war of hte worlds eque environment looking for feed back.

Ghaddaway

Hi there everyone this is my first post here on poly count. I am pretty new to 3d art in general and am starting to get work together to hopefully get a reel out there and a job soon. this is my second environment that is planned for my reel and it is still a few weeks away from being ready to render.

My first environment was less than a success as far as reel work is concerned so I am hoping to get more constructive feed back earlier on this on and make it look great.

My mentor at school has me making the bulk of the model with game type poly counts and textures as well as texture sizes, but I am going a little bit poly heavy in a few areas just to kick up the areas that are going to be really close to the camera on the final pass.

Concept: (concept by [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]czarnyrobert[/FONT])



polyflow and layout for textures:


some of the poly flow has been optimized since I took that cap and a few things have been remodeled. such as the upper dome roof as you will see below.

layout_with textures:


at this point the places that still held to many polys on the building have been optimized and most things that needed rebuilding on the main two building have been. apart from the text and the awnings which both need conciderable work.



same as above but rendered with really quick lighting.



capture of the main building to see textures.



the back awning after being remodeled. I have also remodeled the front awnings but the textures on them I am not as happy with.


Sorry for the crazy long post full of pictures but I had a bunch sitting around and I figured the more pics I post the more there is to get feedback on. I am currently modeling the bridge and am hoping to have it modeled as well as textures for it and the last few textures for the main buildings touched up by this time next week.

thanks for any and all feed back guys

Ghaddaway

I know this is less than cool but I noticed that I got bumped three pages back before getting nay views at all so I thought I would bump this. >.< should have updates coming tomorrow or monday

ZacD

Why don't you try some real-time renders, its kinda silly going for game art specs and not actually putting it in a game engine.

Ghaddaway

I had started the project as a game res piece that I had been planning on showing off in the crisis engine but my mentor at school wanted me to do all of my renders in V-ray and take a few things above what would be the poly limits in a true game piece.

I know most of the modeling that is there is easy to port to and engine but the text on all of the walls is a mess due to the way that xsi does poly text and I have been so busy with everything else since the geo works there I haven't taken the time to clean it up so that it could go in a game with out being a disaster.

After I have my final models all finished I think I might go back and clean up the few pieces that are to high poly and put the whole thing in unity, but for now I have been asked to present it in Vray.

Razgriz

I would really reiterate what ZacD said, if you're going to use game-art specs, then it should be presented in a real-time engine. If not, then fine, I understand that teachers have their requirements and so-forth, but do it right regardless. I actually think that this is shaping up to be a pretty neat scene, but if you are set on first presenting it in V-ray as a rendered still, then do everything to that standard, i.e., subdivision high poly modeling on everything. There is no downside to this, because if/when you decide to make a game-art version of the scene, then you'll already have your high-poly models to bake normal maps from. If you know what you're doing, then it shouldn't take more than some speedy optimization to produce your low-poly models as well.

The point is, if you want this scene to be top-notch quality for a demo reel or portfolio, there should be high-poly modeling in your workflow. If you're presently concentrating on a render, then it only makes sense to start with that and make things look right.

On the scene itself, I think you're off to a great start, but I would be wary of a couple things. You've picked a concept that, in my opinion, gives off most of its excitement from the chaos and madness that the alien robots are causing, displayed through the dozens of crazed people running about. Unless you plan on modeling and posing a dozen characters, horses, and buggies, then you won't be able to replicate that in your piece. The reason I bring this up is because you seem intent on replicating the composition as accurately as possible, and in order to make it a more interesting piece, I think you should take some artistic liberties and add/change what you can to make up for that fact.

Ghaddaway

Hey raz thanks for the response. I actually feel the same way about doing this as a rendered piece and not as a real time piece but when I went into this project I decided to treat it like a freelance piece, and do as directed by my mentor as far as over all decisions for the concept go since in reality I will probably be applying to him for work in the near future. as far as modeling high poly for normals I have been modeling the things that would be hard to paint the normals of such as the clock in the lower fight of the screen and then baking normals from those high poly pieces. but as far as the brick work and stuff goes I found it way faster to just paint normals and use crazy bump.

there are a few edges still that give it the look of being to much of a game res model like the pillars on the right side, but thats the way they look in the concept so I was going to leave them sharp until my final renders and then if they look funny with lighting bevel the enges that look that way. since I am treating this like a freelance piece and this is what I was asked to do its how I am going to move ahead with it until I hit the end and at that point I might differ from what was directed if its looking meh.

as far as the concept composition goes I had the same feelings about it as you do at first. my original plan had been to do the scene without the robots all together and just do a little town walk around. but it was pointed out to me by a few ppl that with the way it set up in the concept art you dont even notice the ppl at all until looking at the image for several seconds. your eye is first drawn to the robot with the camera then your eye follows the bridge to the building to the left then again along the bridge to the lower part of the right hand building then back up to the camera.



in the concept pic the lighting lends it self to that by not having to much direct light hitting the ground so there is not much contrast there. and I think in the render caps I attached to the top the way I had quick lighting set up throws alot of contrast on the empty ground. hopefully I am not just crazy but because several ppl saw the image this way I decided to trust them and stuck close to the concept as far as layout goes.

