The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | July - August (91)
ngon master
Hey everyone! Welcome to the 91st edition of the Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge for the months of July and August!
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:
Throne Hall in Cathedral by Olga Lihota
STYLIZED ENVIRONMENT:
Practice by Paul Crafter
- PROPS -
HARD SURFACE PROP:
Ascendant Infinity: Fabricator by Alfie Garland
STYLIZED PROP:
Magic shrines and props by Marina Papetti
Note: I've confirmed with Marina that they are comfortable with those participating in the challenge to use this concept.
- 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 Godot 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 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
Edit: Should be working now out of quotation, thanks!
Trying this owl shrine out first! I'd like to give the hard-surface prop a go at some point too.
Or maybe not
Congrats on finishing it! You could try adding it to sketchfab since you have time.
So I wrote the artist who made the fox shrine concept and didn't get a response. I don't really want to keep going with the 3D in that case. I could either concept something or use one from an art book.
My main critique would be that the shading looks a bit wrong, for example corners lack definition and flat areas have shading gradients. Checking the textures, it looks like you used an tangent-space normal map for the overgrowth and some other type normal map for the shrine? As far I know, the default Unity materials take a tangent-space normal map. Did you create a custom shader/material? Other things to check is that the texture type set to Normal Map and the normal maps have correct handedness for Unity (OpenGL). How does the shading look in your texturing/baking application and of the original highpoly - that's something you can compare against. Normal Map - Technical Details in the wiki.
Generally, I think you could get some more out of the textures, as currently they look a bit blurry/unrefined. But I understand that if you don't want continue work on this if the concept artist is unresponsive.
Keep it up
My main critique would be …
Added some fog planes with a panning noise to add some local fog.
For the wall rock module, I cut a box into shape, built a compound shape from that, re-meshed and decimated, then unwrapped and applied a tiling material in Unity. The baked lighting smoothes out some of the hard edges. I also reused some other rocks I did in the past.
The growth emerging from the entrance is sculpted in Blender. In the end I added a "Displacement" modifier to inflate the whole shape slightly, making it more blobby.
I'm using vertex color to add some gradient masks to the models. In this case I'm transferring vertex color from proxy meshes via the "Data Transfer" modifier. I find this very handy when the model is still being iterated on.
The trim sheet was mainly modeling with some additional details using floaters (with "_ignorbackface" for AO baking).
Next, I want to add some details to the ground/path. I feel on closeup details are lacking. Maybe adding detail textures will help. And possibly reflections need work. Curious to see updates, keep it up
Hi! Got started with the gate concept. To speed things up, I went with a trim-sheet approach and will go from there. Recent version, Unity, baked lighting...
Thanks for sharing your process! The result is exquisite. If I were to critique anything, it would just be the angle of the shot, which I feel doesn't convey the scale well.
Along the lines what dirtspacer wrote, I'd note that in regards to overall proportions the hall in the concept feels higher and more vertical. The top part of the pillars looks a bit too massive in my opinion. Here is a rough overpaint on the concept, assuming a step height of 20 cm.
That's just my interpretation of course and I think it's fine to divert from the concept.
What's the plan for texturing things?
@dirtspacer Thanks for the feedback! Aside from adding a few more elements to the scene and expanding the material, I have been looking for different angles. Maybe I can add something for better scale reference.
The most recent state inside Unity:
Keep it up!
Also, I adjusted the proportions to make the environment walkable for the player. the top of the pillars are to remake because they don't follow the concept art
I think it's a bit of a balancing act between capturing the feel of the concept and having a good play space. I suppose if one wanted to keep the concepts feel of verticality, the pillars could be made taller so the room proportions are preserved. Here is an overpaint attempt:
Of course tis will lead to more space that needs to be accounted for.
Don't know if you did a greybox/blockout step in engine, personally I find this very helpful to build out a space without thinking too much about actual modeling already.
@Djyver Thanks for the comment. Cool looking update, like the damage on the pillars
@miriuk Nice update! I think it might become to noisy/contrasty as a whole, so the elements don't stand out from each other, for example pillars against walls, affecting the overall readability. To counter this, you reduce the contrast an element has. In the case of the pillars, merge them more together by decreasing the gaps between segments. Additionally you can emphasize vertical lines to create even more readability. Here is an overpaint for illustration:
Also, I'd be cautious to not overdo it with the edge wear. It can be tempting sometimes, but I think it should fit the theme of the environment. In my mind this is a maintained, royal interior hall, so I imagine the weathering/damage is not substantial and the shapes are fairly clean. Generally, I would recommend to not solely rely on the concept as reference, but also look up some real-life locations that fit the theme and take notes from them. The concept artist likely did the same, but we only see the end result.
Excited to see the various interpretations of the concepts, keep it up people
Fabi_G That looks really cool, like something you'd see in some deep dark souls cavern. Maybe you can add a slumped skeleton tucked away behind one of the side pedestals to emphasize scale.
I think the sculpt is looking great, the details in particular. What would improve it even further for me, would be if the roots were a bit more irregular, like they where searching the ground for water
If you're using sub-division levels could do this on a lower level keeping the nice surface detail intact. Without use of sub-division level, it could be done using some deformers. Some additional roots could be added by copying an existing segment and deforming it along a spline.
Keep up the great work!
Here's the low-poly in the meantime.
I'll be making a separate texture for the alpha and emissive stuff.
Here my last update
You could maybe add some rocks or cracks to the floor.
I'll be setting this up in Sketchfab and doing a polish pass on textures. I added some grass cards around the base but I think it's too much. I might thin that out so it's just limited clumps.
To put on my Artstation, I will do on the next weeks:
Alright, got it set up in Sketchfab! I still want to do a pass on the color maps in photoshop/3D-coat but I have some other things I really need to take care of right now. If anyone has feedback on presentation please let me knoow.
Djyver thanks for bringing that up! I was considering it before but wasn't sure if they'd be distracting. Added.
Small feedback: fly particles looks artificial. It aligned same distance. Maybe add more and play with size variation, position of