Some Enviroment Work
polycounter lvl 18
Hey all, just wanna post some things I've been working on recently. I've taken Polycounters advice and switched gears towards prop modeling which will hopefully make my portfolio a little more professional in the long run.
Heres what I'm working on now:
This is the high res version of a sci fi - Quake-ish inspired door, trying desperately to get my high poly modeling up to par. I'm not to comfortable with the sci fi theme at the moment, so its gonna take a couple of models to hopefully get a good ground on things.
I've been working on a collection of next gen RTS type models as well, and I'm debating on including this into the collection (making a fairly low poly base mesh for the door).
Here's what I've done in the past couple days (during night when I have some free time).
Again, it's fairly basic stuff but I'm trying my hardest to get away from the "cartoony" style that I've been told I have, and start focusing more on realism... I hope its working.
I'm gonna make a couple more smaller props (sharing some sort of construction, war zone type theme) then move onto some focal point props such as a Crane and something else to fill out a scene.
I hope I'm at least going in the right direction, and would appreciate any crits or and tips
This work is all leading to a new, more professional portfolio for myself (thats the goal anyways).
Thanks again
Heres what I'm working on now:
This is the high res version of a sci fi - Quake-ish inspired door, trying desperately to get my high poly modeling up to par. I'm not to comfortable with the sci fi theme at the moment, so its gonna take a couple of models to hopefully get a good ground on things.
I've been working on a collection of next gen RTS type models as well, and I'm debating on including this into the collection (making a fairly low poly base mesh for the door).
Here's what I've done in the past couple days (during night when I have some free time).
Again, it's fairly basic stuff but I'm trying my hardest to get away from the "cartoony" style that I've been told I have, and start focusing more on realism... I hope its working.
I'm gonna make a couple more smaller props (sharing some sort of construction, war zone type theme) then move onto some focal point props such as a Crane and something else to fill out a scene.
I hope I'm at least going in the right direction, and would appreciate any crits or and tips
This work is all leading to a new, more professional portfolio for myself (thats the goal anyways).Thanks again
Replies
The progressively damaged prop is interesting. The door looks like its coming along nicely. Just keep pushing the detail. It seems like adding small elements that repeat and feel machine made helps the sci-fi feel. Keep posting your progress I would like to see where this goes.
Also what does quackish mean? Is that supposed to be Quake-ish? Or am I just really confused?
Hey Armanguy
Johny
Oh and thanks for the compliment Armanguy, but I don't feel like I'm ready for a job.. not yet anyways, i know I can push myself more to produce quality work... I'm hoping these are the first steps to that
More updates coming
What I used there is a double sided material (you can make it double sided in the material editor).
I was told the same thing from my teacher as well... first time I used an alpha in Unreal engine I used 2 planes instead (so you can see front and back). But then he told me you can just make the material double sided.
Now from what i read from before is that with the double sided material, supposedly the lights react differently, but from what I've seen it hasn't effected it at all.
The other thing I was told was instead of using opacity, use masked instead because it takes up less resources... thats more so if its a huge scene.
I agree with Johny on the center dividers though, add in some tire and paint smears. Also you might want to brighten up some of the hues on the piece overall. Just personal taste but when you darken the grunge too much it gets this odd syndrome where all your stuff looks brown or grey. Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw covers this in his review of Clive Barker's Jericho. It's almost like an epidemic in next gen games.
Here's a link if you haven't seen the review.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/14-Clive-Barkers-Jericho
I'm actually really happy (and surprised) the normal turned out so well, took alittle while to work things out but I'm pretty happy with it, just gotta smooth out some issues with the normal map file and it should be good to go.
I'll be doing the texture tomorrow, and hopefully it turns out ok. I'm gonna stay with the same construction theme as other props... and once thats done I'll continue on with some smaller props, then onto the crane.
Oh and the map size is 1 - 512.
So this was inspired by one of the Too Human screenshots (http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/704/704011/too-human-20060501024926584.jpg) of the cool holographic light things... and decided to make it into some sort of holographic pillar :P So this is the high so far... I'm really starting to enjoy the high res model, I mean the stuff I'm doing now is pretty basic, but I'm still enjoying it.
So yuh thats what I will be working on for now, get the in-game model done as well and continue on.
I've decided to do a couple more models inspired by Too Human (or try and replicate a model from Too Human) since that's one of the companies I would really like to work for hopefully in the near future... and if Too Human is a success (which I think it will be) its said the company will go from 180 to 1500 in the coming years, so if anyone like what Silicon Knights is doing... you should apply there in the near future
Thanks all
I hate how maya handles normals though...
Give your high detail meshes a pass in zbrush or mudbox (some sculpting tool) to get some dents, dings and scratches into it to give it history and scale.
You may get better results previewing in UT3, those (first post) look great.
You're on the right track, keep it up and it'll all come together. IM me if you ever want me to take a closer look.
I hope I'm not thread jacking but I wanted to ask a newbie question, where are the smoothing errors in Jason's prop? what do they look like? I'm also using Maya and from what I can tell you can either make edges hard or soft and thats about it?
