Final Project WIP

Bensart

Hey guys. I'm currently doing my final major project at university and this looks like the ideal place to get crits in order to improve my models. Any comments and crits will be wholey appreciated. I will try not to take offence . The meaner you are the better my models will turn out .

Ok to start I have been modelling a church. Its only supposed to be a small church for a small town. I'm having trouble developing the front. Here are 2 of my suggested ideas. I personally prefer the archway.

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Ok, since I have been having problems with the church I moved onto my player character. Heres the current progress. He is an 18th century character and will weild a sword. Hes not going to be too dramatic. A good example of the type of character he will be is a mix between Van helsing, Dante (from devil may cry) and the lead character in a game called Harker. Quite a diverse range i know :P.

Her currently stacks in at 3400 polys.

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cyi

The church looks cool. I like how the huge front section contrasts with the rest of it. The character doesn't look too bad, but it looks like you have some funky poly flow going on in the face and neck area. This reference isn't the best, but it should help illustrate the way your edge loops should flow around the nose/mouth region. Hope this helps a little bit at least...keep it up!

chinups

I think the first doorway is better for the church. The second one looks like an archway for a castle, i would stick with the angular one.

cholden

I agree, the one of the left is more church and overall more interesting to me.

Uly

Make an effort to maintain a strong focus on a few set pieces. I don't know how much time you have available to complete this, but if you're learning, you're probably spreading yourself too thin if you're trying to make a *complete* environment. Look at it this way, if you're creating a complete environment, you'll have less time to texture your character, key structures, or make high poly versions of each, it's a simple question of quality over quantity. I'm pretty sure the industry would appreciate your quality more.

As for the Church, I also like the left side better, and you've paid keen attention to the basic architecture, which is good. Silhouettes are equally important in environments, and looking at a textured cube in a reel / portfolio isn't exactly that exciting.

I do notice that you are using a high amount of intersecting geometry. Though it's not illegal, do be careful with it. Though you may be saving on your polycount, you do end up wasting texture space and causing problems for the ZBuffer to render everything in the correct order. Modern engines also have troubles with uncapped faces, which can lead to a failed depth map pass creating artifacts / no shadows. That being said, your crosses could be integrated into the geo with minimal poly gain. As for the tower, it looks like that'd be tricker to fix. Just take it as a lesson learned for now.

For more feedback, I'd try and get some textured shots ASAP. Geometry can be graded, but a piece is hard to judge until they see your textured objects and UV layouts, etc.

The character inspiration does sound interesting, but the proportions on the character are rather off, along with the edge flow on his face as Chris pointed out. Attend some life drawing classes or read some books, and work on getting his body to a natural shape. I suck at characters and anatomy, so I can't give you any specific feedback other than "It looks off."

Keep it up though, the church is a great start, and I'm eager to what tweaks you have for your character next time. Post your updates soon!

Bensart

Thankyou for your replies. I have been advised by my tutor to keep my enviroment and final assetts for this project reasonable small and I have tried to take this advice into account. However, I still have quite a substantial list of things to do.

Anyway here is the current state of the church building. I put it to one side for a bit whilst I was figuring out how I was going to texture it. Its a combination of both tiling and uvmapped textures.

All comments and crits are welcomed.



****** Im finding the windows tricky to paint. Is there any good tuts around?
[image]http://[/image]

Slum

That skylight render is really killing your texture. Cant really crit (or even see) it at this point.

Uly

Way too dark. You really need some contrasting levels of brightness and colours in that texture. Also, show us your texture flats.

It's good to save skylight renders for geometry, as it lets people see creases and other geo attributes that are hard to determine from a wireframe shot at one angle. I'd set up a 3 point lighting set-up for anything fully textured. A standard warm key light, and cool fill and low lights.

There's a thread on it somewhere... Anyone have the link? (Presenting your work or something.)

