Game environments

vladino

Hi!

I'm building up 3d 'isometric' tiles for a game. They should be used to form an environments together. I want to keep it in a cartoon style which was inspired by Joe Keller.

My first try is at forest environment. The tiles should be low poly no more than 50-60 tris.

Here is what I got now - there are 9 (3x3) tiles on the picture. Let me know what you think guys! Thanks.

ridley075

This looks pretty cool for what you're going for. You should definitely work on some more tiles to get an even greater variation between them. Also, if the game you're designing these tiles for supports it, consider elevation changes, because right now the ground is completely flat.

Vrav

That is cute! I immediately like the concept. Some of the texturing looks like it's had the Artistic>Cutout filter from Photoshop applied. Whether or not you've actually used it, perhaps it would be possible to deviate from this appearance a bit...? All I can think of to do that is either apply straighter lines or round the jagged details out. Of course, if you can maintain the cutout appearance across all tiles, I'm sure it would still look excellent.

I can't find about Joe Keller online. What's his style look like?

vladino

Thanks for your replies guys!

Glad you find it interesting. The textures are done by painting custom shapes and layering them in photoshop. No filters added.

The elevation is not possible. All is happening on one level.

Joe Keller site is here http://joekeller.net/index.html. You can see the same kind of style in some of his art.

I'll keep them coming Can't show screens from game yet tho, maybe later.

Matthew Blake

Cute! I love the tile designs. Might I ask how you're creating the models? Y'know, software, UV wrapping methods and suchlike.

obson

Hey, Awesome! The only thing I might recommend is keeping the color changes as sharp as possible to avoid soft, anti-aliased edges. Either with clever use of low res textures or cutting some of the color shapes into the geometry so that you can just assign all of those polys to a single pixel. I think it might help it have a more graphic apperance.

Looks like a fun project!

vladino

@matthew: Thanks. How I create the models is no science First I do reference search on internet for a certain object to know how it looks like and made some sketches. I use 'box' modeling approach, so I start with box/cone and pull vertices until I got what I wanted. Flatten uv's and paint texture in photoshop

This is how the texture of the mushrooms looks like:



@joe: Nice to see you here! Thanks for advice. I will try to get rid of the antialiasing and see how it looks like. I may try putting sharpen filter on the texture as well. I'll try to play also with the contrast and saturation.

This is update for today, added some rocks and hole!

divi

not sure what purpose the hole has, but wouldn't it be possible to use a few more polys to have it inset into the tile and the edges less straight? right now it somehow doesn't work well with the rest.

everything else looks really great
cheers

Wheel

Liking it, nice colours. Can you afford 5 more tris for the shroom caps ??



Maybe just the big ones

adam

Paging Dr. Hawken, you're needed in the OR.

Target_Renegade

Neat!

imb3nt

I'm really liking this.

makes me wanna play final fantasy tactics... or tactics ogre.

post more! :thumbup:

carlo_c

This looks nice, I agree about making the hole less square in shape. I really like the painted textures you've done, very simple but works really well.

Wells

Thumbs up.

I like the square hole. COUNTER POINT!

Mechadus

Looks great so far - I cant think of anything to crit other than what has already been said. If you are unfamiliar with it, you check out an old game called Xcom: UFO defense. The entire game is 3/4 perspective like yours, and they did a great job populating their grids, considering how old of a game it is anyway. Perhaps it would be inspiration for you

-Nick

vladino

Thanks a lot for all you replies!

@divi, carlo_c: The hole must be square, as you can see on the new image But I'll think about adding some texture of soil around so it looks more connected to the environment. Good point anyway

@wheel: the props will be quite small in the game so I would rather take some out than add new

@adamBrome: Sorry mate, but don't get you at all

@Target_Renegade: Thanks!

@imb3nt: More coming soon!

@Sectaurus: Hope you like the crate as well

@Mechadus: I've been playing ufo for hours and hour, good old times


Here is quick update, I made crate which will fall into the hole to cover it. Now you see why the hole needs to be square . I made acorn and some generic block to fill space (will try to avoid using them if possible tho).

peppi

Fun stuff! Perhaps you could rotate some of the repeating tiles for nicer blending?

