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Monthly Environment Art Challenge - March and April 2018 (53)

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  • jewski-bot
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    jewski-bot polycounter lvl 4
    Sorry Guys, I didn't have anywhere near the time I thought I would to be able to work on this, so this screen grab will be from what I was able to accomplish Tuesday night.  Not much of an update I know, but hopefully something will kick this week.

     

    Glad to see you back in action, @Zerogun!  Can't wait to see how you tackle the textures!

    And speaking of textures, your piece looks absolutely beautiful in Unreal Engine with a nice light to dark constrast ratio.  Your work is an envy to those of us who are still a bit new / rusty on the whole hand painted texture scene, @slam_nine!  
  • Willog
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    Willog polycounter lvl 2
    Hello everyone, and nice work for all of you ! It's nice to see it :D
    So, Here's my participation for this monthly challenge.
    I decided to do a little environment around it, and tryed to imagine the ambience that goes with the asset. (And for train myself about it).
    It was a great challenge, it has trained me well :D.

    slam_nine : Wow, it look nice! I like your foliages, it look very well with the scene :).
  • Kleber1983
  • BakertheGameMaker
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    BakertheGameMaker polycounter lvl 8
    It's fascinating to see what everyone else has done with their own versions of the same concept, especially with the back of the tentacle robot thing, as that's the one I'm currently working on.

    @MrBFox I love your model, specifically what you did with the eyes, and how none of the features of the model feel "flimsy" in anyway, if that makes sense. I think you should consider revisiting the texturing/font for the front and back plates though; the black dots feel more like black dots and less like holes in a piece of metal, in my opinion.  That, and the red hazard/warning lines on the front seem very obviously painted on, as it seems like you can see the end of the brush stroke, and they are higher on the left side of the model than the right. I think most of the texture looks great other than that, and you have the best model out of any of us, in my humble opinion. Great work!

    I have a "group critique" for everyone working on the moon staff. I think most of them look great, but (even in the concept) the vines/tendrils/sticks whatever they are don't really feel like they are supporting the moon piece very well. I particularly like yours @jewski-bot , your version is very pretty and I love the colors and gradients, the holes in the flag... my one critique besides would be that I wish the fabric of the handle stuck out/had depth along the length of the fabric in the middle on some of the individual strips of fabric, and not just on the very top and bottom of the fabric.

    I'd like to join in with my progress so far. This is still WIP, but nearing completion. Would love to hear what you think!

  • MBS320
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    MBS320 polycounter lvl 2

    I'd like to join in with my progress so far. This is still WIP, but nearing completion. Would love to hear what you think!




    Looking really nice, but I think those power connectors are hanging too low creating a sort of blank/zero space toward the back. Maybe reel it in or fill up? I dunno.

    Also, I forgot all about this and just spent some more time on this today evening. Will spend a few hours tomorrow finishing the low poly/high poly and cleaning topology/creases and then hopefully I'll be in Substance Painter after that.



  • BakertheGameMaker
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    BakertheGameMaker polycounter lvl 8
    Here's the sketchfab of my current model.

    @MBS320, I'll try your suggestion tonight when I have the time, and see if I can fill in that space a little bit, thanks for the input!

    model
  • BakertheGameMaker
  • Aren
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    Aren polycounter lvl 7
    I Love Desitiny and I've been studying the visual style for a while now. I tried to do a breakdown of the main pieces, individual assets, and systems that I can use beside the obvious floor and ceiling. Also did a quick blockout.
    @Donny Looking good so far.

    @Zerogun Some of the pieces on the foreground can also be used for the background, so, try to design the pieces for reuse.

    @Willog The final asset looks good but for your final image try a different position and angle for the camera. The current composition looks really flat IMO.

    @BakertheGameMaker Nice work.
  • Zerogun
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    Zerogun polycounter lvl 9
    @Aren Yeah, I've been playing around with reusing and rehashing certain pieces of my models. I'll get a better layout soonish.
    Oh yeah, hey again @jewski-bot! You got a nice piece started there. This is me cheering you on to keep going. It looks fantastic. As for my textures, I sadly am at that part right now. I'm working through getting my heroic center piece littered with heigh maps and some levels of materials.

