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Monthly Noob Challenge 4

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AlexCatMasterSupreme interpolator
Welcome to the Monthly Noob Challenge 4!


iwShXT7.jpg

Our Friend Tejay has supplied us with a concept that received more votes than any contest thus far. (Not her concept she just picked it)

RULES:

Please read all the rules.

This may seem like it's pretty complicated, and if you are starting out it can be overwhelming, so take it piece by piece. This can be broken down into a segments. Think about what will be unique, what will be tiled, what kinda textures you'll need to make, just plan before you go. Set your standards high for your work, do your best.

PLEASE look at the ref, and work hard to get the blockout right. Take your time before you dive into it and plan, this will make your life easier.

All that matters is that you learn and give and get advice and are willing to be critiqued.



So here are the specific rules:

Must make your own textures, no stealing, we can't keep you from it, but the goal is to learn, even tileables, I mean you can take someone else's image and make it tileable, that's fine.

You must use a game engine OBVIOUSLY. UDK or Cryengine will probably be the most used.

You must try your best and finish as much as you can in this month.

Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique and we don't have 1000 disjointed threads littering the forums.

Well that's about it, if you think the rules should be changed let us know.

I would strongly encourage you to go and look at other games and see how they make their assets as well as get concept art to give it your own feel, but it must stay very close to the concept, if not super close.

Please stay away from Ddo, yeah, it's great if you know what you're doing, and for a production pipeline supplement, but other than that, please don't use it. Ndo2 is allowed.

Have fun!

PS: I am extremely familiar with Cryengine and can answer probably any question you happen to have when using it. Furthermore ask anything to anyone here, combined there is a wealth of knowledge.

PSSSS:
OPEN TO EVERYONE!


GOOD LUCK

Last month's thread

Replies

  • tkfxity
  • uberphoenix
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    uberphoenix polycounter lvl 8
    it's a shame so many good concepts were shown by people so close to the deadline of the previous challenge as some of them were better, oh well.

    Before I start, I'd just like to say that this will be my first actual game environment, I've made environments before but not for a game engine so all this modular business etc is new to me.

    Is there any particular way I should set up my scene in max before I start blocking this out? as I'd hate to import it into UDK to find that its too big :s

    p.s Good luck to everyone entering this month! let us all do our best and work together :)
  • AlexCatMasterSupreme
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    AlexCatMasterSupreme interpolator
    it's a shame so many good concepts were shown by people so close to the deadline of the previous challenge as some of them were better, oh well.

    Before I start, I'd just like to say that this will be my first actual game environment, I've made environments before but not for a game engine so all this modular business etc is new to me.

    Is there any particular way I should set up my scene in max before I start blocking this out? as I'd hate to import it into UDK to find that its too big :s

    p.s Good luck to everyone entering this month! let us all do our best and work together :)

    Look up getting your scale correct, also I would highly recommend doing as I said, plan. Look at that scene and look at how much of it is modular, and can be reused. Think about adding dirt later with decals and such to make the modular parts seem unique, just study the previous thread. In all honesty they are similar scenes, they are assembled similarly.

    Just do your best, and post what you do when you dont know if it's right, or ask people. Go into the polycount Google plus hangouts too if you want some more instant crit and advice, they can be really helpful at times.

    And technically I posted first SO HA.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    What's the point of the silly Ddo rule? A tool is a tool, it's not going to magically make anyone's scene better. Plus it's pretty new and people should take advantage of opportunities to learn new software when they can.

    @uberphoenix yeah there were some more impressive concepts, but this one is much simplier, easier to complete in a month, and has a really nice mood, lighting, and materials. A lot of the concepts were simply to "big" to be a realistic challenge. I hope next week's concept is completely different but I am excited for this one.
  • AlexCatMasterSupreme
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    AlexCatMasterSupreme interpolator
    ZacD wrote: »
    What's the point of the silly Ddo rule? A tool is a tool, it's not going to magically make anyone's scene better. Plus it's pretty new and people should take advantage of opportunities to learn new software when they can.

    @uberphoenix yeah there were some more impressive concepts, but this one is much simplier, easier to complete in a month, and has a really nice mood, lighting, and materials. A lot of the concepts were simply to "big" to be a realistic challenge. I hope next week's concept is completely different but I am excited for this one.

    You're not going to be learning the fundamentals of texturing by having a tool make all your base maps for you. Yeah, it's a good tool. But a noob shouldn't start having something like that done for them. I can't stop anyone from using it but it would be nice to not have people use it and instead work on making things good by hand and improve their own workflows.

    Why start using something that every studio wont use and that could be a crutch in the end if you rely on it.

    Just my opinion, nothing against Ddo.

