Here's an art test I just completed over a few days and roughly 20 hours. All critiques are welcome. Should I put it in the portfolio? What would you think if you were reviewing it? Thanks.
Hey Scott, Thanks for sharing your work. If I were to review this work, the first thing I would say is 'Its a good start' The Modeling is pretty decent but we can certainly push the environment more in texturing. I understand you like to keep it clean but we can certainly break the surface of the wall since you have some cool panels designed in there.
One example I can give is the UE4 Sci Fi scene. Its a very good example of keep the environment clean and still having enough interest that breaks the overall scene. Here is the link to it if you haven't already seen it
I think your other work is far moore impressive than this. Just Balamb garden is a perfect reimagining of that old scene.
You could st least put as much effort into this as you did with your other stuff from your artstation.
I realize you are going for this "clean" scifi look, but stuff still looks undefined and im not sure what things in the scene are supposed to be.
Looks super rushed on both the art side and technical execution side. Not sure what the prompt was or if you had a concept to follow, but if just feels generic and boring. There is no contrast at all, no focal point, and no interesting compositional elements. Sorry to sound harsh, but your other portfolio stuff is a lot better.
Yea, everything looks pretty same-y. I'd try to use some different materials to break up the monotony, have writing on the floor or walls that shows where the different doors lead to, and the shapes in the hallway could be more interesting. The hall could use more clutter, wires or crates or something?
My first thought was "what is the purpose of this room?". As others have said, it's an ok start but it needs more. What is it for? What's the story behind it?
Thanks everyone. I'm calling this a "successful failure" in that it sucks, but I learned from it :thumbup:. A few thoughts:
1. I was given a loosely painted concept similar to this. The most interesting parts of the scene were loosely rendered in the painting and I'm terrible at concepting on the fly. I was told it should take me 20 hours to do this so that was what I took (it's already turned in). The result was not spending more than a couple days on the high poly (design phase) so it looks like a boring square block.
The above works with such a simply color scheme real nicely because the shape/design is real good. Some subtle material definition wouldn't be too hard from where I am here, but its not worth it since the design is so weak. Again, I felt like I didn't have time with a 20 hour expectation.
3. Excellent catch on the normals being flipped. The ones I placed into Painter were flipped, while the others were fine. Those small little painted height details are hard to catch.
4. I've asked before and will again .. any thoughts on speed? It's awfully hard for me still to imagine getting a serious environment done well in 20 hours. This absolutely was rushed ... by force. I still need time to be good.
You might want to consider investing more into your concept/planning/pre-production phase, Scott. You've come a really long way in such a short period of time, but there's always something you can improve.
Even on the smallest of projects, there's research and pre-production work to be done. Here, it would have been a great idea to go find some good examples of hard surface kitbashing kits, modular greeble designs, more sci-fi concept that would help you hobble together something that those interesting bits in the messy parts of the concept could be. Drawing some more interesting designs than blocks is a start-- even if your 2D skills are crude (I honestly don't know if yours are or not), it's just quicker to throw 30 interesting shapes down on some printer paper and pick something that isn't a cube and gets the job done. You could also photobash some interesting pipes and stuff together. There's a lot of ways to go about this.
If you have to, a good idea to get quickly started and in the zone on a piece is to make a simple form you can fill out that covers things like what the purpose of the room is, what the focal point should be, the overarching mood of the scene and references/material/modularity/composition breakdowns. Just fill out those sections and go when you don't have time to ponder forever.
It really just feels like you didn't think about the overarching point of this one. For example, something that would have been cool to see with these restrictions is to have a cool, clean sci-fi door, probably the one at the end of the hall, be the focal point, having the other doors (which could just be the backside of the hero door, maybe) appear to be much more simple, toned down, maybe even locked. There are a lot of a ways you could take this, of course. It just would have needed a bit more thought. Spending a more considerable amount of time planning on paper rather than jumping into sculpting/modeling pays off later in hours saved getting things right on the first or second try, and in a better result overall.
Also, just a note, the scale is a little off. Stairs are huge, according to the door height they'd almost come up to my knees.
Finally, regarding the speed... Speed doesn't really matter right now. You'll be able to understand the speed factor when you get more efficient naturally, and for some people that takes time. Do look into more efficient workflows, though. And check out Tor Frick/Snefer's 1hr environment thread if you haven't, it's really interesting.
Yeah I agree with all that. It's hard to assess this because it was essentially me starting immediately, moving as fast as possible in order to get done on time, getting done on time, and realizing it sucks. In order for me to be good, I need to really hit my references hard. I simply didn't have time. :poly122:
Also I watch Tor's all the time. The thing I observe is that he can make up interesting shapes off the top of his head quickly. He doesn't have to stop.
I'll say give it another shot to this scene and rework the textures and material definition. I think the door at the end should be bigger and more complex since there's a path leading to it. Add a subtle yet intricate pattern to the path way and stairs. Maybe put some emissive to the sides of the steps to keep the flow to "The Great Door". Left door could be an elevator; right, make it a corridor or put a giant L4 on the doors to reference which part of the building we are. Take out the rafters cause this is what is killing your environment and the story behind it. It's a paradox of sci-fi and industrial themes that aren't playing well together. Instead have a big "curve skylight" which is actually a bunch of screens displaying a sky.
I'm not sure about all of the texture/material constraints of the test, but for sci-fi stuff, you may want to look into layered mats in UE4. My entire sci-fi deck was done with maybe 4-5 base textures/materials, which were assigned with color ID maps to everything in the scene. That way, I could focus on getting the materials perfect and then they would just auto-update to everything in the scene, instead of having to re-do each prop every time something was changed.
