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Temple of Crom Unearthly Challenge

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Hey guys, Im working on the Unearthly Challenge for a class at AI-SD, and I chose to do a paint over of one of the original concepts. I chose to make the Zeus Sanctuary into the Temple of Crom, the Hyborian God. Here are the two camera shots im using in wireframe mode. Total tri count so far is 13,218. Any and all crits welcome. Thanks for looking, Jim.

Also, we had to have a bit of backstory, here is what I came up with:

[FONT=&quot] High in mountain ranges of the frozen north of Hyboria sits the Temple of Crom. This unseen yet malicious god must be paid tribute if the populous living below wishes to go about their lives without his grim and unforgiving intervention. The shadow drenched opening in the front of the temple is said to hold the spirit of Crom himself. There is a sacrificial altar in the center of his temple, where only the most barbarous warriors, and beautiful Hyborian women are to be offered. When a sacrifice was deemed unworthy, the dark god broke free from his imprisonment to reign terror and death upon those who chose to ignore his existence. [/FONT]

CromTemplecopy.jpg
shot1_WF.jpg
shot2_WF.jpg

Replies

  • VikingJim
    most of the models on screen are already unwrapped, shy of the broken pillar on the ground. most of the materials will be stonework, i also plan on some snow blowing in from the broken wall. crit it up: dont be shy fellas, i can take the hit.
  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    Why are is the torus thing at the top of the scene so round compared to the rest of the scene? Are those 2 things on the altar meant to hold fire?

    Nice work btw. I'm a fan of Conan. Will be nice to see how this progresses.
  • VikingJim
    Daaark, the torus is a placeholder right now for the architecture that supports the domed roof. Honestly it may be just a 8 sided torus with the top cut off so that it fits the angular style. Yeah, the things by the doorway are small braziers on animal pelts. Thanks for looking!
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 19
    Have you read Robert E Howard's Conan or the comic books of Conan from the 80's or the new run by Kurt Busiek & Cary Nord?

    I'm getting more of a hedonistic Greek god with antlers feeling from this piece rather than a dour warlike half Celt god such as Crom. Theres a lot written about Crom, he teaches his people to deal with adversity and take strength from constant testing.

    He's a simple god, preaching strength, battle and toil and those that follow him expect their life to be hard. The Cimmerian's who worship him are generally NOT like Conan, they have no heart for travel and adventure and tend more to give themselves up to the daily grind and are pretty solemn until the druid's aren't looking and they have a drink and share stories about past battles.

    They're not a lavish or decorative people, just like Crom ain't fancy.

    Bearing all that in mind, I'd have thought crom's environment might be more Obelisk formed, a dark rocky terrain of hard forms with scored markings and a solemn or grim stylized face motif embedded into the natural terrain or carved out of a massive obelisk thats hewn from some rock cliff face.

    In a setting like that, then your antlers and animal hides might be just the thing, along with rank fat worn candles and crudely formed steps leading up beneath a monolithic carving.


    Just an idea as I'm a pretty big Conan fan.
  • VikingJim
    Kevin, Thank you so much for your response! I have not read the books, just the movies, games and lore that comes along with barbarians. I really like the solemn grim face idea. I have 3 weeks left in the quarter to finish this project. One thing I could to to make it more rough terrain would be instead of a rounded wall enclosure, have the inside be cut jagged rocks as you mentioned.

    Your work is awesome, btw.

    I chose the antler motif from a painting of Crom I found. I later repainted it w/ a cool color scheeme. This is the re-color:crom_recolorcopy.jpg
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 19
    I was talking with another Conan fan inbetween now and the last post. He had a cooler idea you might like which was that Crom would make those who came to worship him brave the elemnts in the middle of nowhere with a large stone circle being his symbol.

    Then I started thinking that having the stark mighty stone circle set at the top of a cliff face draped in animal hides on hooks. Then those that worshipped him would have to brave the wind and rain in their face while the sea rages below :)
  • VikingJim
    Ooh, I like that idea. Possibly for the following class I will take that up, however this must be an interior scene. However braving the elements by yourself seems much more accurate as to the lore. I could however put it in the background, where you can see through the broken wall. We cannot show anything living, such as people, beasts, aliens, robots, etc... but eluding to it so far away may be something to look into. Thanks for the idea, I really appreciate it.
  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    In the movies, Crom is the god of steel. He lives on a mountain, and when you die, he asks you the riddle of steel. ;) But basically, he's the god of the barbarian people of the north. So this temple should be on a snowy mountain.

