Arena Net Environment Art Test

Fink

Hey guys I wanted to post my current progress on the environment art test for the internship Arena Net offers. I'm kind of a new when it comes to the process of creating environment art, but I would like to get better so that's why I come to you. Please crit.

This is the original concept, but they basically say to interpret the style any way you like. So I changed and added some elements but over all wanted to keep the same shape and proportions of the house.



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256 Textures



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512 textures



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Clark Coots

nice work. how many polys? 3K tris is the limit ya?

Fink

thanks! yeah that's correct. I am sitting at 2800 right now. I can cut down on that though. The most I'm worried about is material creation since that is my weak point I think.

Ged

looks neat, the roof is red, any reason? it also seems like the wrong kind of roof tiles, concept looks more like this to me http://www.cgtextures.com/texview.php?id=45325&PHPSESSID=s97roth2ai2nu2tc155er1lcq3

Fink

yeah, I had something more similar, but one of my good friends suggested a red roof because in reality there aren't many blue tiled roofs. When I created it I thought the red with wooden shingles looked better. Here is a previous shot of my old material.



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Oniram

one thing that really bothers me is the metal deco on the door. it seems so out of place being that its just flat grey. add some texture to it. other than that the piece looks pretty good. can we see wires? also in this most recent shot, you've got 4 pieces of wood to the right of the door and up a little. what are those doing there. i imagine off the concept they would be used to reinforce the structure but for yours it seems like they're just.. floating there.


aaaaaaaaand (sorry just noticed it). if this is supposed to be some sort of next-genish asset, i wouldnt paint in your specularity into the diffuse maps as you have done with the windows. thats essentially doing baked lighting and that limits you. now all of your windows will appear as if the light is coming from the top left of the window, no matter where it is.

Fink

Oniram
Thanks! I just now fixed the door so it has some more texture detail, about the 4 wood supports. The concept suggests they are on the outside of the other wood supports due to the shadow painted in. You think they maybe be just decorative? That's what I was assuming at least. Thanks for the help.



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Oniram

yeah i wasnt really sure what to make of those. i guess just some deco thing would work. i was actually thinking of putting some sort of balcony up there if the tri's would allow. you may also want to (if u can spare some triangles) break up the corners of the brick wall and add some interesting silouhette to it.

Isaiah Sherman

Yay! You made a thread!

I'll just let you post a few updates before I say anything cause you still have a bunch o crits from Facebook to attend to.

I still think the red roof is better.

Color is all opinion, though, so only go with the color of a roof that you want that way you can better support it if they do decide to interview you about your project.

Ged

Haiasi wrote: »

Yay! You made a thread!
Color is all opinion, though, so only go with the color of a roof that you want that way you can better support it if they do decide to interview you about your project.

Im not sure how true that is haiasi, my boss likes things done a certain way and if he likes a concept Ive done and its in a certain colour I better damn well stick to the concept in the 3D or he will question me quite harshly as to why I have changed what he has already approved. I dont know how open the brief is on these concepts but as its just an internship maybe they are more free to express themselves.

Isaiah Sherman

Sure, but this isn't a project that is shipping on a title that needs to cohere exactly to a specific style. I could argue the exact opposite. Where I work, our modelers and texture artists are highly encouraged to expand upon the concept art they are given.

Also, if you actually read the environment section for their test they specifically say:
"Feel free to add your own interpretation to the style, cleanliness, and add any extra supporting elements as needed."

Do whatever you want on the project, just make it badass. That's all that matters

Ged

Haiasi wrote: »

Sure, but this isn't a project that is shipping on a title that needs to cohere exactly to a specific style. I could argue the exact opposite. Where I work, our modelers and texture artists are highly encouraged to expand upon the concept art they are given.

Also, if you actually read the environment section for their test they specifically say:
"Feel free to add your own interpretation to the style, cleanliness, and add any extra supporting elements as needed."