ApprenticeEverything

man, i really like where this is going Valdino!
I love the cartoonyness of it and the low polycount gives it an oldschool feel. It looks great. it looks like this could be a really fun DS game or something.

but I was wondering, with the tiles you have shown us all i see in the future for this project is a huge musrhoom filled wasteland. how are you going to handle bigger things like buildings or trees or arches? not saying you cant do it, but I just was wondering if youd thought of that and what your plan was. off the top of my head id probably make them as one big object and just multiply the polycount for them x the number of squares they take up.

so like if a building took up 5 squares Id just make the building and use 250 (50x5) polys instead of 50. Sorry if this seems obvioius. just thowin out some ideas :P

vladino

@peppi: Yeah, I will definitely rotate the titles.

@ApprenticeEverything: Thanks for your advices Good idea about the bigger objects taking up more squares.. I'll think about it and try to do some tests. The problem can be that the player won;t see the environment clearly..

Small update..

Thegodzero

I don't think the crate fits at all, but i love the style (of the rest, not the crate).

pior

Yeah the crate is out of place. Other than that, sweet! To be exported to the DS 3D viewer for sure!!

Kevin Johnstone

Now I want to play old Zelda games, these are so cool and cute and clean

ocarian

Excelent job vladino

very cute

Keep up

vladino

Thanks for all your comments guys! Even I haven't replied for some time I saw them all and appreciate!

I was busy making the main planet, which will be used to select levels. This is finished now and I'll start doing tiles for the different environments.



Will try to make video of the planet once in engine.

hawken

adamBrome wrote: »

Paging Dr. Hawken, you're needed in the OR.

watching this with great interest!

Minos

vladino wrote: »

Thanks for all your comments guys! Even I haven't replied for some time I saw them all and appreciate!

I was busy making the main planet, which will be used to select levels. This is finished now and I'll start doing tiles for the different environments.



Will try to make video of the planet once in engine.

Sweet!

vladino

hawken wrote: »

watching this with great interest!

Oh, makes sense now Thanks! Update coming soon..

Mark Dygert

This is looking great, really nice work so far.

On the planet are you using a toon shader or are the shadows painted in?

vladino

Vig wrote: »

This is looking great, really nice work so far.

On the planet are you using a toon shader or are the shadows painted in?

Thanks! Everything is just painted in the texture. There will be no lights and shaders in the game, just diffuse maps.

vladino

Will chuck this one here as well as it will be a monster in the game The texture is still extreme wip

SHEPEIRO

love the monster, would be cool if it was made of wool and had buttons for eyes

vladino

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

love the monster, would be cool if it was made of wool and had buttons for eyes

Hahaha, that's really cool idea! I may try that

butt_sahib

Adorable!
Loving it

Ben Apuna

vladino everything is looking pretty nice. You've got a great game in the works, keep it up

vladino

Thanks for comments once again! Really helping me to find energy for this project

Small walk cycle animation I made. You can see it on my website on the main page Texture is still temporary.

Marnik

Wow, I love the old school cartoony style you've got going on here. Seems like old zelda meets animal crossing to me, great work and I can't wait to see more!

vladino

Thanks Marnik. Funny as I never played Zelda and so many people mention it

Tested the monster in-game. Turned out I need to stick to really simple texture as the size of the thing wont be big enought (the size of the monster on the picture is the final size in the game).



Comments and suggestions welcome!

bluekangaroo

very nice, I'd eventually like to try something in that very simplistic almost cell shaded style

vladino

Thanks EricV! Try it, I'm having loads of fun creating stuff in this style

Small update, still like the last one the most

vladino

Snow time! No new props, just changed the textures quickly to see if I'm able to change the atmosphere of the level easily. Will build some special props for this theme, like pile of snow balls, icicles and so.

Ben Apuna

Looks awesome Definitely needs a snowman version of that monster guy though, maybe as a prop or maybe another character type. Icicles will look great on those mushrooms. Rotating some of those ground tiles 90 or 180 degrees might help hide the repetition a bit.

frredd

this looks great! i love the style
maybe add some slack to the bridge ropes?
keep up the good work!

Japhir

I'm really digging this stuff! I think this might be considered thread necromancy, but I just wanted to drop in and say it's looking great .

vladino

Thanks guys!

This project is on hold tho As appstore is currently occupied by cheap 0.99 farting apps and so on, I can't afford develop big game without being able to sell it for reasonable price.

Hopefully one day Apple will fix the store or introduce different business model for more complicated games and I will finish this one

I have a thread here with a simple game I made - http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=64464

Ben Apuna

Sorry to hear that I was looking forward to seeing more of this game.

slipsius

That walk cycle is awsome! you`re doing an awsome job! Lookin forward to seeing more!