    Now the real trick is to get the sexy renders and textures that @BakertheGameMaker is doing. Seriously man, I'm drooling at that.

    Hopefully my next update is a helluva lot quicker. Lets rock his project people!
  • BakertheGameMaker
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    BakertheGameMaker polycounter lvl 8
    @Zerogun Thanks so much man! This has been a fun project. I am definitely gonna push this thing as hard as I can before the end of the month. Can hopefully turn it into a nice portfolio piece.

    I think the real trick for yall working on the destiny enviro is going to be find ways to pull off that sense of huge scale that is so cool in the concept. I imagine yall won't be making characters just to put in the scene, so having some items place in the scene which can be clearly identified in relation to the scale of a human (info screens, signs, doors, weapons, fire extinguishers? not really sure) will probably help.

    @Aren I like your blockout method of coloring over certain pieces of the scene. Are you using the colors to tell yourself which items you will group into one texture set or something?

    @MBS320 I'm going to keep playing with ways to fill in the bottom space on the robot, I tried just tossing in some wires and didn't like the way it looked at first.

    I've been making small tweaks to the texture, there will need to be more, but I wanted to get it in engine. @willog inspired me to make a small scene/dioram for the robot, so I started the blockout of that and threw it into UE4. As always, thanks for any input and great work everyone.


  • prixster
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    prixster polycounter lvl 6
    I am just wondering how to do the Mech Prop in Maya. Seems to me it can be done in Modo or ZBrush (Booleans). I got struck while making the eye hole in the sphere (body of the mech). How can I do it without Booleans? By using Cut Faces and Split Tool? 
    A help would be appreciated. Thanks! 
  • BakertheGameMaker
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    BakertheGameMaker polycounter lvl 8
    @prixster I would personally never want to do this particular model without the use of booleans, but it looks like maya can make use of boolean operations the same way other 3d applications can. I'm not a maya user, so I can't help you out with the specifics, but I can show you how I cut up my model in the early stages, and then you can google/look on youtube for help with how to use boolean operations in maya. Good luck, hope you get it working! 


  • prixster
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    prixster polycounter lvl 6
    @BakertheGameMaker Haha, I was working the way. So it seems like you are cleaning the edges after Boolean, isn't it? Near the edges I see few tris so would that be any problem in maintaining the topology? 
  • BakertheGameMaker
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    BakertheGameMaker polycounter lvl 8
    @prixster Yes, my bad. I cleaned up some more, but not all of the tris before I applied opensubdiv.
  • Zerogun
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    Zerogun polycounter lvl 9
    I've been playing with my pipeline and learning some new features in Painter but I think I have a rough feeling of my metal in the scene. I'm about 70% happy with this test. I'm still adjusting.

    Obviously more updates when I get the other pieces of my hero pieces textured up. Prob by the end of the weekend.
  • BakertheGameMaker
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    BakertheGameMaker polycounter lvl 8
    Looking great @zerogun. I really like the model and the bake. Is there a certain area of the game you are using as a material reference, or just experimenting with your own thing? I haven't played destiny 1 or 2 very much (so for all i know you are matching a certain area very closely), but it seems like most areas in the destiny games, whether destroyed or pristine, typically have cleaner metals, with a bit higher metallicity and a bit lower roughness and not very much rust.

    Also, how are you planning on splitting up the varying materials on the panels/fan pieces etc? Will you bake out some sort of material id map or just do it by hand? I'd like to take a stab at this sort of environment again soon so I'd love to learn what's working best for you.
  • JayS
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    JayS polycounter lvl 8
    @Donny Nice, I think the tubes should be more angular.
    @aren That block-out is looking good! I'm already getting a feel of the space with what you have there. Look forward to seeing more!
    @BakertheGameMaker Nice bot!

    This is where I'm at with my Destiny environment. I spent a few days blocking and figuring out the space, then I began detailing up some of the major pieces.. 