    Incase it's helpful: The Hyborian Age

    Also

    Crom
  • VikingJim
    Daaark, thanks again for the links, I'll add those to the referance morgue im collecting.
  • VikingJim
    Hey guys, thanks again for the interest in this project, here is my WIP texture page as well as a quick screeny.

    4kEverything_JPGCOPY.jpg
    Texture1stPass.jpg
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    cool cocept man. Looking at this though the construction of how you are doing your texturing is not really feasible for a game environment.

    your texel density is all over the map. the pillar takes up more texture space than the entire floor. also its larger than the walls too. if it were to be in a game it would appear so much more crisper than the walls and floor.....which usually take up 80% of the screen space and should get the most love texturewise in most cases.

    for walls and floor I would highly recommend using a tiling texture probably 512x1024 for the walls, and then maybe a 1024 or 512 for the floor. each prop should have its own seperate texture sheet, maybe combine some smaller ones into one if they will always be near each other. the way it is right now everything looks suuuuper low res and wouldnt hold up in a game.

    your textures are really noticable hand painted and then some are straight up photos, I would recommend either going entireley photoshourced or hand painted, a mix as it is right now is really noticeable as some objects have lots of detail while others are lacking it and look bland.

    hope this doesnt sound super harsh but no one gets better with ass pats right? :)

    personally for me textures are what always make or break a piece and in this cause they are really holding it back. strictly from a technical standpoint it is wrong and I would suggest fixing it in order to get into the right habits as wearly as possible if you want to get a job right after graduating.

    cheers dude, hope this doesnt discourage you at all and lights a fire to giv'er on it!
  • G3L
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    G3L polycounter lvl 9
    I recently got into more hand-painting textures and I think one of the key things is messing around with the brush settings and applying some filters. Right now I can tell on one of the textures that you used one of those Wet Media brushes and the brush stroke is repeating, making it not seem real or feasible in any way. So mess around with that.

    Basically, tweak with those layers through blend modes or filters. Motion Blur and Gaussian Blurs are filters I frequent a lot when hand-painting some grime, dirt or anything that's natural or organic.
  • breakneck
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    breakneck polycounter lvl 13
    I would have to disagree with using motion blur and gaussian blur on textures. they are blurry enough as is. Like pixelmasher said - pixel density is all crazy. If I were u I would upres the floor and the wallz with tileable textures. you can break that up later with decals if need be. Overall you can way up res this within the given specs.
  • VikingJim
    Thanks for the advise guys, all crits help, don't worry i wont take it personally. Here is a new layout of the scene i just did. I scaled down some items such as the pillars to make room for the ceiling and walls a bit more. Is this more the direction it needs to go?
    reUVlayout.jpg
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    dude man, you should give each object its own texture instead of having it all on one sheet. example: a column could be a 1024x256 given its height vs width. the altar could be a 512x512, the throne itself a 1024x1024 with tiling textures used for the walls and floor.

    all on one sheet like this is bad bad bad :P

    if your assignment is within the specs of the unearthly challenge i believe you have 4096x4096 worth of texture space. this doenst mean it has to all be on one texture. 4096 can be broken up into 8 2048x2048's, 16 1024x1024's, or 64 512x512's and on and on.

    having it all on one texture is really wasteful as there is a lot of wasted space and you cant maximize your usage via tiling textures which is the environment artists bread and butter.
  • VikingJim
    ok that makes a lot more sense now. I thought that since it said 4096x total it all had to be on one sheet of the sort. i'll post my progress shortly. Thanks for your imput sir.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    aint nothin' but a thang G :)

    I think almost everyone starting out gets confused by kinda general statement of overall texture space that so dont sweat it, cant wait to see some updates after rockin' the new textures.
  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    all on one sheet like this is bad bad bad :P
    All on one sheet will allow the whole thing to go through in one batch. A lot of newer engines may try to throw everything onto one sheet behind the scenes anyways. It's called texture atlasing. You can't really tile like that though, since all coords have to be in 0-1 range.

