"Mod Facade" Challenge - EricV- Harlem/NY Style Apartment
polycounter lvl 13
Id really like to get in on this seeing as environment art is what I want to get into and Id love to get feedback and learn as much as I can from this.
Heres some of my ref. I think Ill combine different elements from each and create something unique
Heres some of my ref. I think Ill combine different elements from each and create something unique
Replies
And here is my thinking of how Im going to break this down texture space wise and what is modular in this thing. Im thinking of having all sorts of graffiti tags on the bricks and I figure this is the best way of going abouts it since I can put the tags right on my diffuse/spec and wont have to resort to Unreal 3's decal actor which doesnt always wield the best results (or at least I havent figured it out completely)
yeah they are lol. Ive decided to go in the opposite direction and add a few more windows since my facade was a looking a little thin and wimpy in my opinion. I agree its alot of windows but ill just have to be creative in how much variations(maybe fewer than 4, we'll see) i have and how i budget my texture space.
ok think im just about finished the high poly trim fro the roof, and im thinking of going the same route for the windows...and then the bricks will just be normaled thru the nividia photochop filter.
here is just a little update....
right now as it stands im at 7, 470 triangles. so still a lot of room to maneuver i think. I just wanted to show an update before i go ahead on the windows. Im wondering if its best for the sake of this contest and for texture space to just have 1 window variation repeated. I mean, after playing tonnes of gta4 ive seen so many buildings in the game that reuse the same window over n over and it still looks fantastic(imo) or should i go with 2,3, or 4 variations as originally planned to spice things up?
If you dont do any varaitions you have to do a pretty generic window, or add more detail with decals etc. But really, with 2048 i dont see how you would have any problems doing a few variations here. Maybe it would be worthwhile to add in some trim inbetween each story as well? i think that will help break up the enevitable tiling you're going to run into here.
Also dont you dare say nvidia filter again! Get with the times and get yourself a copy of crazybump.
I need a little help now tho before going forward with this....I originally planned to have this thing be a one sided true facade(A) that you could just slide in between some other building and it would fit nicely. But recently ive been thinking it would be pretty cool to add in another side(B) to give it some more depth and add cool things like a walk sign/street lights or other signs. Or to just keep that extra side mostly blank but have some huge painted ad or somthing on the side(C)
oh and B is at 14, 124 tris....so with 5000 tris to spare i think that should leave me enough room to add in a few props
Which do you all like best?
The fire escapes need either a drop down ladder or a drop down staircase at the bottom - in yours they'll have to jump from the 1st floor. I think you had them in early shots.
Secondly, I'm not seeing any Air-con units. These are extremely common, even looking at the ref images you posted I can see dozens of them.
in my world people have to break their ankles and knees to prove if they truly want to live
on a serious note though, im loving it!
it's brilliantly detailed. helped me realize how huge the poly limit was, and got me pushin more tris per asset in my own pieces =D
keep it going. would love to see this done!
I have a question about your high-to-low poly windows. Are your current windows part of the wall piece? Or are they floating? Will you float the low poly baked window in the hole? I'm gonna try some high poly stuff too on mine and I'm trying to figure out how to get from a repeated section of wall that includes the window to baking just the window part.
The bit of graffiti on ideation C is really nice also. Maybe a slightly shorter building off to the right side that a tagger could get up on the roof and tag that large brick surface from would allow you to pull together all the elements you had mentioned.
from the screenshot i took above those windows are part of the wall piece...what ill do i think is just bake 1 window then layer the window uvs on top each other. the end piece will have some floating pieces, not all
Also thank you for all the replies and helpful critique. I appreciate them all....
Rick, air con units and drop down ladder are done and done.
Turnerboy, I took off the fire escapes on the right side, there was a few too many I agree
Right now im finishing some low poly modeling and ploughing thru the unwrapping at the same time. Hopefullly I can post the baked low poly in a couple days and get started on the textures
thanks alot dude, yours came out real nice in the new night time render as well
ive never seen Flight of the conchords b4...gonna have to give it a look...and thank you!
second shot: quick render with baked normals and AO....and third shot is how it all looks inside UnrealEd
I Still haven't decided if Ill go with a nighttime or daytime shot...maybe ill do both
the very top trim (little boxes under the sofet) looks good, but it seems like the corners are lacking the detail. I know the same sort of boxes probably wouldn't work, but putting something up there would be cool.
Maybe a gargoyle of some sort?
If that makes sense...
edit. nvm
Not sure if your still taking crits but I've got a few minor crits.
The windows don't have cill stones. If you check your reference or any reference for that matter you will have a harder time finding windows that don't have some sort of cill stone. Also with the window depth you have going there would be quite a bit of dust collecting and you would get some dirt runoff.
You have some sweet graffiti on the bottom but it's doesn't follow up the fire escapes. When I was making my facade all the really tagged buildings usually had graffiti going up the fire escapes as well.
The ac units seem a bit big. It's apparent you did this to fill the space but with your windows being large single windows they look like there about 3 x 4 ft compared to the fire escapes.
great job!
Ironhawk: of course, always accepting and appreciate criticisms...it comes with the territory.
Im guessing by cill stones you mean the bricks dont go in as much...i didnt catch that. Also: Id love to have graftti going up the fire escapes but I had to choose between res and unique space, sooooooo no grafitti going up the stairs i guess =/
http://www.apexbrickcutters.co.uk/architectural_cast_stone.html
Ironhawk: I originally opted to have no window sills around the windows as I had collected some ref with buildings without and I thought it looked alright, but after adding them I think it adds that extra bit of spice...soooooooo HI5 good call! Oh also I tweaked the ac's n scaled em down a bit
Final trianlge count came out to 14, 191
As for textures....
3 2048x2048 (Diffuse, Spec, Normal) and a dinky lil 1024x1024 opacity
Baked in shadows and no lightmap or fancy shmancy post processing used....just a couple lights and thats it!
Also: I will probably bring this into UnrealEd but that'll be just for myself soooo AdamB, Jesse; consider my render below to be my final entry. PLZ and THANK YOU!
hope everyone likes!
Johnny Ive too much respect for your skills not to listen so I worked on the normals a bit....I think theyre a little less flat now and I turned down the spec as well. NOW im done!
Probably would have used the tiling brick on the lower half and just made decals out of the grunge and spray paint.
Also just curious what does your light map look like or did you ditch it? Seemed to work on the grey shaded version, hehe.
thank you