  • jewski-bot
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    jewski-bot polycounter lvl 4
    Sorry boys and gals, but I don't know what the heck's going on in terms of my productivity.  It feels like this shouldn't be taking ages, but it is.  I fear I wind up spending a lot more time trying to figure out shapes rather than getting things done.



    I'll see about posting some more later on, but man...

    Anyways, on to some crits.

    Looking good @Zerogun on your initial textures.  I think the next step would be to minimize some of the wear since it seems a bit too dependent on masks right now for the placement.  As always, look to real world objects for reference.

    @JayS, good job on the blockout and details!  From what I can tell, it looks very accurate.  Looking forward to how you approach the texturing and lighting phase.

    As for the robot pieces, everyone seems to have struggled with this to one degree or another.  So far, @BakertheGameMaker's done a very good job on his, though I think some of the modeling on the sphere has some pinching or lumpiness in some areas, or it's not perfectly spherical.  With that said, the machinery pieces look VERY spot on, and make sense... which is more than I can say for my model.  This is perhaps my own fault for not having researched real world solutions and attempting to remain utterly dependent on the concept art.

    @MBS320, you seem to have similar problems with pinching.  The only quick solutions I know on how to fix this is that you need more polygons in your sphere.  It could also just be a smoothing group error as well.  I'm assuming that you're polysmoothing or sub-d smoothing.
    Looks good on the machinery end.

    @Willog, you've got a nice little scene setup going and your robot looks pretty decent.  One thing that you may want to do is spend more time on your lighting and materials.   The robot looks way too clean.  I'm thinking some noticeable edge wear might help in selling the realism and some exaggeration with some of the surface textures.

  • Zerogun
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    Zerogun polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks @BakertheGameMaker and @jewski-bot, I've been adjusting my textures for less wear and to get a somewhat cleaner look to them. I really wasn't looking off much than the concept art. I have gone back and started looking at some Destiny 1 and 2 textures being posted on Art Station to get some ideas. 

    Still too dark for my liking. But I removed the rust and dirt for now. But at the same time I realized this is the fancy schmancy rendered from Painter and I'm going to be using Unreal. So I'm working on the plugin link now to work my lighting and textures together.

  • BakertheGameMaker
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    BakertheGameMaker polycounter lvl 8
    @jewski-bot you're right about the pinching, and I've been having trouble with it while working on other pieces. I went back and watched a lot of tutorial vids, looked around some forums, and it really just seems like I haven't been starting out with high enough poly counts when modeling features, and relying too much on turbosmooth/open subdiv to do the work for me. I think this will help me in the future, so thanks. 

    Here's the wips for my diorama and final bot pose. 

  • Aren
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    Aren polycounter lvl 7
    This is taking so long to finish. Here is some advance with some final lowpoly assets and highpoly models from wich I'm going to extract some textures. Every pipe shape is made of the same 6 modular pieces.

    @JayS Wow, that's some serious advance. Can't wait to see some textures.
    @BakertheGameMaker Right now the blockout is more about geometry.
    @Zerogun I think your texture is too noisy. The plates are too small in proportion with the full piece. My suggestion is that you get rid of some details (or reduce the strength of the normal) and lower that grunge look that is everywhere. Try to look for some reference either from the game or real life to see how the rust and grunge behave.

  • Willog
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    Willog polycounter lvl 2
    Hello all ! It's cool to see everyone's progress :)!

    @Aren : Thanks for the advice, I'll rework the scene when I have time :)

    @BakertheGamerMaker : Well done, it look cool ! I'm happy if I inspired you to do a scene, I like yours, especially the support of the mech ! Maybe somes tubes are little weird with the physics (their connected on the mech to te wall). Otherwise, it's badass!

    @Jewski-bot : Thanks for the feedback :) and the tips ! Yes, lighting / composition is what I'm trying to improve. I did it for the materials, but i tried to be soft on the "damage" textures ! (Maybe too more). I'll try your advice :).

    @Jays : It look really close to the concept, I like it ! 
  • BakertheGameMaker
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    BakertheGameMaker polycounter lvl 8
    I bit off way more than I could chew with trying to make a whole diorama or whatever. I decided instead to make the best robotic arm that I could to support him/carry him around or whatever, and give him a little hint of story/background. I'll get everything in unreal this weekend, and maybe finish up a simple scifi wall as a backdrop for him if I get the time. First pic is the reference.


