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The Bi-Monthly ENVIRONMENT ART Challenge | November - December (69)

interpolator
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alytlebird interpolator

Welcome, all! Time to get started on the sixth and FINAL Monthly Environment & Prop Challenge for 2020!

Remember if you don't finish in the time allotted, just keep plugging away and post when your work is finished. There's always some good progress that falls off the radar - we want to see your work! So keep going and finish those pieces!

Without further ado, here are our official options for Challenge 69:


- ENVIRONMENTS -

HARD SURFACE ENVIRONMENT:

Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rAlzGG

STYLIZED ENVIRONMENT:

Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ykoO4O

- PROPS -

HARD SURFACE PROP:

Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Po2o58

STYLIZED PROP:

Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/48ayDY

- WILDCARD -

FANTASY INTERIOR ENVIRONMENT:

Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Nx2d01

It's been a while since we've had a concept that's more explicitly Fantasy-themed, so I figured this environment concept suggested by @gastrop0d would work great!


Please read all the rules before starting:

-Try to post one critique for every post that you make. This will make for a better learning environment and help us all grow as artists.

-Try your best and finish as much as you can in the time frame provided.

-Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique. We don't need to have 1000 disjointed threads littering the forums. 

-It is recommended to use a game engine to present your work. Unreal Engine and CryEngine are very common engines that can be used but feel free to use any alternatives that you want. (Marmoset Toolbag is allowed as well)

-If you want to change up your chosen concept a bit, then feel free! Interpret these concepts to your liking, especially if your aim is to add storytelling elements.


And here are some recommendations:

-When you are just starting out making a scene, it can seem complicated or imposing, so take the time to break it down. 

-Think about how you can re-use assets, re-use textures, break it down as simple as possible and plan it out. A lot of people will break it down in their own way when they start out their challenge. Gather some reference images as well for different parts of the scene, maybe gather some refs and make it your own.

-Take your time planning and blocking out, it will set you up for success later on.

-We strongly encourage you to go and look at other games and see how they make their assets as well as get concept art to give it your own feel.


All that matters is that you learn while being able to effectively critique others, as well as accept critiques on your own work. Remember to have fun!

Good luck! :)

Replies

  • gastrop0d
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    gastrop0d polycounter lvl 5
    Excited for the next challenge! I'd like to suggest some concepts:


    Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Nx2d01


    Artist: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ZGJ61R

  • cforce5
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    cforce5 polycounter lvl 3
    I'm new to the site and have been just following the current challenge the past week or so. Everyone put forth some really awesome work and I have been learning a ton just following others progress and the subsequent discussion. This seems like a great community that I would love to be a part of! I'm a newer and less experienced 3d artist comparatively but I want to push myself and think I have reached a point where I am capable enough to really benefit from outside critique and interaction with other artists. So I am looking to give this upcoming challenge a try knowing I'm gonna learn a ton along the way and hopefully I can contribute to the group  :)

    All that said, I like the top concept of the museum the best actually. It looks complex and cluttered which is intimidating but for me personally I like that it breaks down into lots of smaller props that offer different challenges. Also the variation in the height and shapes of the rooms are very interesting. It gets my vote for sure though I will say both concepts @gastrop0d presented have some amazing atmospheric qualities
  • hasgan
  • alytlebird
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    alytlebird interpolator
    Last day to get your votes in! Any different stylized concepts or hard surface prop concepts would be great if you'd like to swap those out for something else :)
  • alytlebird
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    alytlebird interpolator
    Alright everyone, welcome to Challenge #69! Since there weren't too many suggestions, I just edited the title post of the old voting thread, and this will be our Challenge thread now. Thanks to @gastrop0d for the concept suggestion that landed in the Wildcard spot!

    Good luck everyone, and let's finish out this year strong!
  • samA
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    samA triangle
    Hi all,

    I decided to go with the turbomule and here's what I have so far. Still a good few details to add and I'm having trouble working out how the thruster beams connects to the side since it's not to clear on the concept. Not sure if the way I've done it is correct with beam going into the axle so I should get some mechanical research next. Also need to model the skulls which should be interesting as I don't really model organic shapes to often, suppose sculpting and a few tutorials should be the best option for that!




