Check the highpoly work on page 2. They're made of metal and called drones. I'm not sure what drives them. I don't think they're meant to be creatures unless they changed it up?
Maybe push the machine side of things up a bit? Toss back in the exhaust tube and segment the testicles with joints?
Adam, Vig: They are warships called freezer pods. They help freeze the land and are about to overtake the beautiful side. Which we have noted as "happy land" in our working directory.
Divi: Thanks for the feedback! Noted! I think the darker areas in the cracks need to be saturated as well. I'll see if I can get some of that blue back in there tonight.
it's a bit of a dangerous area with those robot things, in a real game they'd need to be animated, scripted and all that.. it's not really environment work. I think you put yourself at risk for the judging, since they are pretty much "creatures".
Peris has pretty much nailed the reason why I asked - they feel pretty sentient, regardless of their purpose, and as such may be seen as creatures, or more generally... something alive. Which you really don't want with a piece as strong as this.
Perhaps there could be an easy solution if the drones are "nailed" to the glacier (been there for a while) as if they are some kind of spying devices of the evil ice king or something..
Awesome entry, though! Been liking the idea a lot :poly121:
They remind me a bit of those simple submarines we drop into the ocean for deep sea observation. Could jup pull the leggs off 'em. Would look really cool if they had spotlights shooting out in front of them with some sublte god rays, but add lots of sparkly deep see debris sparklies in the path of those rays.
looks great guys! will you be adding environmental fx around the drone, like the snow blowing on its armor? also I see a light in the front, will that be getting a light ray?
Hey guys. Thanks for the comments. We are rearranging the scene a bit. Gonna make the pods a more background player. Push the ice as more of a tidal wave of doom.
Hey Lee - yeah there will be some particles around the pod. But with the new design the pods won't be as prevalent.
So! Here we are, almost a week later... After heavy heavy re-thinking and much consideration off of some feedback here regarding the bots. We have decided to really push the environment to be much more menacing and in-line with what the original paraphrase of our project (post #1 of this thread).
We really liked the direction we were going, but decided as a group that it indeed was riding too close to "out of bounds". We really want this project to be about a stunning environment.... soo....
It is now much more about the aggressive "wall of ice".
First pass: (marked 1 on image) Was the first major rework of the scene. Mostly just playing with different compositions and different paint overs. Overall, we liked where this one was going. This was after 2 days of stressing over it
Second Image: A few days and many paintovers later, we decided that the wall could be WAY more aggressive. Lots of spikes and another temp sky placed in the scene. In Young progressed work on the particles and we had our first "cloudy mist" particle fx placed in the spikes at the bottom. It worked out so well, I knew that I would be placing them a few more times through the map.
Third Image: The 3rd image is where we are at as of last night. There is a shadow bug i'm working on right now and next we will be in the process of figuring out what to do with the ships. Feedback welcomed. The 3rd image has more background terrain and some distant grass filled in. It has a closer to final sky and closer to final lighting. The mist on the tops of the peaks are very close to what we are invisioning. Getting there.
As of last night:
Things to work on next: In Young is working on PFX. I'm working on scene layout and lighting a bit more. Clean up and damage report of polys and textures. Second screenshot is prototyped as a portrait. I'll post tomorrow night. Going to place a few more of the orange plants around. In young is going to provide a higher res version of the grass in the forground. Robby is rocked out a new cliff wall for us and did some work on some spikes.
Peris, Adam, Orgo, Crazyfingers, Catachirsm: Thanks a lot for the feedback on the wall. It was exactly what we needed and we like the new direction a lot more.
I kidd you not, i am kneeling at my computer right now. This environment is amazing to say the least. Incredible depth and great depiction of a collision between two worlds. I love the contrast between the aggressive and cold rock formations vs the soft and alien vegetation. You guys are my favorite...
I have one suggestion. Maybe you could experiment with warm lighting and god rays on the right side to contrast the coldness of the ice. Then it would really feel like a collision of worlds. Really inspirational work team, good job!
Wow, I really like where you went with this. I can honestly say that I haven't seen any other piece as much about the environment as this is ending up to be. (although I could probably look at more entries )
Are you going to keep the overall blue theme? I'm curious how it would look with a bit more contrast, I know earlier on in the thread the plants were a bit more vivid.
Hm, yeah, I like both for different reasons. The brightness seems to make it look a little less threatening, so bringing back some of the blue might be a good idea. This is looking really nice though.
zpanzer: Thanks. They are small dome-like meshes with cards on top of them. They are great because we can just rotate and move/scale them to how we want. They have lots of volume to them. The tall plants "trees" are high versions in the foreground with some detailed lighting all around them
The taller (orange) ones in the background are just cards now.
