Remade My Old Pillar

Cyph3r

Hey all, I saw the Eat3D Pillar tutorial being advertised about a year ago, and I couldn't afford it at the time so I just tried to recreate it, and it didn't come out very nice, however at the time I was pretty happy with it to say the least.

Well I looked and it and wanted to do it better so here goes:

Here's the old version:




And here's the new version:



still not really happy with it, what does everyone suggest I do to improve it?

Surface

Hey, first off, its a good start for the pillar but the texture does need some work. The paint looks good in maya viewport but in the second render it just looks a bit weird and too blended into the concrete. Here's a screen of paint on concrete http://www.grungetextures.com/gallery/photos/9/med_1194313832-9.jpg
Plus I also think I see some paint on the inside of the place where the concrete is broken, which is not good seeing that the paint seems rather old, which means they havent repainted the pillar after it broke which also means there wouldnt be paint there.

Regarding the model the concrete on the broken parts looks a bit blobby, you could try heightmapping in some noise into the heightmap to give it a better look.

Overall it's looks very good, a great start, keep going and this piece will turn out awsome

Posting your texture sheets aswell will make it easier for people to help you.

SHEPEIRO

my main crit would be, and this goes for alot of the eat3d pillar models ive seen here, is that the exterior surface of the concrete is sharpe while the broken sections are all soft and blobby. This is the wrong way round, the brocken sections shuld be sharper with sharpe edges to the breaks and cracks runnigng from the breaks, the inside of the breaks should be almost like alot of peices of concrete shattered by whatever force damaged it but held together by the iron rods

renderhjs

just on a side note:
I don't think that it would be that healthy putting something like that in a portfolio if you are more searching for a position that is not just limited to just execute. I can only imagine people sighing that look through the portfolios and constantly keep seeing these eat3d pillars- its the same stuff with those retro gas station things.
So my suggestion would be to be creative and stand out with your stuff not what others started.

Just like SHEPEIRO- I think the concrete is to blobby which usually only happens to material that stands in a cost, is very very old or just muddy (material wise) to begin with). I rather think that concrete in fact will rather stay edgy the way it was molded but instead show more signs of rotten textures on it (dark green/ grey)

do you see any blobby style? - I dont
same here:

and also not here on this old piece:


I do think however that the reason for that style (which is in my eyes wrong) has 2 orgins:
- lazyness combined with a lack of tools to express the broken segments
- model construction and airbrush style ala Alien movies, old star wars movies,... Because they work often with modeling materials that are more fluid and when deformed with the hands it gets a more natural blobby shape.