Finished up the first pass on this side of the room. Going to move onto the other side and try to give it some context. I'll either make it an observation deck looking over the maintenance bay or an elevator leading up to the upper floor where the mechs are being armed for battle.
That little monitor to the left is temp. He's just there to remind me to put a new one there
It looks like i'm on schedule to having the actual environment done by the end of next week, then i'll be starting on designing the mech and the 2 or 3 other props left to make.
Its just great i love it very much, i really like darker scene but in this case u could brighter it up too see more of those great models, great job bud
Update! Finished one side of the room and now moving onto the ground on the opposite end. Finished up the fuel cells and the entrance.
Can't wait to start putting in the smaller details! That's the fun part for me, and when the story part starts to come in. I really love adding little story elements like removed panels for maintenance or a "caution" zone where one of the doors are malfunctioning.
Calling this side done. All that's left on the whole scene now is the mech, the mechs base and the repair arms that come down from the ceiling. After that I'll do the fun stuff, decals, props and story pieces!
PhoenixWolf: Haha yeah. My motivation is fueled by fear
Here are some decal passes. I'm not crazy about the top decal by the fuel cell, so i'll probably think of a better design for it. I also just realized cell is spelled with two L's, not one 0_0 I'll fix that tomorrow hah.
Also did a quick concept for some crates! I'll have this placed around the scene, I'm going to probably put a mesh tarp or just a solid tarp over some of them to give some organic elements to an otherwise all hard surface environment.
Next up I'll go through and make my story elements and specific details like hanging cords that gather at the bottom, caution cones, removed panels...etc.
I'm loving this environment. You're working at an insane speed too. What I particularly like about this is that you've captured the sci-fi style without dumbing down your details. Way too many portfolios have sci-fi assets that are just boring and covered by flat colours to give it that 'sterile' feel we're all way too familiar with.
The amount of detail you put into this scene really shines. Keep it up!
Finished up the crates, added some exposed cables, adjusted some of the decals, and added caution cones for the out of service door.
I'm going to work on making one more trim texture set to help break up the ground alittle better. Thinking of that yellow/black caution stripe as well as some different paneling, galvanized metal, and that riveted floor grating.
I really should start modeling the damn mech haha. I have some ideas but can't seem to get them down on paper. So i might just do the concept as i model thing.
I was also feeling alittle ambitious friday night and drew up a mechanic that i might...MIIIIIGHT model for this scene and duplicate him over in different poses doing various things. But i dont want to distract from the enviro so who knows. If I make a mechanic he'll be made after this environment.
Really awesome progress and so much potential in this scene! My only crit would be, that you need to start adding some cubemaps, or adding real time reflections in there.
At the moment, the materials read a bit like concrete. If you push the reflections and add some gloss maps to control the roughness of the surface, you could make this scene look truly next gen
teaandcigarettes: Thanks! Yeah I need to do that soon before i forget ha. This new texture set has a reflection cube map applied to it so hopefully you can tell with the ground grating.
I made a new trim texture set to give some variation to the ground and such. Up until this point the whole scene apart from the monitor has been one trim texture set.
I also kitbashed a new monitor out of the first one. Reusing my material for more than just one asset. The door on the left is still WIP. Going to figure that one out more tomorrow.
Started concepting and blocking out the mech. Going to start him next week. Also adding a shot of the blockout in game for some context. Putting them in really starts bringing the scene together.
All i have to do is finish the mech, the mechanical maintenance arm and then the base that they move on.
Fleshed out the underside of the mech abit today. Moving on to finishing up the tileable textures and material definition of the first tileable textures.
Man this is awesome, you are just knocking out work left and right. The underside of the mech is crazy. On your post about not using a cage how then do you capture the detail of your floaters? I was under the impression that you needed a cage if you had floaters.
Sorry guys! From working on this I might have grabbed the attention of the HAWKEN team and moved up to LA to work for them. So it's been a CRAZY couple of months! I just got all settled in and have been working there for about 3 weeks. I'm going to start this guy back up and finish him very very soon!
Thanks for the love guys
KennyTiesI like to not use the cage for baking down geometry especially floaters as it usually creates warping in the bake. I turn the cage off. By doing this you're basically telling Max to bake using the normals on the lowpoly and gives for a much more accurate bake.
Insane amount of detail in this It's quite inspiring. I hope I'll be able to reach your level eventually. Congratulations for joining up with the HAWKEN team
Hello,
I'm new to 3d cg, and I'm little confused.
First of all I want to tell You that Your work is awesome, so awesome that I created account here to tell You that
secondly you are pro, and I want to ask you which software should I choose for start to learn. Maya and 3ds max looks like they have very simmilar stuff.
So that's why I'm confused, and learning two of them at same time could be even more confusing so that's why I'm asking professional man which one should I choose
What's the difference between them? Newbe like me can't see it, but You should see it.
last question. Which one you preffer more ? because I get that you use both right?
So I had been debating on finishing this project after all of the incredible games/art I saw at E3 and decided to complete it regardless. I think the overall workflow of using one tileable texture sheet is a good exercise, but the quality of this piece is pretty low IMO. It is however really important to me that I finish it before moving onto the next project.