I will take some time in the next couple days and drop a .fbx of the scene into unity3d and set up some real time lights to get a sense of how this thing is doing with a real time environment and post those screens here.

I do appreciate the feedback though. esspecialy about the composition. if you dont agree with the pic I attached what would be some suggestions on subtle ways to change up the composition to make the scene more interesting with out modeling all of the ppl?

apart from the terrible awnings at the bottom and the text not specing correctly do my textures work together alright?

should have pics of the bridge up later today or on monday. thanks again for all feed back

Ghaddaway

also haha I saved over my drop box of the original concept >.< I can repost it if the red bothers anyone

LRoy

I think this is coming along really nicely. Don't get discouraged by the lack of response.

Xendance

I definitely want to see this in UDK (or some other engine).

Ghaddaway

thanks LRoy. I am pretty much on schedule right now with some time to tweak modeling and/or textures as needed.

@Xendance I did just put it in unity and the normals work way better in there but there are still a ton of issues with the maps since its unity and I didnt build any of the specs or transparancys into the alphas of my textures so I probably wont post those pics for a bit.

Ghaddaway

hey took 15 min today and threw the scene in unity just to see how it was looking. a few things jumped out at me as needing to fix and I am planning on getting them tomorrow after I wrap up my last two things on the bridge but I thought I would toss the SS up here just so ppl could see it.

I know you all wanted to see it in a real time engine. just know I spent no time at all on the lighting so its pretty meh right now.

chrisradsby

Starting to look really sweet man, love the soft lighting you got going on there in Unity.

Korrax

Im really liking the unity renders, but just a heads up; I noticed the watermark on the concept image ( http://www.graphique3d.republika.pl/ ) Under scenes - it shows in depth the making-of.
Making it game rez would be pretty cool, it looks like your well on your way, Keep the updates coming !

Ghaddaway

thanks for linking me to that I am not really sure how I never went there and check that out. I had always thought that the scene had just had a rough block out in some 3d package and then was just a paint over.

I am a little worried about this project now that I know that almost the whole thing in the concept is a rendered piece, all though I still am pretty sure alot of it is a paint over. the artist did use a lot of models of of places like turbo squid and I think mine are different enough to not look like they came from the same places.

I am posting some shots of the bridge today its all finished except again for complete spec maps(since I am still planning on moving this into max for vray and want to do the maps with those materials working not xsi ones). I know the lighting in the render isnt really doing much to illuminate the bridge and its mostly in shadow in the render attached here so I also attached some shots of it just as an open GL capture.

I am porting this into unity as I write this so I will post this after I have a shot taken from there as well if the lighting on the brige in there is also no good just let me know and I can set up some three point lighting on the bridge and just do a post of that.






Right now I am working on the high and lowpoly of the robots and should be having them textered for next week. now that I have the concepts from the original piece I think they are going to look even better. though I think I am going to leave the cage off of the one in the back.

I also am planning on next week remodeling both of the doors that you can see in the scene and the whole entrance way for the rotating door on the right.

Ghaddaway

quick update with the robots.

Ghaddaway

update: added cobblestone texture working on sidewalks now.

snow

Cool, where's the original concept from? (obviously war of the worlds but who did it?)

Ghaddaway

the original artist is [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]czarnyrobert[/FONT] his website was posted above, I am not sure exactly where it was posted originally as I found it like a year ago on google while looking for environment stuff.

hawken

that concept is remarkably close to the book!

You might want to make it clear thats not your work in the initial post.

more info http://www.scenygr3d.republika.pl/SCENY/MenHunting.htm

Ghaddaway

artist name added to top post next to concept. his page is linked a few times threw this post as well.

More updates coming today.

Ghaddaway

ok so road and side walk textures finished. I turned the uvs on the road 45 degrees so you wouldnt get that feeling of looking straight down a row or cobbles. and other than modeling the gutter pieces not a ton has changed. Next thing is going to be the back ground buildings, should have those finished for about tuesday, but for now I will be porting my full scene over into max and trying to get some decent Vray renders of it.

next unity updates will come after I have finished the back ground buildings.

Ghaddaway

well here is a bunch of the background buildings modled/textured. they are mostly just ripped off assets from the rest of the scene and they are not properly lit at all but you at least get an idea of what they look like.\




one more back ground building to go then just the street lamps and then I am onto final lighting and rendering in vray. next unity export will come around the same time as vray stuff

Ghaddaway

not been keeping up on my posts lately but here is a quick vray render test of the scene now that I have moved it over into max. there should be a displacement working on the road tiles but I must not have turned a setting back on when I did this as a render so its not showing, I will have to do another post when I get a working render of that working



also I am having some issues with my unity scene so if there is anyone here that has some experience with that engine let me know and I will throw up some screens of the issues i am having.

thanks.