wip fantasy environment

iflingpoo

still very wip, going for a god of war feel, unfortunately i only have time to work on this a few hours a week, few things im planning to add are

- add gargoyles
- add props (vases, shields, flags, chains)
- add broken glass
- touch up textures
- add reflection to the marble floor
- adjust lighting
- possible particles (acid rain, dust floating in the beams of light)

so far im happy with how things are coming along, this is a screen cap straight from max , comments / crits welcome!

cholden

Sorry I have no time to give feedback right now, but it's looking like a great start!

TorQue[MoD]

Wow, this is a gorgeous map! What did you build it in? Max or some other level editor? It looks like UT2k4.

I love the textures, are they made by you? The light beams look great too! Can't think of any negative crits.

iflingpoo

these are straight screengrabs from 3dmax.. im faking alot of the fog and effects, i dont have an engine to play with so im doing what i can to emulate the post proecessing stuff games have nowadays with some oldskool techniques, the beams of light and fog are simple alpha planes with gradient textures.. yes very ps2 ish ,

textures are mostly photos i grabbed from cgtextures.com and touched up.. i still have alot of texture work to do but will do it in the polishing stage,

found some time to work on this and decided to add a bit more color into the fog to make it fit in with the rest of the scene, i threw in a few gargoyles in there, they arent mapped yet, along with the staircase

what does eveyone think of the overall composition? im really trying hard to work on that aspect of my environment skills

Aes

The composition and quality are pretty cool, I think that your ruins as well as the background architecture help to immerse me into this environment.


How often would you say that games use environments from 3D Studio Max as opposed to environments developed within an engine's level editor?

iflingpoo

from my experience working in games, there is no actual level editor like an unrealed or worldcraft, 3dmax is your level editor lol

Ged

looking really good, oldskool effects or not doesnt really matter to me as long as its consistent and has style/art direction . just need to work on those textures and this thing will be fantastic. Are you going to use any normal mapping? crazybump or real models?

Joao Sapiro

i really like the mood on this ! push some textures up and fix some uvw issues and youll have really solid piece.

Cody

Saaaweeeet! This is what i aspire to, sir. Could we see a wire possibly?

Matroskin

Great atmosphere man! Pleasing colors as well

The background (sky) not vey clear though. I mean, it is hard to understand what is there.
There r also lit corners but there r no visible sources of light.
I would not suggest adding reflectivity to the floor, cause usually mediaval gothic buildings did not have that except for huge churches in large cities. It would also reduce ancient look or ur environment.
Also I suggest to make stairs from separate blocks of stones, cause that is the way they were usually done back then
Nice job though! Since u go for an old school techniques i suggest trying unreal engine.

iflingpoo

yah i've had a few complaints about the sky, i'm gonna have to paint a new one , right now its just a pic i grabbed off google lol

do you by chance have a reference image of stairs made from blocks of stone?

i'd love to use the unreal engine, but my laptop cant run anything haha

Panupat

I'm really digging the mood and atmosphere of your piece. The stairs added a lot of dynamic feeling.

Matroskin

lol, there r bunch in google:
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=ht...ficial%26sa%3DN
http://www.thesalvager.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/stone%20stairs.jpg
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Rothenburg/Photos/RoderStairs.jpg
http://www.gotuzzohomes.com/webpictures/Ceriana/CerianaStairs.JPG

I strongly suggest that u take some of those awesome books on medieval or any ancient architecture. Beside reference u'll get more inspiration for some other stuff that u may put into the scene Or even better, search for books about ruins in ur nearest library. I should say, the ruins r HOT!

vahl

the lighting and composition reminds me of vagrant story, great work dude, can't wait to see more

Josh Winn

stunning. I want to play a game in this environment.

shotgun

im not sure what u mean by composition - the global architecture as it is seen from any angle, or from this shot specifically, as a painting?

if the latter, i think u need to put the light in the sky somewhere in the foreground. let's say if the stairs (below the sky) had something with light/bright color, maybe a pattern, that would be your "foreground highlight". it would push your composition out of the background.

TorQue[MoD]

Honestly I think the way you had the buildings in the background simply silhouetted looked much better than when they are fully lit. Makes for a much more dramatic mood.

Also, I agree with the statement about making the stairs out of individual stones, but might I also suggest that you put in two 45 degree angles at each side to give the steps a more octagonal look? I think it'd look much better.

Finally, I hope you're planning to make those gargoyles much higher poly cause right now they're ruining the look of the rest of the map.

iflingpoo

thanks for all the comments and crits!

heres a small update, finally will have time this weekend to crank things out! just addin some props n filling the room up, cant wait to start tweaking the lighting and fine tuning colors. getting sick of making bones lol

Joao Sapiro

damn even flatshade is awesome to look at. congrats ! i really like enviros like this , where you actually show the scene etc and try to accomplish post effects by old school techniques.

conte

oh, that one is hot!
chip chug goalleyoh

Sage

Looks great, love the lighting.

