WIP - City Alley

vcortis

Hey guys taking some time to create environments instead of organic stuff. Here is a WIP of a city alley that I intend for possible use in a video game. C&C is welcome, especially with any objects I should add (surprisingly difficult to find really good references online), also what is an acceptable tri-count for a piece like this (which is obviously just a tiny segment of what an entire map could be) and acceptable texture resolutions.

I'm going for next-gen. Right now tri count is 5,370. I was planning on using mostly 128x128 - 512x512 texture resolutions with 1024x1024 on wall and floor. Let me know what you think since I'm kind of a noob when it comes to this stuff (my uni doesn't teach it).

Thanks!



Edit: Forgot to say still have to add some wear and tear to the floor and wall (which will be asphalt/brick respectively). Also I can shave some tris off a few things, like the garbarage bags in some areas, and better distribute the polys.

3DLee

This is looking good. Off the top of my head, the pillar/car-stop by the dumpster (not sure what it's actually called) looks a little short, and the railing on the fire escape looks too thick.

ZacD

Yeah the scale of everything needs work, dumpster is small, thick railing.

carlo_c

I like the presentation, for the scale issues get some sort of dummy in there to represent the height of a person if you haven't already. It'll make it much easier to see what's too big/small.

vcortis

Hey thanks guys, You're all completely right on the scale issue. I'll use a dummy to help with that (great idea).

And how should I go about texturing this? I'm kind of a noob when it comes to texturing environments and properly setting up UVs for efficiency.

I pulled this from a website, this guy uses only one 2048x2048 sheet for everything in the scene.

Is this generally how it is done? Do I just cleverly stack UV's and dedicate specific areas of the texture to certain objects? You'll have to excuse me since my university does not teach this stuff at all and it's been a bit of a rude awakening for me to have to learn this stuff on my own.

Thanks in advance!

d2king10

I am in the same boat as you, my university just focuses on animation, they spend about 2 weeks on just modeling, quite sad really. Would love to know the answer to your question as well.

vcortis

Unfortunately for me my teachers never taught modeling or texturing. We have had a revolving door of professors with no clear teaching plan leading to a lot of disheartened students. Most just give up, I can only think of 2 people in my class other than myself that have the will to work at this to teach ourselves.




This is what I am thinking I am supposed to do right? I make individual textures sheets for each object that utilizes as much UV space as possible. For instance the first one is of the main Wall in the scene. I see a lot of empty space that could be used for texturing, but if I stretch uv's to fit this it will stretch the texture as well. So in the empty space I insert a smaller texture sheet of the broken wood in the scene to take up the negative space. I keep doing this until there is very little empty UV space. Then I stack UV's where the same materials are, like on the crates that also use wood I should stack their UV's on the other wood texture sheet correct?

fearian

I wouldn't worry about fitting it all on one gigantic sheet at this stage. Just unwrap each asset on its own. (they should be individual objects, not one object with a dumpster element, wall element etc.) Spend some time getting to grips with unwrapping, then do each one at a time with its own texture. You can always move the group em together later.

ZacD

I was going to say, if your still learning, don't worry about optimizing.

vcortis

Hey thanks for the responses so quickly! I think I will take your advice and work on unwrapping the objects individually to utilize as much space as possible. Then I'll export out their UV's and create diffuse/spec/normal maps for each object. I'll also create some generic spaces for Wood/Metal etc. Then when I'm done I'll optimize it and create one large sheet and arrange the textures to best fit in the space. Then arrange the uv's to matchup accordingly with their texture.

While I am still learning I feel fairly comfortable with creating assets that look good, I think I should take the next step in trying to optimize it for best performance (plus I enjoy the technical challenge).

achillesian

i like your polycount guy in the skybox, he could replace the weird baby sun in teletubbies

cycloverid

The 2048X you posted was obviously his budget and each sheet is merely fit onto one final sheet for presentation purposes. Definitely use many sheets, don't worry about an exact budget. Certainly make sure your texel density is nice and even.

Good luck!

vcortis

Hey thanks for all the replies it is helping a lot. I am starting to understand this a bit better. I've come across a problem though. For most individual objects I am able to utilize the texture space fairly well w/out stretching the UV's and keeping the pixel density uniform. I shrink UV's that are on the bottom of objects and not seen to about 50% too.

But I am wondering what to do about objects that are very simple geometry, but awkward, such as long rectangular planks.



Here there is a lot of empty space that I am not sure what to do with. I definatley don't want it to go to waste though. Should I create one large wood texture sheet that I can use for every plank (put a slightly different variation of wood in the empty space for instance?)

Or is this just dead space that can't really be used?

On this newspaper I am able to utilize most the space so it is not a problem.



