First ever game env work, Workshop WIP, crit would be great please!

Tom Ellis · Sep 2009

Hi there,

Anyone who has responded to my posts knows, I am a complete beginner in game art but am working hard trying to develop my skills to a level suitable for employment. I've worked in Arch-Viz for some time but obviously pristine looking boxes with sunsets and human cutouts is a far cry from what I would say is the much more involved creation of game environments, characters and assets. I have a long way to go, but I want to get some crit early as I don't want to get into bad habits if I'm doing something incorrectly.

So up until a week or so ago, I had never created a normal map... never painted a texture, and never even bothered with triangle count.

I'm working on an idea based around a disused workshop, or car garage, I'm thinking rusty old toolboxes, siezed hydraulic lifts, rubble, oil cans etc. A pretty generic scene, but one that will hopefully test me a little for my first go.

Here's my progress so far, and again, crit is encouraged. Obviously things like lighting are just there for the sake of the render, layout of the structure isn't final either and easily changed since the pieces I've made are 256x256 modular.

Here's the pics, I'm unable to post attatchments so apologies for the ImageShack links.

So heres a shot from UE3:

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/5734/garagewip1.jpg

The wall pieces, reversible for texture variation

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/6356/wall1v.jpg
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/794/wall2l.jpg
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/2756/beamt.jpg

And the floor slabs, two texture variations, that paint has a spec, which will obviously look better in the engine once lit...

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/5982/slab001.jpg
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/8945/slab01.jpg
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3633/slab1.jpg

Many thanks

Firebert · Sep 2009

you're off to a good start man... solid
the first thing that blew my mind is the overall sense of scale. those slabs look ENORMOUS... if it is a car garage, this area will be poured concrete, in which case you will see one of two instances... either a completely flat filled area of concrete, or a filled area with seams (much like a concrete side walk), however, most of the concrete that is poured in areas such as this have a smooth finish so they are easy to clean up... typically, the largest slab you would most likely encounter would be 12'x12', which is still a good size, but what is throwing this scene off with scale as well is the thickness these existing assets carry, which makes them feel even larger. i would re-evaluate this entire area completely. if you're going for a "war torn" effect, that's cool, you can always add in extra detail with ridges, blasts, cracks and such, but for the most part, it needs to be smooth and flat.

the beams/truss look solid man. the walls, you may want to make a couple more tileable sections in your map for these to break up the repetition. keep goin' man!

since you brought up the "attach images" issue you were having.... use the "Insert Image" button to put your hosted images up... links work fine though

PC don't likes not attachin' of dem images... which i'm glad... trims the fat

Tom Ellis · Sep 2009

Thanks for the response.

I know exactly what you mean about the slabs and it was an area of my main concern. I did originally want to do like a single slab piece for the entire floor, and have it cracked and blown open in parts so the mud and groundwork is visible through broken up pieces. The problem I'm having is how to achieve this without tiling smaller assets, some of which are broken.

I'll try dropping in a single piece with some holes broken through and create smaller, broken up slabs in the gaps.

Updates coming soon!

Thanks again

Ark · Sep 2009

Yeah the slabs do look a little big. It's generally better to oversize some things, compared to using real-life sizes to avoid crampness, but i would tone them down a little bit.

Tom Ellis · Sep 2009

Thanks Ark, yep you are both correct, the slabs were too big.

So I've updated the floor, I like it a lot better, I'm not sure about the texture res, although it could be improved fairly easily.

The blown open parts will have debris and broken concrete in them.

See what you think, and keep the crits coming (even though there's not a whole lot to give crit on just yet!)

Thanks again.

Ark · Sep 2009

I would raise the roof higher to give the scene more space.

Also the textures do look a little blurry, although this could be due to UE3's compression. If your just planning this as a portfolio piece, id alter the 'lodbias' on the textures.

At the moment the lighting seems a bit uniform. Get some lights above the girders to cast some cool shadows on the ground.

Tom Ellis · Sep 2009

Thanks Ark,

I do plan to raise the roof, it's misleading in that shot because of the angle but I think I'm going to add some sort of catwalk walkway system which is currently impossible with the roof height as is.

I'll play with the level of detail in Unreal to improve the resolution, and it will be a portfolio piece so performance is not too much of an issue.

The lighting is entirely demonstrative at the moment, just two point lights, and will all be redone once the fixtures and other assets are in.

Thanks again

Tom Ellis · Sep 2009

Ok more slow progress.

You were right, it was Unreal's compression causing that texture to look blurry. Even scaled 4 or 5 times in the Max viewport it looked fine. The LODBias didn't seem to help too much so for now I'm going with a pretty plain floor. I may change it up later depending on how much of the floor is visible once the rest of the assets are in.

