Squaresoft Town

[cycloverid]

Okay, it's been a while. Here's a new project of mine.

I'm using a Squaresoft concept painting as a springboard to experiment with simple, clean textures and parallax mapping! (but not overboard :poly142:).

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/chocobos-dungeon-toki-wasure-no-meikyuu-20070920031057404_640w.jpg

Pretty cool. Now, I just started learning Sandbox 2 this last weekend, since UT3 just wasn't cutting it. So, here's a couple test props in Sandbox:

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/SquareComp.jpg
Lamp ~ 1600 tri -- 256X512
Barrel ~ 320 tri -- 256X256
Statue ~ 1600 tri -- 256X512
Sign ~ 900 tri -- 256X256
Enviro Sheets -- 512X512


Tell me what you think needs improving. Otherwise I'm just going to use this as a WIP thread as things come along. Also, I have two monitors now, and for the first time color/contrast accuracy is hazy. Anyone use a colorimeter ? (the difference between my two monitors is pretty crazy)

[Mazvix]

Are you handpainting it all of it or you are mixing photo source? I recommend having diff variations on the lamp post- one bent and other straight, just like the concept. This indeed is an awesome concept. I might do it in the future :P hoping to see more!

[cycloverid]

Are you handpainting it all of it or you are mixing photo source? I recommend having diff variations on the lamp post- one bent and other straight, just like the concept. This indeed is an awesome concept. I might do it in the future :P hoping to see more!

Thanks for the advice, the multiple lamp instances is a great idea.

I'm using a mix between high poly modeling and sculpting on top of some hand-painting. It'll be tricky to get clean. There are still some crisp seams I wish I could remove, but such is the state of current normal mapping technology.

[Shogun3d]

I'd try and stick with a basic color palette for your assets as a lot of the colors can be unified with the lighting. Colors/Brightness/Contrast look fine on my screen right now.

This piece should be awesome, given you pull it off :)

[shinobix]

Wow good start cycloverid! I really like the cobble stone texture you made, and the wood sign is starting to look pretty pimp!

[MattW]

Lookin really nice, the pavers could use a bit more color variation like you have in the walls. Out of curiosity, do you know what the concept was for?

Edit: Looks like from the name of the file it was a chocobo's dungeon game.

[SHEPEIRO]

sweet
i would keep the diffuse clean and as simple as poss for now, get the environment worked up with shaders then see how much you need to add

[HAL]

Thanks for the advice, the multiple lamp instances is a great idea.

I'm using a mix between high poly modeling and sculpting on top of some hand-painting. It'll be tricky to get clean. There are still some crisp seams I wish I could remove, but such is the state of current normal mapping technology.

Why exactly do you habe those seams, got any closeups for us? maybe it can be solved :3

[FlyByKnight]

Looking good so far, cant wait to see more! :)

[mheyman]

I'm loving this stuff, can't wait to see some progress!

[cycloverid]

I'm just going to post up a in-editor paintover. As I'm fleshing out details, it'd be nice to get a little feedback.

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/LevelPaintOver.jpg

The terrain editor in Crysis is giving me problems, so that isn't showing up for now. The final cropping will be different, as I haven't figured out how to adjust a camera while looking through it. The red lines indicate some composition changes.

This is a big ass scene, so I've got my work cut out for me! I'll probably post up some props, as soon as I get a few more done.

Edit: I need to figure out something in terms of getting a higher res shot. Perhaps adjusting my monitor to portrait instead of landscape for the screen-cap. The perspective in the concept art is crazy, and I'm going to try to get some of that nice curvature in the models.

[buddikaman]

Looking good.

-Buddikaman

[Marcan]

Great work, keep it up.

I love the sort of pastel colour palette going on in the concept art. If you can manage to get this vibe going in your editor it'd be nice!

Can't wait to see some more textures.

[ikken]

Looking cool
I'm feeling nostalgic, lol :)

[JasonLavoie]

woooowww.... this is awesome, keeping an eye on this one for sure!

[PhattyEwok]

Here's a question for you. On the face of the buildings are those floaters? (the windows doors molding etc)

And 2nd.....
not to thread jack, but what are the pros and cons of having floaters in the game engine vs a continuous mesh?

[cycloverid]

Here's a question for you. On the face of the buildings are those floaters? (the windows doors molding etc)

And 2nd.....
not to thread jack, but what are the pros and cons of having floaters in the game engine vs a continuous mesh?

Quite a bit of the geo is floating atm. Some of the struts running up the buildings aren't. There aren't many downsides to using floating geo, it just saves time modeling. Your UV's will be cleaner if you keep it manifold, but for tileable stuff like this it isn't a problem.

