Future Rome Environment

Scampbell · Oct 2011

Hey Guys i wish i could of posted this sooner is still work in progress. I am going for a futurist Rome.
I will be graduating this quarter and this will be going in my final demo reel so any thing that you guys think that will really push it please let me know and i will do my best to make it happen. Any crit on any thing is welcome. thanks

Razgriz · Oct 2011

Wow, cool idea, and cool execution. Do you have more screenshots that this, and perhaps some breakdowns?

re.wind · Oct 2011

Ref pics of what the area was before you futurized it would be nice.

I also question the use of english in your scene with only one (1) italian word.

1) more refs of rome, pick a specific location, then futurise it.
2) more italian. The odd english word is fine here and there, but "down town"/centro is no something you'd see in rome.
3) cars. motorcycles. vehicles. don't care if its 2240, those need to be present.
4) pizzeria/ristaurante, bar, cafe, gelateria, basic stuff you'd find on any second street/corner

In short, it doesn't feel like rome. Yes, i know this, i've lived there for 7 years.

Still, your environment is intereting, clearly placed in deus ex:HR, good lighting, and so forth, but i can't say it specifically looks like rome.

Scampbell · Oct 2011

So here is the original ref that i have sorry i didn't post before.
Razgriz thanks. ill post them here is just a minuet just getting them sorted and ready.

Re.wind- thanks man here is the ref of the street. ill make sure to get some more ref of signs and things of that nature. getting a scooter in there is high on my list. thanks

Scampbell · Oct 2011

Hey So just wanted to show the sidewalk stone texture.
i sculpted it in zbrush to get the four original blocks then got my normal and AO in Zbrush. Went over to Photoshop to do the rest of the work. feel free to crit on anything you see art, presentation anything. or if you have any questions please ask

paradise.engineering · Oct 2011

awesome idea! good luck with it, looking forward to seeing progress

Blaisoid · Oct 2011

nice, i love the kind of cyberpunk that mixes old architecture with sci fi.

zoombapup · Oct 2011

It feels to me like there is too much noise overall in the texturing. Like the overall frequency of noise is too uniform. All of the textures have noise on them it seems and it detracts from the overall scene for me. I know you havent done a proper lighting pass yet. But look at any good game level and you'll find that they try and pick out high contrast areas to draw your attention. With your scene, I dont feel like anything has a higher contrast. Everything is drowned out by noise and dirt.

It might be interesting to place some non-noisy "futuristic" peices and make those accents and highlights in the level.

What kind of feel do you want? It looks from the dirt that you want a sort of bladerunner feel, but then you have added the Deus Ex references. In that case, try and look at some deus ex levels and the lighting/constrast in those. I've noticed they use a warm yellow in many scenes to allow a white+yellow highlight texture to work as "futuristic".

Maybe do a light pass and try some different moods first before you look more at textures etc.

Minos · Oct 2011

Looks pretty cool, I like the textures! The lighting looks very flat though, you could definitely give it a bit more love. The problem why this scene looks so game'ish and a bit old school is that the ambient light is black. That never happens in real life. You could either try a subtle blue or a subtle purple.. anything but black really.

I looked for a few refs for you:

Minos · Oct 2011

Here I made a quick paintover, it's real rough but I think you can get the message. You really need a subtle fog to add a sense of depth and atmosphere too. Hope it helps

Download psd

Scampbell · Oct 2011

Hey here is an update tweaked the lighting and added in some fog and also put so reflection with puddles on the ground using mesh paint. i did have the ground level much more yellow before but i decided to turn in down just a little, let me know what you guys think of the new lighting so far. thank you

Minos · Oct 2011

Hey man that looks a ton better!

I'd make the neon signs brighter though, they don't look very "lit" as of now.

Some trash (decals) on the street could also make things more interesting.

Keep up the good work!

yubbie · Oct 2011

it looks great but it doesn't make me think of Rome. I appreciate you based it off some real reference of Rome but the reference you choose could be in almost any European City. When people think of Rome they think of Roman Ruins, St Peters and other monumental and ancient structures that the city is very famous for. I think if you are going to call this Rome you should put something more uniquely Roman into it. Maybe a couple of ruined columns or the Dome of a large church poking over the back or something.

Also as you mentioned the words "futurist" it reminded me of a very famous Italian architect called Sant Elia who never actually built anything but produced a number of famous concept pieces for for "futurist architecture movement" that have been massivily infuential in western archiecture. Although he was designing buildings before WW1 his stuff looks very very futuristic and cool and making some reference to him would be cool. Just an idea

Scampbell · Oct 2011

Thanks man ya i need to go back and fix the emissive map on those two signs they will look much better.
working on some more decals for all over. thanks for all the help man.

dii · Oct 2011

I agree with Minotaur, your lights don't seem to have much luminance. Especially on the buildings in the background, as background lights tend to appear the brightest.

In general I think your scene has too much blue/white light in it to look natural. Not to go too much into detail but almost all public lighting is done via sodium vapor bulbs which give off a yellow-to-red color. They do this because that's in the light range that the human eye is most sensitive to so it makes them the most cost-efficient choice (meaning don't expect it to go away in the future)

That's why if you look at any of the city photos in this thread, all of the images are in the yellow/orange color range.

Harder to control but I also don't think theres enough light reflections in your water.

Scampbell · Oct 2011

right on, thanks guys ya i did have it much more yellow on street level but it just felt too much. ill go back and reset it try to get it too look good and ill post that back when i get it done. as far as the light reflections on the ground it is hard to do because im still running DX9 and cant get that perfect, but i hope in the next month i will have my DX11 Card and be able to pull off the accurate reflections because as of now its just a cubemap and therefor its not correct. thanks guys.

Bruno Afonseca · Oct 2011

Looking good! But the first picture screams perfect dark to me. The assets are good, textures are a bit muddier than I'd like, but it's okay. Worst offender is the lighting. Last screen shows a big improvement, but to me it seems that you have too many light sources but none of them are a main light. So, the scene lacks a focus, there isn't anything guiding my eyes.
Keep pushing it!

Dimfist · Oct 2011

great idea! I'd figure out what my light source is for the lamps because they don't look like sodium or halogen. Sodium is a bit more orange yellow color and of course halogens have a blue tint to them.

dii · Oct 2011

right on, thanks guys ya i did have it much more yellow on street level but it just felt too much.

Your scene needs more colored light either way, because right now most of your light looks white. The actual color is a stylistic choice mostly, I'm just not a big fan of the "you know it's the future because it's blue and desaturated" look... Plus it would make more sense to have blue/white light if your lights were actually blue/white but almost all your foreground lightsources are yellow/red so if that's the route you want to go you're better off lighting it correctly then color correcting in post to get the hue you want.

This is what I had in mind (which is pretty similar to Mino's)

Same image but color balanced blue:

Scampbell · Oct 2011

Thanks for all the comments guys hoping to have some more time tonight to work. and hopefully will have a update later. Oh and thanks for the quick paint-overs always nice.

ysalex · Oct 2011

Hey, looks like you put a lot of work into this. It shows, and it's looking good. You might want to give us more angles of what you have, and some close-ups of the individual elements, so that we can give you better feedback.

Personally, I think it always helps to have some variation. It took me a couple extra seconds to see the quality here because everything is very gray. Add some variable lighting, give us a sense of depth, vary up the colors and maybe something to focus on.

Keep it up.

Future Rome Environment

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