Environment piece for portfolio [WIP]
polycounter lvl 8
Hello.
I'm trying to make an indoor environment scene for my portfolio and now I ask for some crits on the wires and the models as whole.
I'm aiming for an worn down temple ruin or something similar primarly with stone materials.
Right now it's in the begining of blocking out parts but tips and tricks are welcome. Props are going to be added later on. (I'm using Maya)
preview render front
Front wire
Render from inside the room up the stairs
Stairs in a angle
Angle wire
I'm trying to make an indoor environment scene for my portfolio and now I ask for some crits on the wires and the models as whole.
I'm aiming for an worn down temple ruin or something similar primarly with stone materials.
Right now it's in the begining of blocking out parts but tips and tricks are welcome. Props are going to be added later on. (I'm using Maya)
preview render front
Front wire
Render from inside the room up the stairs
Stairs in a angle
Angle wire
Replies
The gorund plane is apparently associated with the walls, as it has lots what appear to be unnecessary polygons.
I know there are quite alot of extra polys. I was planing to add alot of more polys(smoothing) when I got the shape to the basic shape I'm going for. To be able to generate normals later on. Or is that a bad way to go?
The floor is just placed there as a guide line at the moment its going to be alot less polys. (I added the floor just for the renders for the thread).
What about intersecting polys like the plate that makes the floor should it go inside the wall or just as close as possible? I trying to avoid cracks and empty space between walls and floor.
If the ground plane is a guide then it doesn't matter much as you said. As for intersecting or crossecting that's going to depend on the engine, lighting can be affected by vertice placement. eg light cracks in some engines. The poly placement will need to be even for texturing to look decent however. Especially generated textures like light maps, AO, and normals.
Just makes it easier in the end, Texturing is probably the more difficult part of making a model, having a good base for the texturing will always be good practice.
Your absolutly right about the arch piece. Gotta thincken that up. ^_^ Thanks
If your talking about the room/building in the back then yes I've thought about it and it's not gone from my thoughts yet. ^_^
One thing thats not shown in the pics is the outer building the one that has the valve door it's simply a box at the moment and modular walls for that is also a thought.
Gotta start making modular pieces then hehe. ^_^
I've seen a few of them and looking up close you notice that nothing in there is gratuitous. There's always a purpose and a religious motivation behind every little thing. Heck, even florida's "Coral Castle" can be considered a stone temple.
Look at this one, for example:
Look at the way they build walls, stacking rocks without mortar - That's meant to withstand earthquakes. It was built on platforms to help irrigation, since they raised crops on those fields. Also, the sun plays a great role in here - they designed the whole thing to make the most of it, they had sundials that could also tell whether it's the solstice or equinox, and they had stone bowls that were filled with water -So they could see the star's reflection on it from inside the temples.
I'm not telling you to make a replica of an existing temple, just to think a bit more about it. Where is it, who used to go there, what was its purpose, what kind of weather was it exposed to etc. Good environment artists tell stories with their environments!
I'd love to make a large aztec environment but that's not my goal now. ^_^
I know I have alot more to build in the scen and some rebuilds too to make the room tell more of a story. Thank you again for your input it's very appriciated.
Really dig into what makes your environment tick so you're not building with polygons and textures but with rocks, dirt and things available to the people who would have actually built your environment. In order for you to pull this off, you need to live in your scene. Constantly think how would people with the tools they had, make these structures?
So far we have no idea who these people are, what the materials where, what tools they had available to them and how this was all built, not to mention when and for how long its been neglected.
Temple. Ok what kind? Where? How old? Built by who? With what?
Personally there is nothing more important to an environment artist than critical eye skills.
1) Constructed how?
Columns where typically built in segments and stacked on top of each other, not one solid carved piece. Typically when they fall apart those pieces separate. Even pillars that look solid are typically stacked and then covered in some kind of plaster. Instead of making a cylinder and deforming it look like a pillar, make a pillar.
2) Weird break?
This seems kind of odd given the construction method. Also as stone wears down it rounds out and looses its sharp edges. It's an odd place for a structural failure?
3) Stacked stones?
How and why was this made, what was it supporting? If its stacked stones the lines are straight and sharp. Right now it looks like newly poured concrete. No one but you is going to see the wireframe lines, make sure the details come through when wires are turned off.
4) Roots and disturbed earth?
The tree doesn't really seem to have been there all that long, its roots haven't broken the planter box even though there would be significant distributions around the base. Also ground tiles that thin would have cracked and broken when the ground became uneven. The ground was made uneven independently from the other objects in the scene. What about the weight of the pillars on the ground tiles, what about the tree roots?
5) Pillars held up what?
Where is this debris? Where is the damage from when it came down? Was it carefully removed? Is it just not constructed yet? Or did you think no one would care?
6) How was this constructed?
The construction method doesn't seem to jive, you have columns that probably supported a roof in the courtyard but the building is constructed how? Columns? Stacked stone? Poured concrete? How is the roof supported? Why is it intact?
A lot of these questions are about the materials used and the lack of evidence of their use in the scene. These aren't things you'll ZBrush in later these are things that need to be built into even the most basic of block outs.
If you're coming up with back story and construction methods now as you're answering some of these questions, you're putting the cart before the horse. Those questions should be answered up front and they should help guide you as you're buildings your scene. The scene builds itself at that point and you're just a caretaker.