No, don't put this in your folio...its significantly lower quality than your current work.
My first impression is that the overall room is poorly designed. I don't see a clear purpose for the room, and the thingies sticking up along the walkway towards the door have no purpose (and block entrance to the side doors). Also, as others have mentioned, there are general scale issues and things like that.
In general it seems there is very little thought put into your materials. Besides that shiny floor, everything else just looks like random shapes on a flat, unidentifiable surface.
I don't know any details about the test you did or anything like that, but I think your biggest fault here is you took off really fast without paying attention to where you were going. Getting that planning done up front will save you so much time in the long run vs trying to figure things out as you go along. Again, BagelHero nailed it, but don't focus on speed for the sake of focusing on speed. Just focus on doing quality work. Speed comes with experience.
Glad to hear you are taking everything in stride and focusing on what to learn from this. Definitely the right attitude to have
Replies
One example I can give is the UE4 Sci Fi scene. Its a very good example of keep the environment clean and still having enough interest that breaks the overall scene. Here is the link to it if you haven't already seen it
[ame]
Hope it helps
I think your other work is far moore impressive than this. Just Balamb garden is a perfect reimagining of that old scene.
You could st least put as much effort into this as you did with your other stuff from your artstation.
I realize you are going for this "clean" scifi look, but stuff still looks undefined and im not sure what things in the scene are supposed to be.
They're inverted.
I like this image with the shapes of the supports, more dramatic lighting from the floor lights and side windows, although you might not want to do the damage - http://cdn.overclock.net/9/90/90241408_MassEffect32012-03-1817-46-54-25.jpeg
I checked out your artstation and I really like the Balamb Garden and the materials and shapes on that deadspace door though!
1. I was given a loosely painted concept similar to this. The most interesting parts of the scene were loosely rendered in the painting and I'm terrible at concepting on the fly. I was told it should take me 20 hours to do this so that was what I took (it's already turned in). The result was not spending more than a couple days on the high poly (design phase) so it looks like a boring square block.
2. Here's what I was shooting for generally:
http://techreport.com/r.x/2014_7_24_Early_Unreal_Tournament_concept_art_reminds_us_how_far_weve_come/ut-concept.jpg
The above works with such a simply color scheme real nicely because the shape/design is real good. Some subtle material definition wouldn't be too hard from where I am here, but its not worth it since the design is so weak. Again, I felt like I didn't have time with a 20 hour expectation.
3. Excellent catch on the normals being flipped. The ones I placed into Painter were flipped, while the others were fine. Those small little painted height details are hard to catch.
4. I've asked before and will again .. any thoughts on speed? It's awfully hard for me still to imagine getting a serious environment done well in 20 hours. This absolutely was rushed ... by force. I still need time to be good.
Even on the smallest of projects, there's research and pre-production work to be done. Here, it would have been a great idea to go find some good examples of hard surface kitbashing kits, modular greeble designs, more sci-fi concept that would help you hobble together something that those interesting bits in the messy parts of the concept could be. Drawing some more interesting designs than blocks is a start-- even if your 2D skills are crude (I honestly don't know if yours are or not), it's just quicker to throw 30 interesting shapes down on some printer paper and pick something that isn't a cube and gets the job done. You could also photobash some interesting pipes and stuff together. There's a lot of ways to go about this.
If you have to, a good idea to get quickly started and in the zone on a piece is to make a simple form you can fill out that covers things like what the purpose of the room is, what the focal point should be, the overarching mood of the scene and references/material/modularity/composition breakdowns. Just fill out those sections and go when you don't have time to ponder forever.
It really just feels like you didn't think about the overarching point of this one. For example, something that would have been cool to see with these restrictions is to have a cool, clean sci-fi door, probably the one at the end of the hall, be the focal point, having the other doors (which could just be the backside of the hero door, maybe) appear to be much more simple, toned down, maybe even locked. There are a lot of a ways you could take this, of course. It just would have needed a bit more thought. Spending a more considerable amount of time planning on paper rather than jumping into sculpting/modeling pays off later in hours saved getting things right on the first or second try, and in a better result overall.
Also, just a note, the scale is a little off. Stairs are huge, according to the door height they'd almost come up to my knees.
Finally, regarding the speed... Speed doesn't really matter right now. You'll be able to understand the speed factor when you get more efficient naturally, and for some people that takes time. Do look into more efficient workflows, though. And check out Tor Frick/Snefer's 1hr environment thread if you haven't, it's really interesting.
Keep up the good work, man.
Also I watch Tor's all the time. The thing I observe is that he can make up interesting shapes off the top of his head quickly. He doesn't have to stop.
No, don't put this in your folio...its significantly lower quality than your current work.
My first impression is that the overall room is poorly designed. I don't see a clear purpose for the room, and the thingies sticking up along the walkway towards the door have no purpose (and block entrance to the side doors). Also, as others have mentioned, there are general scale issues and things like that.
In general it seems there is very little thought put into your materials. Besides that shiny floor, everything else just looks like random shapes on a flat, unidentifiable surface.
I don't know any details about the test you did or anything like that, but I think your biggest fault here is you took off really fast without paying attention to where you were going. Getting that planning done up front will save you so much time in the long run vs trying to figure things out as you go along. Again, BagelHero nailed it, but don't focus on speed for the sake of focusing on speed. Just focus on doing quality work. Speed comes with experience.
Glad to hear you are taking everything in stride and focusing on what to learn from this. Definitely the right attitude to have
Ya, time to get back to that FMA scene!!