EA Mythic Red Dragon concept piece *Image Heavy*
polycounter lvl 18
hello all. i've been lurking for a long time now and decided its time to post something. i've been working on a concept from the warhammer online site. Concept Image
I've reached a point where some more critiques would be useful and help push my model and textures that extra mile.
The model is the building and the barrels and boxes at its base, the display base is just for presentation. The model itself is 3158 tris. There are 5x256 (tiling) maps and 2x512 maps (1 tiling, 1 UVW unique).
All the textures are hand painted with no bevel, emboss, clouds, or anything like that to try to really learn to paint with more skill.
There is a progress thread on my school forum, but i'm not sure about the etiquette of posting links to other forums so if you'd like it let me know.
Any and all critiques are welcome and i'm looking forward to applying what i learn here.
Wires
Flats
Textures
GI with Key and back light
cheers.
I've reached a point where some more critiques would be useful and help push my model and textures that extra mile.
The model is the building and the barrels and boxes at its base, the display base is just for presentation. The model itself is 3158 tris. There are 5x256 (tiling) maps and 2x512 maps (1 tiling, 1 UVW unique).
All the textures are hand painted with no bevel, emboss, clouds, or anything like that to try to really learn to paint with more skill.
There is a progress thread on my school forum, but i'm not sure about the etiquette of posting links to other forums so if you'd like it let me know.
Any and all critiques are welcome and i'm looking forward to applying what i learn here.
Wires
Flats
Textures
GI with Key and back light
cheers.
Replies
1. Proportions over all seem pretty good. A few minor things stand out (corner columns seem wider on the front face in the concept, like its not perfectly square.) But over all it really matches the scale of the concept rather well.
2. Textures. Not a fan of the softness of the stone carvings, would like to see them sharper and less fuzzy. You seem to have several different styles of etching on this piece. The dwarf head and the mug are a very soft fuzzy looking carving. The decoration behind the mug is a very fine line... and out of place carving. Looks like you just found a Nordic knot and tossed it in behind the mug.
On the second sheet, all three bands look completely different like they are from different styled pieces.
Try to bring all these together into the same style, but different patterns.
Mute the gold/copper material some, its pretty overpowering.
Squint and look at your render and then at the concept, you will notice on the concept it blends a lot more and does not feel as abrupt.
3: Geometry: looks real good, only thing I would comment on is, making the mugs pop off the signs and columns in 3d, like in the concept.
where you can improve a lot the look of the model is working a bit more your textures..
first, if you check the reference, your colors are much more saturated!
then, I don't really understand, for some parts, you did the lighting in the map (the "dragon" head above the door, the golden tiles on the roof -don' know how it's called- ) but you didn't do this on the rest.. like the walls or the barrels.. they really lack volume!
of course with the lighting it helps a lot, but if you just want to relay on the lighting to give life to your model,
you may need some normal maps
without them, you really need to cheat a lot and add a lot of lighting in your maps..
good luck
Plus your brick texture looks like they are just legos stacked one on top of another. It need to look more like there is mortar, or mud holding it all together. Right now it looks like someone could kick the wall and it would come tumbling down. Think like an engineer. Say to yourself, what is holding all this together?
Using filters is not evil, just don't abuse them. How you get to the good results doesn't matter, if you want to work on your digital painting thats great I strongly encourage that, but don't dismiss filters as a cheap hack. It's a tool just like all the other features in PhotoShop, used correctly it can bring about some good results.
Crits:
- Desaturated almost everything like Mojokey said. The ground, the roof and especially the copper texture, which needs a lot more brown and some bigger hints of green as well as a less swirly pattern. Check out some screenshots from the game that have those same type of details and try to match it. You have a unique opportunity because there is existing art that can be used as a guide, along with a great concept, use it all to its fullest.
- Add some color variance to your textures.
- The faked shadows on the dragon head, seem to be fighting with the lighting in the scene.
- The tiles on the roof if they overlap you should strengthen the highlights on the leading edge of each shake to help create the illusion one is going under the other.
- When working on a texture don't always stay zoomed in, you have some great details that are only showing up when you're in close if the detail doesn't hold up when you step back or zoom out and squint then it won't register with the player unless they are admiring your handy work up close.
- I'm not sure of the artistic requirements for Warhammer Online but you might be able to use a few more custom textures on key items and not have anyone complain about performance. The copper ball is crying out for water stains, specular highlights, oxidization, and maybe a few dents.
- The thin dark woodgrain lines in the sign disappear when you aren't zoomed in at 200%. Considering that a player will see your texture at 90% or less they need to be more pronounced, otherwise it just reads like brown #975C30.