Amazing entry guys! I'm impressed across the board... Lighting, composition, and efficiency. This is my favorite entry by far. And I think it will rank very high without a doubt. Best of look to you guys! You did great!
Just a quick question, but do you think you could render this out at 1680x1050 cuz I seriously wanna make this my background. I love this piece so much I want it to adopt me and raise me as it's own so I may one day be as great as it. Nice work guys!
Wow! Great entry! I've seen a bit of this since the start, but not since you switched directions! This is the strongest one I've seen yet. It has the best composition, the best use of contrasting lighting and colors and the best use of god rays among other things. Great job! Definitely going to be one of the winning entries.
Hey everyone. Thanks so much for the kind responses. We appreciate the help and critiques throughout the contest. We'll organize a high-resolution screenshot soon. Also, I still want to finish a shot with Robby's pod in the scene.
It was a fun challenge.
BlackulaDZ: Lighting was a mix of 'light mass' and a few point lights forced dynamic.
No huge screenshots yet, but I did render out a quick fraps video of the scene. Mostly just wanted to show off all the Particle FX work that In Young did. It allowed us to really make it look more painterly and also feel more dynamic.
it looks lovely and very painterly but it doesn't look like an environment i could actually traverse in the a game its more like a frame from a cutscene ... so even though the topic is "environment" and not "game level" i think you guys missed the point slightly !
Replies
Maybe push the machine side of things up a bit? Toss back in the exhaust tube and segment the testicles with joints?
Divi: Thanks for the feedback! Noted! I think the darker areas in the cracks need to be saturated as well. I'll see if I can get some of that blue back in there tonight.
Awesome entry, though! Been liking the idea a lot :poly121:
Edit: silly me, lol!
Hey Lee - yeah there will be some particles around the pod. But with the new design the pods won't be as prevalent.
We really liked the direction we were going, but decided as a group that it indeed was riding too close to "out of bounds". We really want this project to be about a stunning environment.... soo....
It is now much more about the aggressive "wall of ice".
First pass: (marked 1 on image) Was the first major rework of the scene. Mostly just playing with different compositions and different paint overs. Overall, we liked where this one was going. This was after 2 days of stressing over it
Second Image: A few days and many paintovers later, we decided that the wall could be WAY more aggressive. Lots of spikes and another temp sky placed in the scene. In Young progressed work on the particles and we had our first "cloudy mist" particle fx placed in the spikes at the bottom. It worked out so well, I knew that I would be placing them a few more times through the map.
Third Image: The 3rd image is where we are at as of last night. There is a shadow bug i'm working on right now and next we will be in the process of figuring out what to do with the ships. Feedback welcomed. The 3rd image has more background terrain and some distant grass filled in. It has a closer to final sky and closer to final lighting. The mist on the tops of the peaks are very close to what we are invisioning. Getting there.
As of last night:
Things to work on next: In Young is working on PFX. I'm working on scene layout and lighting a bit more. Clean up and damage report of polys and textures. Second screenshot is prototyped as a portrait. I'll post tomorrow night. Going to place a few more of the orange plants around. In young is going to provide a higher res version of the grass in the forground. Robby is rocked out a new cliff wall for us and did some work on some spikes.
I have one suggestion. Maybe you could experiment with warm lighting and god rays on the right side to contrast the coldness of the ice. Then it would really feel like a collision of worlds. Really inspirational work team, good job!
this one without a doubt, crazy !!
Are you going to keep the overall blue theme? I'm curious how it would look with a bit more contrast, I know earlier on in the thread the plants were a bit more vivid.
messing with lighting now
it's kinda washed out now, I should figure out how to bring blue back and separate tree from grass
If we have time we will render background into a texture.
Added a bit more color and lots of optimizations. Working on second shot (portrait).
Deciding on sky stuff at the moment.
btw, all those plants, are they just planens? They have a great sense of volume
The taller (orange) ones in the background are just cards now.
perhaps next year they will increase the size for entries
stuff like this needs to be blown up full screen
Now I just wish their was a nice high res render pic that could use for a wallpaper
Congrats and good luck!
It was a fun challenge.
BlackulaDZ: Lighting was a mix of 'light mass' and a few point lights forced dynamic.
Vid lost quality, but you can see the movement.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2171307/DBD_Motion2.mov
still great artwork !