Bensart

WAHAHAHAHA

Time for a good laugh people. I knew something was up with the way these images were saving. They seemed to dark to me. But I couldn't figure out why and decided to post anyway. When rendering out some more shots and editing them in photoshop I realised the new projects where greyscale.

DOH!

Anyway heres the rgb versions :P.

This has a clear skylight aswell

NOOOOOOOOOOBIE

Uly

lollrkeekls Greyscale ftw well done!

It's looking pretty good. I like the texture, but it still looks very "grey". Now I know that medieval buildings weren't exactly rainbow brite coloured, I think some different hues could really make the whole thing more interesting. An example is your roof, the subtle greens and blue does a lot to separate it from the rest of the architecture, as well as the moss at the base of the building. Maybe something on the tower of the structure?

I'm also seeing some fudged UVs on your roof's rim, and on the cross. Work on those textures man! You're definately on the right track, keep us updated!

Nate Broach

Agreed, You definately need some more color. Heres a church that is "grey" but you can still see all the different colors still in the walls. It would also be cool to add some kind of ivy growing up the walls.

D4V1DC

Very similar to my old design of a 1900's cathedral church I made for a studio.



I forget the name of the church cause this was some years ago. Looking good otherwise, any inspiration from this actual church? The lower backend looks just like the one i referenced off of.

Some possibly helpful information, take skepticals color/ivy idea and create an overlay color layer and see what colors you find make your church pop more to your liking.

Good luck.

Uly

Be careful approaching the ivy though. People can spend a lot of time on various foliage to add to a piece, and lots of the time, it ends up looking like noisy horse shit. If you don't think that greenery is one of your stronger points, then by all means avoid it.

Bensart

Thanks for your commments guys, some really helpful information. I do plan to add ivy up the spire of the church eventually when i get time. The church is almost finished now (exterior wise) but i am trying to get most of my models done asap and then return and refine them later. I have until may to get this project handed in. I will defo be posting updated images of the church soon.

Anyway for now heres the second character I was required to make. He is very much work in progress but, same as the church, he is at a stage where i can move on and concentrate on other things whilst i get feedback on his general form and appearace (obviously his hands need texturing ).

Anyway this is the guy that rund the church, he needs a lot more where and tear on his clothing and I plan to add more age and distress to his face.

I would like comments on the model as you guys see it. Whats good and whats not so good about it. I personally think the base head texture is nice but I am probably looking at in through rose tinted glasses now. This is only my 2nd attempt at a realistic human. The harsher the crits the better the improvements .

Thanks

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Joao Sapiro

wow, stop rendering in skylight, it wont make whats bad better . Viewport grabs please !

Bensart

If viewport is what one wants, viewport is what one gets . ALthough I dont understand how this will improve cits... [image][/image]

Zephranthes

Add a nubile altar boy

uk_resistant

hey mate, heres that face tutorial i told you about with the noise effect. Im not sure how well this will work in odis, but i assume that if the noise effect didnt work you could always render out the bump map using render to texture. worth a shot anyways.


http://forums.ego-farms.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=ed2d857ab5a652b03baca0132b72d7ef&topic=146.0

Japhir

there are some very obvious seems going on around the back of the head...

Jake C

Church is looking cool and color will only help it from this point. The costume has undergone some changes since your first post...I was going to comment that the feet looking very bulky, and the fingers having just evenly distributed loops that don't really look like they concentrate on where the knuckles are. Do you have some new model wires?

Your starting to get an aged look with the droopy muscles on his jawline, but you need more wrinkle detail (especialy around the eyes) in order to make him fit the age you might be trying to go for

aesir

Yea, you definitely need to add some smaller wrinkles. Everywhere. And a stronger aged skin texture would help as well. Also, the texture is lookin a bit muddy.

Xaltar

I think your normal map is messed up, the wrinkles on the forehead are inverted. Bumps instead of creases...