    Anyways, about the textures themselves, there is way too much grey. It almost looks like a black and white render except for the little bit of brown in there.

    Do you have any idea what broke down the wall and the pillars?
  • StrangeFate
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    StrangeFate polycounter lvl 18
    The textures really kill it so far (i understand its WIP still).

    The surfaces are boring, looks like you picked the first 4 gray rock/stone/marble maerials you found and slapped them on the UVs without much thinking.

    The scene is somewhat lacking, like someone didn't do any research. It really doesn't scream nordern barbarian god to me.
    It's composed of very basic shapes with very basic objects laying around, and a lot of empty floor which really doesn't do it. There's so far nothing impressing to it, nothing that would instill some respect on visitors.
    The original cocepts had some mighty _strong_ pillars, what happened to those ? ...there's those puny ones now instead, I don't think Crom would appreciate the nice rounded beveling in the delicate pillars.

    The floor hardly deserves a throne or anything else on it. Was it Crom's summer retreat ?
    It sure doesn't look like he ever settled there and spend much money on it. I'd fill up the floor with some larger geometry (platforms) or painted stuff. You don't want it to be too empty (debris doesn't count) but don't want too many random obstacles either.

    Also think of maybe painted pics, simple basic colors, depicting related stuff... he loves steel = anvil shapes, weapons etc come to mind.

    http://www.strangefate.com//webby/bycrom.jpg
  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    Any buildings in Conan are usually very simple, with very simple shapes. His world is a fictional version of our own very early ancient history. Somewhere between the steel and iron ages. Crom is worshiped by the Cimmerian barbarians from the cold north.

    Any temple to him wouldn't be very elaborate.
  • VikingJim
    Hey Guys,
    Thanks for the continuing interest in my limping project here. For the previous shots, yes everything was basically a photo layed into photoshop to just get a general feel for the materials comprising the temple itself. Kevin Johnstone said the cut, rough rocks would work for Crom, so I went with that. As of right now, the geometry is final, due to time constraints. (Must be 100% done and pretty in 2 weeks). Ive been working on this basically nonstop for about 2 weeks now, most of that work being re-laying out the UV's to get a more even pixel density.

    StrangeFate, From what ive found on Crom, or discussed with other Conan fans, he wouldn't want anything too lavish or fancy, thats why I chose to keep it simple and function based.

    Right now, how im thinking of doing the textures, is have a cold grey and white pallette. The cold grey almost with a tint of blue will be the ground and ceiling area stone. I may go with a white stone for the pillars and support stucture, just for contrast on the darker stone behind it. Around the "throne" area, have dark stone furnashings, with white "polar bear esqe" pelts atop them.

    Any helpfull texturing tips would be greatly appreciated, Im somewhat working myself into a rut on this one.
  • StrangeFate
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    StrangeFate polycounter lvl 18
    There's a difference between fancy and imposing. Fancy is your pillars = rounded, feminine curves, with a soft marbleish surface, suitable for egyptians or any other less hairy folks.

    The world of conan is never devoit of rough shaped stone, usually simple and larger shapes and statues that make you wonder (like with pyramids) how it was build.
    I wouldn't go fancy at all, but i would expect big rough shapes no man could carve. I would expect that even if its just for the purpose of being able to have a remotely interesting set and shadow casting.

    Right now it looks like he found his stuff in the ikea god catalog
  • VikingJim
    Altar Update- I'm thinkin of heading in this direction for the textures.
    altarupdate.jpg
  • sardonix
  • VikingJim
    Update Part Deux- Keep in mind, still no spec glow or normal, just diffuse as of now
    inProg.jpg
  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    I like it the textures there, but the stairs stick out as fake. They look too straight and perfect. They should be a bit more sloppy, with rounder edges and maybe uneven or unlevel.
  • VikingJim
    sardonix wrote: »

    Sardonix, you linked me to the current thread, was this your intention?
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    Jim

    I like the way it looks much more than before. Texture resolution looks better, the altar looks immensely better and the differences in value help separate everything much better.