  • gastrop0d
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    gastrop0d polycounter lvl 5
    @samA That is looking really nice and detailed already, good work. Regarding the join of the thruster to the main body, it seems to me what you have there looks like it will be a weld, which feels too flimsy to me without a supporting brace of some kind to take the upward forces on the shaft that the thruster would produce. Basically there's 2 welds taking the entire combined force of the back thrusters and supporting the weight of the entire rear end of the vehicle, including the battery, which I presume would weigh a lot. 

    If it were my piece I would modify the concept to add more connections or bracing to that back thrust frame, perhaps connecting to the back of the vehicle body. Would make sense I guess for it to be somewhat compressible, like suspension:



    If it is suspension, then the joins at the original points should be a mobile axle. I guess that round thing they already connect to could be an axle. Anyway, just my 2 cents. :)

    Ok! I'm excited to see the temple concept included! It's going to be my quarry for this challenge. It's a big step up from the last challenge's concept for me, but I'm willing to give it a go. This time I'm set on realising the scene in Unreal.

    I think the scene could be quite modular, with extensive use of a stone trimsheet to cover the majority of the work. Here's my attempt at a breakdown:



    I might have gone a little overboard, but my take on the assets is this:

    Core Structures
    • Stone pillar body - use stone block trimsheet with tesselation to achieve chunky silhouettes. Apply a random UV offset to each model instance based on instance world position
    • Pillar base stones - 2 variations needed (small for foreground, large for background)
    • Pillar caps - could get away with just 1 variation, but 3 would give best variety
    • Broken pillar caps - same as above
    • Inner ring core
    • Inner ring staircase
    • Inner ring body
    • Outer ring staircase - potentially clone and scale inner ring staircase
    • Outer ring body - potentially clone and scale inner ring body
    • Top stone ring body - 22.5 degree or 45 degree repeatable segment. Maybe unique unwrap/sculpt
    • Top stone ring caps - created off of body sculpt to ensure seamless connection
    Details
    • Altar
    • Dead tree - unique unwrap & material
    • Candles - unique unwrap & material, maybe with faked SSS
    • Swamp water material
    • Swamp water algae/grime/surface goop
    I think getting a well-featured stone trimesheet and combining it with tessellation for the stairs and pillars will be key in tackling this scene with a minimum amount of work. It's going to be a real test of my stone sculpting skills, that's for sure! :)
  • teodar23
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    teodar23 sublime tool
    @gastrop0d i would be very careful with tessellation and tileable textures. If the seams are not perfect it will produce mesh splits. Same for shifting the textures with an offset. I would do a small test first in order to avoid any headaches later.
    Good luck!
  • samA
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    samA triangle
    @gastrop0d Really appreciate the feedback thats a big help :) I like the idea of adding a supporting brace to make it physically more realistic.

    Looking forward to seeing the developments for your project!

  • Pinkfox
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    Pinkfox sublime tool
    teodar23 said:
    @gastrop0d i would be very careful with tessellation and tileable textures. If the seams are not perfect it will produce mesh splits. Same for shifting the textures with an offset. I would do a small test first in order to avoid any headaches later.
    Good luck!
    If you're using Unreal it does a lot to mitigate this problem if you check the "Crack Free Displacement" option in the materials tessellation section. It's not perfect so I wouldn't rely on it for everything but it can help in some situations.


    The left is with it enabled while the right has it disabled.
  • gastrop0d
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    gastrop0d polycounter lvl 5
    Thanks for the heads up @teodar23 and @Pinkfox, its a completely new technique for me so any advice is of much help.

    I've experimented a little with UVs, tessellation and Unreal in general over the weekend. I set up a simple UV random offset material for some test pillars and a test tiling texture. Results are good, decent breakup of repetition and no seam issues to speak of:



    Regarding the project at large, I realised that I could use splines to warp meshes into the curved shapes of the concept. In this way I can work with simple, straight sections of a modular kit and then warp them into shape to compose the scene. I set up a construction blueprint based on this tutorial:

    https://youtu.be/eKIiWa19EMI
    I extended it a little to allow for sharing splines across multiple actors and to assign various offsets and limits to easily compose things. It's been really fun really digging into Unreal proper to set this up. Here's how my blockout modular kit and spline test is looking:



    Going to be much easier to sculpt and tile the modular kit like this, I think.