Funny that you should ask this though. These particular props, if given a deformer to get some of that nice curvature going, might not deform correctly with the floating geo I have. It will have to be done carefully.

[killingpeople]

You are owning this dude!

[cycloverid]

Well this is a pretty pathetic update, but I'm thinking about opening up the scene a bit horizontally, so it isn't so vertical. I spent a good number of days figuring out the terrain editor (which I probably won't need) and playing with the clouds (can only edit by hand with xml?). There is so little documentation on sandbox2!

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/LevelPaintOver5.jpg

Too much empty space? It'll be a good day when I can stop blobbing paint on my update images!

Things are going to be a lot smoother now though.

Edit: Oh, and have a good laugh at the tri-count. Incidentally, my scene is only about 60k right now. That's sandbox for you.

[mheyman]

Really great stuff. Super inspiring and I can't wait to see the end result.

[Tactical Bagpipe]

Very nice! Inspiring.

[griffinax]

This looks something out of Flyff, sweet work. Keep it up!

[adam]

Shots for review are useless without seeing some wires. Let's see how you're making these assets as well as the scene itself.

I would try and nail your composition early before you dress the scene. Right now you're running with a pretty standard (read: safe) composition. This scene could get a lot of attitude from something a bit more dynamic (tilted camera, higher FOV, closer to the ground, etc. etc. All things you could try.) I wouldn't mimic the concepts view of this town, but instead use it as a basis for your building designs (which you have) then give us a whole new perspective on this area of town.

As for multiple streetlamps/variance in props: You could easily make 1 lamp that has a bend in it, and rotate it with each new instance that is placed. This way you'll end up with some straight, some bent, and all looking different - all while using one asset.

Are you going to fill out the left side (our left) of the building farthest to the left or keep it opened like that? If you rotate the camera to our right a bit, you could skip making new art for that and have that building (or tree) be what blocks the view past the little town here.

[divi]

looks great.
really interested in individual asset shots

[Razorb]

yea this is lookin lovely : )

[cycloverid]

Hey guys,

I randomly got a job 1 month ago (shortly after my last post), so I've just been picking away at it.

Adam: Thank you so much for your input on this... I have tried to take everything you said into consideration. The shot could still be more extreme, but I do want it to be somewhat of an 'establishing' shot.

If you really nitpick, there are some lighting problems, but mostly because Sandbox2 has no light baking. I learned at work about the value of AO vertex bakes, and have included it here (perhaps it's too strong? - but looks pretty good IMO).

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/SquareBeauty.jpg
Can't figure out how to get rid of the Info (top right)!

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/WireframeSquare.jpg

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/StatueProp.jpg


Sorry about not posting more wires/props, but I'm tired :(

I've learned a lot from this project, and will next time refrain from doing fan art. It's so fun though!

[A.Kincade]

Wow!!! This turned out awesome. Very well done. Congrats on the job as well.

[ikken]

Amazing work!

[tda]

nice scene dude!

if i recall, "cl_displayinfo 0" should get rid of that garble in the top right for ya

[throttlekitty]

Nice work, it's got lots of character to it!
And how do you just 'randomly' get a job?

[Ged]

looks awesome, Id really like to see how you laid out uvs for those buildings? are they made up of modular parts?

[Hazardous]

Dude, simply awesome i think your nailing the style and getting closer with the colours! I think if you can really isolate the lighting so that it looks more like the ground and street is being lit up by the lamposts that will really give some more depth to the scene!

[Ben Apuna]

Lovely scene :)

I also second what Hazardous is saying about the lighting on the ground. Maybe just lower the radius of the lights a bit to better define some pools of light and darkness.

[HAL]

Really nice work, I like what I see. I agree with the others, the lighting could be tweaked pretty well by adjusting it to the lanterns.

(something else. (might also be way to late as you might found this already) anyway. you mentioned that there is little documentation about ce2. Might check this out. Nearly covers every aspect of the engine, asset creation and the editor)

http://doc.crymod.com/

[Shogun3d]

Outstanding work. I love the shapes, colors and organization of your layout. The composition shot is fantastic.

Could you show a breakdown of your tree? you've managed some nice deep shadows in there.

[bounchfx]

I really like this

[teaandcigarettes]

and here I was convinced you could only make photorealistic stuff in CE2 :) Great stuff!

Just in case you didn't know; try out those commands when you take your final beauty-shot.

e_screenshot_width = (put whatever you want)
e_screenshot_height =
e_screenshot_quality = 100
e_screenshot = 1

They produce the same results as tiledshot in UDK.

