stylized outdoor scene

Gotshoes

So, I'm working on building up my skills. There's always room for improvement! I really just want to become a better environment artist. I've fallen in the groove of being a prop monkey at my job and I really want to brake out and start growing as an artist again. Here's a little scene I've been working on, I don't really have a concept, I'm hoping to get some critiques on my composition as well as my content.

the basic brake down is this: happy little stylized forest scene with a cottage or hovel (aka hobbit house) as a focal point. It's all being done in UNREAL.

here are a few artist's work that kind of inspired the whole thing
http://cghub.com/images/view/17553/
http://cghub.com/images/view/33779/
http://erwinm.cgsociety.org/gallery/580138/

this is my proof of concept screen grab from UNREAL. This will also act as my style guide for all the elements of this scene:


here are some really quick construction shots of the rock faces. The high poly meshes were generate in MUDBOX and the poly meshes were built using the graphite modeling tools in 3DS Max 2010





any and all crits welcome!

Ark

Your low-poly meshes have a lot of extra polies that aren't adding anything to the silhouette of the model. Id remove all the edge that don't break the form of the silhouette.

Wombatinahat

Indeed your low polys could be considerably lower than they are at the moment. just create the main shapes and let the normals do the work

Gilgamesh

Depends on whether he wants to do vertex painting or not, usually more verts are required for decent mesh vertex painting.

Ferg

aye, waaaay too many polies in your low poly mesh. Hi res rocks are lookin good though. Here's a pic to give you an idea of roughly where your low polies should be.

edit: just realized I painted some heinous ngons into the rock on the right and didnt fix before I uploaded the pic... pretend like this is actually a good example pls

Gotshoes

It's been said three times, it must be true! I will eventually drop the poly count on the rocks. I might not go as low as you have suggested Ferg, but I will knock them down a notch. I'd really like to maintain an almost cinematic quality to this piece. Something above the quality of an everyday in game asset.

I know that I don't have a player in the scene for scale reference, but player height is about to the top of the smallest rock in the tapering rock face.

killingpeople

Lov'n where this is going

Saiainoshi

Ohhh I am very excited for this! Have you taken a look at the Sleeping Beauty animation backgrounds? It reminds me so much of this piece! I ADORE your rocks.

http://animationbackgrounds.blogspot.com/search/label/SLEEPING%20BEAUTY

Gotshoes

killingpeople: thank you much.

saiainoshi: thank you for that link, some very kool stuff! and it's right up my alley

here's a little update not much going on really. Base layout of the scene and a block out of the hovel. Any help with guide the over all direction would be great!!!!