    There's some scale issues when comparing it to the original concept, I plan to fix that up once I move into blocking out the scene in earnest. For now it appears this technique will work! Here's a better look at the spline arrangement:



  • Zorina
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    Zorina polycounter lvl 5
    I wanted to try the museum this time because I really love the concept! Also finally getting around to using Unreal. I've never done so many props before but reusing where I can. Here's the blockout I have so far, mostly getting layout and sizes down. (Also, hilarious block dinosaurs)


  • hasgan
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    hasgan polycounter lvl 7
    @gastrop0d : good idea for using spline! you can create many variants with it. like the outer ring platform is basically the inner ring platform with a different radius. just careful of repetition. maybe hide it with dead grass or smthng?

    looking forward to your project using tesselation. haven't tried it yet my self but I think you will see seams problem if your texture not tiled perfectly. or when you scale the texture up. just my guess. :pensive:

    @Zorina : that's a nice Blockout! hope you already analyze the concept and break into modular assets? because I see a lot of repetition there.

    @samA : this is nice! just need some skulls and you're almost finished XD
    ---

    so I realized I won't have much time till December for creating a big environment (because of work and uni), I decided to do stylized prop this time
    since I've never tried stylized props in my life before, this will be a great opportunity to learn something new.
    oh and I will try CryEngine too for rendering. hope I can finish it on time.

    my sclupts so far:



    I think I will make 4 different faces for the 4 side, I got the idea from the three wise monkeys

    if you guys have a great tutorial for creating stylized props, I would love to hear it

    Cheers!
  • FabioFrosaA
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    FabioFrosaA polycounter lvl 2
    @samA I'm loving your modeling. I'm blocking out and I'm intentionally getting a little bit far from the concept. Seeing your post, your doubt and @gastrop0d opinion I decided to remove all the mechanical parts and treat it more like driven only by electricity from the bettery. So the thrusters will be like energized coils. Also, I've added one more thruster on the bottom part as it makes senses and it fills in where the mechanical parts are missing.

     Also, by sketching a body into it I changed the general shape of the ship(?) so the body and arms are in a better position.I hope this turns out OK as I'm really changing things around.


    I feel that for the next part I need first to decide how I'll do the materials as it'll affect the modelling, if I'll bake nromals for each part or if I'll weigth the normals.
    At first I'm thinking that baking from higher less will be better as I may want to be specific about where to put rust and wear. I don't think  tileable textures or trim sheets will be as effective as on the model from the last challenge.




  • hasgan
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    hasgan polycounter lvl 7
    @FabioFrosaA : how about using both tiling textures (for repeating part like pipes) and baking normals (for unique part like thruster) ?
    good idea though with changing the design because I think its kinda uncomfortable to sit

    a bit update from me: I'm finished with 4 sided faces
    I think I'll start retopo tomorrow so I can get to the exciting part on weekend: hand-painting :D


  • cforce5
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    cforce5 polycounter lvl 3
    A bit late to the party here which I should have expected as I have purposefully bitten off a lot trying to learn as much of possible. On that front we are doing great however as I have gotten lots of modeling practice and this is my first time constructing a full scene or environment so grappling with the layout and scale of things has posed a fun new challenge. Also in reading everyone else's I've seen a lot of new things, like @gastrop0d's  spline meshes which is a great idea I never knew possible. Also @hasgan a great idea to split it into 4 faces complimented by some awesome sculpting. If you don't mind me asking, what are you planning to use for the hand painting?

      At the current moment I really only have a block out in Blender going but I wanted to post it anyway to hear any feedback and also give @Zorina another take to look at as I have had the benefit of since you posted yours. Also I was curious of how you plan to approach the skeletons? 

    Moving from this through UV's and texturing to showcasing it in a game engine is sure to be quite the journey for me but Imma keep chipping away at it. Really excited to see everyone else's progress along the way :) 
  • hasgan
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    hasgan polycounter lvl 7
    @cforce5 well some of my friend use 3D Coat for handpainting but I don't have time to learn new Software as I'm busy understanding Cryengine... So I just use substance painter -> Export the base Color to Photoshop -> Paint it away -> Import to SP (SP will recognize PSD data as texture)
    bad news ist that I have to reload the psd texture everytime I made change and reapply the texture (SP doesnt do this automatically) . if I find mistakes in 3D view (like color doesnt match between uv islands), I just repair it on SP


    btw seeing your blockout, I think you intrepet it a bit wrong in some part. let me post a picture what I mean

    the black part is kind of cut out on wall like an xray. its should be mirroring the other side. also the other room too.
    btw you will need a lot of tiling texture I think for this piece.


