Sci-Fi / Futuristic Train Station
polycounter lvl 17
I made this for an art test recently. It was all done in a week. I didn't get the job but with one closed door another one opens. So I want to keep working on it now and get some feed back as to what can improve and look better.
It was supposed to be built for an mmo type online game so the texture res had to be small and the poly counts low.
So heres what I submitted.
It was supposed to be built for an mmo type online game so the texture res had to be small and the poly counts low.
So heres what I submitted.
Replies
It was supposed to be built for an mmo type online game so the texture res had to be small and the poly counts low.
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No.
Everything is too low-rez and muddy for next-gen. Really, 1024s for all major tiling textures, and at least 512s for objects.
The floor needs to be more than a flat ground plane. (see next statement)
Trim everything. Everything.
Everything is grey with hot spots of color. Try integrating more colors like that yellow/green column.
Honestly, don't really like this scene. It reminds me of a quake1 mod. If you go back and redo everything at a higher quality level it could be something, but I'd move on to a better concept.
A quake 1 mod? wow haha
Thanks for the feed back. I'll add it to the list of stuff to rework
Another thing I noticed right away are the decals. They look noticeably instanced. You haven't even bothered to rotate them. There's a clump of three (middle bottom of the second pic) that look identical.
Did you have to use normal maps for the art test or was that by choice? If it was by choice, then it wasn't a great choice. It hasn't helped you in any way, especially something so lo-res in texture size the normals can get really blurry/muddy (unless you manually sharpen them up in photoshop, which doesn't always work) and can get an amateurish look to it. Plus a good 80% of the environment is all diffuse anyway. So the piece isn't very consistent.
Most companies will prefer an artist that can do solid diffuse over someone that relies on normal maps for texture detail.
Sorry if any of my comments came out harsh and I think you've made a great start to the environment, but personally I think it looks a little bland. Kill some of those check-in terminals and use the saved polies on more objects to populate the scene.
I might have a crack at a quick paintover for some lighting ideas during lunch if you don't mind (depending how busy my day gets).
-caseyjones
There is no detail that I can see - it's just a huge empty space - if doesn't seem functional.
Perhaps the best description I can use is that is seems like a first pass for part of a massive game - block in huge chunks with base textures.
Then you populate it with large details.
Second pass on it would be to back and build in layers of big detail. Taking the idea of a modern day train station, I'd add Office blocks, luggage lockers, several small shops, seating areas, LOTS of adverts, smaller train information points, drop off points for public transport, visible electrical systems, tannoys, more adverts.
The statue would be a second pass object.
Third pass/polish pass on top of that, possibly after painting over renders to concept details into the scene.
I'm keeping track of all this and reworking things and upping the detail on stuff.
what kind of train station is it? commercial, industrial?
so heres this. and give your self a deadline with this man, so you dont get sidetracked and work on somthing else.
I took a look at the submission tonight and what I've noticed is pretty much what's already been mentioned:
- Overall very bland & boring.
- I can't tell if this is supposed to be indoors or out, lighting is boring. With all the light strips around I would have rather seen you do a night scene with this and light it using all of those. Would have been more interesting.
Along those lines, the pillars above the trains don't really seem to have a purpose. If they were supporting something (roof? indoors?) great, but right now they seem pretty pointless. As do the light pillars.
-Bump is pretty insane on the walls.
-What are the blue boxes? If they were supposed to be something, then make sure I know what they are, if they aren't, then pull em.\
-Color, not random spurts of over saturated color in a grey world, but color, subtle, EVERYWHERE.
-Decals, I love that you had some graffiti & posters to put up, but putting 8 of them, of various sizes near eachother becomes very obvious very quickly. Same with the ground decals, as mentioned, there's 3 that don't even look like you bothered to rotate them.
-Overall layout, again, is this a commercial station? I see this as being like a commuter rail line. If so, then there should be a few terminals, and then a lot of waiting space. Chairs, Ads, Shops, turnstiles (sp?).
-Your normal maps are insane. I'm glad to see you're doing some scratches & edging on things like your light post, but damn, that thing looks like it was run over by the train about 10 times.
-Looking at your actual textures, I'm glad you very the texture size roughly with the size of the object it's being applied to. I think you're a bit wasteful in places. i.e. you have two entire terminal maps (admittedly only 256 each) that are only different in what they show on screen. It would be better to use a single map for the whole terminal, and then 2 spare, small maps for the monitors, OR 1 map with both monitors in the UV space, and then just adjust the UVs for one of them.
