[UDK] Havana Courtyard

VladY

Hey guys! I know it's been a while since I've posted anything (my last thread isn't dead BTW, it's just on hold ), but I've been quite busy working on a few projects.

Anyway, this is my latest enviroment. It's not done yet, but it's in the final stages, so I thought I'd post it here for any suggestions you might have. It's inspired by an oil painting of Craig Mullins' (http://www.goodbrush.com/), although it's not meant to be an exact copy.

Here's the concept:


And here's what I have so far:










Things I still need to add/do:

- another type of plant, to cover the middle space between tall and small plants
- doors for both floors
- stairs, so you can actually go upstairs
- water for both fountains
- another table and another chair, made out of forged iron for contrast
- the hanging ceiling lamp in the concept
- dress up the second floor
- I'll probably add more ivy as well
- some leaves on the ground

Commments, critiques and suggestions are all welcome .

Amsterdam Hilton Hotel

It's looking nice. The plaster and first floor tile textures are too high-frequency, especially for their resolution, and it's sort of giving everything a bad .jpg compression look. Try making them smoother, with patches of roughness and wear.

Working more blues in to complement that hot sun, as in the painting, will make this pop more - you've already done this to some degree but I think it could be pushed more. The green could also use more saturation. The painting has some really wonderful color balance to it which isn't quite there in the scene yet.

m4dcow

The large palms you have in the corners look artifically straight. The tops look like a coconut tree, but those never grow straight, in this case it would probably tilt towards the center. You could sustitute a royal palm which has a thicker trunk ang grows really tall and straight, it's what resorts tend to use.

For the middle height plant you could make some sort of heliconia type plant. The plant itself would give the sort of coverage you may want, and you could introduce a few flowers if you wanted to add some colour.

But I like the scene overall.

Cordell Felix

Wow that looks really nice!

Tokoya

I particularly like the textures on the beams and arches, the have the perfect amount of wear and age about them

Envart

This is a lovely piece! The thing that jumps out the most is the plaster, for such a dominant texture, lacks variation across the larger surfaces such as the upper floor arches. Some grunge decals or maybe some fancy vertex painting with cracks etc. I really love the saturated red of the floor bricks, it really anchors the scene. The palm tree texture looks very similar to the plaster columns and could benefit from being made slighty darker / more saturated.

VladY

Hey guys, thank you for all the great feedback.

Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (very unusual nickname BTW ): I'll see if I can add a few decals, but the high frequency might actually be bad .jpg compression . Plus, I've sharpened the images a little and now that I look at them they do seem a little weird.

I know exactly what you mean about the colors. I've tried playing with the lighting before, but I never really got it right. I'll keep testing it though, since this is not yet final. Thanks for the suggestions.

m4dcow: Here's the reference I was using for the palms : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5534443/WIP%20-%20Inner%20Courtyard/350860722_d8190e99e7_o.jpg. They seem pretty straight in that picture. Also, I didn't make them so white because I reallt have no idea if that's how they are in nature or if they just painted them white. They seem artificially white to me. Also, I'm going to be using a monstera plant for the middle ground. They have them all over Havana. I've looked up the heliconia plant, but monstera seems to be a better fit. Thanks for the input.

Cordell Felix: Thank you.

Tokoya: Thanks, I tried to refrain myself from damaging them too bad .

Walrus: Thanks for the comment. I'll probably get some decals in there by the end. The doors and plants should also break up the tiling and make it more interesting.

Thank you all again for the great suggestions and comments.

Rick_D

looks awesome, no crits except circular palm fronds look weird when there's so many of them

yubbie

Looks great, looking forward to seeing it updated with the stuff on your to do list!

m4dcow

@VladY the palms in your ref are the royal palms I mentioned, and the do look pretty bleached in reality but what you have looks fine. I thought coconut because the scale of the tops should be bigger, lookup royal palm and you'll see what I mean. Good call on the monstera they provide better cover and look pretty interesting.

limesimme

Post wires as of now?

Shogun3d

Definitely looking good, i'm digging the lighting in that courtyard area.

locater16

Wow, Gorgeous! The only criticism I can come up with is for UE3 itself and it's sub-par SSAO. Your art is just about perfect though, great use of color.

VladY

Hey guys, thank you again for the comments, and I'm glad you like it.

Limesimme, here are 2 shots from UDK in wireframe mode, but there's not much to look at, since there's quite a lot of vegetation and you won't be able to distingquish very well between the objects. I'll post some individual shots of the props along with the next update.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5534443/WIP%20-%20Inner%20Courtyard/wires_01.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5534443/WIP%20-%20Inner%20Courtyard/wires_02.jpg

Locater16, CryEngine's SSAO is definately much better, but I'm not going to use it anytime soon, since the editor is buggy as hell. I'm waiting for the SDK to appear sometime this summer :poly121:. Also, I saw a tutorial showing how to tweak the SSAO. I might play with that if I have the time, but for now it will have to do.