So I've added some pillars, yes they were heavily inspired by Eat3D's famous pillar, I've never watched the tutorial they do, but a pillar's a pillar I guess.

Ark · Sep 2009

You could get some variations in the ground texture if you wanna play around with vertex colours.

3DLee · Sep 2009

Hey, that's looking good! I think I like the single floor piece better anyway.

I feel for you, I also work in 3D mainly doing arch viz, but games have always been my passion. It's cool to see another artist breaking free of the blueprint chains.

Tom Ellis · Sep 2009

Heh, there does seem to be a number of people thinking about making the jump from arch viz. I have a few reasons as to why I'm keen to get into game art, I won't get into a detailed discussion as my thoughts have been known to rouse some defensive opinions from one or two die hard arch viz types. The biggest issue for me is the creativity factor is almost non existent in arch viz. You get the blueprints, you make them 3d and you make them look as real as possible. That constant quest for the ultimate photorealism that most Architects want just kills it for me.

Ok so in some of the bigger game studios an artist may still be working to a tight concept, but there still seems to be that creative element that each artist can put in. I can't quite put my finger on what it is but the buzz from seeing even so much as a crate or box that you have created from scratch rendered in realtime in a game engine, is far greater than some ultra real piece of VRay perfection. In my opinion anyway.

Of course characters, and the animating of them, the storylines, interactivity etc all add that bit of excitement that arch viz could never provide.

My reason for getting off my ass and doing something about it now though is simply the economy. I'm literally hearing of a different Architecture studio closing every day, while I read about the UK government consider tax breaks for people in the game industry. On top of this I have Blitz Game Studios, Freestyle games and Codemasters all within 5 minutes from me, and Lionhead not too far. I just wish I'd started a lot earlier!

Anyway, back on topic. I've got some roller shutters in now, it's coming together well. I'm not at my computer but pics will come soon.

Thanks for the responses.

Tom Ellis · Sep 2009

Ok some more updates on the assets, really enjoyed doing the textures for these, really did not enjoy trying to create a decent normal map for the drum. It still isn't perfect but I had to move on to something else, I coulda spent forever just trying to get a good bake on the drum.

3DLee · Sep 2009

Your textures look awesome! The stain marks on the crate really sell it. I'm wondering if you couldn't spare more polys on the create though. You didn't post a wire, but I think extruding the top pieces of wood on the right side in the render, as well as the supportive boards on the left side of the render would give it a little more depth without hurting your poly count too much.

Tom Ellis · Sep 2009

Thanks,

That's a good idea bout the crate, it could probably use a bit of poly detail around the sides too to emphasise the extra pieces of wood.

That image is actually shown with a wire, but since it's black, and nothing more than a 6 sided cube, it's difficult to see!

Thanks again for the response.

Tom Ellis · Sep 2009

Quick update,

I wanted to add some sort of organic something to the scene and quickly did this cloth. I'm no expert with Max's cloth sim so I just did a very basic drape and sculpted it out a bit more in ZBrush.

Tom Ellis · Sep 2009

Ok more updates, got a fair bit done today. Keep those crits comin please!

Tom Ellis · Oct 2009

Another update.

I know it could be optimised better on the cylindrical shapes but since this is purely a portfolio piece I left them fairly high res. Also, the hose may look like it's defying gravity, but generally the hose rubber used on welding equipment is of a weight that will support itself vertically. I may reposition the hose to attach to the front of the valve rather than the top.

Guriamo · Oct 2009

especially for a portfolio piece you should optimize everything as much as possible....

the tyres on the last image have way too much geometry, they would never be seen up close.. also the caps of the bottles seem way to high res...

Tom Ellis · Oct 2009

Thanks for the reply, yeah I see where you're coming from on the portfolio piece + optimisation thing, I didn't think about it from that angle! I guess it doesn't look great to perspective employers.

I'm just paranoid about going too low on cylinders so that normal mapping becomes a pain, I had a well documented experience in my first attempt at baking a cylinder and the way I got round it (after some help on here) was to up the sides.

I guess I played it a bit too safe here.

Thanks again

Guriamo · Oct 2009

take the asset and just look at it from a perspective from where you would see it in a game... then think about the importance of the object in a scene.

most of the time you dont really need plenty of segments on a cylinder especially for small details... just try keep the shillouette smooth - let the normal map do the rest...

Tom Ellis · Oct 2009

Thanks for the tips Guriamo, I'll have a play with the low poly and optimise it further.

I'm gonna know the answer to this when I fire up Max in about 10 minutes, but can I remove edges / optimize mesh while retaining the existing unwrap? My sensible side is telling me that is a silly question, but my optimistic side is hoping I can.