    But that's what I chose. If a large amount of people disagree then I will change it.
  • rockguy
    Yeah , in reality the challenge is with ourselves and this kind of tool will badly cut you from getting better a texture mapping.

    Not a bad tool but no good for learning, just my opinion anyway.
  • Zarakun
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    Zarakun polycounter lvl 7
    Ok great, I'll start it too! I'm kinda excited and a bit nervous at the same time since I know I'm quite far from your level :S But I'll do my best and I hope it will serve me well. We will see in one month if I've learn new tricks or if I should go back to something more easier for me like...plasticine :s

    Good luck to everyone! And sorry in advance for my english...my french is much better I swear! :)
  • Add3r
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    Add3r polycounter lvl 11
    Actually heavily considering contributing to this month's challenge. Need another serious side project. Been neglecting any serious environment work. Awesome concept. This is by far my favorite from the batch, mainly due to the very "do-able" scale of it. A lot of the concepts were great, dont get me wrong, but their scale was just incredibly over done due to the fact that we have a month, and most of us are students and have jobs. Saw the last challenge to late to contribute.

    Wish the best of you luck! Will do irregular updates if I do end up contributing :D (Will probably)

    AS for the dDo argument, I am on the side of being able to use it if you arent just throwing colors down and having it do the rest. It should be used as a compliment, not a one stop solution. dDo is a very big part of a lot of industry professional pipelines (Blizzard and InXile are two that I know first hand more than a select few use it on a majority of their work). This is to give newer artists the experience and practice to get better correct? As well as speed up pipeline work, polish stages, and overall completion of assets for industry specification. My vote is, why not? If it isnt a one stop solution like I said, I would say it is perfectly fine in my mind to use it as a compliment.

    I am not the rules guy, just someone with friends in the industry currently who use it regularly, and voicing my opinion. Do not base your decision on my opinion, rules are rules and I will be abiding by them even if I disagree personally.
  • JimeeB
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    JimeeB polycounter lvl 10
    I really need to get my ass back into gear with modeling. I graduated about 6 months ago and have barely touched a 3D program in that time.

    Looking forward to doing this.
  • rockguy
    To everyone new to UDK

    Allow me to put some links from tutorials that could be useful during your progress

    - From Mr. Christopher Albeluhn web site

    http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/3D_Tutorials.html

    - From Hourences , not technically UDK more of UT3 but theres alot of stuff usefull.

    http://www.hourences.com/tutorials/

    - How to fix shadows

    http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/udk/udk-lightmaps-03-how-to-fix-light-shadow-lightmap-bleeds-and-seams.php

    Hope its usefull to everyone just starting UDK.

    GOOD LUCK.
  • Steen
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    Steen polycounter lvl 16
    Good udk links rockguy. I get a lot of use out of the environment section of the polycout wiki. It may seem like an obvious place to go, but if you truly are new to the forum you might not know about it. It is super useful.

    http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironment
  • rockguy
    BUT OF COURSE! good sir, I just imagine they were already aware of the wikis in the website my apologies.

    Come to think of it, you can check in the main epic website for UDK although is a bit obvious.

    http://udn.epicgames.com/Main/WebHome.html
  • Moonshank
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    Moonshank polycounter lvl 7
    Just chiming in to sub to this thread.

    On the Ddo argument "different strokes for different folks"

    I can say I won't be using it on this scene but if someone wants to and can achieve a good result with it then *shrug* you could argue that people should learn to bake out everything and never use programs like Ndo2 or crazy bump and use maya or 3dsmax to bake out AO maps vs xNormal. Everyone has preferences to what they use and limiting people to not using something like Ddo reduces people creative freedom I guess. If they come up with a cool way of using Ddo through this then :D
  • Vault Dweller
    What are you guys strategies or tactics to get scale correct? I find it incredibly challenging to just eye it, I need proper dimensions, blueprints, and all that. Probably because I'm a programmer, not an artist... But I thought I'd give this one a go to learn, diversify.
  • Snader
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    Snader polycounter lvl 15
    Ooh. I like this concept a lot and will be joining in since I've strongly considered making it previously. This seems like a good moment.

    Also, because I had planned to do some more contests this year but haven't figured out a nice way to set them up, I will be giving 3 games (trine and trine 1+2) away to people who join in. I don't exactly know how yet, but I'm thinking for originality/style and for technical qualities.
  • Zarakun
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    Zarakun polycounter lvl 7
    Thank you for the tutorial links, it should be really helpful to start with. :)
  • rockguy
    Vault Dweller :Mmm depends on the engine , for example in UDK you can see the measures in bottom right corner, is also a good a idea to have an actor or model that comes from the engine, again in UDK we usually have an exported models from the game wich is already scaled , just compare the model with your props.

