First environment, need feedback

jordan.kocon

Hey all, this is my first post ever on polycount, and also my first time modeling an environment! I'm looking for any and all feedback, anything is greatly appreciated

Striff

For your first attempt, not too bad. Learn an Engine like UDK and put your stuff in there and the presentation will be so much better.

cholden

Use a reference so you're not just tossing materials on boxes. Your materials standout better than the modeling, layout or composition. And put it in a real time game engine

jordan.kocon

Alright thanks for the feedback. I had it in UDK, but my normals weren't appearing too well. Obviously this is because I just don't know how to set them up properly. Perhaps I'll look for some UDK normal mapping tutorials.

Jeremy Lindstrom

unwrap those windows too, you can tell they aren't uv'd because of the tearing on the texture.

itsmadman

The proportions feel off. u should use a scale model. if i were u i would turn off all the normal maps. They have kind of gotten a bit out of hand. Try to just work on the textures diffuse. get the lighting right then kind of work your way in to normal maps. That exit sign is Hugh :0

polygonfreak

The building on the left feels like its missing something on the roof line, maybe add some type of metal flange or just some type of border... you say its your first enviroment scene, how long have you been modeling?

SamCom

I'll second polygonfreak, the roofline needs some trim, maybe AC units or vents up on the roof to break it up as well. Your windows could use sills, something to make them feel more defined. Maybe some gutters, wires, or utility boxes on the walls, they look really flat. I've been having trouble with detailing myself, but looking at photo references can really help as cholden said.

rustim

You seem to have a good grasp on the key concepts, as other people have mentioned just need to push the details a bit more. Also you might want to rework your composition a bit. For example there is a tangent where the truck meets the wall which kind of makes it look really stubby.

roosterMAP

no real focus in the scene. Add a street lamp or something.

Rurouni Strife

You have obvious tiling through out the scene, I noticed it mostly on the buildings. Either fix it in the textures or UV's, or add an object to hide the tiling.

The building on the left has a way to crunchy feel to the normal map. The exit sign and the door seem to be floating in place.

For a first attempt, that isn't bad at all. With some extra work and props it could be a pretty nice scene.

jordan.kocon

Thanks a lot for all the feedback everyone.

@polygonfreak I agree with the top of the building seeming off, I'll add some trim around it. Ive been modeling for about 9 months, I'm currently in school for it, so this was just a project for one class, been working on this seen for about a month.

@samcom I agree too, the windows are probably my least favorite part of the scene, window sills may help with that.

@rustim I didn't notice that tangent with the truck before, but now its all I can see, thanks for the tip!

@roosterMAP I'll try and add a focal point, this started off as a level in UDK, but I switched out for more of a beauty shot, a focal point is for sure needed.

@Rurouni Strife The exit sign was a last minute addition, I'll be removing it from the texture and modeling it separately/properly onto a separate piece of geometry. As for the crunching, do you suggest I just lower the intensity of the normal map?

I'll try and post some new pics once I work all this out!

Addieo

Love to know what your work flow was with the texturing. Is it tiled textures with several alphas to give them a different look? Not much of a fan for that brick texture on the left, the normal looks a bit crazy on it. The door and the exit sign look like they are just sitting on the wall, maybe you some shadow alphas around the edge? What texture space have you used? The lighting isn't really working either. For a first time environment this is top notch imo, my first environment was terrible!!!

jordan.kocon

Hey thanks Addieo. It is tiled textures, and as for the different walls, it is just extracted mesh with different textures applied, as I was doing this in Marmoset and it doesn't allow for decals (as far as I know). However I'm switching to UDK as we speak and will be doing all or most of the graffiti and other texture stuff through decals. Baking on some shadows on the left building would help with the door, I'm planning on grunging up the texture a bit as well on the brick to make it look more fitting. The exit sign is now gone and is properly modeled as geometry. My work flow was just creating ambient occlusion maps then layering on textures, photoshop and XSI was all I used for this (spec and normals made in CrazyBump). Thanks a lot for the praise, still working on it!

jordan.kocon

O and as for texture sizes, my buildings are 2048x2048, truck is 1024x1024, and props are 512x512, most likely going to reduce them to 256x256.

jordan.kocon

So a quick update, finally got everything into UDK, and starting getting in some more detail. The lighting is far from finished, but I thought I would show some progress on suggestions. I think all of them have really helped, but I need to rework the brightness on the window sill, and the building it is attached too. Any more comments and suggestions??

jordan.kocon

One last upload for the night, just made a quick sheet of the props.

danr

exit signs go on the inside

Addieo

You should maybe think to have a look at the Nvidia Normal Map Filter it's extremely useful! I know a lot of people that rage over crazy bump so give this an install.

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html

Also when you say, decals do you mean the alpha maps or the way UDK allows you to merge materials? If you have a a wall texture applied to a box then a seperate plane on one side and add a grafitti thing to that then use an alpha map to rid of the space not wanted you should be able get the same effect instead of creating seperate sections of buildings.

Nice window frames amongst other random items on your sheet above. Oh and only use ambient occlusion where entirely neccessary it's always best to use as many tileable small textures in environments. Your need sort that pipe out got a weird glaze effect on it.

eagleeyes

well done!

Rhoutermans

looking very nice for a first environment
try to break everything down in elements and try to improve lighting and materials..

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/VideoTutorials.html

The lighting and material video downloads at ^this link are very easy to follow and with awesome results keep it up!

Silent.

You've done an extremely good job. Some of the textures are a tiny bit low resolution, but that doesn't matter. Model work is great! Nice progression

jordan.kocon

@Danr thanks, I know they go on the inside, but I was looking to add some interest to the building and create an additional light source

@Addieo I'm not a huge fan of crazyBump, its just what we were shown at school and I just didnt actively look for a different program, I'll for sure be checking this out. And I mean the way UDK allows you to merge materials. This is the way im doing it in UDK, but I had my building seperated in chunks for marmoset as it has no decals feature (so far as I can tell). Thanks for the tip in the aoc, I'll work on making my level more tile-able and modularity friendly

@eagleeyes thanks

@Rhoutermans Cheers on the link, my biggest difficulty right now is my lack of UDK knoweledge, I'll be checking these videos out after class!

jordan.kocon

Hey Silent, I missed your comment earlier, thanks for the comment

.morph3us

about the crazybump issue i highly recommend "nDo"!
although its still under development its already a huge timesaver.

get it at www.cgted.com
(there is a thread in this forum, too where he activly posts)

it is a lot more versatile, as you can layer different shapes over eachother assuring you catch all of the geometrie provided by the texture you can...

jordan.kocon

Just playing around with nDo right now, but I have one question for you that I can't seem to find the answer to. If you close the nDo script window, how do you reopen it to rework your norrmal map?