Three9's WIP thread

[SF]Three9 · Jan 2012

Hey guys

So Sky Parlor Studios is beginning work on a new project that we'll hopefully complete soon. Since it's a start up company and everyone is just out of college except our producer, a lot of final decisions goes through him obviously. This project, however, is the first one where as lead artist, I'll be completely responsible for art style. I'm a little nervous especially since we are a start up company trying to make money, but I think I'm heading us in a good direction

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I've tasked the art team (3 people myself included) with using a painterly style with this project. We really want to emphasize color usage and get a vibrant, but not clashing final look. Here's what Dick and CJ came up with so far in pre-pro for concepts

The game is going to be a re-theme of one of our current games called Fire and Dice (If you wanna check it out in the app store for either iOS or Android, it's free!). We want to make the game feel like it makes more sense and could have a story. With that, we came up with the idea of placing it in a medieval setting with dragons attacking (Skyrim amirite?) We all really loved the idea and running with the theme and the style (which seems to be kind of popular right now, so that's even better)

This week we've worked on fleshing out these concepts, and I went through and modeled low poly versions of them. So far we have 3 buildings textured to a good degree, and will get a Windmill and Blacksmith done tomorrow for our pre-production first deadline, here's what we have so far

It's for a mobile environment and needs to be low. Estimating about 50-60 buildings on screen at one time (estimating for around 9k).

Cottage - 84 tris
Church - 301 tris
Blacksmith - 352 tris
Red Mare - 243 tris

Obviously unique buildings will receive a higher tri count, and generic ones like the cottage are required to be lower

I'm going to try and update this thread with art at least once a week with the exception of another update tomorrow

So what do you think? We would really love some feedback for what you see and if you can offer any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks again guys

Amadreaus · Jan 2012

The main thing I'd be thinking about is clarity. On a mobile game, it's very important that everything is clear and immediately recognizable from silhouette alone. Further support through color is gonna be your next biggest weapon. Right now, it looks like you're thinking along those lines, which is great. Stick with things like brightly colored rooftops, etc. Basic art fundamentals employed will make your job as lead far easier.

[SF]Three9 · Jan 2012

Thanks Amadreaus. All of that is really good stuff, and glad to hear you like it

We have an update tonight and hope you like it

Obviously, some things like the blacksmith aren't complete lol. Tried to make a little scene to show off through renders and on the iPad to make sure things look the way we wanted. This is essentially the look and feel of the game we want to achieve in a very small setting (Obviously it's WIP and concept stage though). I'm really happy with everything the team did this week and can't wait to see it taken further

I did the church and ground, and started the roof tiles on the blacksmith
Dick did the cottage and started the windmill
and CJ did the Red Mare (green roof) and started the blacksmith aside from the roof.

I'd really love to get some feedback and see what you guys think

Amadreaus · Jan 2012

Nice, it looks like a solid first pass. I'd really get in there and focus on hand painting, though. Right now it looks like you have an AO bake, and then straight color applied on top of that. If you're limited to diffuse only, this desperately needs faked lighting in the texture work in order to make it sing. If you have spec as an option, that'd be great too. Just think about where the surfaces pick up light.

Also, using flat black in AO, especially for this sort of style, will really flatten out the image. Stick to subtle color in the AO and you'll start seeing some immediate improvement.

[SF]Three9 · Jan 2012

definitely! There actually is no AO bake on this scene at all, all the detail is handpainted and I believe the entire scene was unlit

more detail can still be put into it for sure; I'd like to go back over everything and give it even more highlights and color detail for sure

[SF]Three9 · Jan 2012

Started researching and implementing lightmaps in Unity this weekend. I can't wait to get to work to try this out and see what Pro is capable of

Scene unlit

Scene with lightmaps

So excited for this feature; it'll really enable us to do some nice lighting and get some awesome shadows

Blacksmith texture was also updated a little bit here

Rampage · Jan 2012

Whoa. those are pretty sick. Some of the best low-poly work I've seen in a while.

Looking forward to seeing more from you, mister.

Three9's WIP thread

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