So I'm going to be dedicating all of my freetime on this project again until it's finished. Going to try to have it finished up in the next couple of months. All I have to do is some lighting tweaks, finish the mech, robot arm, and the maintenance pedestal that the mechs stand on.
Here's the progress on the mech I worked on this weekend.
Ah well thanks SaferDan I really appreciate it! Just with the stuff I saw at E3 the next gen consoles are definitely raising the bar on environment art.
The skills you're showing off here will certainly be transferable into the next-gen, man. It'll just remove a few more of your constraints! Really glad to see you resuming this project and seeing it through to completion. Good luck with it, it's looking great. I'm digging the terminal and mech design. Congrats on the Hawken gig too!
Mech is coming along nicley Wes, but dont constrain yourself to 1 tiling texture. That is actually a terrible thing to do if your trying to improve or make a great looking environment. It might be a fun exercise to do and learn to re-use tiling textures but no environment in current or N64 game days used 1 tiling texture. You should create quite a few more tiling textures and smartly re-use them all over. Art for your portfolio should be the absolutle best quality it can be, the technical merits of the scene are just an added plus after you draw people in with stellar art.
Remember, using tiling textures dosnt mean you use 1 or 2 to make a level, you are still going to need to use a lot of tiling textures when you create a full fledged level over 1 static shot. In a real environment your level will be much larger than the one or two screen shots you are showing here, and in that level you will need quite a lot of different tiling textures to make the whole thing. So you will end up being able to use all those textures in every area so it dosnt feel like you are using 1 texture on everything.
I would say have 5 tiling textures in this area at least. Plus unique assets. Dont limit yourself on portfolio pieces because you think that is what employers will want to see, because if you show off a weak environment but is technically well done they will never get to see the tech behind it as they will pass it over in a second. Be smart with your technical decisions but never let them hurt the art you make.
I love the detail!
I have a question, how do you model all those tiny detail. Is it just geo intersecting each other? And also for the console wireframe. The parts that has circle in them, did you use "hard edge"? Could you explain a bit on how you did that? Cause it looks like you just used "boolean" I was told having more than 5 sided are bad, so not sure if your mesh is all quads. Sometimes when i have faces that are 5 sided or more. I find it doesn't create pinching.
Finished up the highpoly for the mech. Going to move onto the lowpoly.
So after some serious consideration I'm going to go back and hit on alot of the points autocon and others have made about the space. I'm going to redo the lighting, and create a few more tileable textures to give more variation and overall more visual interest to the scene, as well as some more story props like mechanic equipment...etc. I'm going to see this piece to completion until I am completely happy with it before moving on. It's going to be alot of re-uving but is going to be a stronger piece because of it.
I love the detail!
I have a question, how do you model all those tiny detail. Is it just geo intersecting each other? And also for the console wireframe. The parts that has circle in them, did you use "hard edge"? Could you explain a bit on how you did that? Cause it looks like you just used "boolean" I was told having more than 5 sided are bad, so not sure if your mesh is all quads. Sometimes when i have faces that are 5 sided or more. I find it doesn't create pinching.
Sorry, a lot of questions. XD Just really curious
That first question is kind of vague ha. Yeah having intersecting geometry is fine, but it will hurt the quality of the model. I've found that alot of good design, comes with how well each piece runs into the other. If you just have the geometry clip into another piece of geo it looks kind of bad, but if you give it a reason, and model some cool connector or lip it usually adds to the design.
I never use boolean. What you're seeing is what's called "floaters". Floating geometry is geometry created that isn't actually attached to the under geo, to just give more information to the bake and to cut down on modeling time. For example on the mech, the tiny circular pieces on the leg are just cylinders smoothed to give that surface some breakup, without having to actually model cylinders into the geometry itself. They're just floating there right in front of the leg. If that makes sense. It's hard to explain ha.
As far as the 5 sided rule, It's a good rule to follow, but not absolutely necessary. I try to follow it just to avoid any kind of frustration in the future with pinching or strange normals. But the rule is if it looks good smoothed, it'll bake. That's all that really matters.
Replies
Fantastic work btw and awesome high poly.
For MTL hope you like snow
That little monitor to the left is temp. He's just there to remind me to put a new one there
It looks like i'm on schedule to having the actual environment done by the end of next week, then i'll be starting on designing the mech and the 2 or 3 other props left to make.
Can't wait to start putting in the smaller details! That's the fun part for me, and when the story part starts to come in. I really love adding little story elements like removed panels for maintenance or a "caution" zone where one of the doors are malfunctioning.
Here are some decal passes. I'm not crazy about the top decal by the fuel cell, so i'll probably think of a better design for it. I also just realized cell is spelled with two L's, not one 0_0 I'll fix that tomorrow hah.
Also did a quick concept for some crates! I'll have this placed around the scene, I'm going to probably put a mesh tarp or just a solid tarp over some of them to give some organic elements to an otherwise all hard surface environment.
Next up I'll go through and make my story elements and specific details like hanging cords that gather at the bottom, caution cones, removed panels...etc.
one thing i love about this environment is that it reminds me a bit of halo 4 like the labs and corridors.
