Hand Painted Textures - crit appreciated
I'm working on a hand painted medieval building to try to improve my texture work. This piece is still rough, but I feel like the end is in sight and need a fresh set of eyes. I'm happy with most of the textures- they look good on their own but do not pop on the model . Some are still very much in progress- the stucco, thatch, and roof tiles in particular, and the geometry still needs some massaging.
Input is appreciated, thanks in advance.
uohm.
Input is appreciated, thanks in advance.
uohm.
Replies
(2) The tile texture on the roof seem a bit small, 50-100% bigger perhaps?
Below is about Geometry and other things of your work...
(3) The arch (Or upsidedown-arch) of the house is a little to exaggerated compared to the rest of the model IMO.
(4) You didn't finish the geometry at the top of the chimney.
(5) Is the scene really at "4609" tris? I feel like it's around 2000 or less.
(5a) You have a ton of geometry around your logs compared to the rest.
(5b) I would be to add in more geometry around the base of the house, it's all flat.
(5c) Add in planes of thatch/straw for the storage room roof. It's all flat on the top. (You forgot to include your Straw texture above for us to C&C)
(5d) For the house roof, this would require a large re-work of it, but it would add a lot more life to it...
You should model all or most of the individual tiles at the bottom of the Roof & top, and some peppered around the middle.
(5e) The doorway is very boring around the stone bricks
(6) Needs more supporting models around.
The roof is very weak, give the roof a good edge and cut the tiles with the texture pattern. Make it more interesting.
-Wood feels really saturated and unnatural. Another thing that throws me off is how monochromatic the textures are. Trying desaturating your texture and building some yellow/browns back into it. It feels very orange as it stands right now.
-From a distance your stone and roof shingles look almost the same. Vary up the size frequency of your tiles as well as the value/hue to separate them more from each other.
-I think your most successful textures are the stone/dirt. I like the painterly contrast that you have going on in the dirt. I would try to unify your wood more to that level. As of right now it feels very contrasty.
1. Your darks/shadows are reading as black, which really deadens the texture. Try to get some nice colored shadows instead with some blues and purples.
2. There is a lot of noise in your textures when they repeat, in particular the shingles and the stone textures. This can be hard to anticipate when you are painting the textures separately. I would advise less contrast on your small details within the texture, and focus on the large shapes that will draw the eye first.
3. I like the cornerstones you've modeled into the foundation of the staircase. I think the chimney could benefit from some similar treatment to help break up the hard edges.
Keep it coming!
Shurkuris- too much advice for me to address everything at once, so:
Replaced the roof texture and enlarged the mapping.
Toned down the wood texture- the variation was on purpose. I wanted to create the appearance of overlapping levels of wood with some detail expressed with geometry- the new render shows that off better, but now that I see it I realize that geometry would work better at the edges of the roof where it can be seen.
I intend to put more crap around the base, still working on it (will post soon)
Cibo- cut some geometry to detail out the bottom edge of the roof. Trying the same with the ends, but it's not quite working with the existing texture. Working on an edge texture.
turpedo-reworking the wood texture and I'm continue to replace it on the model.
the roof texture is new and mapped at a different scale. I reworked the Stone texture, still a work in progress.
I wanted the dirt texture to be very understated compared to the other textures and agree it is one of the more successful textures. I have started toning done the contrast on the others.
Atomander- I agree about the black and am working on it.
That's really good advice about noise/ contrast and very helpful. I kept it in mind while reworking the stone and will continue working with it in mind.
I originally had cornerstones on the chimney, but felt they may be unnecessary and extra geometry. They're back- enjoy!
Here's the update. Thanks for you attention and help- let's keep going!
Any helpful criticism would be appreciated.
It looks a bit too much like chipped stone, especially when compiled with the blueish hue.
I'd say rethink how they are cracking, and look at some various roof patterns both in real-life and how they are handled in being painted by other artists. Id say use more vertical strokes and introduce subtle ridges on each tile to seperate it from becoming too similar to stone if you want to keep it the typical rectangular overlaid pattern.
Maybe you can even change the shape of the roof pattern completely to be a more pointed circular wooden pattern/nordic influences or a terracotta/barrel roof pattern like on the rooftops of houses commonly thought of in italy.
Basically something to visually help further separate it from the dominant shapes currently being used in the stone walls, and perhaps enrich the current visual language of shapes you are using.
That said, keep it up! You have a solid base to work from, and can vastly improve this piece with some more time spent on the textures.
This can probably be alleviated by increasing the size of these patterns a bit, as well as lowering the frequency and contrast down a few levels. Decreasing the stroke size or line weight of the dark spaces between the roof tiles could also help make it feel less noisy.
Basically, ease up on that texture so the rest of the model can "breathe."
Having some slight color variation between a few of the roof tiles could add some more visual interest as well and help combat the repetition.
edit: I see what you mean about contrast. I've been fiddling with the levels and will continue to.
I had originally planned to vary the color of the roof tiles, but decided it would add to the noise (which already needs to be turned down) and make the repetition wore pronounced.