Alleyway WIP
polycounter lvl 18
Still kind of laying out modular pieces and seeing how things look together, the buildings will most likely be taller. Only posting diffuse right now, I have specular maps but they are still temporary, I'll be running everything through crazybump once I'm done with modeling and texturing then I will bake shadows and ambient occlusion (if I can figure out how to do that in Maya)
Any crits, tips, or fizzy drinks would be appreciated.
Will be finished by Monday come hell or high water
Any crits, tips, or fizzy drinks would be appreciated.
Will be finished by Monday come hell or high water
Replies
Are all these textures on one bitmap or is this just how you're displaying it on the forum? I can see the pros and cons of this... so it's more out of curiosity.
Keep on truckin, and don't forget to put crap at the street level and grime in the corners to help ground the buildings...
looks pretty good so far... not a lot of comments. I'm sure i'll have more later on.
Proportions and colors read a bit in the cartoon style. Examples being; windows as big as door, door handle too high (as mentioned), fat/soft trim, and bright, poppy colors.
Though Im not sure the exact style youre trying to hit, Ive been sending this one around to people lately as a good benchmark of colors, proportions and composition:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=399743
nfrrtycmplx: the texture layout is just for presentation purposes, they are all individual textures.
fmnoor: thanks for the link, that will help me alot.
Chris: regarding the textures, should I just desaturate them? Thanks for that link by the way, it made me feel better to see that, besides the windows and other smaller details, the majority of the buildings are using the same brick and concrete textures.
The ground is temporary, I'll be making a smoother concrete texture.
I also second the comment about breaking up the levels with some trim
btw..here's a 'making of' for the link cholden put up:(thanks for the nod cholden
http://67.15.36.49/team/Tutorials_2/making%20of_urban-environment/urban_01.asp
Adjusted the lighting, also tweaked in more in photoshop and added more trim, tomorrow I'm going to try and make variations in the building styles, texture the dumpster (not in scene), add the ladder to the fire escape and then add garbage and graffiti all over the place.
Brighter please, especially think about the background/sky being brighter. Even in night, cities have a glow due to all the light pollution.
even if your walls have pillars etc, they are still "flat" walls on both sides, creating a corridor, adding shape and size variation and layering will help a lot to make it more interesting.
as already said, it's really dark, don't hesitate to put secondary lights, or make them brighter than you think they should be, as cholden said, there's usually a lot of light pollution in cities, different colors too, usually a blue (not that bright tho will simulate the night quite well, ambiant fog can help, though it has to be subtle, street lights are usually orange, which is good to make the scene more vibrant, and spotlights like the one you have next to your garage door can be light green/blue/turquoise, usually a cold color, to balance the orange (also usually not to saturated and brighter then the street lights but with a smaller radius)
just my 2 cents tho, have fun
if anything I'm more comfortable with normal maps now, I think I've used every technique out there.
- That is a pretty wide alley way, you might want to adjust the camera lens setting, or just move the buildings closer together. It looks more like the width of a street than an alley way.
- The camera feels like its laying on the ground.
- The shadows are pretty sharp when there isn't a "hot light source around" most of the light being cast would be very defused and would never produce sharp shadows. I guess since it is at night the moon is helping with a lot of the lighting? The light from the moon is coming from the sun, the moon doesn't make its own light but bounces light from a source that is VERY far way. It is possible for the moon to cause sharp shadows but very unlikely especially in this scene. The more light bounces the softer the edges of the shadows get.
- The street texture feels more like dry dirt than asphalt. I would darken it up, and maybe even do the cliche wet alley asphalt look.
- The scene has you focusing on the ground in the center, but nothing is there to guide your eye somewhere else. A simple man hole laid slightly ajar, and some trash next to it would help keep peoples eyes moving around the scene.
- Think of it as you are taking their eyes on a guided tour, what are your main attractions, how are you going to move them to the next main attraction in your scene. Are you keeping them flowing around so they don't get lost? When people say they get lost in a painting what they mean is the tour is so well thought out and there are so many interesting connections that they don't want to leave. If someone gets lost on "your tour" its a bad thing, it means the flow has been broken. Or the path was too confusing to follow or just dead ended. You don't want to ever really lead anyone down a trail of bread crumbs and not have it pay off which is happening as people look down the buildings, down the dumpsters and have to jump the great detail gorge that is the center street. You have the punisher sign that doesn't have any bread crumbs. A well placed hanging wire, cloths line, or misc hanging fixture would help point it out.
Getting the tour to be successful is the thing of legends and isn't easy to do, but studying some classic paintings and how they flow helps a lot. There are a bunch of books that cover the subject and just about any intro to painting class "should" cover it.
