Guardhouse building
polycounter lvl 18
So I've resurrected a project from like 2 years ago that I never got to finish. Updating my folio right now with next-gen stuff, this being my first building. Currently sitting at about 6k tris, though there's still more optimizing I haven't bothered doing yet. In the end it'll be done up with specs, normals and lighting.
I'm actually looking for advice on two issues.
1. I'm torn on whether I should keep the horizontal roof tiles modeled or just texture/normalmap them. The 3 roof pieces comes out to about 900 tris total, and that's with them being divided once down the vertical middle for texturing. Or should I just keep the roof a flat plane and save myself the polys? I'd lose the extra depth of the modeling and the silhouette of the jagged edging. On one hand I want it to look badass, on the other I don't want to be wastefull.
2. I noticed in Oblivion a lot of the edges on environments were beveled, I assume it's for rounding out the lighting. I currently have not beveled any edges other than experimenting with the items in the red boxes in the second pic. What's the general census on it? is it worth the extra polys to smooth out the lighting on the stones and wood supports?
Any insights would be much appreciated
I'm actually looking for advice on two issues.
1. I'm torn on whether I should keep the horizontal roof tiles modeled or just texture/normalmap them. The 3 roof pieces comes out to about 900 tris total, and that's with them being divided once down the vertical middle for texturing. Or should I just keep the roof a flat plane and save myself the polys? I'd lose the extra depth of the modeling and the silhouette of the jagged edging. On one hand I want it to look badass, on the other I don't want to be wastefull.
2. I noticed in Oblivion a lot of the edges on environments were beveled, I assume it's for rounding out the lighting. I currently have not beveled any edges other than experimenting with the items in the red boxes in the second pic. What's the general census on it? is it worth the extra polys to smooth out the lighting on the stones and wood supports?
Any insights would be much appreciated
Replies
and i would probabyl bevel edges where you would obviously see them
and perhaps just make the stonesowrk and woodwork a bit more irregular
nice building
keep going
as far as your questions:
i would most defiantly normal map those tiles in. 900 polys is a hell of alot for such a little gain. your on the right track thinking about profile, but a good rule of thumb is the farther from the character, the less detail to put in.
as far as your second Q goes, yeah, it wouldnt hurt to bevel those edges. it does help with the light pass, but also not everything in life has razor sharp edges, so its a good thing to go ahead and soften those up a bit.
also, am i looking at it wrong or is there only the one door on this bad boy? you might want to add a back door, especially if this is a guardhouse. they would be that much less likely to build a building that has only one entrance, wouldnt want to get stuck in now would they?
It often helps to add some slopy details to enhance the look . And I can fully second what was said, "a good rule of thumb is the farther from the character, the less detail to put in."
You could also experiment with bigger (less polies) but stronger forms in the "background", in your case the roof.
A little notice about optimization in general:
I did alot of LODs and Optimization for Levels at R*V and what I can say is, trust your eye and try to "fool" it. In one specific case, you could have two cable wrapped around a building, while in the LOD you can just use one cable, slightly thicker. Nobody will notice the switch (with a vizblocker inbetween of course).
This example is basicly useable for any distanced object. Outside the box thinking for beginners
I'll go ahead and bevel what I think needs it and change the roofing over to flat planes with some artifacts to help fake the depth.
diminshed: Great point about the single door, hadn't even thought about it. I'll add 1, maybe 2, more in.
Still tweaking the textures. And the lighting is temp, just a directional and 2 spotlights. I won't buckle down on a light set up till I have the scene all fleshed out.
Now for the static objects and vegetation
so here she is-
Keeping my fingers crossed that in the end this will help me find a good environment artist job
You may consider some weatheration at the top of the rocks, and dirt running up the walls to transition with the ground. Possibly shake up the larger corner bricks to add silhouette detail. Also, apply to EA Mythic.
Any possibility of seeing the texture map for the house? How you laid out those UVs.
For the upper victorian stuco texture I would make some moss or grunge in the corners near the wood frame.
Under the top frame boards (on the stucco texture agian) how about water stains from rain running down the side of the wall sorta like this only verticle not horizontal.
also I would make the center of the stuco texture a bit lighter than the edges just to make it more believable.
@Chris - Cheers, yeah good idea about weathering the rock levels, sometimes you forget the more subtle details when dealing with the whole picture. I'll definetly be going back to extrude some of the corner blocks to add a more dynamic silhouette. And yea Mythic is one of the first places I'll app to once my wife finishes school here
@Lee3dee - Thanks
@Squirmy - Yeah the corner stones have been bugging me for a while, they don't pop out enough. I'll be redoing them partly. Plus they're too green, which makes them blend into the stone wall too much. I'll desaturate them abit too.
