Karl Franz Monument
interpolator
So, after being told by a number of people at different companies that I need to work on some environments I figured it was time to get to it. I decided to jump on that Warhammer bandwagon and make me some stuff from their website.
Concept Art
The concept is of course made by the good folks at EA Mythic and I relied heavily on their references. Everything for textures is either reference photos or hand painted. I used concept art only as reference and not a cut and paste. All the swords, shields, emblems and such are recreated from scratch in photoshop.
let me know what needs work. I'm making the whole area this is in, but the rest still needs much more work before postworthy. I'm going old school for this piece so no normal, spec mapping. Just diffuse.
Concept Art
The concept is of course made by the good folks at EA Mythic and I relied heavily on their references. Everything for textures is either reference photos or hand painted. I used concept art only as reference and not a cut and paste. All the swords, shields, emblems and such are recreated from scratch in photoshop.
let me know what needs work. I'm making the whole area this is in, but the rest still needs much more work before postworthy. I'm going old school for this piece so no normal, spec mapping. Just diffuse.
Replies
only thing i can say , textures looks so flat. i know you're not using normal map but still you can get some depth to cracks at the wall etc. it's prob because of the light , long story shorter ; shadows& a little work with cracks etc on textures
did you scale down these shields and paint over them in photoshop? the quality of the cross and shields and skull at top are so much more detailed than anything else on the texture, expecialy the stone work and tiles that are very blurry and only detailed with what looks like a noise filter. if you did infact paint these by hand with no tracing, then take the time to bring the rest of this piece up to the same quality, altho watch out for making it to contrasty,
also if you did paint over the shields, theres no harm in doing that to learn, i used to trace comics when i was a kid to learn how to draw. but make sure that anytime you do that it is just to learn. and don't forget and claim the work as orriginal.
and if by some chance someone did just slap some concept art on a texture and touch it up a bit with paint. that is a big no no, and the only person the offender would be cheating is himself.
Keep practicing.
Colors are good, shields, iron cross, skulls are good. Beyond that, everything looks way too digital.
By that I mean, all the straight black lines, straight modeled edges. To be honest, the shields, cross and top skull appear to be painted by a different person. Probably because you were able to find better reference
http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/media/images/conceptArt/0607_CAt_44.jpg
<Edit>
I was still writing that when Rhinokey pointed out the same thing, but I completely agree, the quality difference is just too appearent. If you could paint a shield that well, you wouldn't have crapped out bricks like that. Anyway, keep practicing.
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That said, you really need to repain all the other textures in the same style. Also, watch your pixel depth. Everthing should be even, or you end up with a lot of weird looking stuff like the brick arch around the circular design (which is clearly inner bevel).
The model is too low detail, model in everything, except those tiny windows. Those should be texture.
PAINTOVER FUN!
Everything in the red squares is a tileable texture from photo reference. Basically just touched up and made to tile and going to be fixed so it matches the rest.
Here are the files if people want to see.
Concrete Block
Shingles
Concrete Borders
These are all actual size.
Also the headpiece so people can see the setup.
Tiax- Good advice. I know I need to add more of that stuff but I really wanted to get some shots on the board to show what I had so far.
Rhinokey- All color and detailing in the textures is painted by me. The only thing I did regarding the concepts was trace the outline of the shield and sword with the pen tool so I could get the proportions right. Everything else is all me.
CHolden - Cool to know that I can model in most the other details. I was curious about what the poly density was of environments in game and that helps a bit. I'll have to edit the crap out of it and try to make it all spiffy like. Also those pictures on site of the shield and sword were life savers. I had those up in PS for constant reference while painting which is why I was able to get such good detail.
Pardon me for asking but what exactly do you mean by pixel depth? Just photoshop filters around the inner sun logo or something else?
almighty_gir - I take it you mean the block on the pillars right? You do bring up a very good point though. I'll need to mess with some texturing and take a walk around town. God knows there's enough reference in Fremont and the surrounding area.
You can go a little crazy with your polygons as long as the mesh still looks good. It's easier to model something too high polygon and reduce.
Since picture of the sword and shield were so helpful, why don't up open up some other screenshots of our bricks and roof tiles? Those other three textures you posted (blocks and shingles) are a blurry mess (don't smudge, just paint the lines you need and move on). Try painting those textures as larger tiles to so there is some variation from brick to brick.
