Environment WIP :: Also need help
polycounter lvl 14
Hey guys, this is my first newb post here! I've been looking at art here for the past year or so and figured it was time to ask for your guys' critiques on something of my own.
I just finished this up tonight for my Advanced Texturing class at school.
If the topic stills says "Also need help," ignore that (aside from critiques). The thread title doesn't seem to be updating in the forums.
Programs:
Maya 2008
Photoshop CS3
UV Layout
Project info:
5982 triangles (excluding character)
Several 1024x2 and 512x2 diffuse, spec, and bump maps.
I'm too newb to work with normal maps yet, but even if I did know how I don't think it would be particularly useful for this environment.
Thanks for looking
!
I just finished this up tonight for my Advanced Texturing class at school.
If the topic stills says "Also need help," ignore that (aside from critiques). The thread title doesn't seem to be updating in the forums.
Programs:
Maya 2008
Photoshop CS3
UV Layout
Project info:
5982 triangles (excluding character)
Several 1024x2 and 512x2 diffuse, spec, and bump maps.
I'm too newb to work with normal maps yet, but even if I did know how I don't think it would be particularly useful for this environment.
Thanks for looking
!
Replies
i suggest to add some geometry on the large rocks - at least make the silouhette less low poly. maybe bend the tower curve it a little, and add a texture for the path?
I agree, the screenshot looks great, like the atmosphere. Hope its realtime too. Also agree with kio, paint in a path would break up that surface, and the path kind of stops right now where I'd expect to see a path.
No, this is not real-time, this is rendered.
I don't know what "real-time" means
Does that mean after I've plugged it into a game engine or something?
Here are a couple texture files for your viewing pleasure
(alternative is pre-rendered, baked out to a video or image, magazine renders, movies, etc.)
this is beautiful man, some of the individual assets have problems (i think the textures have too much blurry shading and inconsistent levels of detail) but overall it looks awesome.
And yea, this is very beautiful, nice work.
The only thing I know of is clicking the Render drop-down in the view port then checking "High Quality Render"
That never seems to make things look all that great, and I've always been taught to work to render.
Thanks a lot guys, you're all a huge help
it resembles a bit Diablo 3
and color wise also abit alfons mucha and his jugendstil
Which individual assets do you think need some touching up? It may be my environment fog and low glow affects that create the atmosphere. It could be blurring some things around the edges, which is what I want, but if something really needs touching up let me know
Could someone link me to a detailed explanation of "real-time?" A wikipedia or forum post or something. I want to read up on it.
Here she is:
Pre-rendered is when your CPU churns away at all the calculations software-wise (brute force to crunch everything).
Real-time is when your graphics card computes everything hardware-wise (on hardware built specifically to calculate 3D) at 30 frames per second or more.
Real-time is what you see in games, and it's harder to pull off inside your 3D application. Stuff like shadows is barely supported for example (they added flaky, crude realtime shadows to 3DS Max since 2 versions).
But you shouldn't be too bothered about that, if you really want to achieve the same level in realtime without exporting to a game-engine, it really takes a lot of effort and knowledge; knowing how to program HLSL shaders a bit is almost essential.
For now i've got 2 comments:
1) leafless trees need some more work. They have too few branches. Cone-like trunk is too evident and branches look right away as flat poly with alpha because there are not enough of them. Moreover, those 2 leafless trees are seen clearly against the sky and there are nothing behind to mask their "lowpolyness" so u could do them more complex and interesting.
2) Textures are great i.m.o. but they are all unique and not-tiled. Terrain like that usually should be done with smaller tileable square textures that mix together to create variety , road or anything else.
Same goes for wall. It could be smaller tiled texture but over the wall u could add decals with dirt, moss, cracks etc instead of painting them directly in the wall texture. In the way u did it u can't reuse the wall or its texture without actual duplicating the wall as it is.
Your piece looks great, but it looks like it is executed far from real production way.
Matroskin: Thanks a lot for the critiques. I want to take a short break from this monster and those trees will be the first thing I address. As for the textures, they are tileable but on a much larger scale, large enough you can't really tell. I also tried to really push hand-painting my textures so the base textures are heavily mocked up with my own Photoshop brush work.
That still might not be practical as you're describing, though.
I'm sorry for my confusion of real-time vs. pre-rendered. In school we've only covered one way of showing off your art. Rendered. Sorry for dragging this on so long because I'm trying to make sure I fully understand it so I won't have to keep asking once I've figured it out.
~~~
Is it "bad" to render out the images? Do companies prefer to see real-time work over rendered work?
"Real-time is what you see in games, and it's harder to pull off inside your 3D application." So does that mean I was correct in assuming I am looking at real-time work when it's in my viewport with High Quality Rendering turned on (Maya)?
Also, here is a scythe I made a while ago. If I am correct above, then this is also real-time, yes?
simple as that, it does not matter that much as I can tell you that your pictures here so far looked realtime- style.
