Enviroment art for portfolio

michaelmilette

Hello fellow poly counters my name is Michael Milette I have just recently graduated from Humber collages 3d multimedia program and have become very interested in environment design and really want to make a career out of it.

So in order to build up my portfolio I was thinking about starting with a few smaller props and then getting bigger and more detailed as I go.

I have not been on this site for very long about 4 months or so but now I am making poly count my go to 3d website so many more posts will be coming soon.

cheers

michaelmilette

Here is the progress I have made on my wooden crate. I have done the high poly sculpt in zbrush then imported my mesh into max and baked my normals using render to texture.

Scizz

crate looks ok. I personally think it looks just a little soft. other than that its great.

michaelmilette

megalmn2000

The crate looks a bit melty and soft. Woods are more solid.
Instead of making renders, try to use a real-time viewport shader, such as Xoliul (http://www.laurenscorijn.com/viewportshader) or 3Point Shader (http://www.3pointstudios.com/3pointshader_about.shtml). This will be easier and you can see them like you'll see them in a game engine.

michaelmilette

Hey everybody so I have been working pretty hard on a worn down wooden chair for a little project I am working on what do ya think.

michaelmilette

Oh! almost forgot here are my textures for my chair (normal,spec, and diffuse)


this is a 512 map

ayoub44

hi
the Chair look great . but on your lowpoly give it more shape or try to use your hipoly from zbrush to make it by optimize it . on udk use more color light ( blue , yellow , White ) and work more on your texture and give it more details . watch hiten videos . they are great

http://vimeo.com/mistry

and eat3d dvd about nex-gen texturing

michaelmilette

Hi ayoub44 I see what you mean about giving my model more shape it is very boxish will get right on that and fix it up.

cheers

michaelmilette

Hey guys

I chamfered the edges around the seat and rounded it off a little bit more so the chair dosent seem so boxy I cleaned up the textures a bit they where way to dark. However I still kept it really worn down. I also put a bend modifier on the back support for the chair in order to give the chair a bit more shape and again to reduce boxyness.

tell me what you think

michaelmilette

Hey everybody here is my next project a ww1 1908 periscope here is the highpoly I have made check it out

michaelmilette

Here is my reference that I used to create the periscope

synergy11

If you don't mind me asking. What was the course you took at humber college?

Also what did you think of the George Brown College Game Art program?

Cheers.

polygonfreak

Looking at your chair, I see the same mistake I keep making... the modeling looks great but the texture does not match the normals. Maybe a good work flow would be to make a newer looking chair and then add in the worn in look.

michaelmilette

@ synergy11

The course I took at Humber was called "3d multimedia animation" course it used to be very modeling based when I took it however now it is a 3 year animation based course. As for George Brown college I have no idea never really looked into it hope you find a school you like

Cheers.

@polygonfreak

Hey dude thanks for the comment could you be a bit more specific where is the texture not matching up with the normals will help me fix the problem and re post

cheers.

michaelmilette

Here is larger render of my chair so you can see the wood grain better

Cheers

polygonfreak

That render looks better, but here are a few reference photos to what I was talking about. Also there is some strange highlights on the seat part of the chair, maybe your spec is too high.

michaelmilette

@ polygonfreak

Thanks for the reference man took you suggestions and fixed up the wood grain and cleaned up the chair a lot.

cheers

Sandro

Your texture is fighting everything you've accomplished in the previous steps (hipoly and bakes, that is)

Base wood texture you have seems to be quite varied in value and blurry here and there. Keep base diffuse a bit lower profile and let AO/normals do their work. Hue variations, wear&tear e.t.c. are great as long as they are relative to form and help define it.

hostilis

In my experience in creating wood materials I suggest that you use inverse hue specular color maps by putting hue/saturation adjustment layer and slide the hue slider to the left. The final color of the specular map would be blue. You can also add tiny details in the spec map.

you can also read this article about the technique: http://www.manufato.com/?p=902

michaelmilette

@hostilis :
awesome link thanks the render I posted dosent have any spec yet that I still have to post but yes I will definitely be using color specular mapping for my chair for sure.

cheers will be posting a specular mapped chair tomorrow as well as a low poly render of my periscope

cheers

Rurouni Strife

You need to maximize your UV space. You can stack a number of your UV's on that chair. Things like the legs and smaller details can be stacked on top of each other allowing you to get the most out of your UV space. You can also consider splitting and mirroring your larger UV's as needed.

Start experimenting with alpha brushes in ZBrush too. That'll get you much finer details like grain and just a better sculpt. You can definitely go overboard though ( I did recently, need to re do the object) so play around as you learn.

Overall, good progress. Keep working and learning and you'll keep improving!

michaelmilette

@ rurouni I have overlapped my uvs quite a lot really the front legs are the same the back legs are the same and all of the boards around the seat and under the seat supporting it are the same overlap as well . Good idea about sculpting in grain I use alphas quite often however the only reason i didn't sculpt all of the fine grain detail in is because i knew that i would never find a diffuse base texture to match my custom grain.

cheers

michaelmilette

Hey guys sorry I haven't posted for a while Here is my periscope low poly and high poly which I completed last week what do you think