.
Good luck with the textures.
Also that tree there looks fabulous,howis that one done and how does it look close up? (im curious as ive been trying to figure out ways of doing low poly trees for awhile now)
I agree with Pak about the texture size. The next gen stuff is bearing down on everyone its time to let go of the limitations of 5 years ago and let the bar be raised a smidge. That doesn't mean toss optimization to the wind and go skies the limit. IF you can get a scene looking really good with as little resources as possible, that says a lot about your skill. We will still be making games for the PSP and other hardware that is not as advanced for varrious reasons.
Judging by the use of polys already the scene, it looks like you are not gearing it toward the old PS2 software? So larger or detailed textures could be fine. Provided you are not going to waste the texture space. You also don't have to stick to one size, for a box or door mat you might use a 256, or you might put the box, barrel and the swingset on a 512. Don't forget about single plane, alpha'ed grass, that really won't need a square texture unless you put several strips of grass on the same texture.
It really depends what hardware the scene is going to be displayed on, PSP, PS2, PS3? XBox, xBox 360, PC? Is it real-time, or pre-rendered? Is it a First person shooter where FPS are VERY important, or is it a single player adventure game where every 30 min you get attacked by a giant slug? Those things factor into what your target texture size(s)and poly count should be. Or set a goal for yourself, the max texture size is 10,240 pixels(5-1024px's) and 20,000 polys? Don't use my numbers those are wild stabs in the dark.
When you hit the cap, and want to add more detail look at what you can optimize? Can the chain on the swings be done with 2 planes and a really convincing chain texture? That doesn't mean go crazy and spend 40+ hours building highly detailed stuff then another 40+hrs optimizing, if you build optimized it is always better.
Pak: thanx again for the help ,gonna focus my energy now to environments,this one will be an original and im gonna go to borders and find a movie art book and do somesones elses work since i imgine when i work at this some day ill be doing others ides
Bronco: the tree is made with 1 cylinder and what i did was show off the top of a very low pole cicle,raised the center vertice and lowered or raised the rest in a random way,then i applied the branch texture,made duplicates going down and roated and raised and lowered their vertices,the tree total is like 200 polies but this method i figured of for pines gives good results
vig: ill definatly look into a greenhouse,but i didnt wanna give the house a look of wealth which a greenhouse would normally have, i was thinking maybe a cellar door in the ground or maybe a frame of an old house.
oh and the scene itself hasnt broken 8k polies yet even with new additions not seen
here an overview of the top and the bottom is a render of what ive done so far texturewise.
the building on the right of the firt part ive textured will be wood as well and the two others will be brick,im gonna add a few other things to the environment,but i dont know yet.
if all goes well on this next enviroment ill model will be either from lord of the rings.
or that desert environment from raiders of the lost arc with in the desert where indiana jones fights that bald german around the plane.
PC problems slowed me over the weekend but im back on track,
not done with the second building have windows roof and a little bit of refining left on the worn paint texture left.
in case your wondering the paint scheme is one i found of an old wooden house on a google search it had a white paint job and the areas exposed to the sun and which lost paint over time had a worn out and weathered look to them
Also remember that art is never done it is just abandoned in a near finished state. get it alittle closer to near finished and call it good =P
added 3rd building,which is a part of the house built a few years apart from the wooden part also finished,left all of the windows dark and dirty except one which seems rather clean for the house and curtains still up.
non sterotypical haunted house,if you were in a snow storm it would look mighty inviting but once in you realize outside probably is safer
finished not barring any needed tweaks
scene is 8483 plygons 9 textures
My one crit would be how unbroken, and unboarded the windows are. Most people that fear a house, toss rocks at it's windows =P You also might want to open the door open a bit and have some of the same yellow/warm lighting coming from the opening. I would also extend the snow outside the FOV of the camera
i was considering maybe painted out windows