Do whatever you want on the project, just make it badass. That's all that matters

Thats a nice brief! also where do you work!? sounds fun being given the time to do that stuff, we are usually trying to get a mobile game out every 2 months where I work. So I cant mess about I just need to take responsibility and move purposefully through the process of making the game art and design, there is often only 1 or 2 of us making all the art and ui for the whole game so once a decision is made about style/colour etc and the boss is happy then we have to move on.

I usually just assume that most companys want results fast(time is money and all that crap) so if they give you a concept then they want exactly what is on the concept made as quickly as possible while still having as much quality as possible.

stoofoo

Some grit and color variation, Fink. I'm not going to do any paintovers, but I'm glad you took the suggestion of doing the test. Keep at it and maybe I'll be buying you lunch in the near future.

stoofoo

Also: Add some variation to the model itself. Break up the silhouette of the bricks at the bottom with some addition cuts. Make the cross beams less static and straight line. A little variation goes a long damned way.

Isaiah Sherman

I hope you'll be buying him lunch in the near future, cause that means he'll be up in the Seattle area and I can have someone to hang out with!

I'll do a paint over for you cause I'm bored and want to paint something

jimmypopali

It looks like the supporting bricks front and centre are slanting a bit to the left.

Two Listen

I prefer your blue roof not because of the color but because of the tiles, their arrangement and the less static-y feel they've got. As a whole I really like the texture work! I find the whole thing very reminiscent of my days playing the original GW.

8-bit kid

I really like the look and feel of this test. I think he's right about the slanting of the bricks, looks like there's some texture stretching, but that's an easy fix. Great work!

Fink

Thanks all for the tips! I am aware of the brick texture stretching a little, but that's only because I unwrapped the foundation so it only had one seem hidden by the door. Being one continuous Uv shell I have a little stretching, but I'd rather have that than ugly seams on the corners or sides to avoid the stretching :P I'd love to hear any suggestions regarding this if there is a better way that I'm unaware of!

@ Stoofoo: Thanks for chiming in! I'll definitely add some more color and model variation, thanks for the help!

Isaiah Sherman

Here's that paint over. Hopefully this will help give you a bit o inspiration.

Here's the PSD file if you wanna go through some stuff I did that you might be able to pull from and use for your project:
http://shermancg.com/download/paintOver01_forRobert.rar

Some of the major things to note:
-For overall presentation, desaturate and darken the BG, it pulls away from the project
-Did a master saturate to the house by just +10 to make it pop a little more
-More noticeable detail on the plaster / stucco walls
-Reduced noise on all the wood
-Highlighted edges on all the pieces, most notably the wood to help them pop off the walls more
-Better angle for your shadows
-Desaturated roof a bit
-Completely changed the lower brick to something significantly less noisy
-Break up silhouette for base brick
-Change door texture

ZacD

Haiasi you're too awesome.

EvilPixills

I had to do a double take once I saw your updated version compared to the original. Very Impressive.

Would like to see the flats of your updated texture work too, if it is possible

Fink

Thanks Haiasi you are the man! Here is some progress on some of the changes, I'll get more done and post flats tomorrow night, thanks everyone.



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Veko

the wooden beams need some more popping
but the stucco is imo much better

Mrandk

I'm digging the silhouette you added in the brick, it really helps it feel more authentic. I think it could still use some very slight color variations in the brick and wood to get a more weathered feel. Nothing crazy just some very muted color overlays in the texture. Can't wait to see more!

Snader

The big problem with the door is not so much the shape of the hinges, but the way they're textured in. They're a very cartoony 'gold'- yellow with black outlines, while the rest of the textures takes a rather realistic approach.

Fink

Small update:

Painted in some subtle color to the brick and tried to tone down the cartoony yellow of the gold. I might need to paint out some of the AO pass.. Still need to add some weathering to the wood, but gotta go to work :[ more tonight! Thanks.



