Celtic/Norse Environment in UDK (remake) WIP
Hey folks I am trying to remake my old environment with better art assets to bring it up to snuff with all that I have learned. I am doing great on the asset generation this time around (as of now) but am finding I may be biting off too much space. I need help in deciding to either shrink this bad boy down or to add more things ( long tables to fill space, etc...). I have a list of thing yet to be put in such as ( weapons, weapon rack, balcony, banners, finished support beams, antler chandeliers) basically every thing in the old screen shot. so C&C is welcome as well as some direction would be awesome!
Replies
First is a shot of the pillar that you can currently see in the screen shot. the second image is of the tables top that is in the shot as well. Next I have an Axe i am working on and lastly I have two different shot f the banner i am working on for this scene. the clan are know as the arctic wolves. C&C most welcome!
I don't really know how those banners are going to integrate into the scene. Try using a darker blue or maybe a red or green. Also don't be afraid to add some cloth detail into them man, go for the detail.
You'll also need to put more effort in materials. This wasn't woven as a single object and then dyed into perfect rectangles.
New One:
Old One:
i like the changes made to the pillar. Is there any way to make the knot design in the center appear to be sunken into the pillar itself? From the side profile it looks like it is just painted on.
The same goes for the big gray donut thing. It looks like a blend between stone and wood.
Edit:
forgot to mention archtecture.
I actually find the original better than the remake mostly due to better architecture proportions and structure.
The new scene has way too large gaps between pillars and pillars themselves look quite unsolid to support those huge arches. Pillars dont even have a solid base.
I would really take the original's archietcture and keep it for this scene.
As for the pilalr, I can't tell that it is wood (i mean new pillar) becuase it does not seem to have any wood specific patterns. Also the cracks are quite "stonish" as well. It looks to me more like a WoW stone pillar, but ochre (and therefore "wood") tone.
Beside diffuse adjustent the wood texture bump overlay (thin vertical pattern) would help asd well
With this in mind id like to say i liked the old version of the pilar ! but thats just my taste since i like a more clean version than the "gooey" style.
Anyway nice work !
I would stick a human in the scene. it'll make it easier to judge.
PolygonPuncher: its an A-Frame. the arch is decorative, although i would agree it looks a little wide.
Also ideally this needs a viking metal sound track
[ame]
@ polygon puncher: The main support structure comes from the A - frame that is holding up the roof. The ones by the gaping hole are decoration.
Stylistically, there's too many differences. It's not a consistent material or prop, it's a bunch of images from google/stock sites smashed together.
By pitch i mean elevate the camera vertically along the y axis, up.
I am a little confused... Are you talking about line thickness as in between the knot, the banner that holds the letters (or letters themselves) and the boarder? If that is the case then why would it matter if they all had constant line thickness when the idea is that the banner would have been woven in by hand. To have perfect everything would make it look like the Vikings had the item done by a machine. They would be inconsistent because that is how it was woven from the get-go.
Sounds like you are trying to be little Loqq there by posting the image location of the mountain
I may agree with the stylistically different choices between the axe, mountain, wolf, and knot though. Would be good to components of the images that were made by the same artist or something.
Is that KP's emerald toad ? :poly124:
Another huge error in the wolf banner is slapping a 'fabric' texture over the whole. Every type of fabric has it's own structure. Cords and threads will also have patterns that follow its shape. And I think it's also an issue that the axes+goop and such are just random shapes on the fabric, with no separating line, because I don't think the vikings/picts/celts knew how to screenprint/stencilprint fabrics.
The difference is that 'most any game out there' looks consistent, and believable, whereas this banner looks like random images together. "The majority of the time game companies will just take images from stock sites" and then edit the shit out of them to get them to look good together.
The sources don't matter. It's what you do with the images that matters.
Never heard of that before, no - I might have to implement that sometime though. It's actually the first image, the FIRST image that comes up when I google "vector mountain".
The fabric can not be sewn on in 3D thus you have to blend it in with the rest of the objects that are present in the image. If you look you can see the threads through the wolf head or any other darker area on the banner. The threads will also show up better when the normal and spec maps are applied to the actual in game model. The axes were a stylistic choice and the "goop" is ice. Selectively dyeing a section of a piece of fabric was not beyond these people especially for such a small space.
As to your comment @ polgonpuncher about editing photos. You might be surprised how little they do actually edit them. What you see most of the time is them taking several images at once and then editing them to get the results they want. They are never edited in the degree at which you may think they are.
I think you should re-evaluate your design and research norse and celtic symbology a little more before designing the banner, a banner is a symbol, and it has meaning.
The meaning of your banner doesn't work for me. Why is there ice on their axes? Why is there a mountain?
A raven and or thor's hammer, and maybe some celtic knots are what you need to think about for this banner.
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Clan_Coyote
For graphical stuff like the wolf head and other iconography, it really pays off to draw it yourself.
if you're having trouble doing smooth lines, do a rough drawing and trace over it with the path tool.
creating it yourself will help unify everything instead of using a bunch of random clip art samples that make it look like a PTA news letter.
As soon as I saw that banner, I knew that I recognized that image very clearly, and just a couple of seconds I remembered what it was.
To keep the broken record on loop, as it were, taking the time to draw out a concept or pattern pays off big time in the end. From a texturing standpoint, it's important to do as much research as you can on your subject matter to understand the hows and whys of a specific design/culture. Then, take what you've learned from that and try to recognize patterns and utilize reference images to make your own content that will show off the fact that you can make an original design rather than pulling images from the net and pasting existing iconography for your textures.
Sometimes, things can crop up in unexpected places that will give you some insight. Check out the "Snakes + Graphs" video specifically.
Still to do:
Weapons/shields
mugs/goblets
weapon racks...maybe
balcony
surrounding area
Celling
metal plates...again maybe (research!)
Door at the end of the hall
If you google celtic or nordic art you'll notice they almost always depict animal life in profile, similar to other less "culturally developed/exposed" cultures which were their contemporaries. I have no real idea why exactly this is so typical of early cultures, but your current design still is looking way too modern and the only thing selling it as celtic/nordic is the style of linework.
They also seem to depict animals a lot more abstractly, using traditional line motifs and approximating the animal's character rather than adhering to it's true silhouette.