Renderings usually have more complex light rendering methods like global illumination, better anti- aliasing and better texture filtering
again I really like the colors- good work
The only real addition I get in the render are the slight glow affect of the ground plane, the environment fog, and the transparency maps that don't work live.
I guess in a sense I created a fake, polished real-time image without knowing it... or something.
My final question is, should I pursue what I achieved here with a stylized render that looks like it fits in the game environment, or should I pursue creating environments that look really nice in the viewport?
If an employer would care: well uhm i'm not all that experienced with how employers think since i'm still looking for my first internship, but I always find it a lot more impressing when somebody presents a kickass realtime image, as I know the trouble and effort that goes into that. I think a lot of people here think the same, so I guess art-directors that decide about employment might do so too. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong?
Just look at it as a bonus, you can of course render your stuff but you shouldn't use super-advanced stuff like global illumination and glossy raytraced reflections. You're doing a really good job at that at the moment, since you almost fooled me it could be realtime.
But uhm, i'm not a Maya user, but i'm pretty sure you can get those opacity maps fixed (they seem to work on some of the trees already?). And if it's possible to use screen post-shadres in Maya, you could even pull off a realtime glow and perhaps even distance fog.
I would start focusing on real time enviroments if your going for a game job.
You can get stuff as nice looking as this in unreal 3 with little effort, and its more relevant to show you can work to an engine. Fog planes, bloomed surfaces and your color curves are easily done, so you wouldnt stand to lose anything youve featured here.
From experience, having stuff in engine is always a positive when applying. To be honest, it only really makes sense, if you are a game artist, to show things in a game environment.
I do hope this discussion of realtime v rendered doesnt detract from your work, which is really nice
That post, Xoliul, is awesome. I'm bookmarking it right now. I think this post really answers my question further.
(posted by benclark on page 1 [slightly edited])
"I agree that screens [viewport] are the best way [to present game art] but I don't see rendering as cheating. If you take that stance then 95% of all the entries in all 3 dominance wars are cheating. What i do see as cheating is using GI, FinalGather, depth of field and stuff that is highly tweaked and post processed"
That makes me feel better knowing that I did create a render that falls into the guidelines of game art, which really is what I wanted to do here (and want to do with my career
ImSlightlyBored: Where can I grab the Unreal3 engine? I won't bog up this post about how to use the engine once I get it. I'll post all remaining technical discussion about this elsewhere to keep this thread focused on this artwork primarily.
And wel I didn't really talk about an engine yet, but Unreal 3 is good. Very powerful, so a tad complex from what I've seen. If you want to use that you will need the game Unreal Tournament 3 for PC, it comes with an editor that allows you to import custom content, set up materials and create levels.
As for the Unreal Engine, I am currently working on a Medieval themed MOD for the MSUC contest using the technology. Its quite a change coming from Source engine. The material editor is great, and it is very intuitive to getting your models up and running.
For example, today I threw together this test environment to get a first hand look at how my wip's are looking in game(as opposed to 3dsmax).
http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=seigeconcept03mg8.jpg
If you are interested in working with the engine and/or creating medieval environments for a game, we are currently looking for another Environment Artist to join us. I would be happy to get you up to speed with the technology.
Here is a link to our site. Check it out.
www.Archasis.com
Scott Petty
Environment Artist
www.Buddikaman.com
commander_keen: Do you mean the jagged bricks at the top of the bridge wall or the flat side of the bridge wall itself?
buddikaman: That sounds great. If you're working primarily in 3DS Max, though, I will have a slightly steeper hill to climb as all my work is completed in Maya right now. Ultimately I do want to want to get 3DSMax under my belt because such a huge portion of the industry is done with that software. I'm also a full-time student, freelance concept artist, and have a possible internship coming up, so I am incredibly busy. If you have a few pieces here or there you'd like created I'd be more than happy to do it!
They lack polygons, they don't have enough branches thus it is very easy to see each brunch set as one plane. Their trunks also remain very straight and cone-like.
The left most tree (with leaves) look way better in terms of its trunk shape. If those leafless trees would have more interesting shape and be more big/thick that would help i think.
I know that similar aesthetical issues can be seen in many real games, but this is your portfolio piece done not in real prod environment and therefore it needs to have real-game-prod-rush-crunchtime issues as less as possible cause in your case you will not have an excuse
http://artofhaiasi.com/tutorials/shermanIsaiah_handPainted_tutorial.pdf
That's a good point, rooster (I love your art by the way). I was trying to have the light imitate as if it were coming from the left side of the image and the sun was going through the leaves.
I had a small issue with lighting the leaves, though, and if they were too bright it pulled peoples' eyes away from where I want their interest to be: the middle.
Maybe I should reduce the area in which the leave shadows fall?
Great work by the way.