Environment WIP: Dock

OBlastradiusO

I'm having a go at the Dock art test from the Splash Damage website. Here some of what ive done so far.







I decided to do a paintover texture of the Dock asset just to get it out of the way since texturing will be the most time consuming. Tell me what you think of this paintover. Also almost done with the hipoly mesh and will show the whole thing once completed.

OBlastradiusO

Here are some more updates hopefully I can start getting around to texturing soon. Just need to model a couple of more items like drug bags, money, and some debris.

OBlastradiusO

Just to let people know that there is a story behind this asset . The setting will be an aftermath of a couple of drug smuggler killings by several ex military right wing vigilantes. This loading dock is a perfect place for the drug boss it's well fortified and they can receive they're shipments a lot easier. One smuggler will be killed on the far left of the dock the other two will be gunned down on the pier section where all the drug crates are. I'm gonna try to make it a bloodbath along with gunfire detail, and debris.

Toast

Looking good, I much prefer the latest batch of images. It'll be interesting to see how you translate this backstory into your scene with textures. Keep it up.

erik!

iiiinteresting...

butt_sahib

hey

Excellent work. Great attention to the detail and poly budget. So, whats the count on it atm?i believe you have a budget of 20k?
The paintover looks brilliant.
So are you going to add in the dea bodies?seems redundant to me! but im sure youll make it look kickass
Its weird,all the attempts ive seen of this test rock;plain and simple.must be the complexity of the test that only pros can actually plan to take a jab at them

Looking forward to more.

OBlastradiusO

Thanks butt? Its that cool to call you that? Anyways the tri budget will be under 20,000, that's the goal. No dead bodies because it would intrude on the environment tri budget and sacrifice some important props.

Also can anyone on here tell me is it cool to make one of the metal linings circled in red a decal? Im still kinda rusty on uv placements and proper decal placement.

jec1183

Big question here. Why do you have the porthole windows modeled into the wall? Technically that is a huge waste of your polybudget. You can save a lot by making those separate objects. This will also allow for easy unwrapping later on.

OBlastradiusO

Ive thought of that. Should i just make a separate hi polyed window frame and use the hi poly version as a normal mapped decal on the wall?

ImSlightlyBored

nah, but id float it on the wall, keeping walls at 2 tris...

good luck with this, looks good so far!

as far as your metal linings, id do the same (float them) but not decal them, they have too much form for decal imo (but im not the most qualified to say!)

OBlastradiusO

Thanks BTW the environments on your portfolio look awesome, and i like the way you laid out the process of each piece. However they're were some texture sheets on your site I couldn't understand. What does 2048 x 2 per pass mean? Anyways the decals look fine for the metal linings so i'm gonna go with that. Just hope they don't give me a problem when I import them in Unreal 3. The windows will be set in front of the walls without the indentations.

ImSlightlyBored

single 2048x2048 used for spec, diff, and normals.

Decals shouldnt give you a problem when imported, just do them as a normal texture and set up your decal mat (hourences site has a useful tutorial about that.) I would still model them in myself, as they seem to extrude a little from the dock side and if they were flat it'd be pretty obvious. I'd treat a decal as a sticker on a wall. With the tris you save from the wall holes that have been removed, I think it wouldnt be too hard to put them in as geo, but then youve got to muscle them in to your map (if you've space??)

But ultimately go with what you think is best, of course.

OBlastradiusO

Okay ill try that then.

"but then you've got to muscle them in to your map (if you've space??)"

What do you mean by that?

ImSlightlyBored

dont know what space youve got in your UV layout at the moment, figured you might be wanting to decal them because your main sheet is already full.

OBlastradiusO

Ah i see. I was going to make the metal lining polys a separate texture sheet. You think I should put them on the same sheet with the dock wall and floor?

OBlastradiusO

Here's another update. Starting to texture now.

Target_Renegade

It looks cool, the cobbled part in the centre doesn't look right, maybe its because it looks like its only a normal map. The large amount of concrete on top of the bricks seem a bit off also, it seems that they're too different a material/in quantity. The paintover looks good apart from the concrete pontoon, those things usually rise with the tide and at the moment it looks like you'll make it out of concrete. Lots of progress and time left, post some more.

OBlastradiusO

Thanks man. Yeah I got some heavy criticism for that cobble because it doesn't make sense, so I took it out. As for the pontoon I made it concrete because it was a loading dock setting. I'm changing the color of the top facade of the building now.

