Courtyard

Em.

I did a small one shot scene of an entry to a courtyard a month or two ago, but decided I wanted to expand upon it. I put in a statue of a saint or goddess, and the little building is an apothecary and place to buy offerings. I've gotten to a point where I'm not sure where to go next. So, any crits or ideas that my fellow polycounters may have, would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Full bright screen caps from Max.

Wire, 18,900 tris all together.

Joseph Silverman

Coloration and lighting seem inconsistent, the walls look awkward and fake due to the scale of the bricks within that pattern, a lot of your vines are inexplicably bright and colorful, and that grass tile is really painful. Also, the completely uniform ground seems unusual. Shouldn't there be a path, or more worn areas, or anything?

(sorry if that sounded kinda harsh, posting really fast and don't have the time to rewrite.)

Joao Sapiro

about lightning i will disagree as it is full bright. the rest i agree.

Em.

I'm trying to unify the colors more right now, and I haven't even touched the ground, just grabbed a tile from somewhere. I'll fix the vines and the size of the bricks, update in a little while. Thanks for the replys, needed that, been staring at this a tad too long.

Joseph Silverman

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about lightning i will disagree as it is full bright.

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Good point, but some of the textures/pieces still seem inexplicably brighter or darker than the others.

Joao Sapiro

i just noted this uses almost 20000 tris ! i thought it was 2000 , i dont see 18000 tris used in the scene

snap.crackle.pop

probably because of the statue (character) in the middle of the scene. But 18.000 tris is a bit waco for something that looks so simple.

Por@szek

It looks cool, but definately it need some kind of light 'cos in here is none. And almost 20000 tris??o_O WTF WHERE!!
U need to check it 'cos these scene doesn't seems to have such a huge numebr of tris. From here i see that the roof of house would have a lot less tris. Simple place shall be enough. The same about walls around the scene. Try to till textures not a mesh. And check the scale, looks a bit odd when u look at house and fountain.
Otherwise it starts looking really cool. Keep it up

Joseph Silverman

uh wow, 19000 tris? Yeah, I figured 1900 too. How are those getting used?

Em.

Yeah..my bad, I duplicated pretty much my entire scene, so it's more like 9,000 tris. There's also an interior to that building. I changed the sizes of some things as suggested and added a little temporary wear and tear to the ground. The ugly grass tile is still there, I'll deal with that issue tonight. I'll also be dealing with lighting after all of these issues are resolved. Thanks for all the comments and crits, keep em comin'.

Update::

Jarrod1937

the fountain still seems too large compared to the building.

Joseph Silverman

Your wall texture tile is really obvious too. Rows of vertical lines.

This is a significant improvement already, though.

snap.crackle.pop

As i was thinking you probably have hidden objects and waste material all over your scene.

Em.

So..to do list..
.proper grass texture
.better wall tileable
.futher geometry optimization
.lighting

As far as the size of the statue goes, I wanted it to be gianormous, larger than life, still...you think too big?
Thanks again for all of the prompt replys, Polycount rules, but we all already knew that, didn't we? Updates again this evening. Cheers.

Joseph Silverman

As for the statue size, it all looks very disproportionate. With the statues by the giant walls, it looks small. With it being so much bigger than the house, the building appears tiny.

Em.

Right...add scale statue to that to do list then. Thanks SupRore.

fmnoor

Why do you have all those loops on the roof? It doesn't seem to be using them to add shape.

Em.

Updates. Optimized some geometry, scaled statue, made improvements to grass texture and wall texture, plus various other tweaks. I realize the ground needs some more lovin', and more lovin' overall, but that'll have to wait till tomorrow. Thanks again for all the comments and crits.

Goober

Do you have a direct birds eye view of the whole thing? That could maybe sort out some of the issues with the building seeming too close to the fountain, or the fountain seeming too large.

Other comments about placement: I question who built the fountain, as its not placed directly between the walls. Asymmtery is fine, but its just weird in a ritualistic location like this. Also, come up with a rough outline of what the ruins looked like before they were ruined. Why did those corners fall out more? Maybe a few scattered very low walls blocking in the remainder of the ruin, and possibly junk up another wall. Remember, these stones are heavy, so they may fall, but even when they do, the rubble is going to stay there for quite a while.

I'd also think about the placement and angle of the shop. Play around with other placements, like move it to the left corner of the courtyard, and rotate it 40 degrees, with its door facing slightly towards the fountain. Whoever built it wouldn't want to be crowded against the fountain, and they'd likely want a view out of the shop at the statue etc. Just give it some "Front yard" area essentially. If this is for a game environment, it also crowds the points of interest for the players in the area. Instead, if you have a square like this, put something interesting in each corner, instead of all right in the middle. Give them a reason to explore, and not find just a blank wall when they do. Just relax the layout a bit ya know. Maybe put the tree in the corner where the wall is broken, as that corner would get the most light for the plants to grow in.

Also, I'd say scale the grass texture up more maybe, it still looks too large to fit in the scene once you get up close.

Just my thoughts, listen to all or none, I find I just have alot to say about it I suppose.

Steve Schulze

You're generally better to keep grass textures pretty simple and low contrast. Thiw should cut down on the obvious tiling and not draw the eye away from the rest of the scene so much. Starting with a bit of light noise and then building up from there should yield much nicer results.

Killing off the grass around the base of the fountain where people are likely to have walked and near the walls around the building and under trees in areas where it won't have gotten sufficient sun would add a lot to the realism and would stop everything from looking like its just be pluked down on the landscape.

As GOober says, you'd do well to have a bit of masonry laying about. If not big piles then just a few siable chunks that were too heavy to carry away.

I like the little shrubs but you might want to cary the form a little bit. It looks a bit odd that all of them have the same arcing shape, nice as it is.

Em.

Thanks everyone for the lengthy crits/comments/ideas, there's some good ones. I'm still working on the grass texture, so I'll adjust the scale and contrast. I'll also add some rubble lying about and think about how the walls are breaking down. I'm also going to add some more props and areas of interest I sketched out last night. Again, some really great crits and ideas, I'll update in a bit.

Em.

So, Update. Played with the layout, more attention to detail, more rubble and break down, etc. Still haven't gotten to the props I want to add, but all in due time. Update again later..

animatr

grass is way better!! much easier on the eyes!!

Em.

Another update, still going, more tomorrow, lots more to do. Thanks again for the crits.

ming

Hi Emily! It's Lani

The new layout looks great, it really opens the space up. I think the placement of the house and the ruined wall on the left adds a lot of interest to the scene. The ruined wall also makes the space seem alot bigger now. I like the detail of the offerings around the statue.

I can't wait to see more.

Em.

@ Ming::Heyyyyy, Lani. Thanks for the comments and good to see you on/welcome to Polycount! I'm awaiting a posting of art from you..
Should have a new update in a bit, better grasses, new props added, etc.

Em.

Alright, update, still tweaking, at this point I could really use some crits, but I think it's getting to the finishing point. Big fat screencap dump, full brights, no lighting yet. It's at 11,100 polys now, with the new props and detail.

Em.

I started playing with some lighting stuff for fun.