Charlie's Chocolate Factory
Hi everyone!
I'm new to Polycount, but I figured I'd share some work from my third year at uni (Sheffield Hallam). As I'm new to this, please let me know if I've posted this in the wrong place.
The brief was to create a beauty shot image in CryEngine 3 of a game based on an existing non-game media franchise. The obvious choices were action films that could easily be adapted into game worlds, but I fancied a bit of a challenge. Instead, I went with the 1971 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' (a childhood classic) and attempted to build a scene that depicted the factory several years after the events of the film.
Everything in the scene was made from scratch by myself, and the project lasted a few months.
As with all old work, I know that it is riddled with flaws. The project is finished, but I'd really like some constructive criticism that I can use in future work, so fire away!
Here are a few screenshots of the finished scene, along with some presentational posters with some technical info. There's also a video walkthrough of the level's blockout.
Thanks in advance for looking, and I hope you like it!
(EDIT: Forgot to add one of the images, so I've re-linked them)
Here's the walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NmjxQ686kw&list=UUIbK98so0jCRtzMeW2xYVYg
I'm new to Polycount, but I figured I'd share some work from my third year at uni (Sheffield Hallam). As I'm new to this, please let me know if I've posted this in the wrong place.
The brief was to create a beauty shot image in CryEngine 3 of a game based on an existing non-game media franchise. The obvious choices were action films that could easily be adapted into game worlds, but I fancied a bit of a challenge. Instead, I went with the 1971 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' (a childhood classic) and attempted to build a scene that depicted the factory several years after the events of the film.
Everything in the scene was made from scratch by myself, and the project lasted a few months.
As with all old work, I know that it is riddled with flaws. The project is finished, but I'd really like some constructive criticism that I can use in future work, so fire away!
Here are a few screenshots of the finished scene, along with some presentational posters with some technical info. There's also a video walkthrough of the level's blockout.
Thanks in advance for looking, and I hope you like it!
(EDIT: Forgot to add one of the images, so I've re-linked them)
Here's the walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NmjxQ686kw&list=UUIbK98so0jCRtzMeW2xYVYg
Replies
(1) Looking at your level as a whole, it feels very noisy. It doesn't feel coherent as an environment.
Their is nothing that implies it's the Willy Wonka Factory other than the Chocolate bars that has it's name on it.
(1a) For example you have this fantasy-esque land at eye-level, but you have a distracting low ceiling warehouse ceiling, with very fine grid windows with an odd building/pyramid in the top right.
It's been a long since I've watched the original Willy Wonka, but I don't remember it looking what you have here.
Did you base this off some concept art or something?
(2) The contrast of your light is very strong. If your building in the CE3, don't they support some kind of Global Illumination?
All I see are very dark spots and very bright spots which doesn't reflect that you have a ton of bright Lights and open windows.
(3) Definitely some incohesion in the quality of your models.
(3a) The tree looks awful compared to the rest of your scene. I could guess that you have less than 300 tris for your trunk/branches and the bark texture is something to desired.
The leaves texture is also something left to be desired.
(3b) The poor bears look so sad in the background and they lost their shine!
(3c)If your doing a beauty shot, don't be shy in adding more polygons to your models if they need it.
For example: Your bridge could use more edge loops to smooth out the railings and where it meets with the concrete on the left, you can see it's very blocky.
(3d) What design choice did you choose to have the light posts completely white at the top?
(4) You seem to have minimal particles, little to no Post-Processing effects and your camera lens/shot is very boring.
Thanks you guys, yeah I think I overlooked that a bit, I'll definitely get more ambient light into my current work.
Thanks for the extensive crit, there's plenty for me to think about there. I thought I'd give a couple of responses to each point:
1) I agree with the noise, it's not very balanced artistically, so I'll try and keep it cleaner in the future. Concept art is a huge weakness of mine, and it definitely needs something like that to help organise the scene. It's something I'm trying to improve at the moment, so hopefully that'll be less of an issue in my future work.
2) Lighting was something that I wasn't too great at. This project helped me to learn a lot about it, but it's definitely something that I need to work on.
3) Again, foliage isn't a strength, and I've been bashing out trees because I realise they're not great haha. (The leaves especially!). Yeah that's a good point about the beauty shot, I could've afforded more geometry in there. The lampposts look weird, and that's because I couldn't figure out how to sort the material in time for the deadline.
4) Yeah the post processing is a little minimal, but again that was due to the deadline. I'll set aside more time for such things in my future work, as that's clearly something that really improves the work.
Thanks again for your crit!
I don't know. Maybe disable your texture and see how the light is effecting your scene. I don't think it needs a lighting adjustment nearly as much as it needs a value adjustment. When I think of Charlie's Chocolate factory, I think of whimsical and fantasy. The dark walls seem so much more like "candy warehouse storage".
Also, and this is just nitpicking, but I'd get rid of the candy canes in the tree, I know they're candy and I know they're appropriate but because they have such a seasonal, iconic connotation I immediately saw the one Christmas-tree. It wasn't until I consciously put the pieces together that they're candy and have no relation to the holiday.
Yeah, I made the mistake on not checking it on multiple monitors, so didn't realise how dark the scene really was!
Your suggestion about checking the detail lighting (minus textures) is a great idea. I'll definitely use that in my current work to check the value - thanks for the suggestion! I get what you mean about the warehouse look too; the walls are a little bit industrial.
Ah I see, I hadn't actually considered the fact that it might look unintentionally festive. I'll be sure to avoid that in future.
Thanks for your feedback, it's really helpful!
Keep up the good work look forward to seeing more
Thanks! Yeah I was inspired by the credits room in The Stanley Parable. I try to come up with things that are a little different, I'm glad you liked it!
I'll be sure to post more projects as I do them.