What's up next?
The corrugated metal building scene has drawn to a close...after the final few texture tweaks and lighting alterations..I've become satified, and will probably prep the pictures for the offical side of my website tomorrow...Started this new scene this mroning...will probably take my camera to work tonight and take pictures of the real parking garage...until then this is what I got.
Replies
A quick tip - poly in an edge where the the walls meet the ground, then apply an alpha blended edge dirt layer to these. This keeps the dirt off your wall textures (for tiling) but softens the edge where the two meet.
Nice modeling and texturing. Aesthetically, I would say, dirty it up a bit more, give it more texture variation.
But my main critique is the structure itself. Probably to untrained eyes, it looks correct and alright, but it isn't.. beams SHOULD sit ontop of columns, taking the load down to ground. On your picture it just looks bizzare like some floating structure (a floating beam) that supports nothing, but add weight to the floor plate. So, (looking at picture - "circled" is where column should sit) put the column beneath the beams, not beneathe the floor plate.
Besides that glaring error, I think it's looking good.
G'night, folks.
Scene is coming along beautifully, though
Green: Your paint stripes are nice, you have the ware idea right, but not the patterning and hues. The paint's color will charge hue over time as well as wear. Not a lot but some. The doorway path would have less paint as well in the foot path. Even if the gate never opens, the wear path will real properly to the eye. Also near the wall the pain wont wear at all. Paint will also peel a bit, cope some small sections by the edges and place it on a layer. Set the blending on that layer to a small small drop shadow. Collapse the layer and edit as needed on the paint texture.
Blue: the bottom of the bars would be welded to a steel plate, not embedded in the concrete wall. Some are built like that but its not common. Attach the bars at the top. You can easily bend the bars with the leverage that they would give as shown. I would suggest building a steel window frame, just from cut steel plates and weld the bars into that. The box would be bolted and/or welded to anchor bolts that are embedded in the concrete. munge up the verts at the base of each bar to simulate some welding.
Orange: Dirt. you need lots more, especially in a garage like this. At every point at which the surface changes direction, horizontal and vertical, you will have a line of grime and dirt. Also where anything connects together, steel to concrete especially. There should be some grime streaks running from the steel plate on the window. A puddle of rust stains from where the pipe enters the concrete. That's another point, the pipe needs a hole to go into, then pack the hole with a rubber sheath. it protects the pipe from grinding the concrete when the two materials change temp. I see you did a little of that at the base of the wall texture, cheers on that.
Yellow: more rust streaks from the hinges, also thick weld points, please.
Red: get a Broom finish concrete texture. Make sure you use its textal scale properly. Figure how wide the concrete stripes are in real life and apply them realistically to your floor. the grit you have on there now looks a little big. also around the puddles the concrete will absorb the water and will be a darker fade ring around the damp and wet areas.
Well bedtime...the night shift awaits.
See you guys later.
Also, I'd look in to some more dramatic lighting. Paying attention to the scenes lighting is good, but you want this to be exciting to look at. Anyone can copy environments or characters from real life - its what they do with it that matters. Right now I'm seeing some pretty bland lighting, which is definitly realistic to its setting. Theres things you can add without going overboard to create a sense of excitement. Different coloured lighting, a light source from a dropped flash light casting the shadow of a person, a light from ceiling that has come off one of its hinges but is still on, etc. are some ideas. If you go this route it'll be interesting to see what you come up with. I'd also look in to rendering an ambient occlusion version and overlaying it ontop of your scene in Photoshop like I did here. It'll help fill in some corners and create some contrast to your scene.
Keep it up.
I'd also second Adam's suggestion of rendering with ambient occlusion/global illumination/final gather/radiosity/whatever you want to call it. doing so will add a lot of realism and atmosphere both.
Heres a couple links to some pics I found for ref. Hope it helps. Keep rockin the house.
http://pry.com/pics/ivrea/DSCN0931.JPG
http://www.shanejmontgomery.com/photos/garage.jpg
also one think the sticks out to me is the edges of the leaves, its not the alpha you need to play with but on the diffuse you need to sxpand the colour of the leaves outwardto cover tha edges of the alpha as now you have a black halo that makes them POP just a bit too much.
nice work dude
for example -
http://realitytimes.com/rx_images/photojournal/roadleaves_nov0501.jpg
http://www.butuki.com/images/gingko_leaves_400.jpg
http://www.temporaldoorway.com/gallery/image/photo/leavesatthecurb.jpg
http://www.butuki.com/images/gingko_leaves_400.jpg
And some signage , like noonie mentioned wouldn't go amiss, some hazards for low beams, floor numbers, road markings , bay numbers/borders, tyre scrapes, paint scrapes on pillars, metal protecting plates on corners of pillars near ramps/exits.
Also various litter/trash under the stairwell, coke cans, crisp bags, take-away food wrappers and other detritus would be cool.
But here is still some crit.. I hope it does't sound like I am biting.
But really, I think it is looking much better. You don't really have to follow my comments I think it just gets into too much architectural side LOL