foliage/natural environment mini scene + bonus stuff
polycounter lvl 8
Hi all,
Looking for crits on my small natural environment scene, not really happy with the final product. I'm considering displaying as a part of my portfolio just to show skills in this area, hence looking for crits on any of the assets, and how i can make the scene more interesting without going too overboard with it.
I think the base of it could do with a more interesting texture then just grass, but adding dirt doesn't seem to fit with the 'pretty' scene. I'm not a fan of my grass texture either, can't seem to find a good photo ref anywhere.
Thanks as always
.
PS. To avoid making another thread, any feedback on this stylized wood texture would be great. Thanks!
Looking for crits on my small natural environment scene, not really happy with the final product. I'm considering displaying as a part of my portfolio just to show skills in this area, hence looking for crits on any of the assets, and how i can make the scene more interesting without going too overboard with it.
I think the base of it could do with a more interesting texture then just grass, but adding dirt doesn't seem to fit with the 'pretty' scene. I'm not a fan of my grass texture either, can't seem to find a good photo ref anywhere.
Thanks as always
.PS. To avoid making another thread, any feedback on this stylized wood texture would be great. Thanks!
Replies
As for the boring grass floor texture, maybe blend in a texture that shows some leaves that have fallen to the ground? Moss would probably look nice too. CGTextures has plenty of resources for that.
I won't even pretend to know what I'm doing as far as stylized handpainting textures, but the wood looks nice so far.
That's a great idea about leaves, how did i not think of that, I could even do them on planes, I guess I'll see how they look.
Ta!
Heres an interesting thread from the technical forums about making trees.. http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72325
I agree with Sean_EG about trying to add in some leaves and moss to the grass texture. The other thing I would suggest is making some basic roots for the trees. Right now they just look like poles planted in the ground.
http://www.jeffmcfall.com/images/paintings/tree_base_3_full.jpg
something similar to that ^
Keep working
did you take a step back and watch that piece ? because the nails are not having any function at all - i mean they're visible on the planks but they don't go through the wooden pale. that was so distracting it totally had me focussed on nothing else but the fence
Funny that you mention it, because I have found only one spec map in total :poly124: . Spec in this map is usually done via materials and derived from diffuse or normal maps - I guess that's not the most recommended technique, though it can yield good results sometimes.
But I do agree that specs need more work. At the moment, everything has the same specular values.
Lol, really? I haven't actually looked at it in depth myself yet, though I have been meaning to. Now I'll definitely have to look at it.
Damn you Epic, making my advice giving look foolish.
I wouldn't call it foolish; it simply shows that we don't have to use spec maps all the time. All materials in GDC demo are rather complex; most of them utilizes vertex blending to add unique details. Due to that, it's simply cheaper to derive spec from the diffuse and Lerp that according to the way you painted the mesh.
I'm really
I appreciate all your crits and would love to hear more, again I'd like to showcase this in my first portfolio.
Ta.
Me too. Give this a try:
Open 'Content Browser'.
Access to 'Texture Poperties' by double-clicking on every texture map.
Play with Mip Gen Settings, specially TMGS_NoMipmaps
... hope it helps!
try this. its a way of boosting the red and green channels while keeping your blue the same. UDK won't know what to do with a blue channel over "1" if that makes sense.
check that under the world properties so lightmass won't kill your normal maps.
scene looks promising, but the trees require a lot more work compared to the rest.
This is my first time modeling trees, so I'm not really sure how to improve them, I'll work on the trunk as brandoom mentioned, but if there's any other suggestions please tell!
http://wiki.polycount.com/VertexNormal?action=show&redirect=Vertex+Normal
DEFINITELY model some roots and details into your tree, look up some ref, most trees aren't 100% cylindrical, and even the ones that are, it's best to do a little something to them to make them read better in 3D and ground them to the scene, maybe even a little bit of light brownish vert color on the bottom.
Another thing about your textures in general is they they're lacking contrast and color variation which helps to give them depth. Take a look at photos of grass, there are so many other colors in grass besides green, blues, yellows, browns, the same can be said of your wood texture. Your leaves are especially lacking in contrast and color varitation, get on CGtextures and have a look at some tree canopies, I suggest you grab some of the branch bits and leaf bits and build yourself a better canopy texture. You should also model in some 3d branches on the trunk to plug the canopy bits into.
It's best not to make one large canopy piece and repeat it over and over in your tree, to break it up create some smaller branches and bits that can be used to soften your canopy planes, it really helps to combat the planar look.
I think it would also be a good idea to give your trunk a richer, deeper bark to contrast with your fence with a nice defined normal map.
Keep it up, polish that shit till it shines.