[adam]

Yes! Yes! Yes! It's looking fantastic, and spot on with 'Squaresoft Town' :D

EDIT: Let me know when you're finished with this piece and we'll get it up in the banner rotation. (I'll need something 1024px or wider.)

[dippingsauce]

This looks great! I like the trees especially :) The colours remind me of Kingdom Hearts and Disney a little more than Final Fantasy, but that's not a bad thing at all :thumbup:

[Famouz]

The colours remind me of Kingdom Hearts and Disney a little more than Final Fantasy
YES YES YES me too.
It's so beautiful I'll save that Pictures.
Awesome work.
You want to make a Mod of it?

[mheyman]

wow so inspirational :D

[cycloverid]

Thanks for all the great replies!

A.Kincade, ikken, bounchfx, skayne: Thanks for the praise guys.

tda: displayinfo is exactly what I wanted!

throttlekitty: the 'random' job I guess is a little exaggerated. It had just been a couple months since I had applied anywhere and had somewhat given up hope... it SEEMED random.

Ged: here's just a breakdown of the building pieces:

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/UvBreakDown.jpg
next time I'd probably go with less floaters, as my overdraw goes a little crazy on that house in particular.

Hazardous, Ben Apuna, HAL: Thanks for the lighting advice, this has helped a TON. I'm not sure what I was thinking before!

kaburan: to get the tree to shade well at night, I had to model the leaves almost as if they were manifold. There are probably other ways to approach this, and I'd love to hear them!http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/treeBreakdown.jpg

teaandcigarettes: I really wish I had known these commands earlier, but it will help a ton for future projects!

adam: would be so awesome to have a spot on the banners.

dippingsauce: Squaresoft definitely has gone a little more Disney-esque since they worked on the Kingdom Hearts games. It's a cool mix if you ask me.

Famouz: Really appreciate your praise, but I'm afraid my mod days are over. Sorry! :(





NEW UPDATE with AA:

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/SquareBeauty3.jpg

I could keep fiddling with this, but I think it's better to call it done (changes certainly aren't out of the question if suggested). I was going for very simple and clean with this (as my past work has been too noisy overall).

I'll definitely return to these techniques at some point for something of my own design!

[Needles]

Very inspiring work thanks for posting :)

[luke]

this looks great man, nice execution

[audi100]

Great outcome! this would perfectly fit to an adventure style game.

[Ben Apuna]

The ground looks much better.

Neat breakdown of the building and tree. Your tree looks great, the construction method seems to work well for this visual style.

Congrats on the getting hired, and the banner spot :)

[undoz]

That looks great! Maybe some anti-aliasing would help ?

[jmiles]

Lovely piece :) grats on the job.. well deserved

[Harry]

i'd suggest adding a bit more murkiness/mist, it looks really clear but in that sense its lacking the atmosphere of the concept

[PixelGoat]

frikkin awesome. I'm in love :)

[Hazardous]

Sensational man, if there were front pages on polycount I'd nominate this piece for sure. SOOOOO refreshing to see a non photo real, light hearted environment.

[Anuxinamoon]

I agree with hazard. This has got to be one of my favourite environment pieces I have seen in a while :D

Great job!

[Ged]

very nice I like the update and thanks alot for the breakdown of the pieces.

sorry to ask but are those pieces all on seperate textures?

I just wonder what best practice is when doing enviro works.

[Famouz]

Famouz: Really appreciate your praise, but I'm afraid my mod days are over. Sorry! :(
Oh, well thats sad.
But maybe you can give some advice, what you did to get this mood?
I'll try to copy this style.
Please give some advice.

[Frump]

A shot of this at 1080p with AA would make my wallpaper, and my day! This turned out awesome. I also get a very Disney feeling from it, and that's a good thing!:)

[SaferDan]

yeah this is def going as my wallpaper!

it is beautiful!

[marq4porsche]

This scene is looking beautiful, nice work!!

[Orgoth02]

This looks great man!!!

[cycloverid]

I'm very happy that this project has received a good deal of praise. I really want to take this look further now with another project.

EDIT:
Ged: I used a LOT of strip textures for this project (sheets with thin strips that can tile). Only a few props use unique texture sheets.

Famouz: I have always been inspired by Squaresoft's work. My advice to you is to eventually find your own style. This just takes a lot of practice and working with various styles you like (like Square or Blizzard, etc). Find the techniques that work for achieving what you want.

I have listened to your suggestions about the AA, my eyes had just gotten used to the grain! I will post here and update the page before with the new image:

http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/SquareBeauty3.jpg

Maybe you're getting tired of this image here, but the difference is enough to warrant another update.

