Portfolio Environment: Koln 1945
polycounter lvl 17
So I've been working on a new portfolio since I left EA Black Box for a little while now, mostly building it. I had a little issue with my comp so this work done to date took about two weeks plus one week for UVing. This is what I have so far....its been UV'd and I started texturing it already.
I also plan to have the final renders presented in this camera perspective once its done.
Test render made with Mental Ray.
I will keep this thread updated as I go with closeups of the objects of course.
Thanks
Replies
P51 Mustang
Sherman M1A3 Tank
Wires
Ranger
Sorry about the crap load of images but that's how much I built since then.
If so, its totally off
Another thing is, if this is cologne in 1945 there wouldn't be that many buildings, colognes old city was destroyed by nearly 90%
otherwise, nice work, i'm not a big fan of this character but i like the tank and environment
I will update this with textures in progress as I go.
http://www.anicursor.com/colpicwar.html
http://www.anicursor.com/colpicwar2.html
http://www.koelnarchiv-lambertin.de/gallery1.htm
The reason I'm making it all higher density's mainly for the mental ray rendering and lighting approach I'm aiming at.
My alpha planes ended up a little blurry.
just incase you want some ref
If your going for environments, I would scrap the character all together.
Unless you plan on doing far more work on it, I think it will bring your environment down.
What you have now for the character just isn't all that strong of a model. It might confuse potential employers. Especially if your applying for an environment job.
And personally I don't believe in showing models on your demo reel - just because you "did them". If they aren't your best work, don't put them on. It's better to show less material that is really strong than a bunch of good and bad mixed together.
Good luck Peter.
m1ND
Vehicles:
- Do the planes need to be that high poly if you'll only see them flying over head I bet you could trim down the poly count if they are to be actual in game models used for real time? I guess if your aim is to combine a bunch of portfolio pieces into one and show individual shots of each prop/character then I would leave them alone. But if all this is being made to be an accurate in game shot, I say optimize em.
- For any plane flying I would do a simple flat animated 2 sided poly instead of modeling propellers. Save the smooth propellers and nice canopy detail for the planes parked on the ground
- The tank is hot stuff all around, beautiful work. I would add another tank just coming on screen to the left so you can show off some of that nice tread work, you spent quite a bit of time on. It would also help frame the shot and use up some of that dead space in the street.
Soldier:
- The shape of the foot doesn't appear to be based off of any actual combat boots of that time. I STRONGLY recommend you check out some ref because from the shin down is a big part of what sets the WW2 GI apart from the other soldiers.
- Decided on what type of soldiers they are, paratrooper, Army, Marines? Dig up some accurate ref and rework what you have. Also push what you have into a few different classes so your squad isn't made up of all Sargents heh.
- Gravity, model gravity into the clothing. Model the effects the straps have on clothing. When you don't do this models look like they are filled full of hot air or in a vacuum. WW2 isn't known for big space battles but who knows what really happened...
M1 Carbine:
- Dig up some M1 Carbine ref, I'm pretty sure they didn't have two humps on top? I could be wrong...
- The strap width is all over the place. I would delete all but one side of the strap and "shell" it so you get a nice equal thickness. If you changed the width to compensate for any perspective loss I think you got it backwards? You want parts farthest away from the player to be bigger/thicker so they hold their intended shape better.
- The bevel looks inconsistent and odd.
- I would imagine quite a few pieces could be broken off the main mesh and floated, saving yourself quite a few polys.
Really nice work so far! Keep at it!
Alex
Before I can pull through and update the scene I have a few renders to put up...its just closeups of what I did.
I'm not planning to use those placeholder BGs, once the problems fixed I will post new shots with the scene.
Sherman Tank:
Sherman Front
Kind of a piss poor lighting on the sides...I'm gonna have to fix the texture some other time as it looks like styrofoam...but in my scene they're quite far away form the viewer.
that tank is looking hot!
If this keeps on I might consider switching back to maya software with a new lighting setup....
I'm thinking of putting a wrecked car or something relevant on the cornet for foregrounds too.
mind to show some texture maps? Or tell us what type of maps you used?
Alex
Also, try and flex that sky out a bit more and make it scream with some rich orange and yellows that are both really bright, and some contrasting darks.
How about some higher angled shots to the scene as whole? (wireframes)
A little minor edit to the sky...sorry if I didn't update early last week, was actually planning on my next scene and all.
For this scene I'm thinking of going back into it later on and add more to it by rendering it with some ambient occlusion and a finished car wreckage to the side of the scene for foreground. And perhaps fixing the light...
Vehicle I'd like to use...once battered that is.
VW Kubelwagen
or a Tiger(One) Tank
And the wires...