And yeah I kind of skipped out on the realistic grunge to the stucco. I think I'll try out some decal maps for some major grunge artifacts for the areas below the wood and windows. Good crits
Thanks guys!
I also agree with more contrast for the lower bricks and wall.
Im not sure if the chimmey is right with the random rock work.
Few more hours and it will be there.
logic-illusion.com
i am the only environmental and prop artist for the game and my team is wanting about 6-7 levels for the finished game. it would be cool to have another environmental artist to work with. you could start on the looted burning village, and i could start on the sewers (both seperate levels we have planned). if you're not busy and understand model effeciency, normal mapping, gloss maps (specular), and in some cases parallax mapping i'd like you on the team.
we currently have around a 500 page design doc for the game too. if interested reply here or e-mail me at metalgearsolido8@hotmail.com
p.s. btw, if interested we can also chat on aim, metalgearsolido8 , and i can show you the more recent models for the game that are not up on the site.
@warby - Yeah it was definetly too noisy, I just hadn't thought about/noticed it. I went back and cleaned up the textures so it should read better now.
@J O T - Thanks, you're right about the rock work on the chimney, it isn't structurally correct at the moment. Not a huge concern right now, I'll get to fixing it eventually.
@Jarrod1937 - Thanks for the offer, unfortunetly right now I'm real busy with kids, work and personal projects. I'll let you know if I get some free time.
Newest shot, with a norm/spec underneath (not the best lighting for it).
The corner stones could also use more normal information. It looks like instead of conveying highpoly info they just have normal information of their 'texture'. I think you could get a lot more out of using normal maps if you let them contribute more to make the model look like an actual highpoly model rather than a low poly model with bump.
I like the model and design though, and the colours are working well... just spend a bit more time and effort on making those normals really give you bang for your pixel-buck.
I think the model could benefit from some serious vertex-busting, large-scale stains and deterioration, and possibly greater contrast or saturation in the textures.
All this said, I think it's a great model and I'm excited to see it progress!
i like the cross-symbol thing on the front and i feel the whole thing needs more symbols like that. large shapes/bright color designs that would read well and associate it to some army or something. beside the cross, it could be the village tavern just as well
agree with tinman on the frequency man. the rendered surface in the grey images reads much clearer, the textures overkill it. i'd simplify and relax the yellow texture, so it looks more like in the pics in the top of the thread.
One thing I should mention is that this is my first normal map, which is mostly why it came out as more of a bump map than an efficient normal. I only used the nvidia filter and I've been trying out what it can do (and how to do it), so I kept it pretty simple. But with that said now that I've gotten this far, and learned a shit ton, I'm going to try and redo the stones so they look like stones. Rather than neatly cut "stone" walls.
It's been a great learning project all around, I'll try and kick it up a notch now.
thanks again.
Have a look here for a good normal map generation app, its awesome and very easy to use.
I love the colors and design, with some better normals this could really pop.
I've got all the props broken up individually on my site if anyone's interested - www.justindinges.com
Also, I'm now looking for a studio job, if anyone has any leads
Here's the complete scene (lit with 1 directional and 1 spot):
Something with; diffuse, normal, spec with alpha, and emissive would go along way.
i agree with the idea that the detail is a little clean and high frequency.
layering up some water damage and dirt on seperate layers or floating polys would makeadd a great deal. also the modeling looks a little clean to me (not nessacrily a prob)
but some less level (medeival buildings are rarely square) angles and diping, twisting wood wood add to tyhe sillohette (SP).
also id add some larger details to add some interest, like cracks in the plaster with wattle and duab style stuff showing underneath. and maybe a couple of lanterns (with burn marks.
but dont get me wrong its a great peice that will get you a cool job, good luck
Shep- Totaly agree with your crits, maybe I'll go back at some point and try and address those issues.
But yeah, the house is awesome.
That said, if it does look good then something would have to be done of its look from a distance.
I love this, quit a bit, but believe the file shot could have used a little bit more love & magic: I'd try and tell a story with this piece. It's a great piece, but comes off rather stale when your beauty shot is, quite simply, just a shot. Go for an expressive angle - focus on something story worthy (like the axe in the tree stump).
I'd also spend some time on the surrounding scene. It's not up to the same quality (particularily the grass IMO) of the rest of the scene. That, and the background ends abruptly and throws off the rest of the piece.
Good work, just need a smidgen more.