Alex
alexk, the smoothing errors are the areas on his model that have odd shadows or shadows that don't obey the lighting. Usually if you go to normals>Set Normal Angle and set it to 30 or 35 it will balance them out fairly nicely but some times you have to go in by hand and set them to what you need.
I'll try and fix that later on, but it reacts differently in unreal though...
I'm not sure what the rule of thumb is but i tweak mine for the surface. Setting them all to soft or to the same group gives odd lighting results in my opinion. I guess as long as your final render comes out the way you want it doesn't matter.
Or i could be wrong... I'll try it out. Update will be coming soon
Anyways, I'm getting closer and closer, just need to figure out a cool design for the holographic poster type thing, and I should be ready to move on. This taking way longer then I wanted.
Looking good.
Also I fixed up the texture (hopefully) so it doesn't look as scratched up... and I tried to be a bit smarter where to place my scratches.
I also got the hologram to work, and i used the unreal material editor to make the hologram animated.
I talked to a friend who said that now is the time I should focus on creating an entire scene, from modeling to texturing to lighting to final... which is something I've been planning on doing for while, so hopefully everything goes well.
Here is the concept that I will be modeling, created by Andy Chung, a crazy talented artist... you should check out his website when you have the chance.
And here are some basic pieces I'm working on, trying to make some pieces modular to practice that aspect as well.
So yuh, thats what I'm working on right now.
Thats a really nice concept piece, looking forward to seeing you create it in 3d.
Then last night me and a fellow artist agreed to buy 2 tutorial videos from Eat 3D... these tutorials basically changed my life... and now I understand more what needs to be done to get the most out of your normals, textures etc. Learned some GREAT techniques that will forever change the way I handle art. If anyone is interested in great tutorials (the best I've watched) go to www.eat3d.com and spend the money on them. They are kinda focused towards UT3 engine (well, ut materials are) but you can still learn some great techniques that will easily transfer to any engine (I would think).
Thanks carlo... I was happy how the hologram turned out, and it looks really cool in motion.
The scene should be a blast, I'm going to put what I've learnt from those dvd's to good use, I promise
My love for the 3D arts has increased so much because of those dvds :P Makes me want to work my ass off so I can get into an actual studio and suck as much knowledge from everyone as possible... he he he
More updates coming soon all... I'm gonna do a couple of practices to try out the new techniques and then get back to the scene.
I bring you... MOON RAWK! *queue lazer beam sound effects....
I just wanted to test out some newly learned techniques (more so for unwraping and rendering out ze oh so sexy AO map). So this was a very basic test, I just brought a cube into mudbox and quickly made it look like a piece of rhino crap and brought it in 3D max (I haven't used 3d max for over a year now... I missed the sexy beast) and worked on rendering out Normal, AO and height maps.
Now this wasn't done at super high quality when baking (512 for each) but I'm surprised how well it turned out, specifically the AO map since I've never had AO maps turn out all that well... and now I know how to use them which is nice too :P
But the BIGGEST thing I've learnt is some unwrapping techniques... really basic stuff that I never knew like Pack UV's... which helps SOOO much. Also, I tried my hand at Pelt mapping, and I know it gets a lot of hate... but man it rawks for getting out some clean no distortion maps... just don't look at the nasty seam :P
I'm gonna mess around with it just a bit more, then I'll move on to the serious stuff
This is awesome! can we see the shader for it?
I took screenshots of the 2 material setups I did for this (in Unreal)... I hope this is what you're asking for.
Pillar Shader Screen - http://jasonlavoie.net/images/Tests/Pillar_UT3Shader.jpg
Hologram Shader Screen - http://jasonlavoie.net/images/Tests/Hologram_UT3Shader.jpg
If anyone looks at this and you see areas where I can make these shaders more efficient then please tell me. I know that now I can use RGB channels instead of the Alpha channel to store separate maps which really helps. Basically if you use the Alpha channel with your diffuse, it automatically acts as 2 textures (taking up more memory) where as if you use the RGB channels and just merge your separate maps into each channel, it doesn't take up nearly as much memory... supposedly.
Anywho, I hope thats what you were asking for Frozan
I wish I could see the animating texture for the holographic panel. I bet it's real cool.
The updated textures are looking very pro. cheers!
I see you've done some pretty complex stuff with the normal channel, was it those eat3d vids that got you acquainted with the inner workings of unreal materials?
They used there base normal map (baked with Hi-res mesh) and then they used this overlay normal. What i found out (with the tutorial afterwards) the reason why they use these overlay normals (its just a tiled normal map) is because when you get closer to the object, the model still looks "sharp" because the overlay normals are tileing... and it actually works REALLY nice.
Try it out sometime...
Yeaa! i'm trying to learn environments right now and i was digging in unreal today. :poly134: they have pretty much the SAME 256x256 tiled normal map on EVERYTHING!! but amazingly it accualy makes it look good...(unless your like me and go right up to the wall and study it for 20 minutes)
You're work is looking really nice, looks pretty much like professional work to me.