    That said, I want to touch on the cohesiveness of the textures here. I see that the wall are made of rock, as if this was once a cave that is now supported with beams like the inside of a mine - nice touch. However the floor texture seems to clash with the walls, but only because I would think that in this temple, after reinforcing the wall structures, bringing in altars and building doorways, that they wouldn't simply leave the floor as a rubbly mess. I would experiment with a different texture, something more suiting to a "temple"

    The textures on the segmented portion of the doorway looks a little flat right now and could use some more character, add in maybe a photo overlay to break up the flat grey tone of it, and go in and hand paint in some burns, highlights and grunge, and consider showing some aging and damage in the texture there too. same with the stairs as Daaark suggested.

    massive improvement from the first pass of textures. These are looking good and on the right track, now just remember to tell some story in these textures as well to bring everything to life.
  • VikingJim
    Last update for the day, feeling the onset of carpel tunnel as well as catarracts. New Hotness tile floor and update on the large antlers.
    newfloor.jpg
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    ah man jimmy, me likes. I'm a pretty big fan of glowy things...so im gonna dig this. It looks like the symbol ontop of the door will glow and some of the altar.

    I like the floor alot better in the newer update than the last.

    the only problem i have at the moment ar ethe antlers....don't be afriad to push that polycount abit more to get a better looking randomness to them. i forget if this is supposed to be good or bad. If it's supposed to look bad...you can twist and curl the antlers more. The sillouette on those bad boys is kinda boring at the moment.

    lovin it though.
    looks better and further along than mine haha.
    im lazy :D
  • sardonix
    VikingJim wrote: »
    Sardonix, you linked me to the current thread, was this your intention?

    Nope, sorry. Here's the pic I wanted to show you. The look is more imposing if a bit familiar. http://www.tuckborough.net/images/moria-lee.jpg
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    gonna agree with wester.

    antlers are looking very MMO low poly right now. I could probably count the triangles on it without even seeing the wireframe.

    I think the tri limit was 200,000 for this challenge so just go crazy with it
  • OldKid
    Think overall your headed in a good direction but you should definitely increase the polycount of the project. If Adam is right and the limit is 200,000 then go to it or a lil above. You can always fix it later.

    ENOUGH TALK!!! - Conan The Destroyer
  • VikingJim
    From the feedback, i have reworked the antlers that sit atop the throne area. here is my z brush quick sculpt and in the scene. normal isnt lookin too pretty atm. im also workin on stickin planes to alpha all over the pelts for a thicker looking fur. more updates soon..ish.
    antlersSculpt.jpg
    antscultRendter.jpg
  • VikingJim
    So I sculpted the helmet opening arch thing behind the throne area, and its looking all stoney and righteous, but then the normal comes out of zbrush like this. I have checked the uv's and they are right where the should be, and the map still comes out all exploded and angry at the world. Has this happened to anyone else?
    wallDecoSculpt.jpg
    wallDecoWTF.jpg
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    Hmmm, ask Nenneman about this, I'm pretty sure he'll know how to fix it. If it's not because somethings out of the 1 to 1 UV space then I'm not sure what it is. Zbrushcentral forums probably have tons of reference for troubleshooting this kind of problem, or possibly make a post in the "technical talk" section of pcount. There's usually 10 or so helpful and knowledgable people trolling it at any given time of day.

    On the other hand I think that your sculpt looks a little blobby. The texture you've sculpted in is fine, but the shapes now look very "zbrushed" if you will. go back in and be a bit more subtle with the extrusions. reference images will help get a more realistic feel to it. But right now, the overall bumpiness of the sculpt looks very similar to the topology of this mean dinosaur's Zbrush sculpt: http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=53625
  • A.Kincade
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    A.Kincade polycounter lvl 9
    The arch thing is looking way better now. The sculpts are looking righteous so far. The pelts still look a little awkward, but overall I dig where this is going. It should be a pretty solid piece when it's done.

    AK
  • ghost-d
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    ghost-d polycounter lvl 17
    Hi VikingJim. To me usually something like this happens when I have some UVs outside the layout. It could be something that you left outside the UV layout because it´s still wip, but those polygons are part of the basemesh.