- Know that wood desaturates as it gets older. With water and elements it can darken but the bright rich color fades. Wood left out in the elements also starts to split, crack and warp, which you can recreate by adding highlights and shadows along those cracks. The highlights you have on the sign aren't broken by these cracks, splits or warps. They are flat and smooth more like you would see on metal. Wood also doesn't have much of a spec shine to it unless it is lacquered.
- The stone carved dwarven faces have shadows but no highlights, making them look very flat. The addition of highlights would help push some of the pieces on top of the others.
- The custom painted lighting on the mug(s) is off, the light source and shadows are coming from conflicting angles. There are some strong shadows in some areas that are right next to weak ones. The mug handle is casting a shadow on itself but not on the surrounding stone/wood work. When painting things like that, consider your light source and paint your highlights and shadows accordingly be sure not to over power any enviromental lighting that will be applied later.
- The perspective on the mug is also off. It was painted as if you would be looking down on the mug, but in the environment you'll be looking up at it on the wooden sign and at almost eye level in the stone work.
- Fake some ambient occlusion but painting a soft shadow around carved bits.
- Darken some carved details to show they are lower than others, as well as paint some shadows where the lip from the higher details would shadow the deeper details.
To help bring out the rough stone detail, copy your image to the alpha channel, and on a new separate layer and run Filters (GASP) > Render > Lighting Effects. Turn the texture channel to alpha and adjust the light settings until you find something you like, remember not to over do it. You can then copy your original image above the lighting layer and adjust the opacity to mute the effect if it comes out too strong.
It's looking good, you did an amazing job building it, unwrapping and lighting it, just sort out those textures and you'll be in good shape.
heres a few links to that end.
http://uk.games-workshop.com/painting/
http://hot-lead.org/start/paint_guide_main.htm
and one guy's page who's won 22 games workshop golden demon painting awards
http://www.minivault.com/GoldenDemons.htm
I think you need to work on adding wear and tear to your textures, such as dirt/mud at the base to make it look like the building is really built on and coming out of the ground.
Also, utilizing other shaders such as normal maps and specular maps would do wonders to compliment your already great painting skills.
@rhinokey - great catch on the corner piece, great to have fresh eyes on this. i drew the nordic knot, but as you can see , had a hard time figuring a way to work it in behind the mug. this weekend i'll work on the edges/facets of the dwarf carving and the mug carving and see if i can make them look "harder" as well as unifying the trims. I'll model the mugs as well, should be a great looking simple addition.
@umbrella - i'll work in some grime/cement into the seams between the bricks that will hopefully convey the grout/cement that is holding it together.
@pliang - since the areas under the eaves are tiling maps, i don't think i can unless there's a way to blend an occlusion map over the tiling map and still have the textures be exportable to an engine.
@vig - hahah i don't think filters are evil, i just wanted to establish that i didn't wholly rely on them to make my work. i use filters depending on what i need, another tool, as you said. thanks for that screen shot too, ive been looking for something with that copper and must've have missed that one. i'll go back and hit the edges of the roof tiles again for some extra highlight goodness, hit the wood again and adjust satutrations. i agree about the copper ball and will experiment with a 256 map for the ball. i'll check out the lighting effects too, thats a pretty dramatic difference.
@vailias, thanks for the links, there are some techniques in there that were definitely useful.
@zeph thanks haha, ill try to add some more wear and weathering to what i have. might have to create another trim for the bottom of the building.
so thanks all should have an update soon.
stone textures were darkened and "grout" was added to stone bricks. alpha + render light effects was done to stone base texture. wood was darkened, knots and grain darkened. roof tile spec highlight was loosened up and made more intense. copper base was reworked and darkened.
as it is stands now...
still working on the uniques map. added some shadows to the carving, you can kinda see a before and after regarding the dwarf carving as i havent done the other one yet.
proportions on the models were adjusted for the front columns and the stein was modeled in. texture still has to be fine tuned for the new geo, right now the mugs are just borrowing the uv mapping on the texture for the building.
I would try to make a high poly and bake normals to pop the details if you can't get them with hand painted textures.
I think motz hit on a good point. Each piece isn't blending too well with the others. It's a tough challenge to meet when you're using tiles. BUT just because your texture tiles horizontally doesn't mean it has to go vertical as well. For example you can make a 512x512 texture for the walls that covers the entire wall from top to bottom and tiles horiz. This will let you paint dirt and plant life along the bottom, and shadows where the roof overhangs.
You also modeled in the gold trim that runs around the building and the very slim foundation, which all can be added into the texture allowing you more polys for other stuff, like grassy planes around the base of the building to help it blend into the ground.