Gentry Farmhouse and Tree (UDK)
polycounter lvl 6
The house is 7792 tris and uses 2048 Maps
The tree has 1024 maps for the trunk (along with a 512 detail map tiled 8 times) and 256 maps for the leaf canopy
pf
The PICS:
The tree has 1024 maps for the trunk (along with a 512 detail map tiled 8 times) and 256 maps for the leaf canopy
pf
The PICS:
Replies
I really want to see the texture for the house. it should not be 1 2048. And it's blurry to me. the house model looks boxy. This might help you with the shape of the building.
http://watermarked.cutcaster.com/cutcaster-photo-100121811-Medieval-Houses-Bar.jpg
The tree and grass look pretty good, also the ground texture.
Thanks a whole lot for your crit! I appreciate it! Are you doing Undead Labs work over at the Seattle campus or at the Bellevue one?
Anyway, the original farmhouse was done about two years ago in a Jason Stokes class when he was still teaching at Seattle Central. In that class, the maps were HEAVILY folded over each other with inverted and overlapping faces and all manner of other tricks to maintain some level of crisp detail with a minimal texture size...
...But my original attempts (back then) to import the models etc, into the the UT3 editor (this was about six months or so before Epic, bless their souls, released the UDK) turned into total garbage and I was just too ignorant back then to understand what the problem was.
It was a knee-jerk reaction to just avoid all the tricks and to not overlap or fold anything over at all...
...but lightmaps are on a separate UV channel so my aversion to texture optimization is dumb and you were totally right to point out that I could almost surely had better results with a smaller texture if i wasn't timid and gutless about getting creative with UV my layout for the regular texture maps while still playing it straight and narrow with the lightmap channel.
The other crit about the house being "boxy" I don't get yet....but I have a thought about that and question that I'd like to ask.
So I looked at your ref that you looked up for me (and thanks, btw) and I noticed three things immediately, like, within the first two seconds of looking at the ref. First, the architectural style is generic 16th century crossbeam northern european, second, the building is a larger tavern/public house style of building and third, the building's plains and lines are "true" meaning that they don't sag or droop...they maintain the structural integrity that they had when the building was new.
It's that third thing that I wanna bring up. To me...no facts, just opinion, your ref looks boxier (sp?) than my house because my house is all saggy and messed up.
Is this a silhouette thing were talking about here? Although I think my house has plenty of bits that stick out and "break the silhouette"...your ref has even more....but your ref is super nice and rigid and perfect where my model is all Fable-style saggy and messed up and old.
So, uhh...I dunno. I want to understand your crit and learn from it if possible or reject it if necessary but if I wind up rejecting it, I don't want to do that before I understand what you're trying to say. Anything less would be disrespectful. By posting, you're trying to help me, the least I can do is pay attention and ask questions.
pf
So I understant what you mean about his reference house looking boxy as well, although it appears you have textured you model and then streched it around to give some sort of curve to the walls. I say this purely on the chimney texture becoming more stretched the futher you go up it.
I have never attempted one of these builds so I can't comment to much on it artistically speaking, however I think they are possibly quite difficult to get right. Its very easy to make bent out of shape wooden timbers, however to make the house look like it isnt going to fall down or impossibly standing up is quite the talent.
Finally, this is a piece that really is done to death. Maybe its the Area-net art test that everyone tries to jump on, but honestly I would be careful about spending loads of time on a piece that unless you create something that is outstanding, you are fighting a losing battle.
There are quite a few things wrong with the rest of the piece that you should be wary of, firstly the clouds also look upside down. To stop the bottom half being show, either make the ground bigger or through in a heightfog in udk so it helps to blend it out. The flowers are to bright in the shade, so thats either a UV lightmap problem, or just lower the brightness of the texture.
Sorry if I came across harsh at all in my post, however I feel it is best when someone posts something that they are given as much advice etc as possible to learn from it. Its obviously up to you if you wish to listen, I maybe completely wrong. However you have my opinion :P.
It's all good sir. I don't think you're being harsh.
And if I did actually think you were being harsh, you already said sorry at the end of your crit so you're covered both ways.
Maybe I'll try and devise my own architectural style for the next environment piece that I do.
The clouds ARE upside down btw. ! I flipped my skydome upside down because I didn't want blackness to be showing at the bottom of the screen caps. LOL You suck for noticing!
hope this helps. I finished a contract with Undeadlabs a few months ago. I'm currently looking for a job. But I'm also helping Jason at Seattle FuturePoly.
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You finished your post with the isolated word "I'm"....Now I'm really damn interested in what you were thinking of saying.
pf