You accually like the pack UV's feature in max..o.O unless all my pieces are cubes...i find it wastes tons of space. o.O and you use pelts for mechanical stuff!?!? i find often it scews shapes. i don't know if you use it already, but there is unfold tool in one of the menus is the uv editor it works great for nice blocky mechanical stuff.
and why do you have that nasty seam on your rock....if you baked the normal map in max, it should be pretty clean. max always bakes the nice contours onto the normal map across the seams.
and question...a question about this ambient occlusion business.
I still haven't understood why they are used. as i understand them they are simply a texture of the ambient shadows...which is static. Couldn't this ambient light just as easily be applied directly onto the Diffuse map. I've sort of tested this on a character i made. And it seamed to give pretty good results.
or am i completely misinformed about what AO maps do.....I did just look it up again to make sure.
Oh I defiantly don't solely rely on Pack UV's.. it's just a quick and easy way to get the maps positioned, I go back once I've unwrapped everything and fix it manually, but it does cut down on some time, all about efficiency.
As for pelt mapping, I only used it on the Moon rawk, I always manually unwrap my models (much more control) but with the moon rawk, I was just having fun and testing out tools I haven't used before (or was using improperly). Might as well try it if it's there :P The other thing that I am trying to work on is time... using my time effectively so I can get much more done in a day, faster you get one thing done... the faster you can start on the next piece. The other half is delivering the same quality level or higher in a shorter amount of time... MAGIKZ
The reason why that seam is there (I believe) is because of the AO map, I didn't touch the AO map or Normals, I just applied the maps to a new material and took that screen. Again, it was a quick and painless test to try out some new techniques.
Thanks Dale, I love your texture work, especially on that cave man dude, great style and modeling
Thanks Don, I'm a big fan of your work and been following your growth as an artist for awhile, your character art is a big inspiration buddy, keep up the great work... you too Dale
EDIT: I actually have a question... what would I use a Height Map for? (I'll check the tuts again)
Thanks all
I'll be updating this with some textures (plus some more rubble type stuff) I'll mess around abit more then go back to the scene. I'll bring this stuff into Unreal and try out some of other techniques the dvd shown.
Hope nobody minds me posting the smaller stuff right now, if you do just tell me and I'll stop :P Just trying to illustrate how AO maps can really help push the details. Later I can show what the model looks like with just the normal, then show what the normal and AO looks like... maybe that could help show the effectiveness.
Mmmm, yeah, what Armanguy says, zbrushing those rubbles? And
And I'm all for smaller stuff~
I guess also, may you post just the AO bakes, so one can get a better idea on how the AO baking is / looks like.
Great stuff again~
_cisco
yea, they shouldn't have apparent seams if you didn't touch them.
btw, what is Andy Chung's website, I can't seem to find it on google.
This what an AO map looks like
The darker area near the top is the bottom of the rubble, I just put a plane underneath it (the model is not directly on top, but a bit higher) so it would give it more shadow... which makes sense because little to no light would be hitting the bottom.
Dale: I checked the ao map and it created this one shadow near the seam that really shows, and also I think the normal was helping out with that :P I could have unwrapped it better as well. The seam was on a weird corner / dent.
Andy Chung's website (or blog) can be found at: http://www.acsketch.blogspot.com/
Joe: The reason why I used Black and White colour maps was because in unreal you can connect a Constant 3 Vector node and your texture node to a multiply which will allow me to choose the colour of my Glow
Here is a quick and easy picture to show what I mean:
The Constant 3 Vector uses RGB to select your colour, so its quick and easy. It also affects the amount of "bloom", anything over 1 will progressively get more "bloomier", and it always needs more bloom! *sarcasm
Just getting through the last bit of Student Loan crap for school, more updates hopefully coming soon :P
Furthermore, all the work your putting into these new props is really paying off. Also, doing an entire scene is probably a really good idea so keep at it. Nice work so far, I will definitely be following your progress.
My plan is to take the atmosphere from Saw or Room 1408 and make it fit into some sort of puzzle "game" (the scene).
As I look at this right now I'm not feeling it, its very very boring. More props will be made, and once I get onto texturing and lighting I hope this will turn out the way I see it in my head... we'll see.
Next models are gonna be this huge industrial type door (no way to open it) and some sort of security type camera, also some more little props like a messy rug, a suitcase full of letters, a bible on the bed stand, a broken video tape etc. etc.
I wanna make it feel like it could be a game and each prop is a piece to the puzzle... thats my goal.
More coming...
Once I get a couple more textures done I'll post some more screens, hopefully it'll look a bit more "exciting".
Oh and the textures size is 1024 but I made it 512 for the screeny, and sorry for the stupid watermark, never can be too safe right? (if it's annoying i'll take it off).
Updated, more work on the way.
I also got the floor texture in there.
Once I flesh out the scene with all the models + texturing the models, I'll start working on Decals that will help break the scene up a bit.
Non of the props are textured yet, I wanna try and modeled them all first and place them, then worry about texturing. (I hope thats what you're asking)