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myles

You could probably do with baking some AO to the vertices and also add a few decals, also the stones and wood still look quite noisy.
Hope this helps - http://wiki.polycount.com/ModularMountAndBlade

Fink

That's pretty cool! I'll try that out when I get home :P Thanks Myles!

Jungsik

hrm i kinda like your textures

Fink

I kinda like you then...

Isaiah Sherman

I think the blacks on those bricks are still way too dark & wide, it makes every single brick stand out too much and still causes a lot of visual noise.

If you think of a human scale to those bricks, you would probably be able to stick your entire hand into all of those cracks. If you look at the paint over, the cracks are very minimal. It also helps make the bricks feel like one large chunk of foundation for the building.

What you've done so far is getting better though!


Here's a little dude for scale, maybe it'll help you see the thing w/the brick:

Fink

I see, that makes sense. Thanks for the little dude

Pickle

I like the door better that way. good job

Isaiah Sherman

Something fundamental I just realized that's a problem with your wood texture... it's bark. Try switch it to something like wood planks and that should help immensely.

Two Listen

I don't think it looks like bark, I actually really like his wood texture. Got a nice feeling to it. Rather than bark I think it reads more as a different sort of wood that's simply not "new" or wasn't cut so clean. Just has a nice natural feeling variation to it.

It's difficult to explain I think why I like it - and I do understand how it could feel "bark" like, but I think it really works.

Though I gotta say I wouldn't mind someone with more knowledge or real world examples to tell me why I think it works...

Fink

I have seen wood like this before in real life used by my dad when remodeling and adding to their house. I like the rough handmade look of it. I can try tonight to reduce some noise so it looks better and see where it goes. If it looks like poo, I'll try something else and see how that looks.

G3L

this looks great!

something i would say is the door (someone might have mentioned it already). even though you changed the color of it, i feel like the wood needs a lil bit of break-ups here and there. the lines i read on the door go straight down like that and well i think that's what giving me the illusion of the door not reading that much as wood. it might be the color as well, might wanna try desaturating it a bit and see how that turns out.

other than that you've taken the suggestions very well, i'm liking this piece!

Fink

Thanks G3L I'll work on breaking up that door texture :]

For now here is a different brick texture that is a little less noisy.



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keres

Try taking a look at some of Oblivion's stuff in Cheydinhal or other towns. There is a certain level of grime that I think is missing - there's no outline of dirt on the plaster on the edges near the wooden beams. Oblivion paints these in beautifully, and is definitely worth checking into.

I am enjoying this so far. Lots of great constructive criticism and work in here. Keep it up, and good luck!

Fink

Small update:

Added leaky water marks on stucco.

Desaturated door way with added weathering and dirt to break up color.



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percydaman

before you do anything else, I would suggest fixing those uv's there at the base of the model. Your stone is getting really skewed.

Fink

yeah i might just have to give in cutting it up and having a few more seams :P

Fink

I reworked and reduced the stretching on the foundation as best I could without cutting it up.



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shawnell3d

when i first saw the original textured model i said to myself this is perfect but not interesting. The updates became more interesting with the suddle grime and cracks on those walls. I actually like the other stone you had before on the base of the model but thats just me. Keep it going! this will turn out great.

keres

Yay @ the leaky marks on the stucco. More? I think the stucco pane areas between the wood are perfect dirt collectors, so they should receive a fair amount of dirt. This can be accomplished while sticking to the concept. Also, do you have any occlusion painted onto the model, or are these mostly tileable textures?

shawnell3d

tileable...

Rhoutermans

I like your progress in this thread I do think the plant below the window is a bit too green, and perhaps try a wood texture with a bit bigger detail. Looking good thus far!

David-J

It's looking really good. Hey is ArenaNet cool with you posting this, btw?

Fink

Yeah they said on the art test page that you are allowed to post your progress online. :]

G3L

yeah great progress man!

any chance you can pop some verts on that middle vertical wood piece? i see you made a cut there but it looks too straight if you know what i mean. break it up some if possible (if you've got room to spare for some verts).