    ---

    so Update from me :

    spend weekend on retopo and hand painting. man it was brutal I'm not sure I did this right (never hand painting before). but hey at least I got base color almost right I think. it still lacks a details and color gradient to make it look cooler.



    this one render from cryengine, I also added rocks and some blockout foliage made in photoshop


    btw here's the 4 side face I manage to sclupts



  • FabioFrosaA
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    FabioFrosaA polycounter lvl 2
    @hasgan the hand painting turned out pretty nice! The colors are great.  THe different faces are also cool, I'm curious to see the final result.

    I'm short on time as always, so I did not finish the modeling yet. But soon I'll post it, before getting to the materials.
  • elicoz
    I've been working on the statue concept since the start of November! I've never made foliage before so I'm looking forward to challenging myself with it. This is what I have for the statue piece so far =) I love your idea for the four faces @hasgan

    httpsigyazocom99e6deaedc86352da71485fcc70f4290png

  • FabioFrosaA
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    FabioFrosaA polycounter lvl 2
    @elicoz
    it is looking nice so far.
    I guess that if you make the vase bigger so its borders almost hit the border of the head it'll look great.
  • samA
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    samA triangle
    Update on what I have so far:

    Got the turbomule unwrapped and textured and added some basic animations which is a skillset I wanted to work on. I also have 4 unique materials on this which I did in substance painter and is maybe ineffectient for a game model like this? Any less and I feel as though my texture density wouldn't be great.






  • FabioFrosaA
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    FabioFrosaA polycounter lvl 2
    @samA It is looking nice so far. The lighting is too uniform though, I guess if you use only a directional light it will improve a lot. Also, it would be cool to have a bit more contrast on the materials, they are also too uniform. Maybe the engine could have a different material, as well as the propellers.

    On my side, I've just finished the modelling. It was a challenge mostly because from the moment I decided to change one little thing on the concept, I decided to change a lot of things. So I did not have a direct reference and I had to kind of make my own design on top of it. I hope I get through the texturing process fast enough so I finish by the end of the month. I really enjoyed the tileable materials with decals workflow I learned on the last challenge, so I'll try to use only that, even for worn edges I'll try to use edge decals. It may not be ideal for a model like this, but let's see how it turns out.



  • samA
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    samA triangle
    @FabioFrosaA Thanks for the feedback.

    I like the changes you've made so far, nice to see a different take on the concept. Looking forward to seeing how it looks with it textured!
  • miriuk
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    miriuk polycounter lvl 2
    Hi guys when start the new challenge? I’d like to try. I didn’t receive any notification about this last one. Thanks
  • alytlebird
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    alytlebird interpolator
    miriuk said:
    Hi guys when start the new challenge? I’d like to try. I didn’t receive any notification about this last one. Thanks
    Hi there! These challenges run every 2 months, so our next one is scheduled to start on January 1st. :)
  • alytlebird
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    alytlebird interpolator
    Hey everyone! Hope you all had a good holiday and break from school and/or work!

    I just posted the concept voting thread for Challenge #70, please check it out, send in some concept suggestions, and vote for what you'd like to see in our first challenge of 2021! https://polycount.com/discussion/224166/the-bi-monthly-environment-art-challenge-concept-thread-january-february-70
  • FabioFrosaA
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    FabioFrosaA polycounter lvl 2
    Hello, everybody!

    This has been tough. It is still not finished as I want to add some decals to place some bolts and some hard surface details, but I could not do this on time. It is rendered on eevee, later I'll render it on UE4.




    I'm pretty happy with the result so far and I could only do it with what I've learned from the previous challenge: weighted normals, trim sheets and decals ( althought the last one will come in a future post).

    It has been great to be part of polycount somehow, I feel I'm learning and improving a lot from reading other's posts, as well as from the conversations here.

    I won't take the next bimonthly challenge as I'll try to go througt CG boost's Sculpt January. But I'll surely follow it and I'll see you all on march-april's challenge.

    Happy new year! Cheers!

  • alytlebird
  • hasgan
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    hasgan polycounter lvl 7
    Hi everyone, at last, my environment piece is up



    https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nYLOX9

    I can finally say goodbye to this, been a rough ride for me, but I finished it
    thankyou guys for all the inputs! I saw some of you also finished on time. cheers!

    now off to sleep for me..

