o'rafer's keep
polycounter lvl 18
i have something to share i've been working on for the last month that i'd luv 2 share with u. i would appreciate feedback on this - i'll be placing it in the portfolio eventually and would like to continue to improve upon it with your help. i'd love to maybe start over, and be more patient with it, so i'm open to possible large changes.
here was an early paintover:
final render:
i may model this dude... he's the fairy that lives there
here was an early paintover:
final render:
i may model this dude... he's the fairy that lives there
Replies
the 3d model seems more human size because of the smaller bricks and more grounded proportions.
the texture work looks great dude, i would love to see some flats.maybe the leather tarping is a bit lacking but it still looks decent. the ground could use a better texture though it seems kinda garbled and random.
awesome work man.
Edit: I am confused
wtb flat wires too.
BTW< ALL HOPE ARE NOT LOST. KEEP UR HEAD HIGH!
lol
you know what i think. really turned out great.
hahha whoops sorry KP :P
having a beard makes no difference
Anyway, aside from the gender confusion, nice work.
Personally I think the model has ended up looking a bit more clinical-looking (if you know what i mean) than the concept - the concept was all thick chunky lines and solid bits of colour, and the model itself has got a lot of very fine lines and sharp details, to be honest I prefer the style of the concept more, and that style doesn't seem to have translated much into the model. But I assume that was your intent.
The concept of the li'l dude is great though, you should DEFINITELY DEFINITELY model him. And stick to the concept.
hahahhaa....you absolutely positive about that? not that cory wouldn't make a hot chick, but i'm reasonable sure dude is a dude. i haven't checked so ill leave it at 90% sure.
on topic: this rocks dude. i love how much you got away with mirroring/reuse. this would look at home in any number of fantasy games. its all extremely technically pretty, and very well done.
but it doesn't strike me as particularly memorable. in my head it makes sense that the stuff you stick in your portfolio that are personal projects should be the mind blowing awesome stuff that explodes with creativity, the kind of stuff that i know your capable of. i'm sure you have a ton of examples of work you've done that are this kind of technically pretty but not memorable stuff, stick those in to show that you know the technical side and can follow directions, let your personal projects be the kind of stuff that shows you have imagination and the will to follow through on your own breathtaking visions.
my two cents, YMMV.
i think that:
- try some light inside the windows
- without the blue background u'r pretty muddy
- if the soup-pot / mushroom brew (+1) is where the focal point is, enrich the colors around it (bricks, decoration), in the same way the leather-flats are a richer brown on top of it
- lighting setup can make this 150% as good (if it's applicable)
- the leather flats seem significantly less detailed than anything else on the image
- try distinguishing the 'outpost' tower in terms of color like in concept (more blue/magenta)
thanks a lot for the feedback - updates on this will be slow - but i'll find the time eventually
here was the second paint over i had made that had pointed me in a new direction, the goal here was introducing some real world architecture and attempting to make the scale make sense.
here are the flats:
i think the second time around it should be much cooler.
cool ideas guys, thanks, keep em coming.
Sorry,........
Thanks for sharing the textures.
I mean it still looks good, but I was surprised to see that you unwrapped a lot of it so uniquely.
Same here man, you rock
I agree MoP here. But I guess that the goal of this asset was to have fun. And yeah, tiling isn't that fun
The scale isn't a real issue for me here, and I like what you did with all the little details
My last "crit" would be about the lighting which is showing the asset, but nothing more. I think you could show both your asset and a good atmosphere
These was just my thoughts about how to "improve" this SUPERBE piece of work ! Keep up the good work.
(i'd also love to see this with more contrasted lighting)
MoP,
i was wondering what made you surprised to see i wasn't using tiling textures more. did it seem the appraoch i used wasn't necessary or a very smart? i couldn't blame you if you did.. i wouldn't consider myself a leader in environmental work, i have more to learn.
towards the beginning conception of this piece, i was encouraging asymmetric detail. dovetailing from this, i turned a heel, as much as i could without being stupid about it, from tiling textures and wanted to give as much unique texture space as i could manage.
even after this explaination, if you're willing to comment more, do you feel i might have gone too overkill and should have relied more on tiled textures? i did do some tiling tricks in the uvs but again, there was an active emphasis from me not to. do the results here appear to have benefited from such a large sacrifice in effort?
another goal was hand painting the textures, so it took some time. in all honesty, i found myself thinking quite often, "damn, i'm still painting cracks in stones!" i must have spent hours on hours painting cracks in stone. i did reuse a lot of textures, but yeah, i think you're questioning is valid - i don't think i would have approached an asset, the way i had, without the exacting goals placed on myself.