Alex

iflingpoo

torque: hey good point on the sillouette.. however i actually think giving it a bit of lighting adds more depth. i originally concepted it out as a pure flatshade color but i thought it looked too 2dimensional, however i'll give both a try again, excellent point about the stairs.. im going to give that a shot adding the angles, the stone stairs would look really cool,, but that would mean i'd have to change the current marble floor i'd have to stone, hopefully that wont get washed out with the rest of the stone textures in the scene. i'll give it a go and see what happens.. not like u can tell the floor is marble right now anyway lol what do u think of the latest shot of the gargoyles? im no good at modeling character type stuff, im trying to give them a chiseled look hence the sharp edges n all.. but any suggestions to make them smoother is appreciated thanks

adam

Hey man, this is looking fantastic! This shot right here is my favourite. I like your focus on composition this early in to the scenes development. You'll find its easier to come up with assets situations, colours, and lighting from this view.

My own personal taste would be to have the light rays being cast through the windows and broken walls. To do that the sun would have to be fairly low, and behind putting most of this great work in shadow. But, you can remedy that with some off-camera light source of a more un-natural colour and bring the light back in to the room.

That's of course, just my 2 cents.

Can we see the scene from a more generic angle? I'd like to see the entire piece...

Matroskin

nice props.
And also I think that gargoyles r fine, imo their polycount does not ruin anything.
Btw, what about the column in lower right corner - it is missing polys

seantree

This is great. Really good atmosphere!! Keep us posted I can't wait to see it finished.

Eric Williams

Good stuff.

Rated Rrr

[ QUOTE ]
Btw, what about the column in lower right corner - it is missing polys

[/ QUOTE ]

Busted.

Just wanted to give you some props on your environment. Keep it up.

iflingpoo

almost there! i hope.. still a few smoothing group issues. and stretched textures.. gonna clean em up this weeknd

this shot was edited a bit in fotoshop. added the birds, flags and blur around the castle in the bg, foreground i added a bit of dust/haze and a slight lens flare.. also played around with the colors a bit..

it's looking pretty close to whats here straight from max, just needed to concept a few things out..

here's what i have planed for the upcoming weekend when i have time

- fix smooth groups (skulls)
- stretched textures
- capping geometry
- adding shadow maps
- final touch up on terrain textures
- dust/fog particles

hopeefully that'll do it for the scene, almost time to put it to bed im going to try and play around with some growth areas, like vines n the odd weed or shrub, just to add a bit more color variation,, but we'll see how that goes

thanks for all the comments and crits so far!! wires and flats, different angles, closeups will be posted when done!

PixelGoat

Looking ace!

Joao Sapiro

hmmmm dont like it quite as much as the first shot , the first shot had a greenish tone with somesort of morbid mistery., the sky is too white altho the lightning in the enviro is still the same greenish tone, i would sugest making it look like the first skybox you had ( add somesort of greenish to it , and ditch the lens flare and add the light rays , they were looking really good.

Matroskin

That is just AWESOME! I get inspired
Lighting is cool. U`ve done a great job. Pitty though it is not in-game.
Yet I`ve got one comment. The skulls in the very foreground feel being giant instead of being very close. They seem to belong to the same spacial plane as smaller skulls on stairs.

Anyways, ur environment is hot!

iflingpoo

johny: hey i've had the same said by others as well.. the mood has totally changed in the past bit, i'll have to narrow my focus and stick with something

hawken

background looked better when it was models not a texture

iflingpoo

well back to the old lighting.. added a new sky.. not 100% happy with it, going to paint in more dark clouds

removed the god beams and fog for the time being.. going to move the beams behind the distant castle so it makes more sense

...

now the background castle is bugging me too low poly? or am i just looking at this thing too long?

Matroskin

As for me the BG castle is ok, however it could be lighter in order to achieve depth. Now it looks darker than foreground objects, which should not occur

U r right about the sky - it is not there yet.
I guess that the sky looks too much as a photo, and it
is too relistic comparing to the whole environment. I would suggest that u stylize the sky or even paint ur own.

U r doing great piece man.

pliang

Brighten up the sky bg...

iflingpoo

after many crits. ive decided to do a overcasty sky with bits of sun peering out, not your typical sky, but hell its fantasy so why not? really happy with how this is tunring out. have a few more shots to take and should be done and onto the next scene, finally!!

this is a screencap from max with vertex colors, i've comped in the hard shadows, occlusion and specular, and a bit of color correction

Ged

wow thats just dripping with style now well done! love those crows

adam

Holy crap! Victor my man, good job. The new time of day, sky, and lighting is superb! I love the green accenting the break in the wall like that. It really draws the up and in to the sky, and with those birds flying that you've really created something interesting.

I see you got the AO malarkey all sorted out, looks ace!!

Now - higher res!

TorQue[MoD]

Yeah, the lense flare has definitely taken it from dank and morbid to a more bright and chipper look. Its something to do with the blue in the flare matching with the blue tint in the stained glass. I always hated lense flare because it just cements the idea that you're not looking at the scene with your own eyes.

