Coastline [Environment Scene]

Butthair

Hey polypeople, got some projects in production, I'm trying to get better with planning and designing in order to approach building scenes with minimal problems.

Working on a scene based off a concept from Guild Wars concept artist Jaime Jones.

It's still extremely early in creating. Some things aren't even in yet, the rocks are pretty much final, however. There are placeholders on the wood and houses atm and the lighting is more cool than warm, I'm aware. Shadows are pretty much non-existent for some reason. I'm using a UDk landscape and I don't know how to get proper shadows for it.

Here ya go. Some pictures.


Concept by Jaime Jones.



Any crits are more than welcome. Opinions, taste, feedback in general, what have you. I'd like to hear from you guys and what you think I'm doing horribly wrong or right.

dpaynter26

those upper buildings hanging off of the rock are gonna be interesting, cant wait to see how you go about it the camera seems a bit too far back but that's all i see so far also i dunno if you wanted to or not but those buildings on the beach are mostly on stilts to keep from washing away under the tide so maybe raise yours up a little bit? Great job though keep going

Goat Justice

I'd recommend getting some greybox houses in place and working to create the sense of depth that the concept has between the pillar on the left and the larger settlement on the right. At present those two elements seem equally distant from the viewer in your scene, where there is a lot more separation in the concept. Note the comparative scale of the houses in the painting vs your setup. you can get a fast block-out in place and be sure the scene is solid before worrying too much about textures and lighting.

Butthair

Hey everyone, it's been awhile. I wish I had more time to work on this, so far I'm doing what I can. A lot of focus gets lost on something like this which gets frustrating I'm realizing.

@Goat Justice: I read your comments and they helped with what was keeping me from moving forward. I've changed up the scene some. Trying to get the distance is a bit difficult, I'm pretty sure I should push it more.

@dpaynter26: I'm unsure at the moment of how the buildings in the rocks will be. Some tests are happening right now, but I slowly stopped on that to make sure proportions and scale are matching. The buildings were always on stilts, but yes, it was the crappy camera shot that made them read badly.

Thanks for the crits guys. Slowly but surely, I'm trying to get this thing finished as much as I can.

An update.

Mr_Paris

Thank you for picking a concept with some decent composition! Just see so many environment projects where people aren't even considering that aspect.

So far I'd say that you need to tweak the atmospheric perspective to match the concept more. You should probably push the village back on the right side a little further into the background.

Silhouette is going to be you best friend, especially with those buildings hanging off the cliffs. Really try to match the concept as closely as you can because it's really appealing and you can't lose if you can get pretty close to it's look.

Don't forget to blockin the skybridges, they're a nice element.

ErichWK

Moar green! Less Blue! I love the Palette of the concept..

Clark Coots

this will be cool, looks like a great start

Butthair

Something more like this?

ParoXum

The rock texture screams photo realism while the rest of the picture is not. There's still room for improvement, but you've made good progress from your first pic.

ikonane

Looks really awesome! I like the mood.

Butthair

Forgot to say thank you for the kind words. Helps me keep on it.

ParoXum, I agree. Especially at this view, the rock and the rest of the scene aren't matching up. The wood and the reeds that make up the houses are at the same level of detail as the stone, as well as the realism, yet, they are harder to see...

The focus on this one was to go more real than any sort of stylizing. Surprisingly, I've never done real-real, which turning out to be less aesthetic than I was hoping. I might edit the rocks, but I'd rather try to do what I intended.

Aigik

You're a good artist, erm.... butthair. :P

Seriously though, looks awesome. Nice choice of concept, and I can't wait to see where this goes. I'll be watching this thread.

Butthair

Thank you Aigik, I appreciate it.

Alright, so here's some more progress, I forgot what I did, but I did stuff. oh yeah, started blocking out those skybridge things (good point Mr_Paris).

Thinking about pushing the ocean down a bit more. It's set to move up and down a bit through an OWP in the shader, sometimes I forget about it when I take a screenie. Found out the problem to where there was red appearing too, shader nonsense.



I feel there is a lot more to be done, unfortunately. I've never taken on anything this grandiose and most of it just requires time, rather than skill.

Computron

Your rock pillars look like they might benefit from adding a wind erosion like effect. They look a little lumpy and unnatural. It isn't really clear in the concept but to me it seems like it should be somewhere in between. The rock also looks more angular and chiseled. Great work so far!

ladyknowles

I really love this, great work.

I know it's not in the original concept, but maybe some overhanging grass/vegetation could add something to it? Would be quite cool to have a bird's nest up on those cliffs too, just for fun!

Butthair

@ Computron: I agree, the rock should be more chiseled or angular. I have some reference that is either round or jagged, and I played with rounder, but angular might look a little nicer.

@ ladyknowles: Thanks. Those are some good ideas, I want to add a lot more to it and if time allows I will.