Renaud Galand,
for all intents and purposes, making this this is not necessarily "for fun", that's secondary, this is for personal growth. so i am going to hear your criticism and will be open to others'.
i liked the first moss too. i seemed to be struggling and floundering with my intentions, i find thinking back about this struggle fascinating and exciting. i liked the dark green bricks i used in the first paint-over concept but shied away from those after i became concerned with real-world details, so the adjusted directions i pointed myself in began floundering out of my control i think, and i should have made different choices. my future approaches i think should just be more natural for me.
i really agree with your comments regarding color and contrast in textures and lighting. halfway through i basically began trying to emulate a diablo 3 look and at the same time wanted to ground my detail and make it less fairytale - i think my answer to that was making it brown and grey. there was a time i looked at my textures and saw i was using too much black and couldn't manage to get rid of it without fucking up the textures. i also had mocked up other lit scenes referencing lighting used in recent diablo 3 screen shots. i'm glad people saw diablo 3 in it when they did.
i suck at collaborating my monitors, i need to make better efforts in this area. looking at these on my work monitors, they look much different. i think this is a shortcoming in my work however, i've noticed a lot of my work inclines to be low in contrast and usually too dark anyway.. i'll look out for it and try to improve on this. i think these three are too dark... so i will have to learn how to be brighter and have better use if contrast in my work, because i agree. so that will be a goal in version 2.0 of o'rafer's keep
salman_fas,
sorry to break ur heart, i'm just a hairy, chunky, pale 27 year old. it's a constant costume party.
"Your work should stand on it own without being propped up by some character you play."
-James Ball
you do realize i posted pics of two completely different girls. that's smack-worthy.
PixelMasher,
you're saying it would look better because with using vertex blending i could get a higher texture resolution, right? a goal of mine was to make the texture resolution as even as possible. so the ground has as much texture res as everything else. i think the only think i pushed resolution-wise were things using alpha maps. the spider webs use the most. this probably isn't the best approach for a portfolio piece as it will never be imported into a game engine. i want to give the ground plane more attention next time around. i want to make some rocks and better grass and make the transition into the keep wall cooler. i think mainly what is wrong is there isn't as much love in this area, it might look better without the ground plane entirely.
shotgun,
thanks for the feedback. the model could use more contrast in color. the cauldron is supposed to be a pot of gold. irish shoe making fairy... you know, leprechaun?
another thing that might be hurting my presentation is that these are just screen grabs from max's viewport... these aren't actual renders. i may have to actually start rendering my shit.
diminished_Self,
thanks for defending my penis. i think you give great advice and i think there is room for something a little more creative in the piece, it doesn't have that same... "kp wtf?" i think the eye of sauron was focusing on other schemes. i expect there will be some larger scale adjustments that will be made, but we need those concepts before realizing that. there are some clever details i've put in the works, they are loved but too subtle to be appreciated.
thx
When I suggested the lighting setup, I meant with local lights, like an omni around the pot, one over the outpost, smaller softer ones here and there, that kind of stuff. Like this was a quake level or smt.
Regarding the tiling-ness of ur maps, it's essential for production purposes obviously, but i don't think it is expected considering it's a fun project. Unique UV gives u the option to control more aspects, and that's a plus. Just think of all those cracks you wouldn't have gotten to paint had you used repeating textures!!
Overall though, especially in these extra viewports renders) the whole thing looks great. If you had some lesser yellows and organes here and there it might do the trick and push out the goldiness of your palette and pot (of gold!)
I did but for some reason I kept thinking you were the girl in first pic(hopefully you are not offended by my misunderstanding).
Aside I like that render with purple tone. Still waiting for wire frame and what was the polycount on this piece?
Maybe it's just my optimisation-frenzied viewing of assets these days, i was expecting more of the stonework, floors and the canopies to be more "modular", like just a single thing which tiles in one axis and you can make it as long as you want.
Then again like you say, there may not be much need for it here - you're making a unique building with a certain goal in mind, and there's no need for re-use other than to cut down on the work spent re-making similar parts.
I was actually expecting the textures to be lower-res too, since all of your renders and camera angles are from a considerable distance away. Again, it's not too important since it's just some personal work and there's no need to constrain yourself, but I was getting an "RTS building" vibe off this, and they usually have less resolution. Not necessarily something you need to care about, it's probably more a reflection of my expectations than your work.
Anyway, the new lit shots look awesome, you totally nailed the Diablo 3 style there I think.
The blue one is my favourite because you've got a really nice contrast with the flaming torches there, although the green one reminds me a bit more of Diablo 3.
Anyway, keep it up. And bloody well make O'Rafer, it'd be a crime not to!
this guy ended up around 8,000 polies
here were the initial thumbnails that got me there
it's a big image
I really like the foggy render btw, gives some kind of thickness to the building, nice colors too, very diablo3-ish, me likes
Very inspirational
JasonLavoie,
it took me 29 days total. i started sep 15th, modeled and unwrapped complete sep 30th (16 days) texture and lighting completed oct 13th - all of this was worked on in my spare time after work so it was a rough month