robot tank assembly line

Pope Adam

hey pc

im makin a scene here for a class... got some textures on it now, and i started my lighting this morning.

looking for some general feedback on the lighting and textures and composition - kindof just stabbing in the dark with this, I must admit that I didn't really plan this scene very well from the beginning and now that I'm in the final stages of it I'm kindof befuddled and need some advice/inspirado.

thanks fellas

edit: oh ya, all textures are still very WIP
the floor and ceiling aren't done yet :P along with a few other minor things.

richkid

oh cool man, this scene is coming along. i love the arms in the background. they contrast nicely and give a strong silhouette. you need to do some of that in the foreground here. everything is around the same tone in it's respective color so each object kind of bleeds into the next.

try maybe the walls being illuminated, so the tanks and arms are dark against it. then have a hot blue light coming off of the arms to highlight the tanks foreground side

i dont know, just some ideas. ill try and do a paintover later and post it

Pope Adam

little update on some lighting... still not final... thinking of adding some orangey glowy hologram projections on the back of the robot arm units... gonna model and texture the floor and cieling this week, as well as finish the other textures.

ae.

i dont know man, the textures and models look a little blobby, i can give you a better crit if you throw down some renders of your vehicles without lighting.

Pope Adam

yah yah, just lookin for some lighting help right now... all the textures are just in their first pass stage (block out)

kio

youre foreground doenst work, the eye keeps moving figuring out whats actually going on. too heavy contrasts and or undefined shapes. actually i like your background way better, there are some nice negative shapes going on along the construction arms. so i guess its more of a tonal value problem, maybe try out blocking a new lighting which works on a thumbnail size. your picture will always look mediocre without proper working values - aside that as ae said some of your models look kinda sloppy

Pope Adam

Hey Kio

thank you for your concise analysis. I'll revisit the foreground lighting tomorrow afternoon and re work a few things.

As for the models, I do agree that at this point they are subpar. I'm hoping that after I do a final pass on textures they will be a bit sharper and more cohesive. As for the blobbyness, I was kindof going for a rounder, more alien look to them. meh maybe you jjust meant blobby as in not-good

HAL

hmmm I see some blobbyness, too but that's because there is something wrong with your smoothing I guess.

I think you can see that best at the front part of the tank in the back directly below that turret thingy

And you should really work on the lightning, give a little bit more attention to those robot arms

Pope Adam

Hal - I definitely want to fix this blobby look. I have lighting questions! :P

How might you recommend I go about adding additional light to the robotic arms?

I want to make sure that all of the lights in the scene seem to be coming from a definitive source, what should this light source be?

Should I model and texture and add more light emitting props to explain how the light is reaching the surfaces of the arms or should I just arbitrarily add lights around them for the sole purpose of being able to see them?

Should I simply increase the ambient lighting in the foreground?

Thank you very much for taking your time to comment.

any suggestions would be appreciated, I will experiment with lighting more tomorrow afternoon.

HAL

Maybe add some round spotlights, it's a production line so there should be plenty of it... you could add them just above the robots.

Tumerboy

Ya, I was going to say the same as Kio. It's too busy, and I can't tell what's going on. You need some larger open areas for my eye to rest, and an actual focal point so I know what I'm looking at. A lot of that could be done just through lighting.

misterboogie

Tumerboy


Lighting: I do like your color choices in your last pic. It's just too contrasty. Counter it with some bounces of the same color. Small amount of blue ambient light to kill all the black.

It's getting better.

Pope Adam

took a little out of the background, tightened up the foreground... still working on my materials.

gamedev

Yo Adam, can we see some shots of just the assets themselves? In particular the tank?

Pope Adam

Sure thing Tyler. I could really use some critique on the tank... particularly the materials

Tumerboy

I know you said materials. . . but I'm always the asshole handing out unsolicited opinions :P

I'ts really hard to tell the scale of it when it's all alone. There's nothing I can really identify as a cockpit/hatch/human interface. (I know it's robotic.), so I get a little stuck trying to figure out how big it is. Is this thing assembled by robots entirely? Or is this made by/maintained by humans? If it's the latter, maybe some decals with text to identify key areas "remove before flight" "no step" etc as we see all over modern day fighter jets and such?

