Black Mage Graveyard (First UDK Scene)
polycounter lvl 11
Hello everyone! I would like to show off my recent UDK scene for some critiques and comments about my latest work. First, a little bit of history.
Recently (around august) I decided to plunge deeper into my passion of game asset creation after being redirected to this site friends and seeing some of the marvelous work this community creates. Everyone here has inspired me to take my hobby and try to pursue it beyond into the realm of profession (hopefully), and in order to do that I decided that I had to expand my knowledge of video game content creation. Prior to this, I made maps for Counter Strike : Source and TF2, and many other valve IPs. However, due to the nature of the model import system, I had never really experienced true 3d modeling programs, so I switched to UDK and spent a lot of the past few months trying to familiarize myself with 3d Studio Max. The result is the following scene, which is a recreation of a Final Fantasy IX scene completely composed of custom assets:
Here's a link to the scene in action, with particle effects and all that jazz. It also has the concept art I used to make the scene.
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyj7B3XGnYY&hd=1[/ame]
I sort of wanted to do a "Final Fantasy meets Blizzard" art style with the scene, so textures and assets were not meant to be 100% realistic and were supposed to be more stylized.
Also, I wanted to get everyone's opinion about degrees here on polycount. Right now, I am studying Japanese and considering getting some sort of Japanese language degree. I've read countless of times that degrees don't really matter and skills are really what you need to break into the industry, however does anyone think that is likely to change any time soon with all the rise of video game creation specified universities? And would I be better off focusing on also getting an art degree? What types of degrees do you see most frequent amongst coworkers and peers? And if I were to get an art degree, would it really matter whether it was fine arts or digital arts?
Thanks everyone, and feel free to make any comments you think are necessary. I understand that the process of getting better is through critique, so make any critiques you can!
~ Eoin Yokai O'Neill
Recently (around august) I decided to plunge deeper into my passion of game asset creation after being redirected to this site friends and seeing some of the marvelous work this community creates. Everyone here has inspired me to take my hobby and try to pursue it beyond into the realm of profession (hopefully), and in order to do that I decided that I had to expand my knowledge of video game content creation. Prior to this, I made maps for Counter Strike : Source and TF2, and many other valve IPs. However, due to the nature of the model import system, I had never really experienced true 3d modeling programs, so I switched to UDK and spent a lot of the past few months trying to familiarize myself with 3d Studio Max. The result is the following scene, which is a recreation of a Final Fantasy IX scene completely composed of custom assets:
Here's a link to the scene in action, with particle effects and all that jazz. It also has the concept art I used to make the scene.
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyj7B3XGnYY&hd=1[/ame]I sort of wanted to do a "Final Fantasy meets Blizzard" art style with the scene, so textures and assets were not meant to be 100% realistic and were supposed to be more stylized.
Also, I wanted to get everyone's opinion about degrees here on polycount. Right now, I am studying Japanese and considering getting some sort of Japanese language degree. I've read countless of times that degrees don't really matter and skills are really what you need to break into the industry, however does anyone think that is likely to change any time soon with all the rise of video game creation specified universities? And would I be better off focusing on also getting an art degree? What types of degrees do you see most frequent amongst coworkers and peers? And if I were to get an art degree, would it really matter whether it was fine arts or digital arts?
Thanks everyone, and feel free to make any comments you think are necessary. I understand that the process of getting better is through critique, so make any critiques you can!
~ Eoin Yokai O'Neill
Replies
As far as a degree; having a sheet of paper helps, but that's about it. I have a math degree, and I was hired as an artist in Canada (from the US). I'm working as a game designer now
Of course, studying art does help, but I don't think having the degree matters so much. Take life drawing courses and things like that and you should be golden.
Again, I think your art is already looking really nice, so if you keep applying yourself to improving you'll have no problem finding a job
I think the wood you have could have more of a painted feeling. They read like a photo. right now.
And last... i think your skyline could be a little more interesting and heavenly painted. Like toy story 3's. There is the intro video... which show those gradient and interesting clouds. That's it i think for now. But it's looking awesome!
[ame]
I totally agree with the clouds. The shapes are fine just define them a bit more.
The wood fence and the rest of the scene do not seem to match texturing-wise. I'd pick a middle ground and work that good.
I love you
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Did I mention that FFIX is one of my all time favourites?
Anyways, I agree with the rest of the guys. What bothers me personally is that it feels a bit flat. On the in-game shot you can notice that there are some shadows coming from the left - either add some trees there to make them cast some nice shadows or move your life source to the right (different from the original, but who cares
The trees could use a little bit of love too, but I think they might look fine once you get some more depth in there.
Take my feedback with a pinch of salt though. The scene looks great as it is, but I feel you could take it even further. Also, I just had to post some shit as a fan of this game :poly136: Keep it up :thumbup:
i hope you understand what im trying to say.
I'll probably go back and make some adjustments considering the comments above, especially about the wood not really matching the rest of the scene. After that, it should probably look good enough to add to my current portfolio.
It seems like it's a little bit disconnected, especially for Final Fantasy IX. The general impression I got from that game was that every scene and environment slate had a lot of focus paid to the coloration and basically all of the texture samples they used and the lighting they did for their prerendered scenes were built entirely around that. Things like a bit of atmospheric fog, specific shadows (colored or harsh), or overblown specular elements all factored into the emotion of each environment.
The other thing to look at is how much they incorporated subtle coloration changes across each asset. You very rarely got assets which were devoid of a range of color (unless they were going for a dark gothic look) and they generally carried secondary tones that added variation on each asset's surface. You had a primary color (lets say an ochre on some wood as an example). Often they'd include bright yellow specular bloom along with a reddish brown in areas where it would transition to shadow. Then on top of that they'd throw in a colored shadow that layered over top of the asset and it was artistic madness.
It's kind of a general observation and it's hard to do as they had the benefit of making everything prerendered in maya, but it's something you can factor into you changes as you polish this up. This is pretty cool stuff so far and Final Fantasy IX is by far my favorite of the series. Why they couldn't have made XIII like IX is beyond me, they would have made 1.21 jiggazillion dollars if they did that.