-Poly Usage is pretty good as I mentioned, but there are discrepencies. On the far left (I have access to the Max file that you guys don't :P) there are a couple of supports on the wall, both using a decent number of polys (looks about right) but 10 feet away are two vending machines of roughly the same size as the supports, and both are simple 6 sided boxes. . . if you're going to have that amount of detail one thing, you should have roughly equivelent detail on everything of that size.
-Holes. Everything looks complete in the renders, but again, I have the max file. And if I were to drop this in a game right now, there are holes. Like the building, it's basically just a facade. And it has a large block of concrete next to it with no apparent purpose. If you're going to be building environments (not just props) you have to think about how it's going to go into the game and what people will have access two as a player. So, it would have been better to close off that building, even if the rest of it was a simple concrete texture or something, at least there aren't holes.
As for the mention that you should have gone higher poly, I would have to disagree . . . sort of. Yes, next gen will be able to push more polys and it's good to move in that direction. For us, we try to save polys wherever we can, so that we can throw more objects in. Polycount isn't the issue so much as poly usage. Someone who uses polys well, and knows where to put them (rounding things out, edges, details, and not unnecessary subdivisions of flat planes) will be able to apply those skills to really high poly stuff as well as really low poly stuff. So as long as I can see you're using polys appropriately, that's the important part, not the actual count.
Personally I think a week is an acceptable amount of time to complete something. We try to understand that most poeple taking our test won't be working only on the test 8 hours a day. We understand you've got school, other jobs, etc. I think that part of the test is time management, and biting off what you can chew. The test is open ended for a reason. You should make a scene that you think you can finish in the given amount of time. I brought this up at the beginning when you said you got the test. Personally, I would much rather see a well done, FINISHED, small corner of a train station, than a partly finished whole station.
Again, and like others, I'm not trying to be a dick, or be harsh, just trying to give you honest feedback, which I know was always a bitch to get when I was looking. And I think that's way more useful than someone blowing smoke up your butt. You've got a good start, and you've got some good past works. Just keep pushing it & posting here. This place is more help than most people get. I hope all of this was helpful in some manner. Keep at it.
But good luck with your future art tests dude, I was lucky enough to land a job from my second test. Though I applied for a character position, they put me on environments but I have learned so much from it that I may actually stick with it for further projects.
-caseyjones
bump up your FOV in those shots for greater impact, use some focal depth too.
cheers!
Thanks for all the feedback. I'm gonna really push this piece now and the details and keep showing the work. I finish school tomorrow so I'll be having a lot of free time to work on stuff.
Thanks again.
you would have been able to spend more time on individual panels and global shapes rather than everything at once
I just wanted to offer some encouragment. I think a lot of the comments offered are acurate, and good advice. But I also really think you've done a good job on your environment. Yes, it could be better. Everything can. But to complete such an involved environment is no small feat. And although it could stand a little more polish, I really like your train station. I like your texturing style and the overall layout. I think you're on the right track.
Keep practicing and polishing. I believe you really have a shot at this. I look forward to seeing more of your work.
I think you should just take time and redo this scene using all this feedback and see for yourself what the differences are compared to the old version.
You will be amazed.
See if I can throw in some cents tho'.
Like tumerboy said, think of where people can go inside your scene, actually, don't be amazed when in game you'd see people ending up in the most unexpected places. (forget about blocking volumes and collissionmeshes atm).
With that in mind try to figure out where you place details texturewise and polywise. Stuff they can never ever get upclose too can be a lower density (ie stuff way on the ceiling.
Try to use your texturespace best as possible. Try to group textures in a logical sense, this will save in rendertime for the computer.(it doesn't have to look up and load several textures that might be tucked away in different texturepackages)
Like, if you know 2 props will always be together in a scene, try to fit their textures onto a single sheet.
Depending on the technical specs from the arttest, most mmo's go for 1024 textures for levelstuff.
mm well anyway, yeah when I saw this is was shocked mr. moody! I mean I've seen better, so I guess with all the info and even you seeing this was a bit of a fuck up (they happen, no worries) we'll be seeing either a better version of this or something new that will look much, much better.
I expect your next arttest to land ya a gig at epic working on gears of war 2 !
You seemed to reuse textures for vastly different pieces. I can't remember exactly what for, but something like the hand railing texture, (maybe 3 feet tall) gets reused for the entire upper half of the building 30 feet tall.
Don't do this. Maintain your texture density. If something is small, use a small map for it, if something is big, use a bigger map for it. And while reusing maps for different items of the same relative size is a great idea to save on memory, reusing small textures on large objects, or vice versa isn't such a good idea.