Also, the general shape leaves me a little confused. Because I can't see the articulation, it looks like it should (or maybe is?) just sag in the middle. I feel like if each wheel is on a separate "leg" so to speak, then the main "body" and each "leg" should be clarified and differentiated more. Or, conversely, if it's all one unit, and all legs and the body are one hull, then having them flow together in a more readable way might help?

As for the materials, I think that they're just a bit flat. That's probably part of the scale problem above. Having more interesting materials with more identifiable detail to them, may help sell the size. Rather than just a plain metal plate, making the plate metal, painted, chipped/scratched, then repainted a different color only to be chipped/scratched again would help I think?

konstruct

I`m not sure if your shooting for a tri count, but the low res look pretty nasty. Like nothing looks like a cleanly manufactured piece, rather some scrap metal welded together.

I feel like you could play with maps and materials all day long, and because your polyflow is creating so many awkward shapes it wouldnt matter. could you post a wireframe?

Pope Adam

Tumer: Hey dude thanks for the comments - good point on the reference for scale. I suppose the only thing I can think of that would give it scale is tires right now but even those could be misleading. The tanks themselves are run by artificial intelligence, as well as the machines that construct them so I didn't really take in to account human scale. I'll probably insert some kind of small ladder somewhere in the foreground before too long just to give the scale sense, since there is not pilot or operator for the vehicle itself.

It's design is almost like it has 4 legs, connected to the body at the center. I imagined the tank to run at high speeds and be able to swivel these "legs" around almost like limbs for evasive manuvering, all the while spinning the "head" about to fire in all directions.

I've been DYING!! to add chips scrapes and dents to these guys, but have hesitated because this is supposed to be a brand new machine, should i just go ahead and ding it up a little bit anyway? Thanks tumer for your suggestions!

Konstruct: I was trying to keep my tri count under 10k, which I ended up at 9.5k tris. There were a lot of round and complicated shapes on it that sucked up geometry. I'll post a wireframe when I get home from class tonight. Please don't hesitate to be honest and let me know if you recommend I completely scrap my low poly and start over fresh because I'll do it for sure if you think it cannot be salvaged.

Thanks for commenting guys.

OldKid

Looks like parts are prefabricated plastic ( Toy tank). Rivets, seams, and weld points. All tanks have rivets, bolts, tow hitches etc. Dont need to ding it up to make it look better, wouldn't make sense anyway. My opinion Here is Example
http://images.ea.com/games/redalert3/Units/Apoc/RA3_ApocTank1.jpg

Tumerboy

Ya, Konstruct hit on the head what I was trying to get at. Can we see other views of it? I still don't have a good idea of the overall shape of this thing. . .

Ya, you're right that chips and dents wouldn't make sense on an assembly line. . . so. . . make it a repair facility or something.

crazyfingers

Sup Adam, seem to remember playing left for dead with a guy with the same name .

First suggestion is to take the wheels off the tanks, they suck up a lot of tris and the scene would look better without 'em.

Anyway, you've got some pretty cool assets there, but the arrangement kinda kills the flow of your scene, namely the big crane right in front of the camera that obscures the main bend of the plant, would probably look better on the other side of the tank. I'd be sure to add floor and ceiling textures that really define the bend of the tunnel, maybe with very long lines with an emmisive to really sell the bend in the tunnel.

I miss the pipework on the right wall, it'd be nice to see more polys on the environment itself. Hard to tell if you have one already, but a fog volume would work really well in this scene, it would add some atmosphere and mask to a degree that a lot of your assets are duplicates.

Also be careful with your materials. Right now everything seems to be very similar in terms of detail frequency, hue, etc. It's hard to make out main shapes, the tank and robot arms blend together. If the robotic limbs were a bright yellow for example they would read better (though it is generic).

Lighting can always be tweaked, my main suggestion for now would be to make sure the robotic limbs, scenery, and tanks can be read separately rather than all bleeding together.