  • BakertheGameMaker
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    BakertheGameMaker polycounter lvl 8
    And this is my final post for the contest. Modeled in 3DS Max, textured in Substance Painter, rendered in Unreal Engine 4. Thanks to everyone who provided critique to our work in here, and good job everyone! There is some great artwork in here!



  • Zerogun
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    Zerogun polycounter lvl 9
    @BakertheGameMaker That is a really nice final piece. I noticed it was appearing on the news page. Congrats. 
  • manuelfuentes13
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    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    A little late but here is my version of this little guy, I was busy and couldn't work on it earlier but I really liked the concept :smile: , finally last night  I was able to finish it and today I dropped it into one of my scifi scenes.
    I got stuck early on because I wanted to keep the final version as low poly as possible and kept getting errors when baking my maps, but at the end after some topo fixes it ended up alright. 
    Modelled in 3dsmax and textures in Substance painter. Final renderings in UE4 (scifi bg)  and Iray(white bg)
    https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ryPb6
  • BakertheGameMaker
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    BakertheGameMaker polycounter lvl 8
    @Zerogun I didn't know until I saw your post, that's exciting :) and thanks!

    @manuelfuentes13 Looks good man! I like the little pop out tabs on your version. Mine are just sort of stuck on there, so I'll probably try a solution like yours when I come back to this piece. I have a few suggestions for things you could improve on your bot. (Also keep in mind these are things I think I could improve on my version as well.) The main thing that sticks out to me is the uv layout. from what I can tell, its better to have long square shapes laying flat and aligned to the grid whenever possible. It looks like your front handlebar thing is unwrapped in a sort of weird cross shape. If you broke them up into 4 islands, and aligned them to the grid, then did the same thing with other similar pieces, you could probably pack it in much tighter for a better texel density. For the hoses, since you are using 3DS max, you can tell the spline to generate uv's before converting to editable geometry, then scale them appropriately by hand real quick. This way they are already straightened and it might help you better paint the details on the hoses and help to pack more efficiently as well. Also, the space behind the triangle piece on his head probably doesn't need to be there, unless you are planning on having that come off and show the underside at some point. Hope that all made sense!

    P.S. I poked around your artstation a bit, you have some really pretty scenes in there.
  • kadeschui
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    kadeschui greentooth
    So much good work this Round! Amazing how well all these turned out :)

    I have been swamped this past week with work and am a little behind in getting the next Challenge thread out - look for it tomorrow evening!!

    ~kade
  • manuelfuentes13
  • manuelfuentes13
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    manuelfuentes13 polycounter lvl 6
    @bakerthegamemaker Thanks man! Yeah I probably should have spent a little more time cleaning up those uvs, I just had to finish it as quick as possibe to start on another project, hopefully somoeday I can go back to it and improve it. :)
    Good job finishing a full scene for your model,It looks great!
    My critique would be that the crane/robot looks
    a little too big and steals attention from the sphere robot, the first image with the front view and the orange glow looks better because the perspective makes the robot look bigger, if you keep on working on that scene in the future try to play around with the scale. :)
    @Aren nice progress, keep on working on it!
    @JayS Looking good!I wish I had the time to do that scene it's a great concept.
  • kadeschui
  • Decordova360
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    Decordova360 polycounter lvl 9
    Everyone has done great work, sorry mines came in a little late but this is what I've done. Thanks and look forward to the next challenge :smiley:




  • MBS320
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    MBS320 polycounter lvl 2
    Dang, I'm only just in painter with this. Oh well, still going to finish it hopefully this week :(


     
  • Decordova360
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    Decordova360 polycounter lvl 9
    MBS320 
    Dont feel no way, wont be the last for submissions, its tough when you can only work on this a few times a couple weeks or so. Keep at it, looking good. :smile:
  • CybranM
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    CybranM interpolator
    I'm a bit late but the concept was so cool that I had to do it.

    Not completely finished with the textures but I'm getting close
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