ArenaNet Environment Art Test - Yes, another one!
polycounter lvl 11
Finally, I can start taking this on. My previous project is nearing a presentable state.
Starting off with some clay renders and wireframes.
Working on the textures now!
A question: The restrictions state 3000 polys. Do they mean polygons (four-sided)? Or triangles?
Starting off with some clay renders and wireframes.
Working on the textures now!
A question: The restrictions state 3000 polys. Do they mean polygons (four-sided)? Or triangles?
Replies
I really wish that art test would state triangles or vertices...would make everything much easier, but if the budget is ambiguous, I would always assume they mean triangles.
Polygons are something non-existent, and 3d-app dependent as every app supports them differently. In any case those r still triangle but rendered without every triangle edge for the sake of visual ease. So everything in the end consists of and counted in triangles...
Enough about me, here's an update, nearly finished with it. This is the stage where crits and comments will help push it even further. Let me know what you guys and gals think of it - colors, details, shapes, etc.
Things in works:
- Tall Grass and Alphas
- Flowers and Alphas
- Possibly some Hanging Moss????
- Emissive maps for the windows, the door windows, and the lantern
- Alpha for some chains the lantern uses
I'm sitting at 2472 tris, so I got a spare 500+ to add to shapes and refining where needed. Pretty much maxed out on texture space. I might be able to have 3 x256's (if I don't do the moss). I'll post my textures closer towards the finish, unless someone requests something in particular.
Here's a quick update, added some flowers and grass. I might try to add in some actuall grass blades, we'll see how that goes.
Your presentation basically has no highlights or direct shadow. You've got nothing but ambient shadow with no lighting. It looks like it was offline rendered... Never offline render gameart. Drop Xoliul 2 on that and do it proper.
SUGGESTIONS
The problem is that the Left edge of the block is a really hard transition that continues up to two or three more blocks and makes it really visible once you've noticed it. I feel like if you could edit the texture there it would be a huge help.
@ dii: I admit, I've never really done a grass alpha lol. Half way through I realized I wasn't sure what I was doing, but the focus on silhouette helps, at least, in theory. Lemme know if it looks any better, I'm not so sure, been staring at it for too long.
@ P442: Thank you for ripping at it. I'll fix the roof things and add some shape too, you have a good point there. Grunge is coming, I agree. I desaturated the door, it was too bright. I gotta play around with the lantern more, most the focus is on this grass.
@ DaveSilver: Thanks for the confidence boost. After that horrid grass, I need something, hahaha. I'll tweak the texture once this grass is handled, I never noticed it before, but now that you point out that stone, I can't not stop looking at it!
So anyways, since the last post and reading your guys comments, I started reworking the grass. I have to say I feel I've done better, but no doubt I've missed something. Here's the update:
If it looks like it could work I'll keep working it. Otherwise, I'm thinking the grass base isn't right for the tall sticking out grass type.
You could also add a bit of variation in the silhouette. Like arcing the roof of the entrance, varying the size of those chimney pipes.
I also like the the more vivid grass better. This just seams bland.
But overall a great progress and can't wait for the next upadete!
@ martinszme. You have a good point about the style.
I'm getting some good comments and adding a varying silhouette, but atm I just want the grass to look right. It seems it might be a problem, I might change it altogether. Once that's finally something I'm happy with, I'll jump back to the 3D stuff.
Thanks for the comments, all of you, they always help and keep me moving on this.
EDIT: I totally forgot to ask.. If I use alphas for masking and specular ( all being black and white ), and if I combine three B/W images in one image for each channel (RGB), is that still considered 1 image? I'd think so.
Working on a grunge for the roof, wood, stone and plaster. I'll vary that as well as the grass stuff with UDK's shader stuff. Lemme know what seems like a problem, I want to get everything wrapped up and put into UDk asap, this way avoiding reimporting constantly ( like that's ever once happened =/ ).
The tri count is wrong, I think I'm around 2800 now.
If anything the bricks sticking out of the stone feel like they've been pushed a out a little too far. They also look like they've been displaced by a uniform amount, which feels odd to me.
It's kind of eerie, sebeuroc, I called them doodads.. >.>
Anyways...
@ stoofoo: I got a similar comment from someone, the roof was a bit too green, I made it bluer and added some grunge on top. I'll try some tests with the wood and plaster, couldn't hurt at this point. Thanks for the refresher, good to have a fresh pair of eyes. The concept has some deeper browns for wood and a cleaner plaster, however, I like the plaster just as personally taste, but I'll definitely try your suggestions.