Tom Ellis · Oct 2009

Wow, I just learned two things...

I have a LOT to learn about optimising low polys, because there was clearly so much left to do on the welding gear.

And secondly, you can indeed edit the low poly without affecting UVs.

Is this looking better? One area that stands out to me is the corner radius on the frame, but taking any loops out of that results in a very blocky silhouette.

Jet_Pilot · Oct 2009

Dont put seams in the front of your model

Tom Ellis · Oct 2009

Which seam are you referring to Jet_Pilot?

Tom Ellis · Oct 2009

If you mean the in engine shot of the welding gear on the white cylinder, that's a lighting/tex display error in UE, I noticed it too but theres certainly no seam there.

Obviously you may be talking about something different, but please point out which one you mean.

Guriamo · Oct 2009

looking way better... just pull back this one edgy looking span on the hose to smooth it off

... frame looks fine to me

Tom Ellis · Oct 2009

Ok so it's been a while since I last updated this, been crazy busy with work so haven't had a lot of time to get much more done.

I think I'm gonna call this project done, it's not what I suppose you might call 'finished' but I could spend forever on this and I'd like to get on to some more detailed assets, weapons and characters before I do much more environment stuff.

I loaded all the assets into Marmoset too, I kinda went overboard with the bloom and sharpness on some of the shots which in retrospect, was maybe a little extreme.

Continue to offer crit please because it's so valuable to get advice from people to continue furthering my ability.

McMonkeyBoy · Oct 2009

I'm not a fantastic modeller or have a great deal of experience when making models but I do have some experience in using the Unreal engine and making maps and while Im not the best I will offer some advice but don't take it as great advice get a second opinion! I think that your imported models as static meshes may need to be scaled down a bit. Right now they seem to be the same size as the players and in a realistic enviroment they would be slightly smaller. But again it might be something you want checking by somebody with more experience. ASpart from that, visually it looks awesome. keep up the good work

Tom Ellis · Oct 2009

Thanks,

I think you are correct, the scale of the meshes does indeed look a bit off. It's one area I need to get used to and fortunately it should be a simple matter of changing the scaling inside UE3.

.Murder · Oct 2009

it looks awesome, but the bit that sticks out to me the most is the size of the concrete pillars, they just feel way to big, try scaling them down to about the height of the characters mid point to shoulder, maybe put some variation in the height of them too? jsut my two cents, btw i really really love the cloth you have over the box that looks so sick

elementrix · Oct 2009

there is so much dust in front of your lights while the environment doesn't look dusty at all.

get more atmosphere in there.

Tom Ellis · Oct 2009

-Elementrix

I agree, and that is in fact something I really wanted to add, like a 'dusty fog' to the whole scene. The problem is, I'm not really sure how to achieve it.

I tried adding Unreal fog but just couldn't get it looking right, to be honest that is most likely my lack of knowledge on the subject. If anyone knows a way to achieve the look then that would be great.

Thanks

McMonkeyBoy · Oct 2009

Have you tried a Hourence tute? His stuff is all i've ever used.

Tom Ellis · Oct 2009

Thanks McMonkeyBoy, I hadn't checked Hourence's page for info on fog but it appears he has a section specifically dedicated to it.

I'll check it out although it looks like it's gonna require far more time in the material editor than I'd like to be spending.

McMonkeyBoy · Oct 2009

It'll pay off I gurantee it.

torontoanimator · Oct 2009

pretty good start dude

myles · Oct 2009

You're assets on there own are pretty sweet,
I think though, that I bit more reference on real garages could help you a lot. I'll link a bunch of pictures shortly.
When first seeing the picture I believed it to be a small garage (where one car or so would fit in) because of the corrugated iron for walls, I think you are loosing some of the sense of scale because of this. I would suggest making brick walls for the base then having smaller pieces of corrugated iron above this.

Going of what Elementrix was saying, I think with a bit more pre-planning on your scene you could do a lot better with your atmosphere, what time of day is it? Is the garage in use? How old is the garage? Who is it owned by? Where is the garage? By thinking of these things you can think better of your lighting and atmosphere.

Having the blue/ yellow lighting doesnt really seem to work, perhaps try using three colours for your lighting, a interior electric light, sun/ night light coming from the exterior and a secondary light from another interior source (fire/ tool left on ect.).

Take a look at this shot, the main things you should look at are the ceiling (omg so many pipes!) the windows, brick walls with metal supports, office, the amount of crap littered in the room and the overhead lighting. Same with this shot.

Here are a few other refrences that could help -

http://www.joeriscicasautorepairs.com/images/auto_repair_garage_12.jpg
http://cv6.coventrytelegraph.net/burntoutcars.jpg

First ever game env work, Workshop WIP, crit would be great please!

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