    Good luck
  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    That's not an error. You channeled CROM!
  • Mark.N
    Pope Adam wrote: »
    Hmmm, ask Nenneman about this, I'm pretty sure he'll know how to fix it. If it's not because somethings out of the 1 to 1 UV space then I'm not sure what it is. Zbrushcentral forums probably have tons of reference for troubleshooting this kind of problem, or possibly make a post in the "technical talk" section of pcount. There's usually 10 or so helpful and knowledgable people trolling it at any given time of day.

    Hm, the last time I had a normal bake come out like that was when I was using mirror'd UV's. If you're using more than one set it could be an issue with the polyGroups, otherwise I would check to make sure you have everything laid out uniquely and in 0-1 space.

    -Mark
  • VikingJim
    Finally a new update. As of right now I have been sculpting the assets to get my normals. Also I have been continuing texture work, as well as putting in snow, and workin on its shader. (shader not active in viewport). As for the fur alphas at the moment, is there a better way to replicate a thick fur?
    doorSculpt.jpg
    cromSnow.jpg
  • Mark.N
    I think the fur should work fine, so long as you get a good hair alpha on it. The newer sculpts are coming along pretty neat. Looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.

    -Mark
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    kinda wondering a couple things about this here:

    why is snow caked to the ceiling?
    if snow made it in this far and in such abundance, why isn't it building up on the altar, furs, staircase as well?
    is the fur green or is my monitor jacked up?

    looking better though
    ever get the normals to work on the antlers?
  • VikingJim
    Hello again! First off i would like to thank everyone for their time in reading and commenting on this thread. Its been pretty helpful to this process. For the past week or so ive been toying with lighting, and from suggestions from my instructor to make it look more "unearthly" color wise. I have a spotlight outside shining in, ultimately id like that to cast directly upon the altar leaving a shadow on the opposite side. The fire in the braziers has a glow, no lights there. There is also a faint spotlight on the rear of the altar so it doesnt get completly washed out, and a very very faint ambient in the center of the room.

    I have one week left for this, so the majority of the coming week will be spent between this and the scripting final.

    I may scrap the pillars as well.

    sceneRender2.jpg
    sceneRender3.jpg
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    Hey buddy

    3 things!
    Runes - soften the hard blue outline on them, have them gradiate a bit more instead... it'll make it look less CG Oh! They should be glowing THRU the blood too :P cooool

    Blood - I'd blacken it more. Even fresh blood on white floor still has a blackness to it, and is less saturated i believe.. check out this picture:
    bloody%20floor%202.JPG

    Green Flames - Yes, much more unearthly, but I think blue flames might look cooler! If you wanna stick with green though, I think you could add more interest to them by adding some yellow to them... Think "infernals" from WoW (giant rock demons held together by glowy green yellow flames)

    Lighting is much improved, like it a lot. Textures are much more dynamic now as well!! rock on brosef
  • Mark.N
    I'll agree that blue flames probably look cooler, but they don't look more evil than a greenish/yellow flame, in fact it could almost come across as the opposite. A really gnarly green/yellow could bring a lot of interest to the braziers by just looking a lot more odd/creepy.

    I'd reduce the amount of glow on the flames by a bit too, as it is right now it just looks as is it's painted over with an air brush rather than looking like a light source. Try to get the colored lighting to interact more with your scene, blend it in a bit better.
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    blue fire can be evil... remember Grendel in the CG Beowulf? He made blue fire shoot all over the place when he attacked the party hut
  • VikingJim
    Hey Adam!
    Fast reply man, I appreciate that.

    I agree with you on the flames. I went with green for the previous render set when I was playing around with different color choices. I have, however gone back to blue. It makes sence cause the runes are blue and there is 0 green in the scene.

    Ive also turned on final gather/caustics to illuminate the scene a bit better. Still working with it though so it doesnt get all washed out
  • VikingJim
    UpdatasaurausRex.

    The paintover is what im going to to with the entanceway. By making the inside walls part of the emmissive, it should glow nicely, then i'll add a light so silhouette the bottoms of the archway and antlers for a bit of depth and contrast.
    paintover2copy.jpg
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    looking forward to the dramatic lighting
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