Actually, I wanted to add some rain to get some more energy into it. The ocean moves, but that's about it. If I have the time, I'll also have the skybridges sway a bit. Once I remember how, I'll have the ropes swing too.

Alright, here's an update. Replaced the midground pillars with unique meshes, looks better imo, could be a bit more angular though. Also yellow'ed and green'ed it up mo. Slowly starting to integrate the lighting, lemme know what you guys think, from here, any crit is helpful crit (especially about the skybridge).


And concept so it's a bit easier.

locater16

Yeah, that skybridge doesn't really work does it?

Butthair

Nope

Might need some play with camera FoV.

Alberto Rdrgz

You need Bigger Houses, compared to the concept they look a lot smaller and lack some consistency. If make them larger you'll also fill more space in the screen which could help the scene.

Ex-Ray

Good start but I reckon it's worth while taking a step back from production and analyse why the concept works in terms of composition.

It' all about the silhouette, the shapes of the negative space made and the flow of hidden lines. Remember that on the concept every position/angle of bridges, roof lines and ropes are drawn with a purpose.

You can clearly see the the flow of shapes that draw the viewer from the foreground rock pillar to the mid and then to the distance ones in the background.

You don't have to mimic it exactly but you should compose it to the same effect to allow it to 'pop' with depth and space.

Jeff Parrott

I second scaling up the houses. At least up close on that spire deal they need to be larger.


The rock texture on the right feels scaled up a bit. You might want to get something bit more 'zoomed out' and broad.

Also you need those hot orangey yellows in the scene from the concept. Your piece is getting washed out because that's lacking.

Nice idea and coming along. Just keep refining it.

Butthair

Happy Thanksgiving polycounters. Thanks all you guys for the helpful crits and solutions. It helps me re-look at the concept with a different focus.

@ Alberto Rdgz: You've got a good point. It's so obvious they should be bigger too, how did that slip by my eyes?

@ Ex-Ray: I was aware of silhouettes, but this talk of lines with purpose is eye opening. I know concepts are draw with a purpose of mood and idea, but the underlying mechanics that are going on are fascinating. I've been reading and watching tuts on concepts just to see those things happening, and now I see them a lot. Thanks for the words on that, really helpful.

@ SasoChicken: I agree. I plan on some sort of rain and haze to go on. Soon, very soon. I also like that you say the concept has a "rough" feeling to it, I couldn't find the right word, but you got it perfect.

@ jeffro: It's true, they should be scaled. Good catch on the scaling of the rocks, I'll most definitely change it right away, that's been ugly to my eyes for awhile now.

As for the hot orange/yellows, I'm confident they'll pop out more with proper lighting, but yes, atm, they are lacking. Also going to add them on the mountain side on the right, like in the concept.

Anyways, enjoy the holidays, enjoy the company. I'll have something to show soon. Thanks for taking the time out to put some feedback to this piece. I really want that same impact the concept gives.

Toodles for now.

Butthair

Looking back from the very beginning of this up to now, I notice how it changes from blue into a greenish-yellow warm scene thing. Not just that, but reflecting back, I've learned a great deal from this project.

I'll be adjusting the houses now, as well as the skybridge and I'll post that update too. But for now, I've added the midground pillars detail and of course, tweaked like crazy a bunch of small things. Rock scale is changed, I'll have those rock dwellings in there too.



Thanks for the crits everyone.

As a side note, I'll be tweaking the rock texture a bit sometime in the near future, but I don't find it as important as an issue as what I've stated already.

Snader

When you tweak the rock texture, make it more angular, flat slabs of rock. What you have right now is too soft/round/blobby.

zoombapup

Is it just me, or are you completely missing the houses in the rock on the right where the skybridge meets the rock face? The concept shows them hacking into the rockface for housing too, so it feels wrong to me to just meet the skybridge with rock. Presumably the bridge is there because the inhabitants of the pillar want to trade/meetup with inhabitants of the mainland.

Jessica Dinh

Ooo, silhouettes are beginning to match up nicely. And the color is a lot better now overall! Make sure to sculpt the shore to the silhouette in the reference, it has a nice shape in the concept. Also the shore houses look like they are all leaning to the left or something, maybe straighten them out a bit. Lookin' good, keep it up! :]

teaandcigarettes

I like where this is going, but I'm not buying that rock texture. If you want to get the same look as in the concept, then I think it might be best if you sculpt it out in zbrush to get a clean normal map. It would be best if you create at least two variations (one with well defined cracks/protruding bits and one that is flat) and vertex blend between them to avoid repetition. At the moment, your texture feels way too noisy. Another thing that bothers me a little are these support beams in the top left corer. They seem much thicker than in the concept and I think it kind of messes up the sense of scale.

Hope that helps It's a really cool concept so good luck!

JohnnyCrespo

Hey dude, looking sweet. Keep it up.... I think I know you!