    Posted some links above witch also say how to scaled right your objects.

    Hope it helps .
  • rockguy
    Zarakun: You are welcomed good sir , also you should listen too Steen and check the wikis in the forum.

    Good luck.
  • Moonshank
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    Moonshank polycounter lvl 7
    @ Vault Dweller I would suggest finding the Vanishing Point's and create a grid for the ground that way you can also figure out how you might want to make things modular. I've not really broken it down yet but It can help.
  • StormHertz
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    StormHertz polycounter lvl 8
    I really need practice with modeling, texturing, and working with UDK.

    I've done a quick paintover of what I think I'm going to split this whole thing into. It's probably not split well enough to consider modular pieces, but I'll figure it out tomorrow when I start. I plan on dealing with dirt, grime, vines in cracks, and etc. through some Vertex Painting.

    This is gonna be fun to balance with school work.

    3TLopE6.jpg
  • Steen
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    Steen polycounter lvl 16
    Vault Dweller, for units I think I'm going to take cues from the step height. Also maybe the door. I feel like I read somewhere that 128 unreal units was the standard height for a door. That can really vary based on the game you are talking about, but I think it could be a place to start. I also know that the example robot in udk is 96 units tall.

    It's all really about giving a number to something in the illustration and extrapolating from there.
  • rockguy
    If you have UDK you can go to the editor browser look for an actor and export it as an OBJ.
  • Vault Dweller
    I'll do that. Thanks for tips :)
    I think I also messed up a bit with the FOV, obviously the camera in UDK has a different FOV from my modeling environment, so that threw me a bit off I think, going to set that to the same. What is the default UDK FOV?

    EDIT: It's 65

    I put Modo to metric units and it turns out 1cm is 1 game unit in UDK.
  • Brandon Kern
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    Brandon Kern polycounter lvl 11
    rockguy wrote: »
    To everyone new to UDK

    Allow me to put some links from tutorials that could be useful during your progress

    - From Mr. Christopher Albeluhn web site

    http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/3D_Tutorials.html

    - From Hourences , not technically UDK more of UT3 but theres alot of stuff usefull.

    http://www.hourences.com/tutorials/

    - How to fix shadows

    http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/udk/udk-lightmaps-03-how-to-fix-light-shadow-lightmap-bleeds-and-seams.php

    Hope its usefull to everyone just starting UDK.

    GOOD LUCK.


    Thanks for these, although Im thinking of using Cry Engine, tutorials and websites like these are always an awesome resource.

    I'll be posting my blockout soon...
  • rockguy
    Noo problem and as Steen said you can always check the wikis in the forum , I'm sure that theres Cryengine tutorials
  • Tejay
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    Tejay polycounter lvl 8

    Our Friend Tejay has supplied us with a concept that received more votes than any contest thus far.

    UH might want to phrase that better. I didn't make the concept in anyway. Just found it. The original artist is Adam Baines. But thanks for the folio plug.
  • Steen
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    Steen polycounter lvl 16
    Here's my breakdown of the basic scene elements. I wish there was more detail on those statues near the door. I'm not quite sure what's going on there. Anybody have any clues about what type of architecture this was inspired by?

    breakdown.jpg
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    To me the door statues looks like a torse or people sitting on their butts with their knees and legs in front of them. They look hooded as well.
  • StormHertz
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    StormHertz polycounter lvl 8
    Steen wrote: »
    Here's my breakdown of the basic scene elements. I wish there was more detail on those statues near the door. I'm not quite sure what's going on there. Anybody have any clues about what type of architecture this was inspired by?

    breakdown.jpg

    Thanks for putting my breakdown paintover to shame!

    But yeah, I personally think those statues are torso+head sculptures, elongated for height. The door gives a very slight Buddhist or Hindu temple feel, however, that feel is negated by a few things in the room. I'd think ancient Indian architecture had something to do with this.

    The white hooded figure in the center also gives an Assassin's Creed feel to it, and it makes me want to think it's some sort of Assassin's Cove or Hideout.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    You can always replace the statues and detailing with whatever, you could easily make it Buddhist, Hindu, Greek, Chineese, or Egyption.
  • OtrickP
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    OtrickP polycounter lvl 9
    Cool, my excuse to get better @ UDK. Good luck guys!
  • tkfxity
    Started my scene blockout, then went straight into creating a modular piece for the brick. Using the "clean" stone for now, then going to create two version of broken stone to replace the "clean" stone in certain parts so its not all the same.

    Also came up with an idea to have the part of the wall not seen in the concept have a cave entrance thing. Kind of how in the movies, the actors find underground ancient rooms.

