Environment - Spirit World Work In Progress
Hi everyone, this is a work in progress environment Im putting together for my portfolio. I am hoping I can get some feedback from everyone about what I have done so far. The environment is supposed to be the home of the spirits within the spirit world.
This is all of my base geometry for the environment. I still have to make the grunge textures, waterfalls, and possibly a new cube map. Any and all comments are welcome.
Here are a few screenshots
Im using Virtools as my render engine, which means you can view my environment interactively through the webplayer, so it will require you download the virtools webplayer (4mb) which will allow it to run the scene right in your browser window. (The scene file will be another 37mb and will be downloaded automatically as well)
Click here to install the player and view Scene
This also includes a texture viewer so you can take a closer look at my maps.
Some technical details Im using a very resource intensive shadow stencil process right now which will degrade performance in older machines. You can turn these shadows off with the 2 key. Im also using a normal map shader which will require DirectX 9 and shader2.0.
A little disclaimer too Im not responsible if this makes your computer blow up!
Feedback of any kind would be greatly appreciated. Im sorry I dont have videos or more screenshots to give you guys, I wont really make many of those until Im done developing the scene. Im also curious what you guys think about distributing a portfolio an interactive medium like this? Ill still have a demo reel and the more traditional portfolio, but I plan to provide this as well.
Thanks for any feedback, any questions or comments can be posted here.
This is all of my base geometry for the environment. I still have to make the grunge textures, waterfalls, and possibly a new cube map. Any and all comments are welcome.
Here are a few screenshots
Im using Virtools as my render engine, which means you can view my environment interactively through the webplayer, so it will require you download the virtools webplayer (4mb) which will allow it to run the scene right in your browser window. (The scene file will be another 37mb and will be downloaded automatically as well)
Click here to install the player and view Scene
This also includes a texture viewer so you can take a closer look at my maps.
Some technical details Im using a very resource intensive shadow stencil process right now which will degrade performance in older machines. You can turn these shadows off with the 2 key. Im also using a normal map shader which will require DirectX 9 and shader2.0.
A little disclaimer too Im not responsible if this makes your computer blow up!
Feedback of any kind would be greatly appreciated. Im sorry I dont have videos or more screenshots to give you guys, I wont really make many of those until Im done developing the scene. Im also curious what you guys think about distributing a portfolio an interactive medium like this? Ill still have a demo reel and the more traditional portfolio, but I plan to provide this as well.
Thanks for any feedback, any questions or comments can be posted here.
Replies
looking at your scene i see very boxy modeling, you don't hide the low polyness of the scene at all. you don't transition well in some parts of the environment, some parts look like they were just cut out by a boolean operation but never put a frame around to help with transition.
worst of all your normal maps are contributing almost nothing to the scene. when i looked through your textures i was amazed to see it was even using normal maps. nromal maps are not to be used for simple detail maps to add small bumps (although they can be used that way). the best way to use them is together with simple geometry to fake a high poly look, hide the low polyness from the silhouette and then use normal mapping to compliment the geometry so the player has a hard time telling its low poly.
as for your diffuse textures, your design stuff is cool, like the phoenix and the fairies on the windows. however all other diffuse textures lacked depth, and came off as uninteresting and flat.
thats about the best critique i can give, while i am not an expert, that is what stoodout to me.
p.s. please don't put MS Office in your resume...
Your demo reel has 17 seconds of credits before it shows 1 bit of art. This is way to long. It's adding on download time, and making the viewer sit before they see anything. Make the credits quick, less than 6-10 seconds if you can, or do them at the end.
As for the environment itself, some of your surfaces look very nice, but could use a few tweaks. The Pheonix in your first screen is well done, but not combined with the bricks very well. It looks as if it's just alpha'ed over the surface, or given transparency on top of the texture. Small touches like removing paint where there are cracks in the bricks will make it more convincing.
Your scene also has some issues where there are some harsh texture transitions, and other textures that just seem out of place, or could use some work. Here's a quick paintover of what I mean.
In the future, I'd also recommend trying to mix in some different surface types. Everything in this piece is just tiles, tiles, and more tiles. Not saying that they look bad, but diversity can go a long way. A cloth banner, or stucco walls for instance.
@ Jarrod1937 - I use firefox with the viewer all the time, I tested it myself. I'm sorry you had to use IE though, wouldn't wish that on anyone lol. Virtools isn't perfect though, it definitely has it bugs. I just like the oportunity to display work in an interactive environment without requiring someone to have a copy of unreal installed or something.
I'll work on some new geometry for the scene, I did make it really simple. I am using normal maps for my bump mapping, the overhead doesn't seem too bad and it looks superior to traditional bump mapping. I'll use normal maps to fake more complicated geometry when necessary, but for simple walls and pillars, it seems unnecessary. I'll take a look at my textures too.
I have an updated resume, I just hadn't uploaded it. It's fixed now.
@ PeterK - Yeah, that demo reel had specific requirements for graduation from my school, the new one will solve that problem, thanks for taking a look though.
@ Uly - I'll be taking a look at those textures and just trying to step them up in general. I don't know if you used the viewer but the phoenix is positioned about a half meter above the ground, pulses slightly, and has small sparks flying off of it. It's not supposed to be a feature of the ground but a separate element. The screenshot I took is when it is partially transparent. Thanks again for the feedback, I'll have some new updates tomorrow evening.