  • Zocky
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    Zocky greentooth
  • hasgan
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    hasgan polycounter lvl 7
    Thankyou! @Zocky
    glad you like it :)
  • FabioFrosaA
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    FabioFrosaA polycounter lvl 2
    Hello everyone, I would like to share the final results I got on my model here.

    Could you give some technical and professional feedback on it?
    I want to have something relevant for industry standarts, but I find it hard to know what they are.

    I work part time and I get around two to three hours a day to study and practice 3D. I am really working hard on making a portfolio but yet this piece, which I'm happy with the result, seems to lag behind the avarage when trying to get into a professional position. This took me around 40 work hours, through two months, although I took some time to get back to it and make this post. It would take me 2 weeks to do it, but I took some time into studying material creation.

    I am focusing on making stylized assets with PBR textures.

    Also I'm using a workflow I enjoyed but I'm not sure of how efficient it is. I'm not making normal maps from higher res mesh, instead I am beveling the edges, making them smooth and weighting the normals. I guess that allows me to have lower res textures in general by using trim sheets, overlapping a lot of UVs. I tried to make the lowest res textures while still getting a nice result. The downside is the object can't be static as baked lighting won't work or I need to split the object into several meshes, which with my knowledge makes it quite a pain to work with them in unreal engine. It is much easier to have one mesh for each material.

    I have three materials on this.

    3 RGB 1024x1024 textures: base color, normal map, mask(roughness, metalness)
    2 RGB 512x512 textures: base color used also for emission and normal map
    1 RGB 256x256 texture: masks (roughness, metalness, height)
    height is used with bump offset node
    2 RGB 256x256 textures: normal mal and masks
    1 BW 256x256 texture: height
    this is a decal material with parallax occlusion mapping


    The model has 16.383 faces, 37.188 tris. Without the bevels, baking from hiher res, The model would have 11.426 faces, 22.354 tris.




    As I've said, I'm not quite sure I should stick to this workflow or if that is relevant at all for getting a job.
    The use of decals is really powerful to break the repetition. I've tested using some rust marks as decals and it worked great, I just took it off because it would need another decal material with a diffuse map, it was not worth it.
    This might be a better aproach to environment, which is my next step. I was too afraid to takle it.

    And last but not least.
    I really need to start getting a bit of income from 3D, so I may focus more and more into it. By looking at "the rookies" site, I feel I need a year in the rythim I am right now to get a chance. By searching for work opportunnities I rarely find what does not require 2 years of experience. Freelance websites makes me feel I will stop making 3D art to start bidding on projects. At my level, how can I make a change to so I may get experience and develop further?



  • alytlebird
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    alytlebird interpolator
    Could you give some technical and professional feedback on it?

    ...

    I really need to start getting a bit of income from 3D, so I may focus more and more into it. By looking at "the rookies" site, I feel I need a year in the rythim I am right now to get a chance. By searching for work opportunnities I rarely find what does not require 2 years of experience. Freelance websites makes me feel I will stop making 3D art to start bidding on projects. At my level, how can I make a change to so I may get experience and develop further?
    @FabioFrosaA Nice work, thanks for participating and for coming back to post your finished piece!

    As far as feedback, I think your piece works really well as a style/quality comparison to World of Warcraft assets. Your stylized texturing is quite similar, and I'm getting a last-gen feel from your geometry. That's not necessarily a bad thing! However it does demonstrate a certain bar that you are currently able to hit, when you may be aiming for something higher.

    You mention that you didn't use a highpoly workflow to bake your normals, which is perfectly acceptable for certain situations, but that is the industry-standard workflow right now, and if you want to improve your art, I would recommend learning and practicing it.

    As far as your last question about developing further, I would highly recommend looking into any of the 3D mentorships that are currently offered. Look up The Mentor Coalition, DiNusty Empire Mentorships, or Ryan Benno's Environment Art Mentorships. These will provide you with one-on-one instruction and guidance to develop your skills and better achieve your goals.

    One last note is that you shouldn't be afraid to apply to jobs that say "minimum 2 years experience required". That note is only there to scare people off, and if you have the skills or the style that the company is looking for, your experience should not matter. Time spent learning and practicing 3D can be seen as experience as well, not just time holding a job in 3D.

    Good luck. :)
  • FabioFrosaA
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    FabioFrosaA polycounter lvl 2
    @alytlebird thanks a lot for the feedback and references.
    It is really hard to keep track of things based on my own opinion.
    Also, thanks for organizing these contests.
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