One last thing, you should throw a skylight in there. Those pure blacks are killing your sillhouettes. Put it at something between .1 and .2 just to ensure full sillhouetes of your objects and take the color down on some of your other lights so we can getter a better view of your diffuse.

Lets see a wireframe shot too.

Pope Adam

Hey Crazyfingers, good to see you on PC.

I think I'm gonna keep the wheels on this guy for a while. The tri budget for this particular project is through the roof so I can afford to have a few extras on round things for now. However if I redesign the vehicle, I'll keep that in mind

I took Oldkid's advice and added some rivets and additional panels to the vehicles which I think has helped a lot. here's where I'm at for now. I'll be finishing off my textures this weekend, hopefully doing the final tweeks on lighting.

Joao Sapiro

right now what is throwing it off is the scale, it seems like a toy production facility, theres nothing ther to help relate with scale , the tanks dont seem to have like a rollbed ( dunno what its called ) so that they dont need to drive, instead, be carried away by the production machine. work on that and you have an awesome piece !

drunkill

I have to agree with the sale comment, perhaps try putting something familiar in the image, a catwalk above the floor in the central area, in the background of the image (behind where the cannon is being lowered on that second tank) could give a sense of scale or a doorway somewhere.

The scene is progressing well though, nice work so far.

Mark.N

Hm, something simple and fairly easy that you could do to add some scale Adam, is just add a door along the back wall. It would fit the scene, give a good sense of scale and be fairly quick to bring in. Then if needed, you can place more throughout the background.

ae.

hey pope i think you need to slow down everything looks rushed like your trying to get this done really fast, right now i think you should listen to the above crits and try to fix the scene:

what i would do is redo the tank and arms they look too blobby and to tell you the truth don't look very nice.

Are you using any ref if not that could be your problem.

i would try to make futuristic tanks that look pleasing to the eye something like this:

http://fc16.deviantart.com/fs15/i/2007/068/c/a/Tank_by_flyingdebris.jpg

you dont have to make that, just try to find ref and listen to crits. Or you'll end up making something that looks horrid like what i made a long time ago and is why i listen to crits alot now and try not to rush projects:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v92/armanguy/tankwip-3.jpg

Pope Adam

ae. I dont know why you think I'm "rushing" anything here... I've spent all week on lighting.... seems pretty slow paced to me. I don't always take all the advice I'm given on PC because sometimes I disagree... Like with your disliking of my models.. I disagree with you - i rather like them....

see this is a forum of opinions here, and it's up to the poster that is seeking critique to sort through opinions the array of differing opinions and decide which of them is best. If you see me not following the instruction of certain critiques it's because I've either disagreed with them or simply don't have time. So don't imply that I'm not listening to my critiques.

I agree that the design of my vehicle is lacking, unfortunately I don't have time to remake an entire vehicle before my due date (about three days from now) so I'll be continuing to adjust my lighting and textures until then.

ae.

Didnt mean to come off as a ''dick'' was just giving you my opnion of the scene man, also forgot this was a class assignment.

personally i would give it more love in the modeling department but like you said thats my opinion and if you dont like it you dont have to listen to it

cant wait to see tis piece finished , its just i know you can do 100% better if you really push yourself good luck.

breakneck

Roar!! make it betta!!
time for my opinion:
I feel the bright lighting in the back of the tunnel is messing up your focal point. It keeps leading the eye back to it.
oh yea, and maybe some depth of field might do some good .. . .

VikingJim

Hey Buddy,
This scene is progressing nicely, much smoother than mine, ha. The side rectangle lights i think work well for lighting the focus tank. Some small emissive bits on the robot arms could maybe sell them better. Even if it is the part where the plates join together, because they had cool shapes in them, and if they were a bit more pronounced it may help with the "blobby" issue thats been brought up.

Also I'd say again that a depth of field could help out with the focus as well as the lights in the back. effin durbin said it first.

Anywho, good progress, and I cant wait to see it finished.

konstruct

yeah def de-sat, and darken the lights in back. if you have 3 days left this will give you some bang for that buck.