I'll be brightening it up tonight! Thanks Computron
Try this.
http://www.photofriday.com/calibrate.php
hit F11, and adjust.
Might be something as simple as your gamma,etc.
So i'm getting back to it! I had an opportunity that needed my full attention for a week or so
I MADE A CRATE!
The amount of detail you put into this scene really shines. Keep it up!
I'm going to work on making one more trim texture set to help break up the ground alittle better. Thinking of that yellow/black caution stripe as well as some different paneling, galvanized metal, and that riveted floor grating.
I really should start modeling the damn mech haha. I have some ideas but can't seem to get them down on paper. So i might just do the concept as i model thing.
I was also feeling alittle ambitious friday night and drew up a mechanic that i might...MIIIIIGHT model for this scene and duplicate him over in different poses doing various things. But i dont want to distract from the enviro so who knows. If I make a mechanic he'll be made after this environment.
At the moment, the materials read a bit like concrete. If you push the reflections and add some gloss maps to control the roughness of the surface, you could make this scene look truly next gen
I made a new trim texture set to give some variation to the ground and such. Up until this point the whole scene apart from the monitor has been one trim texture set.
I also kitbashed a new monitor out of the first one. Reusing my material for more than just one asset. The door on the left is still WIP. Going to figure that one out more tomorrow.
nvrm i just read what you did well anyway nice kitbash
Also yeah it looks flat because that's the static mesh viewer. I'll throw it in an actual scene and render it out properly.
All i have to do is finish the mech, the mechanical maintenance arm and then the base that they move on.
Modeling out the mech.
Fleshed out the underside of the mech abit today. Moving on to finishing up the tileable textures and material definition of the first tileable textures.
Thanks for the love guys
KennyTies I like to not use the cage for baking down geometry especially floaters as it usually creates warping in the bake. I turn the cage off. By doing this you're basically telling Max to bake using the normals on the lowpoly and gives for a much more accurate bake.
For things like organics I will use the cage.
Hope that makes sense!
I'm new to 3d cg, and I'm little confused.
First of all I want to tell You that Your work is awesome, so awesome that I created account here to tell You that
secondly you are pro, and I want to ask you which software should I choose for start to learn. Maya and 3ds max looks like they have very simmilar stuff.
So that's why I'm confused, and learning two of them at same time could be even more confusing
What's the difference between them? Newbe like me can't see it, but You should see it.
last question. Which one you preffer more ?
cheers
So I'm going to be dedicating all of my freetime on this project again until it's finished. Going to try to have it finished up in the next couple of months. All I have to do is some lighting tweaks, finish the mech, robot arm, and the maintenance pedestal that the mechs stand on.
Here's the progress on the mech I worked on this weekend.
Remember, using tiling textures dosnt mean you use 1 or 2 to make a level, you are still going to need to use a lot of tiling textures when you create a full fledged level over 1 static shot. In a real environment your level will be much larger than the one or two screen shots you are showing here, and in that level you will need quite a lot of different tiling textures to make the whole thing. So you will end up being able to use all those textures in every area so it dosnt feel like you are using 1 texture on everything.
I would say have 5 tiling textures in this area at least. Plus unique assets. Dont limit yourself on portfolio pieces because you think that is what employers will want to see, because if you show off a weak environment but is technically well done they will never get to see the tech behind it as they will pass it over in a second. Be smart with your technical decisions but never let them hurt the art you make.
I have a question, how do you model all those tiny detail. Is it just geo intersecting each other? And also for the console wireframe. The parts that has circle in them, did you use "hard edge"? Could you explain a bit on how you did that? Cause it looks like you just used "boolean" I was told having more than 5 sided are bad, so not sure if your mesh is all quads. Sometimes when i have faces that are 5 sided or more. I find it doesn't create pinching.
Sorry, a lot of questions. XD Just really curious
So after some serious consideration I'm going to go back and hit on alot of the points autocon and others have made about the space. I'm going to redo the lighting, and create a few more tileable textures to give more variation and overall more visual interest to the scene, as well as some more story props like mechanic equipment...etc. I'm going to see this piece to completion until I am completely happy with it before moving on. It's going to be alot of re-uving but is going to be a stronger piece because of it.
That first question is kind of vague ha. Yeah having intersecting geometry is fine, but it will hurt the quality of the model. I've found that alot of good design, comes with how well each piece runs into the other. If you just have the geometry clip into another piece of geo it looks kind of bad, but if you give it a reason, and model some cool connector or lip it usually adds to the design.
I never use boolean. What you're seeing is what's called "floaters". Floating geometry is geometry created that isn't actually attached to the under geo, to just give more information to the bake and to cut down on modeling time. For example on the mech, the tiny circular pieces on the leg are just cylinders smoothed to give that surface some breakup, without having to actually model cylinders into the geometry itself. They're just floating there right in front of the leg. If that makes sense. It's hard to explain ha.
As far as the 5 sided rule, It's a good rule to follow, but not absolutely necessary. I try to follow it just to avoid any kind of frustration in the future with pinching or strange normals. But the rule is if it looks good smoothed, it'll bake. That's all that really matters.
Hope this helps alittle.