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WIP - Deep dark wood - (Block out Phase)

Greetings! 
Here is the beginning stage of a personal project I am working on. I would love to share my progress and hopefully get some feedback from this awesome community.  
Going for a dark fantasy tone with strong focal lighting and readable shapes.
My goal here is to take this scene I have built and take it into Unreal and make everything from scratch. 

This early on in the process I'm simply thinking about composition and scale. So things are extremely loose. The Polygons are low, making it easy to manipulate. 

I'll probably spend a few more hours in Maya building out this 3D sketch and then bring it into unreal where i can start adding some lighting and depth. This should help create some focal point(s). 
I'm extremely excited to get this thing to the next phase and start to breakdown what the challenges I'm working out. 
Again if anyone has any critique/ feedback it would be greatly appreciated! 

I look forward to sharing more with y'all :) 

-3dom


Replies

  • Eric Chadwick
    Neat, looking good so far. 

    Do you have a mood board? Which are your primary references? Are you aiming for semi realism, or more painterly PBR, or?

    Would be good to add a few more cameras, help you flesh out the scene, see it “in the round”.
  • 3DOM
    Hey Eric,
    Thanks for taking a look :)

    Def forgot to drop my mood board which is my compass and inspiration through this project. 
    The scene i am building is heavily influenced by these images here:

    So its going to be a stylized scene for sure. Going to push myself with some new shaders to make the massive size of the trees work. And the one thing  that i want to make look as good as possible is some fluffy moss. I've looked everywhere online for a good tut on that subject. And not a lot of luck but ill be doing lots of experimenting to say the least. 

    And thanks for the suggestion with the different camera(s). Ill think about some good spots where i can move it around. 
    One of the things I was trying to be strict  about was finding a composition early and sticking to it.  main reason for that is to cut back on the time it will take to make this. 
  • Eric Chadwick
    We have a few techniques on the wiki about moss, do a search
  • 3DOM
    Nice! ill take a look
  • Eric Chadwick
    I see some Wildstar art in your mood board. We had an article about Carbine Studios' work on the game, FWIW https://polycount.com/discussion/160020/wildstar-behind-the-scenes
  • 3DOM
    Getting close to finalizing the block out stage of this environment. I have brought it into unreal from maya so i can start messing around with moss. It has been on my mind for the past week (never done moss before) and i wanted to take a stab at it. This is a quick and dirty attempt just to see if it feels good and will work with this environment. Still need plenty of experimentation but I feel like this works for now. 

    This stage is not about polishing or spending too much time on one thing. The ideal thing for me to do is to stay focused on the whole scene and not get bogged down by the details. 

    Moving forward I'm going to get organized and start by doing a paint over that will help me do 2 things.
    1) Its a great way for me to visualize where I am heading without needing to dedicate a ton of time. 
    2) It will help me breakdown the necessary assets required to build this environment to completion. 

    I've also been starting to buildup some tiling textures to go with this. Here is the moss texture so far -  
  • Eric Chadwick
    Looking sweet. Might want to increase the micro bump strength, so the top layer is not so flat-looking? 

    I took this photo of moss recently, snow was still falling in Vermont, so maybe the moss looks more scrawny in cooler times?

  • 3DOM
    Good idea! 
    Thanks Eric :) 
  • 3DOM
    Been a while sense I've worked on a personal project of this scale. So im trying to just have fun with it. Ended up going back and adding more ideas to the blockout and am feeling happy with its evolution. I am adding an interior section of the tree that can work as a great hall or possibly a witches den. Not sure yet... If anyone has thoughts if love to hear em :)

    Anyways im going to keep jamming on this in my spare time and will post updates as they come. 

    Also sorry about the quality of the gif. Id rather upload a video of the flythrough so its better quality, but for this stage it doesn't matter all that much. Ill probably add venmo links moving forward as secondary details and lighting becomes more of an important element of this project. 
    Or if anyone knows of a better way to post videos on polycount I'm all ears. Thanks! :D


    I have created 2 additional camera angles to dress up for future screenshots 
    This last one is extremely rough atm so it subject to see changes in the near future.
  • Eric Chadwick
    “venmo links”? Venmo is an online banking app.

    “better way to post videos on polycount” see https://polycount.com/discussion/150407/animation-forum-how-to-post-your-work/p1
  • 3DOM
    lmao vimeo not venmo... 


  • 3DOM
    Been messing around with some bark treatments. Ill break this down once I have it set in stone.
  • 3DOM
    A shot in engine with foliage growth
  • 3DOM
    Bark texture examples: 
  • d1ver
    Online / Send Message
    d1ver polycounter lvl 18
    Okay, this is looking really cool. I can't believe there aren't more comments. Please go, go, go! I love the finish and the style you're applying to the props. I think what I'm a little bit confused about right now is the lighting direction. Because some of your tests are kind of more light and airy, and some are more dark and spooky. Same with concept and paintover.

    And so I feel like locking that down would really help. Throwing out some ideas in the order of idyllicness:
    Maleficent
    The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
    Into the Woods

    Or the Green Knight move with deep green shadows and the unique deep yellow fog that David Lowery pushed could be really cool for the spoooky vibe:
    The Green Knight
    The Green Knight
    Either way I'm subscribed! :) Excited to see more. Keep it up!
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