OBlastradiusO

One that's been bothering me. I'm struggling now on how to lay my textures out. I started to layout the uv on all the separate object individually. But after seeing the way this guy (http://www.medicinal-waste.co.uk/chillalex/slums.htm) has laid out his uv's im thinking should I take the whole scene and texture all on one single 2048 texture sheet. This seems much more of a faster approach. Can anyone tell me if that's sensible way to go?

rooster

seems less flexible to me.. in a game situation what if a level designer wants to re use a prop item, it's loading in textures for all that other stuff.. it'll also mean you cant tile any textures by moving uvs outside 0-1. That's my impressions, but I'm not really an expert on environment art. Why would it be faster? the main benefit I can see is tighter packed uvs

MoP

You definitely want to use tiling textures for parts that make sense like that (walls, floors, the "sea wall" part, any generic metal trims/railings etc). Then map your "props" onto a larger unique sheet. This will give you more flexibility, as Rooster says.

OBlastradiusO

Okay so put wall, trim, floor texture etc on a single tillable sheet map. Then put the props in the same area on it's own single texture sheet? Is that right?

MoP

Well, you can put the walls into a single sheet if you want, but it'd be ok to have each tiling texture as its own thing (so like 512x512 tiling concrete floor, 512x512 tiling metal wall, 256x256 tiling metal trim).

There's nothing stopping you putting the tiling stuff into a larger sheet if you don't mind losing the tiling on one axis (since if you put concrete & metal onto one 1024x512, you will need to add geometry in order to tile these vertically)

OBlastradiusO

Here my texture layout for the dock base. It this a good layout to start with?

kio

its always nice to have some border textures between seperate materials - might come up handy later when youre reusing same texture sheets for different stuff.

OBlastradiusO

kio wrote: »

its always nice to have some border textures between seperate materials - might come up handy later when youre reusing same texture sheets for different stuff.

Can you point to a example pic of what your saying? I'm really clueless on proper UV layouts.

MoP

Looks like it's a decent layout, although I hope this is not at true-resolution, I'd expect something double the size and more detailed. Also your brick texture has a very obvious repeating pattern in it right now.

OBlastradiusO

MoP wrote: »

Looks like it's a decent layout, although I hope this is not at true-resolution, I'd expect something double the size and more detailed. Also your brick texture has a very obvious repeating pattern in it right now.

No the real size is 2048. As for the the tiling the added windows with some decaling should break that tiling up a bit.

MoP

well, even then your base will still be more repetitive (therefore less unique) than it could be - with single textures like this i should never be able to see repeating patterns (clone stamp? small source image used lots of times?) since that usually implies the texture is not very good.

kio

i ment something like this

(thankies ben mathis)

OBlastradiusO

AH i ve seen this.

_Shimmer

nice! keep going!

OBlastradiusO

Here's a brick texture I made that wasnt tiled that small of a size. How does this tile for a start?

frubes

i see you have adopted the gears of war pallete there. Grey, Brown and Grey, all you are missing is the blood.

On a slightly more constructive note the textures tile okish. You can go too far with removing unique details but i think you need to get rid of some of the really dark bricks on the brick section as i can see the repeat in that, Same with the concrete trim, you can see the tile 3 times.

Try to move away from such the monocramatic grey you see in so many games now. Bricks dont have to be grey!. Not saying saturate the hell out of them but observe how colour works in real life.

rooster

the point Mop was making I believe is you shouldnt see repeating texture artifacts on one single texture- all of it should be unique or else you're just compounding the repeating feel even more.. in the brick textures there its easy to see lots of repetition on the single texture. if you're doing that then you might as well just make the texture smaller and tile it more as the effect is the same

OBlastradiusO

Interesting. Kay after searching the polycount forum I found a good idea. I'm just gonna make the bricks in 3d max hopefully that smooth out any repeating textures, plus it will be easier i think on me.

OBlastradiusO

Here's the brick work now the mortar.

OBlastradiusO

Here another attempt at the tiled brick. These were made from the 3d bricks. Sry to keep coming back to this but I really want to hammer this down now.

MoP

that seems a bit better (and presumably your normalmap and any ambient occlusion you bake will match up perfectly, so that's good) - it still needs a pass in photoshop to add some dirt here and there, and shift the hues around a bit - the bricks are all a bit "samey" right now. Certainly doesn't tile as obviously for the most part now though.

OBlastradiusO

Great at least its now the tiling is not so obvious. Yes a photoshop pass will be next. Any tips on how to not repeat dirt spots?

rooster

aye more grime from everyday wear and tear, but you're on the right track with this technique I reckon. keep at it!