The BRAWL² Tournament Challenge has been announced!
It starts May 12, and ends Sept 12. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
It starts May 12, and ends Sept 12. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
[WIP] Ghibli Kiki's delivery service, inspired enviroment UH Main project
Hi everyone!
I'm currently working on my main project for my master's degree — a recreation of the Okino Residence from Kiki’s Delivery Service.
I'll be sharing some placeholder meshes and foliage here to show my progress. I'd really appreciate any feedback, ideas, or suggestions you might have!
I'm also new to SpeedTree, so any tips or advice on that would be especially helpful. Thanks!
First, I do the block out for the scene, here I wanted to have the scales right and base colors done so I could then have the correct scale of the house and to know the scale of the components in the art:
After doing the block out to fit similar to the aspect ratio of this picture I proceed to export the house to blender to make the specific meshes for the house.
Here is the house after applying the mesh placeholders
I am thinking about later changing them but in Houdini, so instead of having a bunch of variables of one window that there is just one window that could be scale for all purposes.
After having this I started the Process of doing the different foliage in SpeedTreed
Here I tried some experiment with moss on top of the house and ivy. I wanted to create a fluffier roof like the one in the picture so this was an initial test for that, in the future I plan to change it to half cards half moss in the texture.
Here are the rest of the flowers, I am more focus at this moment in the shape and them to be looking like the flower that I want to make than in their textures, just using the base colors from unreal
I'm currently working on my main project for my master's degree — a recreation of the Okino Residence from Kiki’s Delivery Service.
I'll be sharing some placeholder meshes and foliage here to show my progress. I'd really appreciate any feedback, ideas, or suggestions you might have!
I'm also new to SpeedTree, so any tips or advice on that would be especially helpful. Thanks!
First, I do the block out for the scene, here I wanted to have the scales right and base colors done so I could then have the correct scale of the house and to know the scale of the components in the art:
After doing the block out to fit similar to the aspect ratio of this picture I proceed to export the house to blender to make the specific meshes for the house.
Here is the house after applying the mesh placeholders
I am thinking about later changing them but in Houdini, so instead of having a bunch of variables of one window that there is just one window that could be scale for all purposes.
After having this I started the Process of doing the different foliage in SpeedTreed
Here I tried some experiment with moss on top of the house and ivy. I wanted to create a fluffier roof like the one in the picture so this was an initial test for that, in the future I plan to change it to half cards half moss in the texture.
Here are the rest of the flowers, I am more focus at this moment in the shape and them to be looking like the flower that I want to make than in their textures, just using the base colors from unreal
Replies
- Lock in your cameras and lighting before doing more prop work.
- Than work from biggest objects (on-screen size) to smallest.
It will save you a ton of time polishing assets that will never get seen that close.I'm sure you've got some good ref but here's more just in case:
https://imaginemore.art/?library=Cinematic+Art&more=59bd62d15737deae636ff87999a0c90d&type=inspiration
For your first point I was having doubts about that as well!
The photo that I put there it has kind of a camera angel similar to the photograph and I make the shadow kind to match to the photo, but I was unsure that maybe it will be better to put a postprocessing here to start having the lighting of the final scene? What do you think? Do you have recommendations for what to do with that lighting? And thanks! Definitely I will concentrate more with the closest elements and thank you for more references!
If you look at your reference - the focal points like the winding road and the house fall neatly
But your reference has an aspect ratio that is not conventional for games or film. So when mapped to your composition it doesn't support the focal point. There is just too much empty space and your focal point is not highlighted to it's full potential
If you compare to how the film shipped in this aspect ratio you'll see that the framing is quite different. It uses a longer lens which results in a tighter crop on your focal point:
Which is also beneficial for you because it cuts out a lot of the the scene you will not have to bother with populating. So use it to your advantage. You can improve the composition while at the same time cutting down the amount work. And once you lock the composition (or multiple if you have them) - you'll be able to proceed with spending time in areas that don't matter.
