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Interior Tavern Environment WIP

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DeepSpaceBanana polycounter
Hey guys. This is my first post here at Polycount.

1.)This is my first real environment that i've been working. I decided to keep it simple and try to create a small cozy tavern environment The main objective of this little project is to find a good workflow that suits me. I've already got a whole list of things that i've learned from this project that i can apply to future projects.

2.) There's a whole bunch of things that i haven't done right in here and most of the assets aren't textured yet or only have flat Base color at the moment. There's also still a few more props that i need to make to add more detail to the environment

3.) Anyway any crits and feedback are welcome.

Replies

  • CloDevious
    So I got a few questions for you before I go into it, so if I pick something apart that you already know has the issue of what have you just ignore that.
    • What's your exact skill level, are you in industry or student?
    • What modeling tools are you using Maya, Max etc?
    • What are you using for texturing and generating normal maps?

    So first off I would love to see some untextured shots of the models with their wire frames. This would really help me gauge where there are issues and areas that could be improved in the poly flow and optimization department.:)

    As for the textures so far they look way to clean even for a tavern. The reason I asked about normal maps is because there are a million ways to create them. Generation from textures, which make meh to ok normal maps. The best For the best quality from normal maps it's going to be coming from a high poly model. High to low bake in Maya, Max or Zbrush, not sure if your familiar with Zbrush at all but its an amazing tool.

    I can't really tell if you have normal maps right now, it kind of looks like it on the back wall. Not sure about the floor or table, now there are ways to get normals to pop more from a texture. Not sure if you have seen this little tutorial before but this is a little trick to pull more detail from photo normals.
    http://www.cgtextures.com/content.php?action=tutorial&name=normalmap

    But keep up the work and toss up some wireframes so I can see how the polys are flowing.

    -Clo :poly124:
  • DeepSpaceBanana
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    DeepSpaceBanana polycounter
    Hey Clo thank you for your feedback :). To answer your questions.

    Im currently a 3rd year student. My workflow has been using 3DS Max, Zbrush and xnormal to bake. I've been making base meshes in Max and exporting it out to Zbrush to add Detail.

    I havn't really started texturing the scene yet, the assets atm just have a flat colors blocked out and an AO, Cavity and baked normals appied to them.

    Any input on how i should approach texturing these as well as getting my normal maps to pop more would be greatlly appreciated :poly124:

    here are some quick wireframe grabs, sorry abt the crappy quality.:poly124:
  • Choppz
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    Choppz polycounter lvl 3
    Hey there tzydpro!

    On your textures, especially the wood, you are using too much black, you should really try to avoid this because it doesn't read well. For the wood you want to be using a dark brown color to represent depth. Also it'll be great if you could upload some Diffuse files, I'm not entirely sure but the wood texture seems quite flat, but the grain in the wood is created from normals? (I am probably wrong)

    Also if your using Z-Brush you should check out height maps. I'm a complete novice with Z-Brush, but my friend has started to experiment with them and hes getting some good results, check out his thread: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=129599.

    But overall I like the scene, its got some character to it. Keep up the good work!
  • CloDevious
    Ok, so with the bricks on the walls I am guessing are a texture atm?

    Best way to approach them would be to sculpt a few bricks in Zbrush. Lets say 3 or 4 bricks and make each side different so you pretty much tipple the usage out of them. Then you can use the 2.5D mode in Zbrush to create a tiled texture. Bake out you spec, normal, diff, height, cavity etc etc. Here are a few good vid links on this method for creating these textures. I use this method all the time when I need to make bricks. Then the beauty of this is you can then use that height map as a brush later on and stamp that into other sculpts!

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SMlvDr_-3E"]Create tileable stone brick texture in Zbrush - YouTube[/ame]
    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNgs2DcAsF4"]ZBrush Tileable Textures 01 - 2.5D Workflow - YouTube[/ame]

    Also here is a link to my dropbox I have quite a few brushes saved in here that I have collected. A lot of them actually came from posts people have made here on polycount in the past. I just can't exactly remember where so I take no credit for the brushes but they are great.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/qk1kgdp0heu2dm5/HardSurfaceBrushes.zip
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/nmb70bafiun35dg/Orb_Cracks.ZBP
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/7auywj3b6fhff5y/Custom%20Brushes.zip

    On the note of sculpting the bricks the Orb_Cracks makes amazing crack lines, although you really need a tablet to be able to use it right or it just looks bad. It also does great for making cracks in wood.

    In the hard surface zip there is a brush called Trim Dynamic it's a life saver for smacking down hard edges and making nice angled sculpting. It's very similar to a polish brush just a bit stronger. It makes great rocky surfaces is what I am trying to say....

    The custom brushes zip is just a mass dump of brushes that came off a post on here a few months back its great! I have not even gone through all of the brushes in there.

    But the main reason why I suggest taking a tiled texture sculpt method is your scene is pretty small and you have a lot covering the walls so you can hide tiling pretty easy. The other advantage is it will give you a higher texture fidelity, when you get up close. Where a 1to1 unwrap of all the sections might lead to muddy walls depending on texture size. But you should be able to get away with a tiled 512 or 1024 without any problems.
  • DeepSpaceBanana
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    DeepSpaceBanana polycounter
    Hey Clo

    1.) Thanks for all the input. Its funny those tutorials are the ones i used to make the tileable plank texture for the floors. though i was lazy and only made 2 variations. I only got AO, Cavity and normals from thst. I was considering making the spec after i make the diffuse.