Keep at it

Bensart

Hey guys, thanks for your replies. Its great to get some crits. It can only make my work better. I promise I am continueing with each of the models in this thread and I will be reposting updates soon but I've decided to crack on with the level for now. The level consists of the church, a guardhouse, prison cell and secret passageway. I hope to get back to the characters by April.

Anyway heres my current progress on the guardhouse. Crits as always please

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Bensart

Ok, so hand in is looming now and things are starting to become 'finished'. I'm posting these images for improvements in the future. Unfortunately I will not be able to add improvements to this before my Major project hand in but would be nice to work on any areas that are bought up.

So heres how the church turned out.

[image][/image]

It is 5500polys and has an unwrap space of just over 2 x 1024 by 1024 maps. (Uses a variaty of tiling textures.)

Cheers

cholden

Both your buildings look good. The texturing came together nicely.

They equally suffer from being too monotone, dark and have a few spots that are too polygonal.

Possibly brighter lighting and a more neutral (less bright) background could help, but I'd also bump up the brightness and saturation of the textures. Saturation particularly in the weathered, stained areas.

You need to invest in small cultural props and adornments to address the believes and day-to-day activities of the people who use them. Use a lot of color in these to make your buildings pop and appear much more unique. This is the most important crit here, if you don't do anything else, DO THIS.

Also, church windows would look better as stained glass murals or at least changed to a yellow/orange/red glow as thought lights are burning on the inside. Blue would be better represented from the inside looking out to give the effect of a blue or night sky.

Finally, the roof of the building tower, and cross on the back of the church appears too polygonal, breaking the illusion of the reality you are creating.

Bensart

Thankyou for your comments. Your right, I did struggle to get colour into this building. I guesse I could of added some decals of grunge and grime but time constraints have limited me for now. I do however plan to add ivy growing up the side of the tower at some point.

Heres an interior I did for the same game project. It is of the guardhouse cellar.

Comments + crits are more the welcomed but again I will not be able to amend anything until post May 10th (hand in) unless it is considered to be something major.

Also, comments on the way it is presented and possible hints for improvements here would be nice too. This is the second time I have tried to present an interior enviroment and I was told my first atempt sucked. :P
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Bone

Man I always have huge problems getting Normals to work in Odis.

Nice effort.

Looks really dark here. But my screen doesn't always work properly...

StJoris

I think it looks pretty good from what I can see, it's pretty dark, really hard to see some parts. I know such a place is supposed to be dark but brightening it up a little so we can see better might be a good idea.

Ryno

Very nice work, but I'd brighten the church texture a just bit, and bring up the lighting hot spots in the Guardhouse cellar.

Any chance we could see the texture sheets?

Bensart

Thanks for your comments guys. I have organised the texture sheets but dont have the to hand at the mo as I am on a different machine.

Thought I would post my 'flyby' of the level. Its youtube so its all fairly dark unfortunately. + This is intended for external examiners so it may get slightly boring. Still I hope you like it. Its real time engine footage of my game level (using the universitys engine)

Level Flyby

Oooo just noticed I never updated the Guardhouse pics. Here we go, finished renders.

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Xaltar

Your environment work is really quite good, asside from the comments above I can't fault it. Nice stuff. I personaly like the less colorful look you have going, though I immagine it all being at night

CheeseOnToast

This is great quality environment stuff, especially considering you're still a student. The character isn't nearly in the same league though, and I would leave it out of any future job-hunting portfolio. I reckon you'll land an environment artist job fairly easily with work like this if you actually want to do it for a living. Good luck with the finals

Bensart

Thankyou for your kind comments. I am trying to get into the industry right now and so I hope potential emplyers see my work in the same light as you . I am glad you can see my better work is with environments as this is my chosen area of focus.

I have put a couple of characters in my portfolio just to show that I can do a range of models although I understand that my main skills lie elsewhere. This is more to appeal to smaller companies who would require artists with a more diverse range of abilities. Here are the finished charcter sheets.

conte

haha, those are fun, nice characters!