Ancient Ampitheater Environment WIP (lots of images)

gibson543

Hey guys, I decided it was time for me to do an environment, basically because I've only done small props, and I figured I would learn a lot from doing an environment and I was right. I've learned tons, and I've barely started.

The environment is supposed to be almost like the roman collosuem, where people would go to watch fights, or like magic performances and things of that nature. I have a basic block, which I'm going to redo because I'm not to happy with it, so I'm not gonna bother showing it. But here are some high poly and low poly renders.


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The misc piece is shown in UDK and the pillar is in the max viewport.
The misc piece is 1400 tris and the pillar is 404 tris. The misc piece definetly coul've been done better low poly wise.

I plan on doing this all in UDK, and spicing some pieces up with vertex blending, probably moss and things of that nature.

Any crits or comments you guys might have would be awesome. Thanks

And happy holidays to all!

gibson543

Can't have a scene without a brick


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alright, so I'm thinking I'll create 3 different variations, one messed up, one extremely messed up, and one not so much. And then blend them in UDK.

Seaseme

Blend them in UDK? like, brick by brick? How large are these bricks?

A lot of your sculpts look very .. soft. That doesn't really look like a brick - Try using some stencils / alphas to get some actual detail from textures in there.

maxivz

I think hes talking about making 3 different normal maps of the different and then blend them ingame with a special material.
The brick needs some more detail in the scupult and id make that edges harder, anyways, i am no scupult pro in any way :P
Column looks cool, want to see it textured

gibson543

yeah I agree abou the brick, and yeah maxivz is right, using a shader like virtuosic uses.

saeseme: the bricks are going to be different. I'm going to rotate and scale them up to make patterns and such.

more art on the way!

gibson543

alright, so there's the improved brick, and don't worry, I'm going to get the fine detail from photoshop filters for images and such once I get my diffuse done. I like this one a lot better.

Any crits or comments would be awesome

gibson543

aight, some new in-UDK shots of the pillar. Texturing WIP just the finished diffuse no spec yet



and crits or comments are welcome

gibson543

stairs leading up to the centerpiece, kindof eh on it so far


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gibson543

realized that previous sculpt sucks donkey cock, so I redid it using some different methods and I'm so much happier with it. Any crits or comments would be awesome


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Rico

You're not getting that "chipped off" look.

Try using the claytubes with a more nosier alpha and add noise to the whole brick. It looks a bit weird the brick being so perfect with flattened edges.

gibson543

rico: thanks for the crit, is this any better?

Builder_Anthony

I think most of the wear would be in the middle seeing they are stairs.

One stair in middle row seems high.

Seem to be rather large gashes in the stairs

If they are going to be very worn out stairs the blocks would tend not to be so even with one another.Maybe rotate them a little.

EMC3D

Don't add too much noise into the sculpt, follow some of PhillipK's tutorials on how he sculpts, mallet fast and claytubes is your friend, sharp detail can be done in photoshop or a crazybump normal.

I see individual assets but no blockouts, It's so important to block your environment out with shapes and lighting, adding to each section overall and not spending too much time on one piece until you've formed something.

Once your infrastructure is done you can move onto props, but I'd say visualization is key in making a good environment.

For this environment use Assassin's Creed (or any other game that inspires you related to this era) as a reference among your photo reference, having a game as reference as well as real world reference will help you make the conversion into 3D.

Get a blockout with lighting ASAP in my opinion.

gibson543

Builder: Thanks for the comment, and I agree with you, I think it'll be the most ruffed up once I texture it, and I made that block purposly that high so it wasn't as uniform

Mr Bear: Yeah I actually decided to ditch the noise and just do it when my diffuse was done with a filter. And I've actually been advancing my blockout as I move along, I guess it is time to finish it. And yeah, I've been looking at tons of stuff, from games, (dragon age, oblivion) and even other artists stuff. Will check out assassin's creed.

gibson543

The new stairs, with just one brick instanced, some of the surface detail in the front bricks is washed from the render . any idea on how I should do the low poly? I can either retopo, or just low poly one brick and instance that around.


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thanks

teaandcigarettes

Looks a lot better; next you could try making the damage "thinner" but I think this shout translate to normal maps rather well :thumbup:

Retopo: Just model it, it's all about approximation. Model the general shape add some bevels where those worn out edges are and you're set. Afterwards you can use Max Retopo if you are feeling particularly picky

Also, you might find it easier to model around your HP if you select it and press Alt+X. That should make it semi-transparent.

Hope that helps :thumbup:

Builder_Anthony

Ya that looks pretty good.

gibson543

Tea: Thanks homie, thats the method I used with this low poly

Builder: Thanks!

Aight so here it is, with the normals on in xoliul shader, some meh spots, but nothing a good texture and detail map should fix. I think it'll suffice


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I would give you the tri count and wire, but max just crashed so I'll just throw them in the next post. On to the blockout!!!

gibson543

Aight hey again. here's my block so far, it's basically done, just maybe two more things to add, but I gotta look at some more game ref.


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SOme things are tough to see, so I made the centerpiece and the stairs darker. Now of course, you can obviously tell I wanted to make my blockout REALLY simple, I just didn't want to spend too much time on it.