Thanks so much everyone again, I want to do these forums proud and make a really nice piece so I am trying not to rush into things, I try to learn something new with every new project!

rawrsie

Select multiple objects and move the uvs around so you fit as many pieces as makes sense onto that one uv sheet.
You can either group things by material type or whatever fits best for you. Then just have the same material on all the objects textured on that sheet. (and if you have really different shaders, just have them share that same file node)

Zac said not to worry about optimization too much but it's important to get into good habits from the start. for example a way to optimize that rectangular plank would be to stack the same size bits on top of each other so they share the same texture. this is good for things that don't need unique details on either side and if you're worried about the texture looking identical, just rotate one of the uv chunks that's stacked on top 180 degrees.

Cubik

In your first example you could always texture it in a 1:2 scale instead of 1:1.

A few refs:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alachance/3029586089/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwthomas/3334944062/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/0x/1000346890/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/senoranderson/2413664230/sizes/o/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1bluecanoe/3142412599/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rune84/2985541203/sizes/l/

vcortis

Hey everyone with all the great feedback I'm getting I wanted to give you an update! Even though it is finals week for me I am dilligently working on this scene with everybit of free time (other than watching football). Here is an update on where I am on texturing, and also I want your input on the lighting for the scene and overall feel. I'm thinking about making this a gang-land post apocalyptic alley (the signs/grafitti emphasize this, but I'll add in a few other props too) C&C welcome of course!




Edit: Wall is still a WIP in some areas. Going to add some cards for grass in some of the cracks/near wall too.

ZacD

Have an warm electric light, warm light from the street, and a cool blue ambient light from the night sky/moon.

vcortis

Hey Everyone here is a quick update. C&C is very welcome please and thanks!

ZacD

scale is still off, the dumpster is small.

vcortis

Hey thanks for the reply. How much bigger do you think it needs to be? The dumpster by my Alley is about 5 and a half feet tall, maybe 6.5 at it's tallest point. If that door is about 7-8 feet tall with a 1 foot concrete stair wouldn't that be about right?

ZacD

Think about a dumpster in real life, can you just lean in to pick something up off the bottom of it? no the opening is pretty much at chest high.

vcortis

Hey another quick update. C&C welcome. Changed to daylight lighting. Dumpster is bigger, still probably not 100% right but if I go any bigger it will take up too much of the scene imo. Thanks!

vcortis

Hey Guys, update again. Just about ready to call it on this. C&C is welcome. Final poly count is 5714. Textures range from 256x256 to 2048x2048. Most are somewhere between 512-1024.

PixelMasher

I would try to take some of the blackness out of your cracks and let the normal do its work on them, if its too dark it kills the normal map when lit. everything else looks pretty good man, like luke said, put it in UDK and get some nice bounces to the lighting.

ZacD

Paintover

vcortis

Hey thanks everyone. I'll fix the ground been kind of meaning to do that anyways as the texture resolution isn't that great so I might redo the UV's too. Then I'll port it over to UDK (which will take me learning UDK) looks like I got a lot to do tomorrow hehe.

vcortis

Hey everyone once again thanks for the feedback. I've been fooling aroudn with UDK for a bit now and this is what I have. Not sure how to get shadows to appear on the smaller objects? It's all a bit new to me. ANyways let me know what you think so far.

roosterMAP

very nice job on the lighting and textures. Cant wait to see the scene expand!

motives

Is there any specific reason why you want 90% of your piece to be in shadow? not really helping eventual NM's you got there

toren3d

If your going for a night time effect, try putting a blue-ish skylight, with a low intensity, and then add a light above the door, something bright with a yellow-ish color.

DarthNater

Is you're normal map flipped on the bottom left side of the piece? It looks like peeling paint atm and the darker spots look like they are popping up rather than a depression...

Priske415

Looking good, the textures are nice. As for making it a night scene, i would do exactly what toren3d, Although it might be beneficial to the over all effect of the scene to add a light source "other the the moon" with a kind of glow effect.

And on the nit picky side of things, why make the ground a box? wouldn't a plane work fine?

vcortis

Yeah I was going for a night time, but I might do a day time to show off the scene more and the normals. Which thanks to DarthNater I realized all the normals are wrong. I baked them out originally for Maya, so I have to go in and flip the Y values so they're right in UDK. Doh!

9skulls

Your scene looks nice so far

BTW, I'm a total UDK-noob and I would like to start getting a hold of UDK, so I'm asking if anyone knows where to start looking good beginner-level tuts..? Other than... google

Progg

9skulls wrote: »

Your scene looks nice so far

BTW, I'm a total UDK-noob and I would like to start getting a hold of UDK, so I'm asking if anyone knows where to start looking good beginner-level tuts..? Other than... google

http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialsindex.htm

http://waylon-art.com/LearningUnreal/

Priske415

Dont mean to drive the thread to off topic but I believe there is a deal out there were one can buy a copy of one of the Unreal games and get a few hours of UDK tutorials.