Destroyed Farm House

Jeremy Lindstrom

This was an art test that turned into my first ingame model. I had a 7k tris limit on the house and all props (stone walls, shack, troffs) and the house and one 1024x1024 sheet for textures. They liked the art test so much, it's now going in game. I spent the last week rebuilding the model to put in their game engine and learning how to build the LOD's and Collision models. It was an awesome learning experience and here are the shots of how it looks in game. The game is seven years old, and I can't currently talk about it other then to say it's a project I'm working on but they said I can put it in my portfolio and post it here with no problems. Those that know me pretty well, know all the background for it. I'll be able to talk about it soon.

I have a few things to tweak on the shutters (bad texture on the top of the sideways boards) and need to lighten up that shadow on the brick decals. I learned a shitload on this project and look forward to making more...

Jeremy Lindstrom

Forgot to post the wires:

(Also forgot working in Max the last two weeks straight for 6 hours a day I feel like I'm getting pretty good at getting around in there.) So there's a few things I can fix on the next model where I messed up on this one. They have about a foot base on the models that need to attach to the terrain so that's why those are there...

rube

one thing that sticks out to me is you's placed the 'grime' above the windows, not below. since those stains are usually from water dripping off something it would make more sense to me to have it below.

Jeremy Lindstrom

the 'grime' above the window is soot from a fire bombing. But yea I have some tri's left for decals under the windows and some texture space left.

Joshua Stubbles

WWIIOL
I do some stuff for them as well, though I've been woefully slow lately do to just moving and starting a new job, etc.
In any case, I think the textures could probably use some work. The decals don't blend very well with the rest of the building and they're just not real sharp in general.

The polys of the building don't exactly look blown out, either. They look precisely cut. I know the engine is ancient, but some polys could certainly be spared to make it look a bit more realistic. If you can't model some more shrapnel type wood bits, you can always add them via alpha maps or something. Anything to break up the extreme cleanliness of it all.

Mark Dygert

Off to a good start but I wouldn't call it finished. Even with the requirements I think you can pull off some more detail.

Crits:
- Shutters need hinges, even if its just painted into the texture.

- If you have char marks, then whatever burned needs to be represented. Also anything close to the fire, like shutters and the wood trim on the second floor would burn.

- The floor is made up of boards, yet you cut it just like the rest of the building. Take into account the materials you'll be using when you start modeling. It will help you plan out your textures.

- Looks like the upper floor was obliterated, but only a few big chunks are laying on the ground? Check out some WW2 ref, things almost always end up in piles. You can use these piles for detail, to help you blend your model into the surrounding terrain and create interesting places to take cover.

- The corners of the building are too sharp and clean. I doubt the building material would leave a sharp corner, and even if it did, years of use and weather would round it out.

Rhinokey

plaster would be chiped away more near the breaks making the bricks there more visible, plaster chipping seems verry uniform, and bevel on paster is too thick, making it look really deep and smoothed at the chips edge.

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/3897040/2/istockphoto_3897040_broken_brick_wall.jpg

bricks break in a pattern following the shape of the bricks, not reandomly zig zaged

http://69.90.174.248/photos/display_pic_with_logo/156268/156268,1208140313,2.jpg

again, reference is your best reference

http://gallery.hd.org/_exhibits/places-and-sights/_more2007/_more09/England-London-New-Malden-Cleveland-Road-craters-destroyed-brick-house-damaged-factory-James-Avis-cardboard-box-maker-and-printer-after-a-direct-bomb-hit-in-August-1940-less-than-a-year-into-World-War-2-WWII-mono-cropped-tweaked-2-PD.jpg

http://mirror-us-ga1.gallery.hd.org/_exhibits/places-and-sights/_more2007/_more09/England-London-New-Malden-Cleveland-Road-craters-destroyed-brick-house-damaged-factory-James-Avis-cardboard-box-maker-and-printer-after-a-direct-bomb-hit-in-August-1940-less-than-a-year-into-World-War-2-WWII-mono-cropped-tweaked-1-PD.jpg

http://www.news-banner.com/pix/sitegraphics/leonard%20house%202.jpg

http://blogs.move.com/first-time-home-buyers/wp-content/blogs.dir/21/files/2007/09/bombed-house.jpg


please do not turn this art test in untill you do a lot more work, i'm sure you can do it, you just have to do it

Jeremy Lindstrom

appreciate the crits, it's already turned in as I've been working there for about two weeks now I've created the lod's and collision models for it, although many of the changes and additions I can add still.

Baddcog

Yeah, I think the biggest issue to me is the zig-zag wall.

I know there's probably poly limits and whatnot but it's really not very realistic.

My suggestion would be to make all the breaks lines more square (along brick pattern), then make the plaster chipped all the way around the edges in a zig-zag pattern. That'll add alot more detail and look more realistic and I bet the polycount could stay the same. Of course you'd need at least one tex more for that.

I think also the wood beams in the walls should stick up past the wall a bit. That'll break up the zig zags and be more realistic. They are a seperate piece of those walls so they would've broken differently.

I also HATE when pieces of walls are just broken off. All those bricks would have scattered and the plaster would have been turned to dust. I think dusty piles of bricks surrounding the house would be better.

The shutters should vary more. Look to me like all the right side shutters tilt right, all the left ones are fixed. Make it more random.

The thing with the soot marks above the windows tells me that the indside was on fire. But the inside doesn't look burnt.

It's not a bad piece. I know plenty of older games it would fit into just fine. Those are just the things I think could be improved.
I don't know if I'd redo it, sometimes that just gets old.
Maybe just stuff to keep in mind for a better next piece.

danr

very first thing that struck me is that the inside of the walls are exactly the same as the outside - there would be wallpaper, interior plastering different to the rendering on the outside, paintwork on the timbers, other details that make it look like it was once lived in, etc etc

i think the reason it was the first thing i noticed is because it's a classic oversight

SHEPEIRO

first thing that struck me was why do you have normal maps when they apear to be doing nowt?

drop-em and get double the texture variation

Jeremy Lindstrom

you can see the normal maps a bit better when you are close to them in the game it's a limit of the engine it's 7 years old. They wanted the normals so I put em on there, I also now have access to some of their texture library so I can use some of their textures from the current game, so I should be able to add some more inside detail and going to go back and clean up some of the model that I found through cleaning up for the lod.

I'll add some more detail to the silhouette with the recovered polys. I already added the debris piles.

Just for comparison here's the building it's replacing ingame.

Mark Dygert

Wow, that is an improvement

One last thing and I'll leave it alone... The brick texture looks flipped upside down, shadows on top, highlights on the bottom?

Joshua Stubbles

hehe I love their 2D buildings!
Silly germans stick their k98's out of a single pixel of alpha (which is like 1ft wide..) and shoot ya from 500m... grr

I agree with Vig - brick decal looks upside down. Also, the corner brick decal is badly misaligned.