    9437Capture.JPG

    71051.JPG
  • RobeOmega
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    RobeOmega polycounter lvl 10
  • RobeOmega
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    RobeOmega polycounter lvl 10
    DARN YOU FIRST PLACE WAS MINE!
    DARN YOU PHOTOBUCKET FOR TAKING SO LONG!
  • mootybog
    So you guys model it completely in UDK

    or do you use 3ds max/etc then import it?
  • tkfxity
    @mootybog - I blockout my scene in UDK, then start contructing components for the blockout.


    You can export the blockout of your scene from UDK by, going to brush wireframe, selecting all correspoding BSP brushes, right clicking a brush and hitting convert to static mesh. Then just export your static mesh of the blockout as a .obj from the content browser, then import into max/3ds ect as a obj file.


    @Robeomega - :D UNTIL NEXT MONTH!


    I for one suck at sculpting anything that resembles a human, so those statues are probably going to be the biggest thing im going to be working on to make it look any good. Unless I come up with a better idea rather then the statues.
  • mootybog
    Fair enough, I know pretty much nothing about UDK

    Ive been using 3ds max for just over a year though
  • tkfxity
    @mootybog - sorry forgot to add, I only do the blockout in UDK in terms of content creation wise, all my models are imported from Blender. In your case you would import them from 3DS. I just noticed my answer didnt completely answer your question. :D
  • Chase
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    Chase polycounter lvl 9
    Noob Photoshop question but when you guys are planning what elements will be unique, modular, etc how do you go about overlaying the colors in the concept? Sometimes I find it easier to convert my image into having a sketch look and apply the colors that way. In doing this I can't make selections since everything's white so it makes coloring filling a b.......Looking at last months challenge, this is the planning I'm trying to get.
    colorblockout01zpseafff.jpg
  • RogelioD
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    RogelioD polycounter lvl 12
    I think I'm going to join in on the fun this month. I've been in crunch-time at work for months now and just don't have the time to design anything for a side project at the moment. However, I have been CRAVING a project to work on, and this challenge is just what I needed! It shall provide me the motivation to work after work without the hasell of having to design something on my own, for now.

    I have a feeling I'm going to rock this, hard. and dare I say- this is gonna be a ton of fun!

    Good luck to all!

    -rad
  • Brandon Kern
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    Brandon Kern polycounter lvl 11
    1VKr7

    Here are some views of my interpretation of the unseen areas:
    1VKxj
    1VKwC


    Here is my half-done blockout. I got a little carried away with that door, but maybe I'll use it as my basemesh for zbrush after giving it some tweaks ahha.
    Damn you guys for rushing me, I wanted to be the first one to show my block out :P
  • MisterSande
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    MisterSande polycounter lvl 8
    holy crap you guys are fast =P just woke up xD

    Anyway, does someone have measurements layed out correctly in a modular power of 2 fashion ? played around fast in 3DSMax but im not getting the right feel yet in scale. How correctly should we stick to the concept regarding this ?

    blockout01.jpg
  • tkfxity
    Alright off to bed! Think I accomplished my goals for tonight.

    7534Capture.JPG
  • McGreed
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    McGreed polycounter lvl 15
    And if you have issues with getting the scaling correctly from the concept, and is using 3DS Max, benji wrote about a script which can help you get the right camera and setup:

    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1764266&postcount=28

    I used it myself, and its really good, made it so much easier to get the blockout done. Of course, the scaling might look different when you get it into UDK, but at least you get the proper scale while inside 3DS Max.
  • Mathew O
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    Mathew O polycounter
    You guys are soo fast! They're all looking awesome already :D

    For the colour overlay trick I find it easy to make the concept black and white, paint the section on a layer above it with softlight on and keep all the sections separate so that it's easy to adjust layers. Sorry if this is too vague :P
  • Vondur
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    Vondur polycounter lvl 4
    first blockout. still not sure what to do with the unseen part of the concept. some things still look weird there, like those vertical pipes/columns things. it looks like some metallic supports for the old structure so it doesn't collapse, but i'm not sure. will apply certain functions to them maybe.

    take1.jpg
  • mootybog
    Done...

    Loljks I r noob

    1tt couple of hours

    image.jpg
  • Tejay
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    Tejay polycounter lvl 8
    Man who the hell picked this concept. The structure is horrible. The pillar placement is stupid! It makes no structural sense!
  • mootybog
    Lol yeah I thought the pillar on the right was on some sort of a box but I dont think it is... I think its just warped perspective
  • mootybog
    I dont think so, I think its all one flat plane its just a different texture

    Its hurting my brain
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