SnowSkadi Environment Modular Build

Alismuffin · May 2013

Hey guys.

Starting a new project based on this concept by SnowSkadi:

Would appreciate some tips and advice you guys may have about tackling this sort of build as I am quite new to it all.

Here is my blockout so far:

Clark Coots · May 2013

looks like a solid blockout, a couple things, you're missing a building on the far left entrance of the bridge. and on the far right the porch on the building should be centered over the bridge pillar.

Clos323 · May 2013

good start and nice block out..nothing much else to add to what coots7 has already mentioned

Alismuffin · May 2013

I've started breaking down the scene into pieces and planning what textures/unique meshes to use.
Due to the buildings being different sizes and shapes I'm covering most of it with tileable textures.

I will be adding to this image as I continue to analyse each piece of the image.

Also thanks for the feedback on the blockout, I have made some changes:

Thanks

Alismuffin · May 2013

More blocking today
getting there..

Alismuffin · May 2013

Blockout WIP in engine (Unity):

punkvideo · May 2013

good start! like unity3d

Alismuffin · May 2013

Thanks Punkvideo

Here is some progress:

leleuxart · May 2013

Does Unity support Vertex Painting? All of those crack and moss details would be great for painting.

Nice start though. Look forward to seeing your progress

Alismuffin · May 2013

I have seen someone do it before, and yeah I was thinking of doing exactly that if i can work it out

Alismuffin · May 2013

Progress is slooow :c

Alismuffin · May 2013

Alismuffin · May 2013

Lightmapped in Unity:

19 dual lightmaps, 100mb in total

Alismuffin · Jun 2013

Building the window geometry

Had to take like a week break from this due to assignments

WarrenM · Jun 2013

This has a great feel to it, and I love it even with just the lightmapping on it. Really nice work, keep going!

Alismuffin · Jun 2013

Thanks Warren

Almost up to texturing!

Alismuffin · Jun 2013

Foundsome time today so I started improving the market stall

J0NNYquid · Jun 2013

Really like how organized/clean this looks. Looking very good so far, will be watching this one.

gumustdo · Jun 2013

Great start! Just a white box version is amusing so far.

pixelpatron · Jun 2013

This ROCKS!!!!!
images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTG-A1o6G2T_Vu_yA8lnFhJF9G1rLpBM9mn-4niwOWKkuZtKguBt3FFpZZ3

Alismuffin · Jul 2013

Thanks so much guys!

Just finished off an assignment for uni so I can work on this a whole lot more!

So I added some more geometry, but mainly I worked on some tileables.

I avoided using any photosourced textures since I want to practice my handpainted and sculpted texturing skills

LongJh · Jul 2013

Awesome! That bounce light from the tiles really sells the effect. I think it'll definitely look really cool once you apply it on all the roofs in the scene. Are you going for pure white plaster on the walls? Or like a light tinted pastel colour? Looking at the concept, I think you could go either way.

Oh and I really like the sceen breakdown you did. Gives a lot of insight and is really interesting. (I do 2D stuff mostly, but it's still really helpful!)

Gannon · Jul 2013

The tiles feel very flat in both the HP model and it's reflected in the texture of the low poly. It loses a lot of depth, I'd think it'd be really cool if you added in a few edge loops to bring back that silhouette.

A cap piece for the top of the roof where the angles meet could help also.

Great progress so far though. Keep at it

Mr Significant · Jul 2013

Yeah, some more edges might be needed

^^

How did you made that plaster? I mean the sculpt? No heightmaps or something?

Alismuffin · Jul 2013

Thanks LongJh! I wanted to go with mainly white but a little dirty in parts. I didnt want the texture to be super rough since in the concept it looks somewhat smooth

Yeah good poing Gannon! I am planning on adding more geometry to the rooves

Took all day to do all the UVs of them >.<

Thanks for the feedback Mr Significant

The plaster was done with just photoshop. And I converted it into anormal map using NDO2. The ZBrush preview image was indeed a heightmap generated from my painted texture

Alismuffin · Jul 2013

On holiday so just some modelling here n there

pixelpatron · Jul 2013

Can I make a suggestion?

You are really on your way to an excellent piece, your composition and details are there but your texturing execution isn't there yet. I've made this same mistake.....going too far with a block out. Go back, you've got enough made. Just pick one building, nail the texturing, get buy off from peeps and then clone that out to the rest of it. You may adjust how you modeled something during the texturing process, and it's a pain to have to go back and re-do all that work.