Pixel Depth (texel ratio) refers to all the pixels on your model being about the same size. If you box map your entire model at 256, everything will be even (minus some possible cleanup). Do that, THEN UV your model without too much UV scaling. That way, when you walk up to it in game, everything is about the same level of detail.
[ QUOTE ]
Tracing is copying just done by hand. There's nothing wrong with using it as a reference and painting your own interpretation. We can tell the difference between the two, and if you're going to do our art you had better do it right. Otherwise, you're just blowing your chance.
[/ QUOTE ]
All I traced was the outline of shield and sword, none of the actual detailing inside. Is something that simple a no-no or was it alright? I figure that when most people model/draw they use reference but I made a point to not even use the color picker tool to try and improve my painting skills. Internet being what it is I wasn't sure on your tone but I certainly don't want to blow my chance. Warhammer seems like a pretty sweet game to work on.
ugh, off to work for the night. Hopefully I'll have some time tonight when I get home to work on this.
Think about your texture-sizes, you really need to split the mesh more effeciantly so that you can re-use the same stoneslab texture in several places:
Cut the mesh into these pieces and then flip the texture around a bit on the other sides. One thing you can do is to do one stoneslab unique to get some variation
Remove the unnecessary tris you have spent on the tiny windowarches.
Match the top roof's texture closer to the concept.
Match the look of the spires.
Tone down the shields and skulls or paint the entire model in the same style. As it is right now, the shields really clash with the base building.
Can't really say much until you have gotten further.
So I'm going for all the major details in this and then I'll be able to texture and copy things around to fill out the appearance more. Also I'll be roughing it up a bit so the angles aren't straight lines everywhere, but I want to get some basic UVs and textures set first. Blue wires are instanced geometry for now, just so I can see where everything fits for the time being.
i'd half model the reaper statue, at least the mass of the shape, not the arm bones and fingers, and look at the concept the shape of the cowl and skull. also the skull in the top roof is more stylized, If you are going to model something from a concept your goal should be to match it as good as you posibly can
Also, on that note; I really appreciate the help I'm getting from everyone here. It's really cool to be hearing from people that are over at EA Mythic as well. Thanks again and tell me what needs fixed on this guy.
*the whole thing looks generally a little too tall based on the concept. Squashing it down a bit will add some thickness back into it.
*The base should be a little wider on the sides. It's not quite square, but there's more room in front of the side reapers in the concept.
*The reapers are more flush with the walls in the concept. I'd try to nonuniform scale them back into the wall for more of a bas relief feel.
*the dormers on the roof section look a little wide, and the tower cones on the roof look a little too fat for their bases. -I'd thin those up a bit, and thicken the bases.
Finally got myself a new computer since the last one would randomly crash and reset on me. Looking forward to being able to finish this thing.
grats, that's very cool.
Basically I noticed a lot of gradient stuff and smudging going on before your new post looks tons better, great stuff. All I was going to say was add runoff of water and things like that as general wear and tear. Adding moss or water damage on to the base or top of walls keeps things from looking really flat. Painting the shadow or runoff makes things look much more believable and interesting than leaving it up to photoshop gradient.
I didn't go far with this but I think its enough to show what I mean. You seem to be on the right track though as I can see you started doing it on certain parts of the model so keep it up! Great job man.
I also took off the texture filters for now because it helps me notice details that may be missed when blended. So, is this on the right track for water and weather damage? Still more places need work like the upper section with ornaments and shields but it's getting there I think.
There's no need to get rid of *all* the color, though. I'd go back in and add a few touches and hints of the colors you had before. saturate the roof a wee bit. get some of that gold/bronze back into the shields to make them pop.
couple niggling things - you're missing the frame around the openings with the skellies in them. Other than that, the corners should be single blocks stacked on each other - on one side [the right] you have a split going down, leaving an awkward 1/3 thick block.
you need some shading on the roof where the dormers come out. right now their shapes are completely lost.
the smaller blocks at the base with the moss on the top? they end jarringly where they intersect with the walls. either get rid of the green [which is no-where else] or add some shading to the walls to help blend the two.
sharpen up that plaque and add some saturation to the gold [bronze? metal?]
Got rid of the green mold that was distracting. I also sharpened up the emblem up top and the shields have some wear and tear now. I also added alpha mapped planes with some shadows to show where certain objects meet. I thibnk it makes the dormers pop more as well as some objects around the base. Still need to add those windows with the skulls. Also, fixed the weird block texturing on the sides that was pointed out. More to come when I get out of work tonight. gotta close up shop. >.<