The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | May - June (84)
polycounter
Welcome everyone to the 84th edition of the Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge for the months of May and June!
This challenge is a way for real-time 3D artists to test their skills and create a piece of work based on concepts provided. It's open to those of all skill levels and we do our best to provide meaningful feedback along the way so everyone can come away from the challenge with actionable points on which they can improve their craft!
https://www.artgram.co/a/fantasy-props-34
This challenge is a way for real-time 3D artists to test their skills and create a piece of work based on concepts provided. It's open to those of all skill levels and we do our best to provide meaningful feedback along the way so everyone can come away from the challenge with actionable points on which they can improve their craft!
Anyone is welcome in this challenge no matter your skill level! It's a test of your own ability not a competition between members. We're all here to improve as artists and learn from each other.
- ENVIRONMENTS -
HARD SURFACE ENVIRONMENT:
Viking Palace by Anna KulakovskaiaSTYLIZED ENVIRONMENT:
Forgotten Creation by Waiji Choo- PROPS -
HARD SURFACE PROP:
The Surge 2 | Mobile Military Gear by Jonas Hassibi
STYLIZED PROP:
Fantasy Props by María Gómezhttps://www.artgram.co/a/fantasy-props-34
- RULES -
Please read all the rules before starting:- Try to post at least 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 to finish as much as you can in the time frame provided, but remember even if you don't finish by the end of the challenge we encourage you to keep pushing and finish your piece!
- Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique. Please avoid creating a new thread as we don't want to spam out the forums.
- It is recommended to use a game engine to present your work. Unreal Engine, Unity, and CryEngine are very common engines that can be used but feel free to use any alternatives that you want. (Marmoset Toolbag for example.)
- Feel free to change up your chosen concept a bit if you want! Interpret these concepts to your liking, especially if your aim is to add storytelling elements.
- If you finish your project and decide to post it to something like Artgram or Artstation, make sure you give credit to the concept artist in the form of a link to their profile. Additionally, it is recommended to ask a concept artist for their permission to post a 3D piece based on their work before doing so.
- RECOMMENDATIONS -
- When you are just starting out making a scene, it can seem complicated or imposing. Take your time planning and blocking out, it will set you up for success later on.
- 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, don't be afraid to make it your own.
- 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.
The goal is to learn and grow both artistically and in your ability to both give and receive critique, but don't stress about it and remember to have fun!
Good luck everyone!
Replies
Following the link of the stylized prop, I liked the combination with the other props and gave it a try. Kept it quite fast and simple. Used mainly hard edges to control the shading, hand-painted textures in Blender and PS, stacked UVs and mirrored elements to save space and time. Later added a boolean layer to break up symmetry.
model
textures:
Looking forward to see other peoples stuff
If I had time for another one, it would be the sci-fi prop. Assets like that intimidate me a bit, because they seem complex. But on a second look, there are many repeating elements. When doing it, I would try making a face-weighted mid-poly using tiling materials and mesh decals. Let's see
The books environment seems to consist mainly of simple geo, but man, the amount of books makes me sweat.
No particular goal or time frame yet. It would be cool to flesh out a couple of individual assets like the large statues holding the fire bowls, the wall carving and the throne and mix them with Megascans assets. Currently the scene has Megascans surfaces applied, except one wood trim sheet that was created for the last challenge. For the geometry lots of mirror and array modifiers are used.
some thoughts on the elements of the concept
Cool that you picked up that concept, I'm curios to see a it from a different perspective! I feel a bit like I spammed this thread, so I'd be happy to see content from other peeps
@Fabi_G I like that you posted the texture sketches and thoughts, very helpful. I'm taking mental notes for future environment projects. Good luck on the Viking hall, it's looking good!
I broke out the throne asset from the Viking hall scene and fleshed it out a bit more. Tried to keep to keep it simple.
Screenshot from Sketchfab viewer:
Model on Sketchfab:
model
Textures:
For the patterns on the throne I attempted modeling and sculpting it first, but I didn't like the long time it took to make changes. The next approach was to create a mask in photoshop and using layer effects to bevel it. The resulting alpha was then used with Zbrush's "create mesh from alpha" function to convert it into geometry. The touched up pattern-meshes would then be stuffed into the larger sculpted throne shapes. Now that I think of it, I also tried painting patterns in Painter and bevel them with filters. This sort of worked for some patterns.
For the fur, I used the old shells approach with increased cutoff values of the alpha with increasing layers. A second UV channel with an alpha trim was used for the shape of the border. The main fur texture set is tiling, variation was added using vertex color. Following this approach, I think it should be fairly quick to do differently shaped furs and save texture memory. Adding some hair-cards into the mix would probably further improve the result. I think the solution is suited for short hair/fur - for longer ones, one would like to control the groom.
The weapons were modeled with sub-div modifier. In Painter, some damage layers were added, their masks anchored, and input into generators to modulate base materials based on AO/cavities and edges.
Happy to read your thoughts on what could be improved or how you would approach this asset!
I used color, normal, roughness and metallic. I use two texture sets. One for the box and another for the battery. Both are 1024. The cables have no textures but instead use tweaked Blender materials. The maps for AO, rough and metallic are combined because I tried to render it in Unreal first. Then I went back to Blender because I could finish the scene faster there.
Instead of re-exporting the textures, I decided to split out the RGB channels and flipped the green(Y) channel in the normal map, because Unreal use DirectX, while Blender use OpenGL. I didn't use AO because when I baked it using the "low-poly" in painter it baked some ugly artifacts. I used the SSAO in Eevee instead and then eventually Cycles for the final output.
Put the assets into Unreal engine:
Used Blenders UV-Project modifier to map the texture onto the carved wall while modifying the geometry:
Edit - Continued on the environment:
Want the figures to have a ghost-like appearance. Things to do: add shield variations, flesh out statues, flesh out tree carving, improve (or replace) fire, ...
edit2: Made further progress with the scene:
I just want to post here that I chose the beer table. I did a 3D sculpt on it. My challenge is to bring it into Unreal with 0,1 LOD's. Maybe 2... I don't know yet. All done with free software and PBR even if it's a painterly style concept. I will keep on keeping on until I finish even though this challenge is about to end. It's a pleasure.
I'd note that it starts to look blobby. In my experience, it can help to separate the highpoly into several pieces to have more control in tight areas (like individual boards). It can also reduce the amount of work when reusing a couple of modules. In the end, the geometry could be merged together (and remeshed if a continuous mesh is desired).
Looking forward to updates, keep it up!
https://polycount.com/discussion/233425/the-bi-monthly-environment-art-challenge-july-august-85