For the couple that might want higher res (1900X1100~1080p):
http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/SquareBeauty4.jpg


Thanks again and I hate to bump with all this other great work going up.

[danr]

that, right there, is lovely

the distribution of detail is perfect

[Hazardous]

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude You made my new desktop this piece ROCKSSSSS!!! Looking forward to your next piece!

[bbob]

This is looking real good..

Only one thing that is missing in my point of view, is a bit of gloss on the cobbles, so they catch some highlights, defining them more.

[rasmus]

Beautiful and clean! The few things that keeps it from being 'done' though: A darker colour inbetween both cobbles and sidewalk stones - that texture is just too simple. The same can be said for the grey wall to the right - it is bland and keeps puling at my attention in a bad way :) After that, you can call it a night ;)

[EricV]

very nice. I agree that the wall on the right and the ground could use a little more texture tho. good stuff still

[JasonLavoie]

This is just fantastic, sooooo inspirational. I put this up as my desktop wallpaper... so each morning I wake up I get a kick of inspiration :)

Great work!

[CowmasterStudios]

Love the style! Seriously great job with this one.

[teaandcigarettes]

Ah, looks even better with AA!

I second the notion of turning this into a banner; it's a really impressive piece.

Heck, you managed to surprise me even more with that brakedown; without it, I would have never guessed you made those pieces modular to this extent.

[adam]

Gimme!

[crazyfool]

this is fantastic, great work :D

[fearian]

Imma gonna leak this to kotaku as 'new kingdom hearts screens!' and see if they run it as news :D


actually if you sent that to some games blog (truthfully) they'd post the hell out of it.

[Ged]

ah cool texture strips thanks for the info, I havent tried some of these techniques in engine before but I want to now :)

[ballooncity247]

oooooo .... ssoooo pretty ^_^

but seriously, I love it. Gonna try and do some stylised handpainted stuff myself ... once I've got some realistic stuff in my portfolio that is =P

[Pavel Petrenko]

Great environment! Looks very atmospheric!

[chrisradsby]

That is some awesome work man, love it. Greatest environment shot I've seen in a while.

[AnimeAngel]

Ya looks great! you really nailed the styled, looks like a piece right out a new Kingdom Hearts or something.

[sama.van]

I personally really like it, the theme first and very rare these last month to find something interesting like your background on internet.


I just would like to give my little stone and maybe help to give better SquareEnix "feel"?

First of all is about the light. I simply take your 3D level and the illustration and explode the Level parameters.
Loot at the top of your building on the left, and the other buildings.
Color too. more blue// green on the illustration and more yellow\green on your level?

http://a.samavan.com/ssss.jpg


About the second picture. There are critics about proportion and shape of the objects and as Artist I like to respect the same style with same proportion etc...
Not often respected on simple objects from your 3D.

About the texture of the bricks, it's very flat. On the illustration we can see dark line as connection between some bricks. But on your texture.. I do not know. I do not see lot of thing on this surface?


Windows are more large and space between windows and left and right side more small.

etc...

And little note about the color, you can follow the green arrows!



http://a.samavan.com/tttt.jpg



But my critics is only my own critics, etc...

I really like your level and I maybe an otaku SE products, etc... :D:D


Good one!

[alexl]

Awesome, looks great.

[SHEPEIRO]

pure awsome

[Nitewalkr]

Awsome work!! Thanks for sharing :D

[doeseph]

God I love this style of texture work. It's so crisp and fun. Great job man, really.

[SimonT]

soooooooooooooooooo nice! *amazing*

[cycloverid]

Thank you all for your interest in this thread! It... just... won't... die. It almost makes me want to make more changes, but I have to move on (or do I?). I must!

[Tadao215]

It's beautiful :')

[hobodactyl]

Congrats on such a beautiful piece :) Top notch work!

[gsokol]

This is fantastic! Regardless of the boy and his chocobo, this really has a Kingdom Hearts kinda feel to it.

You are doing a good job of following the concept image, and I really like seeing something stylized. Makes me really want to do something like this.

I think it would be really cool if you would do more to exaggerate the buildings. Maybe you could try having them bend and kind of lean towards the street?

Also, I think you could have more saturated/colored light to really make it pop. The concept has very interesting lighting that really make your scene stand out more than it already does.

Great job!

[Snowman]

Awesome great work on this definitely captured the feel

[A R K A I K O]

Outstanding work,keep posting!

[Purplepaint]

aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesome :)

[Silver]

It's very powerfull work!

[oxygencube]

cycloverid,

I am a lighting / textureing artist who has been focused on the feature animation industry but seeing this has really shown me that games have def. progressed into the cinematic realm. This piece has inspired me to looking to being an Env. Artist for games.