Thanks

gibson543

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alright, so another retexture, this time going for a more subtle style, how do you guys think about this one over the previous? Which one do you guys prefer? Just keep in mind this one has a spec map

gibson543

hey again, and I just realized, that I was really losing steam on this project. Because the idea is so boring. You know, generic daytime concrete stone shit I just wasn't into it, not my thing. So then I started looking at chris holden's cave doodle, and walgrehn's unearthly entry, and kevin johnstones locust pieces. and it clicked. CAVE SCENE. still the same time period and what not, but it'd be in a cave, with all sorts of craggy shapes and shit that would be awesome practice! And I could practice tileable textures and things of that nature. So basically its going to start at some stair decline, and then you get into the giant ass room with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and statues and lots of craggy rock, and then two flights of stairs lead up to a sort of cultish alter. and Boom.

I'm a little upset I did those assets for no reason, but I kinda do realize it was excellent practice, and I learned shitloads from those two assets alone.

and so here's the high poly stair case so far, that I can instance aall around and whatnot


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edit: better one, defined some more rocky edges



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gibson543

uuppdate, aight, so here is the base for the entrance pillar, I know the top looks like crap, but I'll be sculpting that out in zbrush thanks, the next update will be of the blockout.


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adam

Can you show me a picture of brick steps that are as damaged with even flight strokes as that?

No dick comment here, I'm just noticing a habit in how these sorts of stairs are being created amongst the art community and am ready to see it become old hat. It doesn't look at all realistic to me.

Builder_Anthony

I disagree the last image would look nice it it was textured useing dirt and stone mixed in the stairs.Or maybe moss covered.Depends on what hes shooting for i guess.

Stromberg90

It's good that you are working on a whole scene, but it will be better if you spend a bit more time on each piece, right now you are rushing trough alot of it, spend some time on finding good refrence.

I can also be smart to do one object more than once, not just make it and then done with it, sometimes when you make it the second time you have learned alot from your first attempt.

And i have a feeling that you make excuses for not doing you best since you are going to zbrush it, or do a normal in photoshop or even hide it in the diffuse, you want it to look good on it's own before you move on to the next stage.

And as others have said the stone sculpts are very soft, and i feel random at times, wear and tear wont look good unless it's a bit tought trough, and not just slapt it on.

Hope it helps a bit

adam

Builder_Anthony wrote: »

I disagree the last image would look nice it it was textured useing dirt and stone mixed in the stairs.Or maybe moss covered.Depends on what hes shooting for i guess.

My comment was on this image specifically:

http://img151.imageshack.us/i/stariscenterlowrender.jpg/

But the others are pretty standard fare as well.

gibson543

adam: I can't actually, and it all looks wrong on the cockery of me not using ref. so boo me.

Builder: yeah I guess, but i don't really like that sculpt anyhow, gonna try an entirely different approach to the environment though.

Stomberg: thanks for the post man, it was great, and I'm taking that more than one object idea from you, I think I'm gonna do something more to that effect this time. Totally agree on the wear, and to help out with that, I made a ref sheet for my pillar (and possibly objects like it. Still working on the block, not far enough yet to feel confident posting it, and the ref sheet is about a quarter actual size.

gibson543

Aight so I figured I'd post where I'm at with the block, just so you guys could get a basic idea and pick out any proportion issues, I already see that I should probably scale up the cave TONS



it's very simple, once I finish this first pass, I'll go in and refine, then make the base meshes, then sculpt them all, the retopo them all, then unwrap them all, the bake, texture them all, I'm trying to go through this in a sortof pass style.

gibson543

So yeah my main block got corrupted again....so yeah basically I'm just gonna build it up piece by piece, here's the block for the front entrance so far.

Quasar

Hey Gibson, I'd recommend you add a keystone to that arch

gibson543

thanks quarsar, added a keystone, but I don't have a ready render. So heres where I'm at in refining the pillar, feels pretty good doing my first semi detailed asset

Moonshank

I agree stairs dont get that worn down, well not that ive seen anyways. Depending on the type of stone thats used you get diffrent types of wear. By looking at the way that these stairs have worn away you can see what causes them to look worn. The oldest ones are really soft looking because of rain washing away the stone over the years and the internal ones have been rubed down by people's feet. Hope this helps

http://hedgesociety.typepad.com/.a/6a010535e3ac90970b01156f2a61cc970c-800wi

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/71492/71492,1242496035,2/stock-photo-steps-in-castle-in-cahors-france-30347926.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2639/4084444322_f77e5a55aa.jpg

I guess this is closer to what your trying to achive.

http://daviding.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/di_20080401_fuschl_ruins_stairs.jpg

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/76767/76767,1188861648,7/stock-photo-close-up-of-an-ancient-auditorium-stairway-amphitheatre-palmyra-syria-5063377.jpg

gibson543

thanks for that ref moonshank, actually extremely helpful

Here's an update on the pillar, just gotta add the twirls and then itll be all good for zbrush


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Moonshank

no problem dude thank google .

Mike Yevin

heres my suggestion on the pillar. overall its too short and chubby right now, so i think you need to tweak the proportions a bit. heres a quick paintover

gibson543

thanks mike, I pretty much fixed that issue, and did the sculpt for the base of the pillar, thanks