This theory plays out into level design and how you will tell the player what has and will happen, but without words. Instead of just making XYZ props to fit into a city scape take an active roll in telling the overall story. One of the reason games get a bad rap for being light on story is because environmental artists fail to take an active roll in telling the story. There are many reasons for this and I won't get caught up going into them now, just know it is your job to help sell the story as it is being played. If your environment doesn't have at least a hint of back story poking thru then you just fed the stereotype that games are shallow. And that my friend is a beast that has gorged itself long enough.
When a studio asks you to do an art test they really aren't looking for the person that makes the best dumpster but for someone that gives that dumpster a story, a purpose and a reason for being in the environment. Don't be afraid to give the dumpsters personality and have recycle dumpsters HATE the regular ones. Give them names if you have to, just make sure they are more than some prop you made and dropped into an empty spot as filler.
If your Art Director asks "whats the deal with the one dumpster that is over flowing?" You can say "Earl and Cletus packed him full so he wouldn't be emptied on trash day and he would have to sit like that for another week and really start to stink. Don from Don's pizza (point at Don's pizza back door) is going to be pissed because that stank will find its way to his customers." None of this has anything to do with the game but it gives life to your environment.
- Most alleys slope to a center trench or asphalt seam. Water collects in this seam and does things to the asphalt, like permanent water stains, discoloration, moss and plant life growth.
The dumpsters lack plausible detail. Dumpsters have side pockets garbage trucks stick forks into so they can lift them up and empty them. They also have wheels or some kinds of stands so the bare metal doesn't sit on the ground. The reason for this is 2 fold;
1) wheels let you move it around because you can't pull up to the dumpster straight on to empty it.
2) You don't want the bare metal sitting on the ground where it will get scratched, dented, and sit in water where it will rust. When you depend on the bottom of that thing to hold heavy loads and not dump its contents all over the top of your truck, you start to see why they need to sit off the ground.
Most dumpsters also have warning stickers and regulation codes in a few places. You can also use the same base dumpster and use a few well placed alpha sticker on a single plane to change the purpose (recycle, bio hazard, regular trash) and even the wear details on the dumpsters. These gives people clues as to what kind of buildings they are around. If a player must make their way from the museum to the hospital seeing an old wheel chair and a few bio hazard dumpsters inside a chain link fence would help tell them they have arrived and they should start looking for a door. Have you ever played a game and been told to go somewhere and been surprised by the load screen, only to find out you made it you just didn't know it? Yeah poor set up, fight that with every ounce of your being, heh.
You have dumpsters but no other trash. Cardboard boxes are very common to see in alleys. Especially in places of business that receive regular shipments and have a steady supply of boxes being recycled.
ok this is long enough... jeeze I went off on a jag there, sorry, hope it helps more than it hurts.
Thanks Vig, regardless of what happens I'll keep working on improving.
Also, you say there are normal maps on these guys? I really can't tell. Metal things like those bins and the air duct would be easy things that I should be able to see it on there... and I don't.
The scene is too clean.
Those metal rubbish bins are covered in shite, where bags have split, so there will be a mass accumulation around hem where bags has spewed everywhere. No matter how much that is cleaned up there will be bits left, rained on, spread out. When they are full people will leave rubbish beside them.
Think 40 years of people using those.
The buildings have trim, many people forget that. Often the lower trim is higher, with a damp proof course. Let's pretend yours is a good height. You know all that shite? Al those leaves that blow around? All that dirt that gets collected in nooks and crannys? It's not in your scene.
Now, age the buildings. Think of the rain that has poured down them once a week, that wet dirt at the bottom where nature is reclaiming the hard city. Mould, lichen, weeds. All that rotten rubbish helps feed it.
What is that aircon attached to? A perfect hole in perfect brickwork? Why is that light there? How does the power get to it? Did they really take the time to drill through a wall when they could have dropped a cable down? Oh, and vertical cables break up surfaces, which is very useful for us.
Oh, all your lit windows are the same colour. People don't use yellow bulbs - whiter bulbs are becoming more common, paint schemes and curtains will affect the colours too, some rooms will be dark but their doors are open and light spills in from another room.
USE FLICKR
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=alley&w=all
Yeah, Doom 3 trashcans but I thought I could find a solution to the rendering issue before my time ran out
UT2K7 will be out soon and I'll be able to see my lighting and normal maps real time, on that note, just started this with the idea of making a GOW-like level in UT2K7 taking in everyone's recommendations (cheap and fast UV's + texture right now)