The stairs look freaking gorgeous now! I knew the angles would make it look much better and I love what you did with the individual steps!

Also, I agree with Johny about getting those light rays back in and although I really like the selective focus on the scene giving the blur to the background buildings, they're still too brightly lit for my taste and I think if you cover them with a bit of fog again it would look stellar!

What are you planning to do with this scene by the way if anything?

TorQue[MoD]

Whoops! I posted that last comment after only reading to the end of page one! Holy crap the new lighting looks absolutely incredible especially with that new sky!

The only thing I would say I don't like are the really harsh shadows on the archway to the left of the scene. Its great to have the contrast, but I think if you just lightened them up ever so slightly it would look better. Like a dark grey shadow as opposed to pitch black.

And the gargoyles look great now. Must have just been some smothing issues that made me not like them before.

You seriously need to get a portfolio site up man. If you need help making one, let me know.

Joao Sapiro

hmmmill go against the tide, but i think this new lightning makes all detail get lost in blues and shadows, something that the other one was cool, because it had greens and orangish tones that helped bring out the shadows , i would use this one and try to make one like last one with light rays too , sweet work here man, really inspiring !

vahl

I'm with johny, sorry man but your prevous lighting had mood and color depth/balance, the new one is just...green, so yeah it's nextgen (and trust me I worked on a "green" game) but man, you lose any depth and mood, overall it darkens the whole picture and makes everything muddy and dull.

but that's just my personal taste, at this stage, it's your piece, you proved you can do a great lighting, so if it's an artistic decision to go that way, then I respect it

Aldo

Wow, totally impressive whichever way you go with the lighting, but I prefer the old "yellow/orange" lighting...you could see more of the details and it had a totally different feel...but as Vahl said..it's an artistic decision at this point.

PixelGoat

I sort of liked it when you could see the passage that is now hidden behind the foreground skulls. Gave the scene some extra depth imo.

iflingpoo

so here it is! finally got the shots i wanted, the god beams have made a return. though not as obvious, i've adjusted the colors to make it less greenish, quite happy with the result

few things that never got in were ambient fx like fog and dust particles.. i just couldnt get them to look right, i tried playing with some depth of field, it looked kinda cool but i just didnt have enough stuff in the foreground/bg to make it worth while.. instead i added a slight haze to the distant objects to make it appear farther back.. hopefully next scene i'll be able to apply the things i missed out this time around..

i hope these shots give every1 a good view of the scene. im more or less done with it and going to move on to the next!

adam: hey thanks for your help, the AO totally makes it look pimped out, next scene will have more pollies just for u lol

torque: good point on the pillars being too dark.. im actually not tooo too pleased with the first shot where they are.. its like.. almost pitch black.. but i thought adding a light source there would distrct the eye.. i do have a portfolio btw.. its garbage though its just a bunch of personal stuff lol check it out http://members.shaw.ca/vickam/ as you can tell this is my first real attempt at next gen lookin stuff, thanks i may take u up on that offer haha


johny: i agree that the red/green color combo was prtty cool, created an eerie mood, which was what intended to do from the start, but for some reason it just didnt look right, what with the scene having no light sources, and seeing how its sposed to be a "cold" scary scene. i thought the reds kinda gave it too much of a warm feeling.. however i do plan to use a similar light setup for my next scene

vahl: aha greeenish game, i was thinking the same right before i posted the shot. seeing as how it was about 4am i thought it looked cool, i did a bit of color correction on the latest shots, brings out the blues and adds a bit of purple in there.. adds a bit more life into a dead scene but not too much

any comments and crits are welcome, i most likley won't be changing anything for this scene but will apply what others say towards the next environment i have planned thanks!

FullRez Version

Pedro Amorim

since you wont be changing anything..
then
AWESEOME.
ehhe

Joao Sapiro

i still really really like this one :



why not adding a tad light rays and in the left add that blueish color you like ? would make two mixes of awesome, i would also make like 3 variations of the enviro imo, this has so much potential...

Matroskin

just fantastic job man, I love the ambience and lights!
Ur final images rock! I like the contrast between tha sky and foreground - well balanced and fitted together. Great texturework as well.
I am impressed by ur vertex coloring skills

Sa74n

this turned out fantastic. how about some larger pics?

iflingpoo

Hey all, thanks for the comments!! glad most poeple liked it, there still could be tweaks to eveything.. but then i'll never get any sleep or move on from this scene ;p

so here are some specs if any one was wondering

27,451 triangles

5 - 1024x1024
1 - 1024x512
2 - 1024x256
4 - 512x512
1- 512x64
1 - 128x256
1 - 1024x256 (used for the lightbeam in distance)

johny: sorry man, looks like you really dig that other lighting scheme it wont go to waste, one of these days i wil make my hellish red/green gothic cathedral lol

oh and the full rez ver is http://members.shaw.ca/vickam/showcase/cathedral-shot17Comp.jpg