ArenaNet internship - Environment Art
polycounter lvl 6
I just started yesterday.
Just want to know what you think about it.
And things I know:
a) I haven't touched foliage yet.
b) roof need more moss.
c) plaster need moss.
d) wood need moss. (to be consistent, stone have moss, why other part's wouldn't have it)
Or maybe add it with some CE3 Magic instead of drawing this into texture ?
e) windows do not have specular (yet) door as well. As matter of fact only stone have spec finished.
I'm also not really convinced about my wood beams.
Small update:
I'm currently siting on 2.6k tris and 5 tileable textures (4 diffuse and one normal) all 512 except wood which is 512x256
You can check all images here:
http://iniside.imgur.com/arenanet_1
Just want to know what you think about it.
And things I know:
a) I haven't touched foliage yet.
b) roof need more moss.
c) plaster need moss.
d) wood need moss. (to be consistent, stone have moss, why other part's wouldn't have it)
Or maybe add it with some CE3 Magic instead of drawing this into texture ?
e) windows do not have specular (yet) door as well. As matter of fact only stone have spec finished.
I'm also not really convinced about my wood beams.
Small update:
I'm currently siting on 2.6k tris and 5 tileable textures (4 diffuse and one normal) all 512 except wood which is 512x256
You can check all images here:
http://iniside.imgur.com/arenanet_1
Replies
also, id work in some spec/reflectiveness to your window, and maybe add the smaller window above the door. other than that, lookin good. keep it up. add plants.
@inside - The structure looks pretty good (even out of context). My only beef with it would be that you're going for what looks like stylized architecture, but heavily using photo for your texture maps. This isn't always bad, and depending on the scene you put it in, it could look ok. But if I were making this structure, I would try to make some custom normals in photoshop and zbrush that really explores/echos the interesting lines/forms you've created in the structure's geometry/silhouette.
If you want to stick with a photo look, I'd suggest making the base a little more rigid. You can still get the silhouette you want with the subtle curve, but in a more convincing way...
It's just very obvious that the base is a cg-texture type photo manipulation that's tiled accross the bottom.
In a nut-shell, break up the base a bit more on the corners to give the stone base more rigid lines... currently looks too soft.
And in your OP, you said, "everything needs to have moss on it."
my question to you sir or ma'am... why? Putting moss on everything seems like a terrible decision, unless this thing is supposed to be in the depths of some shitty forest.
I guess it would be one of those things you'd have to see in context... or concept for.
Good luck on your internship!
Super awesome work so far.
Thanks for advices. I will try to sculpt my way trough wood and stone at least.
I like the shape of the roof and where the shingles are going
i pretty much am just referring to the wood grain thats there. from a med distance the wood kinda just looks like a brown blocky structure. darkening the indentations in the wood and outlining them with a light brown color would help it be more visible.
Stone texture have some obvious tiling. I know I need to get rid of it. Just didn't figure out how to do for now ;p.
I have really hard time while painting wood. It's first time I have paintied it almost by hand (well I baked normal and others, and used single photo overlay, that in the end you can't see anyway..).
I also used some CE3 magic (vertex painting).
Rest of the images:
http://iniside.imgur.com/arenanet_2#
Into alpha of diffuse.
Tried to made something else. Guess I just back to the old one then.
-changed stone
-changed wood
http://iniside.imgur.com/arenanet_3
I honestly say I have no idea why this stone looks so flat. Normal Map is ver strong, I also used offset bump maping at some point but honestly it didn't look good. I think I will have to work more on diffuse to make it more "bumpy".
It's strange that there seems to be no specularity whatsoever. Nice spec map will help separate materials and help normalmap do it's job a bit better.
Also, I would use more texture layers - baking AO and curvature and using them as a guide for layers of wear and tear, scratches, contact shadows, moss accumulating in shade e.t.c comes to my mind.
Can you post up a screenshot of the model with JUST the normal maps with no diffuse? That's usually the easiest way to check. If the model looks like it's got good readable shape with no diffuse, the normals are good.
Like Sandro said, a specular map will help a lot too, even if it's just a shitty temporary one. Unfortunately you have a lot of matte surfaces so I don't think that's what your biggest problem is.
Norm+Diffuse:
Norm only:
Anyway your normals are definitely more pronounced in UE3 but I think that's because your lighting setup simply has darker shadows so if you reduce the indirect lighting in your CE3 scene you may be able to get similar results.
Still didn't done any vegetation. But I think I will add Ivy combined with flowers, not just leaves, and maybe some grass.
Also maybe add a pointlight where your walls are very dark to show those windows a bit
Update:
This is well made, but whether not it'll stack up and stand out to other submissions they get is something I'm not so sure of.
THIS.
look at the number of entries on this site alone. Going to need to step it up a notch to stand out. Adam's suggestion is a perfect way to do this.
I also agree with Adam. This thing needs some more atmosphere, bring it to life!
Things you could do:
I really think you should revisit the normal map on your roof tiles, as they look very pillowy. More like a brick pattern than shingles. Your grass is also seriously repetitive, a little rotation/scale variation would go a long way on them.
They will think you took the time to model and texture that entire world to fit your house, only to find out that you did not and may find you dishonest.
IF you did, then great! If not, do something more simple that expands out by about 20 feet, like Adam said, that you can claim ownership over.
Let's give that stuff a bit more volume and/or variety.
Anyway have 16 hours left will see what I can do :E.
I still agree with a previous comment that your roof tiles look a little "pillowy." They should be a bit more flat and creased at the edges.
I strongly recommend duplicating your grass / plant texture in the planters to increase the amount slightly, maybe by 50%, and scale & rotate them. They repeat badly right now.
Check your error message carefully. I had the same problem last night. It may be that your message size has been exceeded. Meaning the files you are trying to send are too large for one email. Then again, with the amount of people doing this art test, yea their mailbox may be full.