But on my next project I will definitely keep that basic in mind...show off some skyline as well.
1. Perhaps edit the skybox.
2. Add smoke trail on the planes.
3. A little distance fog.
4. Throw some more lights
5. Add in the battered vehicle for foreground.
6. Lastly after those little fixes and looks better...get a new job.
The sky looks too over exposed though.
That is really complex and elaborated scene man; however, I guess it would be cool to have ur characters/vehicles be more visible against buildings. Now they all blend together. In CoD4 they added slight falloff shader to character contours btw
Keep it up!
You mentioned some depth fog, which may help, but you may want to consider some stylized lighting: Pick a time of day, and exaggerate it a bit. Or, if you're not one to exaggerate and would like to stick to 'as real as possible', pick a time thats in the early to late afternoon and have some of those buildings cast longer shadows onto the streets and other buildings. You may want to offset the shadow colour with some secondary light sources (rubble fire, search lights, etc)
A very messy paintover on the shadow front.
Awesome work
If you can make it have the contrast Xaltar did in his paint over it would be awesome. Xaltar love the paint over.
Alex
I agree with Brome, you need more colors. The sky looks just before sunset but none of the stock sunset colors are coming out to play?
As long as we are doing paint over suggestions for lighting and effects here, are mine.
spot on, at sun rise and sun set, you're gonna get some lovely shadows from the buildings behind the camera.
really impressive texturing work, for vigs lighting you could make a simple silhouette and place it behind the camera, with 80% alpha on the darker lower part, gaussian blur the skyline and then stick a light behind it pointing at your scene.
The one I had setup in Maya was using an environment map with final gather plus two point lights placed in the mid and background with ray trace shadows on...
If any one can point out an article or explain a little more about how I can change the setup and offset the shadow colors it'd help speeding up the process.
Whenever possible you want to avoid lights that cast light at the same viewing angle of your camera, it hides shadows behind the objects and you lose shadow detail like what is happening currently. Think of it this way, if you shine a flash light in someones face you hardly see any shadows (and they get pissed). If you have them hold it up under their chin they get all creepy and weird looking (and they giggle and make funny faces). You're shinning the lights right in the face of your scene, its angry and it wants you to stop. Moving your lights to more dramatic angles and using a blocked out silhouette to cast shadows of buildings that should be there, will help quite a bit. Adjusting your lights colors so they are different will help.
You need to stop thinking of lighting as an after thought its not "make a light, oh this area is dark I'll copy my light here. There I'm done". It's mood, its an extra layer of detail for you to exploit, its the final step you take that sells the scene.
Remember the things that are off camera and try to imagine how they will effect your scene while you're building it. It's hard to do when you've been so focused what is inside the viewing angle of the camera. It's hard habit to break
"I'm not going to model the whole city when I only want to render out one street!"
Sure, that makes sense, saving yourself time and heartache, I get it. But that doesn't mean you need to forsake the elements that are off camera that will EFFECT your scene.
For example you could build a broken window (or copy one from the scene) and put it just in front of the camera as if you are looking out of it. Now your view is framed, the shadow on the street is from the building you're standing in and the viewer feels like they are in the scene and they have some kind of roll to play. Is your viewer an orphan watching the allies march forward? Is the viewer an enemy soldier hiding? Good paintings like good renders put people in the scene in some way.
preach preach preach... bla bla bla... more deaf ears.
it would be nice to get some area of contrast.. also, more contrasty lighting all around might serve. i think this is great, but on a surface level, to me at least, it looks like a bit of a jumble.
The add ons to help break up the flooding lights' a great idea...it'll help me setup up a little but better next time.
Wish me luck...
Added a vehicle on the foreground.
the cathedral is still not changed. the lighting isn't very realistic imo.
the electricity pole is covering the cathedral which isnt a that good image compositing. the whole image lacks blue colors. a better environment lighting would change that. add stronger blue ambient colors and not so yellowish sunlight. give the viewer the opportunity to see where the light comes from. atm this is a monotone yellow something.
looks awesome man, but i agree with hessi, the lighting still needs alot of work.. it still seems really scattered where the eye should goto, what kind of lighting setup are you using?
at the moment the piece leads the eye right to the top of that broken building because there seems to be a hotspot there, but doesnt really make sense since it seems the sun is behind the building, maybe try moving the sun pointing towards the scene rather than behind everything. then the stuff in the foreground would be lit up alot better and contrast more with the stuff goin on in the bg
have a look at some call of duty screen shots and see how the lighting is done in there
might i suggest some distance fog? it'll add some depth
anywas just a couple thoughts , hope it makes sense. keep goin this thing is lookin hot!