But also please note that the film shipped with higher contrast than your reference. Which is what human eye and brain generally prefer. So if I were you I would definitely increase the contrast to match the film. And would have probably made the foreground plant even darker to improve the depth of the frame. Due to aerial perspective the darkest shadows are always in the foreground so it's a great way to tickle your audiences brain with a real feeling of depth.
If you compare to how the film shipped in this aspect ratio you'll see that the framing is quite different. It uses a longer lens which results in a tighter crop on your focal point:
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So, I change it, thanks! I couldn't make it exact as the view you said because I want this project to focus a lot on the foliage part so cutting out them almost entirely like the last image wasn't ideal as they are an important focus on this project. But what you said about the grid and the rule of third and the lens all help me a lot to better the image because it had a lot of empty space.
Here is the new camera with your feedback nun:
Thanks to your feedback again, I feel that the composition got a lot better!
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Here I was told about the steam being a dificulty in the project so I tried to see if it looks better to make them with maybe just a card? maybe with a normal it will be the thing that is needed to finish these flowers. this is my first try:
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The last part of the progress that I had for this week is the start of making materials for the game this is the first try for the stylized wood material:
Re: Histogram
There are not tools in Unreal to update the lighting from histogram. It's more of a general tool for you to know where your values fall compared to your reference. Or if they are too dark/bright/not using the whole range.
You can get the histogram in any image editing software like Photoshop or here if you want it directly in browser. Just drop the image and choose 'analyze'.
You can use common sense to adjust ambient(sky) light, sun light to try to get it closer. But it's quite common to just use a Look Up Table (LUT) at the end to make the necessary adjustment in the post process to get to the final values. I'm sure unreal has ample documentation on LUTs if you need it. It's a common tool.
RE: Foliage
It's a solid start but even in these small screenshots it already looks quite noisy. The distinctive characteristic of the Ghibli style is that extensive noise control on foliage due to how it's painted from big shapes with a few highlights.
I would suggest you arrange the plants you have in the scene already and then evaluate the noise level. You might need to simplify them.
Good luck with the rest!
Wardana: Love the movie and very excited where you are going with this. The painted wood material is spot on.
@Noren Associated indeed. As an art director running a tech company, I don’t usually have much time to give back to the community — so I built a tool to help make giving feedback and focusing on fundamentals fast and accessible.
For decades now I’ve been frustrated that so much of our online discourse revolves around tools and buttons rather than artistic fundamentals. I've had to interview so many senior artists who’ve never studied cinematography, can't tell why they used an analogous color palette over complimentary one or why they used 80mm lens versus a 50mm. Let alone our graduates, who leave schools hugely in debt knowing mostly which buttons to press in unreal or maya, being terrified about how software is eating most of the boring technical bullshit in the jobs and not knowing how to contribute creatively.
So I’m trying to help fix that and eventually hand it off to you guys so that everyone can do it themselves. Hope you don’t mind. I'm happy to answer more questions if you have any.
To be honest, I don't know 100% how I feel about this. I have no doubt you have good intentions, and there is no question your are being actually helpful, too, but it is advertisement of sorts. Maybe add a link/disclaimer to your signature that clearly states that this is your tool so no one has to guess about that.
Anyway, probably not the right thread for this. My apologies.
But more importantly — we don’t do this here. We’re artists. We’re here to learn, grow, and get better. We all know how incredibly hard the path to becoming a professional artist is — and how rare truly thoughtful, constructive feedback can be.
It might not mean much to you working at Blizzard, but for someone like me - who grew up in a third-world country with no access to formal education - thoughtful critique was the difference between a dream career and a life of poverty.
You might be afraid of what these tools represent - and that’s valid. But that fear doesn’t give you the right to shut down opportunities for others who might truly want or need them.
If someone doesn’t find my feedback useful, they’re always free to ignore it. But the decision to share insight - especially when it’s backed by decades of hard-won experience - shouldn't be policed by your misinformation or fear.
This community deserves better. Please be better.