@ subeuroc: It looks nicer with the stones in
I'm also going to add a little more to the entry way, some vines and whatnot. Anyways, I'll put some tweaks up later. I'm also wrapping up overall so I'll post texture breakdowns, wireframes, the whole smear soon.
Thanks for the comments and crits everyone.
Things left to do:
- Make sure it's done. :poly142:
- Make a video.
- Work on a night shot (the windows, door and lantern will be lit through emissive. Door and windows will be the blue I had from before)
- Presentation. Texture pages, wireframes, clays, final renders, etc.
- I wanted to add a base to make it more of a standalone piece, instead of the UDK blah. I would want to send it in, I might, not sure. But I'll make it either way for myself.
Here's the beauty shots for now. Wires, clays, night shots, and video in works. C&C always welcome, nothings final 'til the 21st.
Enjoy!
EDIT: Fixed. Pictures were overwritten.
I did add smoke however, found one last spot in my textures for it. Speaking of which, I worked on a texture presentation, but I'm pretty new to it. I'd appreciate some nice harsh crits about it, let me know if I'm on the right track or if you happen to have a good reference, I'll take a look.
I'm assuming the due date is Tuesday midnight? I sent them an email about something else, but they haven't gotten back, so I don't know if I should try asking that, not sure how the poly/tri question got answered, but I'm going to be working non-stop and submit it before midnight, unless I hear otherwise.
Anyways, the rest will come soon, for now:
EDIT: Also fixed!
I'm wondering, should I include the shader work for UDK? I think I will just to be safe.
Four 256x512's = 1 512x1024
Two 256's = 1 256x512
Two 128x256's = 128x512
One 256x256
One 128x256
Looks like he is still within the guidelines.
Great job on finishing, I personally feel there is too much painted in lighting, but that is just a personal preference. Good job on the execution and clever use of alphas.
Hmmm.. yea I don't know. I read it as a maximum of two 1K maps total. So everything added up could not be more than 2K. (Not including the normal/spec maps)
One 1024x1024
One 512x512
Two 256x256
Total = One 2048x2048 or Two 1024x1024
That make sense? I guess it depends on the configuration they are referring to. It just seems like a lot of texture maps for one model.
Butthair is totally in budget and he's done a stellar job. High five. IT is a litttlee contrasty and stylized for our art style, but you smoked this test. High five, bud.
I'll see about tweaking the textures to the according comments, it's true, it isn't the guild wars style, I'll agree, but most of the content I remember is from the first guild wars, which was a tad bit low res, and gw2 vids only show so much. Either way, I think small changes would be able to fit within time atm, mainly doing renders so lots of wait, wait, wait, re-render kind of stuff.
As for crits, I was actually asking about presentation, but since no one seems to have issues with layout, I'm gunna green light that, like I said, will try some texture modifications.
Thanks you guys, I'll have everything hopefully done by 9pm.
Thank you stoofoo, especially, coming from an aNet man, it means a great deal. Btw, if you could answer the question about the texture pages, then maybe you could clear up whether the deadline is tuesday midnight, or wednesday midnight...?
If not, I'm still working on it then.
Shaders and clays!
Tryin' something new for these clays..
Up next....
Did you submit this?
Oh no Butthair check your spam folder!
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1431812&postcount=16
I believe stoofoo said ...
....because he doesn't remember seeing this being submitted?
and yeman linked a post by someone trying to submit their work and it was not going through because the file size was too big.
After all that hard work and getting it to look so nice you might want to double check you didn't get something in your spam folder saying the email was too big to go through.
Anyway it looks great! :thumbup:
I uploaded my file to googleDocs and megaUpload because of file size issues. Thanks, all of you, for looking out. Everything seems good now.
On another note, I did my first pass with a movie, however, I'm going to revise some things about it before I post the revision.
The new direction of environment art is definitely going modular. I'll be posting up some new stuff every so often, so critiques and comments on the new stuff would be great.
I still want to restrict the amount of textures used, keep the same style, allocate a reasonable amount of polys for new assets, and create a completed scene. I've only needed to make one new texture so far, but I'm trying to find workarounds, rather than unique meshes.
Here's a start for now. They might need some refinement, I'm starting to get into the feel of the entire scene, keeping in mind the concept and how the rest should look (albeit stylized).