feedback war torn environment
polycounter lvl 8
This is a piece of work I created from this concept image.
I plan to add some more work to this image as at the moment its only a small environment, just wanted feedback peoples likes and dislikes.
I plan to add some more work to this image as at the moment its only a small environment, just wanted feedback peoples likes and dislikes.
Replies
The buildings in the concept aren't made of bricks. They look more like concrete.
Something is off with your scale in the foreground, particularly the barrels and pallets.
The overall colours in the scene don't match. Note the browns, golds and dark green tones in the concept.
I was going to create the buildings with a concrete texture but chose not to just to break it up a bit, the scale might seem weird the pallets are based on smaller ones and I didn't include the correct colours because it would look odd with greens thrown in I think. but thank you for you comments I could always adjust it to be closer I guess.
so from retrofuturistic they turned into something that would rather fit in some steampunk setting.
that's why for me barrels, sandbags and pallets feel out of place since they are more modern than the rest of the stuff,
also, like others wrote the size of bricks is so big that they make buildings look smaller.
1) The bricks on the ground are hallow cinder blocks, the bricks on the wall are solid gigantic bricks. Not to mention the destroyed bricks look pretty low poly. Maybe if they where far off in the distance this might work but, considering its this close to the player/camera they require much more attention.
2) You didn't do the composition of the scene any favors. In the ref there are buildings in the distance and in the foreground giving it a full city feeling. But what you have is a pretty empty. It isn't just the lack of buildings but the effect these missing buildings would have on the lighting in the scene. What you have looks very much like a cloud city floating above the clouds, not a building rooted in a decaying destroyed city.
3) As previously pointed out, the buildings are mostly made of concrete and have very large glass windows that have been blown out. Aside from the rounded top on the middle building there isn't much the two buildings have in common.
4) The sign doesn't feature as prominently as it should, which means you're ignoring the composition and possibly breaking a key driving factor of the game. Environment artists need help drive the player to specific places by giving them key markers and maintaining the key focal points laid out in the concept art.
I deliberately chose to have large brick to give an aged look don't forget that concepts are just that an that can be taken further, and of course the buildings will be made to populate the rest of the scene.
Steampunk I guess there is a slight feel, but what you are saying about the background props doesn't make sense to me they would still have certain objects that fill the scene.
The cinder blocks you mention are scattered around to break things up a little what's to say that the building that once stood where the broken wall now stands didn't have those?. Also I'd like to mention that for the rubble bricks I used reference from Crysis 2 mine are higher poly than the ones found in this game.
As I have already mentioned the scene is still a WIP so having not placed buildings either side I guess makes sense at the moment, I have used some artistic license for the barrel vault roofed building because I have included an interior which has boarded windows to not allow the player much of a view outside the building.
The sign in the concept picture doesn't make any sense because the rest of the buildings have been decaying or are destroyed, for me it seems to be way too shiny besides I checked just to make sure I feel the sign in my scene is still plenty visible.
There is a new game coming out called Warm Gun made by Emotional Robots its a FPS it contains barrels sandbags pallets and all the general stuff you find in those types of games, it all seems to fit in that game.:)
Lets forget for a second that this wall is part of a sky scraper, if it was made of hollow cinder blocks like the rubble on the ground indicates then we would see the hollow pockets inside of the bricks that are broken, which we don't (2).
Sure you can leave it this mismatched but its sloppy and probably will be called out in an interview, I would. You can cook up some crazy back story to explain how the cinder blocks came to be laying in a pile of solid brick rubble and that the solid bricks where vaporized, but you won't be hovering over the players shoulder explaining all the weird quirks... the work needs to stand on its own.
I can see something like this being "passed or over looked" in a production setting, where resources and time are limited and something is better than nothing. But no one who does that is going to highlight it in their portfolio and when called on it, will say "yep not my proudest moment". If this is going into your portflio take some care and some pride and do it right, especially when the competition is so fierce and just about everyone else is dotting their i's and crossing their t's.
This isn't a good thing. Higher poly with the same visual results? That's bad. Especially when the biggest eye sore is the lack of detail around the broken edges of the wall (2). You can early see some pieces and cuts that do not make any logical sense. Half bricks perfectly cut?
You want to use artistic license to improve things and fill in vague areas in concepts. You don't want to use it to explain away quirks and problems...
Who would go to all the trouble to board up all those windows? Maybe in a 1-2 story warehouse but not in a multi story buildings, especially when the concept doesn't show that. It shows a level of involvement in the post destruction era that doesn't exist. You're sending mixed signals to the viewer/player that aren't in the concept. Which just about any Art Director is going to have a problem with. If you fire back with "yea its artistic license" and "I think it looks better" you're going to hear back "yea well fix it, it breaks game logic and the overall narrative".
There is probably a reason for the sign being the way it is, least of them being matching levels of decay. It registers prominently in the concept art as a focal piece. In your take, it doesn't, it blends in. The sign losses to the barrels as a focal piece.
Maybe this is a place the player was told to go. If they wonder past the landmark and don't notice it, guess who has to fix it?
As for the durability of the sign I would argue that its made out of better materials than the glass that covered most of the building. Sticking off the side of a building it would have been designed to withstand a certain level of wind and force. When you design a sign, you want it to always look clean without having to clean it constantly. It's kind of a basic tenant of creating large iconic things.
Even with that now factoring into the debate, the point still remains its a focal point and clear marker in the concept, but almost nonexistent in your scene.
Take it or leave it, that's just how I view the scene. Other people might look at it and think its prefect. I think it needs a bit of work and polish.
This is the old one
This is the new one
Thank you for your response is this any better?