    2.)Also, thanks a lot for those brushes..they are definitely gonna come in handy.

    3.) Atm, the wall stones were just sculpted from alphas but definitely in a future update ill be sure to switch them out for sculpted tileable textures.
  • DeepSpaceBanana
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    DeepSpaceBanana polycounter
    Choppz wrote: »
    Hey there tzydpro!

    On your textures, especially the wood, you are using too much black, you should really try to avoid this because it doesn't read well. For the wood you want to be using a dark brown color to represent depth. Also it'll be great if you could upload some Diffuse files, I'm not entirely sure but the wood texture seems quite flat, but the grain in the wood is created from normals? (I am probably wrong)

    Also if your using Z-Brush you should check out height maps. I'm a complete novice with Z-Brush, but my friend has started to experiment with them and hes getting some good results, check out his thread: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=129599.

    But overall I like the scene, its got some character to it. Keep up the good work!

    Hey Choppz.

    Thanks for dropping by to give me some feedback, at the moment the dark lines on the wood in the meshes and floors come from the AO and Cavity map. Do you reckon i should rebake the AO and try to get softer tones or should i just adjust the AO opacity in photoshop to make it appear more soft. The only asset that has been textured in the scene are the walls.
  • gsokol
    Couple things:

    Your overall scale is kinda rough. I think your floorboards look wayyy to big. Compared to other textures/objects in the env, they stick out like a sore thumb. Also, the whole room just feels squashed down. Looks like, if I were to sit on one of those benches, my legs wouldnt fit under the table, and if I stood up my head would be bouncing off the ceiling beams.


    Looks like all of your materials have a glossy spec quality to them. The stone walls look like they are wet when they react with light, for instance.

    As it is right now, I don't really see any sort of focal point. It kinda makes the room uninteresting. It would be good to try to come up with a focal point, or something to give the env a little story.
  • Tobbo
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    Tobbo polycounter lvl 11
    I'd like to echo what gsokol has said.

    Also, next time try and do a simple block out of your scene before you start going to town churning out assets. Feel free to drop a character in there as a guide to help really get the scale down. As you are working always pay attention to scale on both the objects and the textures.

    Don't forget to use plenty of reference. There should be very little guess work. Also don't neglect blocking out and planning in the beginning, it will really make things easier and better in the long run.

    Feel free to check out www.worldofleveldesign.com
    There's some good tutorials and ideas about planning in there.
  • DeepSpaceBanana
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    DeepSpaceBanana polycounter
    gsokol , tobbo.

    Thank you for stopping by to give me some input.

    wow.. all the things you guys just mentioned are so blatantly obvious and yet i didn't realize it till you guys mentioned it:poly102:..thank you.

    1.) I was kinda suspecting that the floor tiles were too big, will definitly scale them down.

    2.) I did use a character reference in the scene, yes but you are correct, i did rough out the scale i.e i didnt really count numbers just roughly modelled it beside the character models height.

    3.) Thank you for making me realize the importance of scale! so simple..yet soo easy to miss.

    4.) I havn't started working on the materials yet, its just a really basic material on all of them. But i will start doing some research to get more realistic looking materials.
  • Choppz
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    Choppz polycounter lvl 3
    Hey again

    You could try lowering the opacity in PS for the grain, but I'd say the main thing sticking out is the large black seams between the planks of wood. I'm not sure if you made the texture from scratch, but you could try and edit it to make the seams smaller. But like Gsokol says you could shrink the texture down because in the current form the seams are too broad.

    Also another quick way to add some diversity to your seam is to make subtle changes the hue/saturation of individual planks.
  • Tobbo
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    Tobbo polycounter lvl 11
    I wouldn't say you actually have to be accurate down to the numbers, unless you just want to. I am saying that I think the scale looks off. Finding and using more reference with people in it might help you determine how tall something should be. Then you can compare that with your scene and your character inside of it. Use your character in your scene and the people in your reference images as a measuring tool to determine the scale of everything else.
  • Cibo
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    Cibo polycounter lvl 10
    I resized the picture +40%.

    1. Its was thick now is even thicker, the table is to thick.
    2. The edge is to hard, it looks like your table is clipping in the ground.
    3. Was big, now even bigger.
    4. Black is for shadows not for materials. Look at your fireplace light and you see your problem with the floor. A small black line for a hollow floor can be okay.
    Look at this

    http://www.philipk.net/tutorials/materials/woodrough/woodrough.html

    5. Its hard to believe that the floor, the tables and the pillars are all the same wood. The abrasion is total different. Maybe change the Color slighty to make a difference.

    Real Life measurements are no big help. Use your room as reference. Build it 1:1 in UDK and you see its too small. Its all a matter of tradeoffs for a overall good look. My personal reference is +33-40% for the ceiling and +50% minimum for the length.

    f715.jpg
  • DeepSpaceBanana
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    DeepSpaceBanana polycounter
    Thanks for all the input guys. I really appreciate you guys taking time out to analyze my work and give good structured feedback. School is gonna start this week so i may start getting busy with that, but ill be sure to work on this in my free time and make improvements to this project.
  • CloDevious
    Maybe try to play with some stone on the floor instead of wood. Another thing to try would maybe be part wood and part stone on the floor, just needs something to break up the wood so much wood.

    Not sure how you feel about this but maybe a window on the left wall centered above those tables. That way you could pull in some more light for an outside source.
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