A.Kincade

Looks a lot better now even without the floor and ceilings. Although once all together it'll be pretty badass. I like the new cam view you got as well. I think if you add the orange holographic panels it'll help as well.

Good work so far. Good luck.

Pope Adam

threw this shit in unreal... gonna start from a clean slate and re-compose the shot and lighting in a legitimate engine.

more to come later tonight.

breakneck

yea, F trying to light this sucker in max! you still have that scale issue to resolve too. any ideas?

Pope Adam

doors on wall and small step ladder leading down to the work floor. that should be enough to give it scale.

VikingJim

small catwalk perhaps? or even a ladder.

VikingJim

always 30 seconds late, man

Autocon

Im going to have to agree with what alot of people seemed to be parroting in that right now the scene is too noisy and dosnt really have a focal point. I know you wanted to do a robotic building factory but as it stands now I dont feel that its working. My eyes keep darting aroudn the scene with nothing to focus on.

Here is my sugguesting which is partially stolen from someone else. I would turn this into a tank repair stating that is being repaired by robots. Scrap the idea of a huge convary line which isnt coming across mainly due to the floor/no convary system and focus in on one super damaged battle tank being fixxed.

Move the camera angle to get more of the side of the tank, having like 2 of 3 of those robotic arms fixxing the tank, maybe one is attaching a brand new peice of metal plating and one is taking off a damaged tier. You could have the pully/wench crane lowering down a brand new turret gun to replace the old, blowout, damaged one that has been set down next to the tank itself.

I think this would help your scene out a lot more. Your tank would become more visually interesting if it was heavily damaged from battle and a nice contract of the robotic arms fixxing it with brand new parts so it can roll out into battle once again. Also if you focus in on just one tank it will give you a nice focal point and give the viewer a chance to checkout the tank and the working being done on the tank instead of bouncing around from all the noise in the background.

Most importantly I know you have a deadline for class and what not to turn this in but what you really should think about is what is more important. Getting a good grade in some class that wont help you get a job at all or making a badass folio peice that will help you get a job. Really if you turned this in as is now im sure it is a lot better then most of your classmates or would be atleast enough for you to pass.

Really I think its easyer to focus on making a great peice from the get go instead of trying to get something semi ok by a deadline and trying to make it great later.

Just my 2 cents, good luck though!

crazyfingers

Leaps and bounds better, Adam.

I was thinking some cement or metalic dividers could help break up the very wide open lane you have going. I know you're probably crunching but these wouldn't be too hard to make...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2346/2086830789_663b0bc68d.jpg

Maybe put some of those yellow and black stripes that consturction sites have on 'em and litter 'em about to create a couple more lanes or somethin'. Just an idea man.

breakneck

pump this shit full of the goods

Pope Adam

Hey Everyone, thanks for all taking the time to offer up your views and suggestions on my scene.

autocon, your ideas are really good here, and i'll probably go in that direction soon... for now, however, I'll have to stick with the lineup I have. I DO intend on continuing work on this scene... and that might mean remodeling the vehicles, re texturing etc. But for now, here's whawt I've got in Unreal, and what I'll probably be turning in.

Thanks for all the help everyone. Stay tuned, I'll be revamping the whole scene within the next few weeks. Cheers

Tumerboy

Looking much better already Mr. Pope!

I'd tone down the bloom, and add some fog or something to drown out some of the details in back, keep my eye from wandering back there, and make everything feel bigger.

Very cool progress, keep movin.

HAL

Hey this turned out great, it's not that busy anymore and the glow plays it's part very well.

A.Kincade

Breakneck: funny pic

Pope sir: Looks great dude. Came together well at the end. Glad Unreal was able to help make it feel more convincing. Floors and ceiling look good and are not too distracting. I dig the glow. The blur in the back is a little strong. Your colors turned out nice and work well with their individual pieces.

Good work. Good luck at GDC if I do not see you before you leave.

Pope Adam

Right on fellas, thanks again for all the help. I'm going to take the scene as you see it here with me to GDC and get some full contact crit there! I'll be revisiting everything in the scene once I return from the convention.

cheers and thanks again!