Thanks for creating.

..oxy..

[Purplepaint]

aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesome :)


meant to say awesome :shifty:

[hadidjah]

This is really a stellar piece, you color work and stylization are fantastic.

And thank you so much for posting up your wireframes, I have such a hard time finding wireframes for awesome pieces like this!:D

[kris4an4o]

A fairy tale city , thumbs up !

[Alberto Rdrgz]

looks so gooood!

[natetheartist]

now using this as a wallpaper :)

[Isaiah Sherman]

The project over all is really great. The fact it's in banner rotation is evidence enough, I suppose.

Regardless, I still can't help the fact I feel the sidewalks are just too plain.

[Andrew Mackie]

The texture work is so well done.
I am in awe of your work.
:D

[Darkmaster]

This is amazing! You have really captured this style!

[Covin]

Really outstanding work!
This can be a screenshot of Kingdom Hearts 3.

[soulstice]

Just wanted to say keep up the good work, really inspiring ish. :)

[Nikko]

mind share on how you work on the UV & texture process?

thanks

[dineshsawant]

A Good Work, Marvelous effort and hard work, you inspired me.

[Behema]

Totally sweet!!! total Eye candy.

feels a little bit empty on the left side. There's a tree there but it just kinda pulls you out of the city street feel.

but overall Super sweet! You should put together a reel :]

[Trevion3D]

I love it Truly amazing and inspiring

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff278/Garbonzo42/bravo.gif

[ThePowerPlumber]

this would make a wonderful map for Ultimate Chimaera Hunt

[xXm0RpH3usXx]

kaburan: to get the tree to shade well at night, I had to model the leaves almost as if they were manifold. There are probably other ways to approach this, and I'd love to hear them!http://www.justinkenneallyart.com/treeBreakdown.jpg


i'd recommend you to look at this thread:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72325

its got something to do with the vert normals, but i only skimmed the thread!

keep it up, looks nice!

[telmac]

It looks very disney, both sad and very real feeling, while objectively very cartoony. Feels like you could have so much fun just being a fly in the place.

[Fo062]

this is awe inspiring.. one man and his tools..nice keep it up

[Jessica Dinh]

Whoa. This is so so so amazing. Thank you for sharing! *_*

[stax]

Hot stuff man! I so LOVE this world we live in. It is great to be an Artist and look at all the inspiration out there. Keep it up man!

[gateian]

This is really beautiful stuff. I'm really inspired by this. So much so i'm printing it off and sticking it on my wall. Well done mate! :)

[DrFlail]

Very good interpretation of the concept. Now go get a job at square!

[Low]

Not a big fan of the style myself...but amazing work. Fairytalish on the side gotta love it.

[fanner]

Wow good start cycloverid!:thumbup:

[Buzzbrad]

Wow this is just amazing. Keep up the good work.

[ixnay]

wowww great piece. good lighting everything modeling

[ESeay]

I saved a copy of this to my wallpapers folder a while back, but I never took the time to compliment you on what an incredible piece this is. I love the look and feel of it and the colors are just a pleasure to look at. Nice work!

[xSmashx]

This is really starting to come together nicely!

Can't wait too see the end result.

[cdavidson]

i like this. good work :)

[ryanjohnsond]

How did you do the glows on the windows?

[MrLeo]

Indeed an inspiring work.

[robin_64_bit]

where did the images go?:(

[cycloverid]

Thanks for all the replies everyone. The images went down because my domain went down! I'll work something out with this.

But really, there is so much more amazing work on here now - who cares, right?

Now to get motivated for another project like this...

[Jessica Dinh]

Yes yes, make another !! :D :D

[YoutLeaderVal]

I don't want to impose on your idea, but I think you should adopt the cyan glow from the concept art in your piece. That unnatural color brings out the storybook mood a little more.

[MakaoCloud]

Strangely enough, the pictures on the first page aren't loading :(

I really want to see all the work you did.

[shotgun]

No pictures r loading. Back them up MODS, showcase should be local

[littleclaude]

I had a copy in my inspiration folder :)

I hope you don't mind, I have PMed you so tell me or PM me if you want me to delete it.

http://s11.postimage.org/az9y50a43/Square_Beauty3.jpg

[mr. monkey]

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! :D

[frontop]

Hey man, the images cannot be seen, uh.


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[kaushalsingh]

These are looking nice but looking forward what you will do with these clean textures and parallax mapping,moreover how will you execute the whole thing!!
Hoping to see some good progress and impressive final work!

[nufftalon]

wow excellent work