Get it looking like this or better, then move on.

Fenyce · Jul 2013

The modelling itself looks already AWESOME, but the texturing could use a lot of love! I'd focus on that for now.

Alismuffin · Jul 2013

Totally agree with you guys
Absolutely not content with my textures thus far

Great suggestion pixelpatron! Will definitely do that
Im running through some texturing tutorials now and learning a heap of tricks

I will get my textures WAY better >D

AzzaMat · Jul 2013

Did you just put a cloud map over this texture?

Alismuffin · Jul 2013

@AzzaMat

Nope not at all! I painted the texture by hand over an AO I generated from a sulpt I did
But please ignore that texture. It was not created for this project and was only placed there in that image to create a separation of the buildings and the ground :P

Alismuffin · Jul 2013

OK! Doing a texture overhaul on the roof

I decided that I will go with handpainted

Feedback would be great! Im really weak at texturing

Fenyce · Jul 2013

Looks like a really great start, but maybe add some color variations (just slightly)

Zocky · Jul 2013

Yeah, great start but i do agree, some hue/value variation on the roof textur e might make it much more interesting. Keep up!

Alismuffin · Jul 2013

Thanks for the advice guys

Overkill on the hue change?

Fenyce · Jul 2013

Yeah, this is indeed to much, I'd reduce the hue change and do some more of them (like some more green/yellow, some more orange and so on, but just slightly... maybe do a copy layer and change everything there and then take down the opacity or something like that)

fab-camp · Jul 2013

how about combining your handpainted diffuse with a normalmap baked from a highpoly following your forms from the diffuse map?
you could bring in some exaggerated hard edges, to mach the stylised look.

fab-camp · Jul 2013

I was curious myself, how that might work, so I did some testing:
(hope its ok I used your texture for that..)

screen_02

the modeling is rathter simple of course
baked a normal-map and a height-map

put them in engine with normal and a paralax-effect based on the height map.
I think that might give a handpainted diffusetexture like this some extra intensity

screen_01

Alismuffin · Jul 2013

@Fenyce Ah will do that thanks! I actually ended up changing the whole hue of the texture to try and match the concept art more. So it is more orangey yellow than red. Its a tough one to match due to the changing hues of the actual roofs in the concept art.

@fab-camp I was definitely considering doing that! (And yeah totally fine that you used my texture

)
I will have a go myself, see what I can do with it

Fenyce · Jul 2013

I think the variations are still is a little to strong (because some shingles really pop out, like they if they've been replaced by some of a diffrent color)

And there are some that have a really dark shadow underneath them... like in the middle of the towers roof, that looks a little strange to me. Is that extra geometry, while everything else is flat?

Alismuffin · Jul 2013

Okie I adjusted the amount of hue change:

Yeah it is extra geometry
It was mainly intended for the ends of the roof tops to make them end a bit nicer
As it was they were all ending flush with each other

I added some higher up on the roof as well to try and get an uneven feel of the roof tiles. Like as if some were coming out

If it really isn't working too well I'll ditch it

taytahs · Jul 2013

this is such a pleasure to watch take shape. keep workin on those textures, the chimney and roof tiles look fantastic.

AzzaMat · Jul 2013

I think painting an AO map over that roof texture would really help it pop. The texture looks a bit flat to me. Even a faint gradient that started dark at the top of each tile and got lighter towards the end could give the illusion they are jutting out.

fab-camp · Jul 2013

the new orange tint looks way better!
I think using that extra-geo is fine. maybe you need some more of these so the individual ones will standout less.

Fenyce · Jul 2013

maybe you should even give every shingle at the end of the roof some geo... so that you can't tell that everything else is flat... I've seen this kind of technique with a lot of handpainted models.

pixelpatron · Jul 2013

Ya, a few more of the 3-d geo tiles mixed in on the roof would be good, then move on to texturing the rest of it. Wood trim and those gray corner blocks are screaming for attention. Found some decent ref for ya.

Keep going!

davidmlally · Jul 2013

Looking good, man. I'm enjoying following this thread. Are you targeting the style of some of the reference posted here? Not just in paint, but also in your geometry? What you have is great. It feels in the vein of something along the lines of 'Fable' to me at the moment. If you wanted to bring even more stylization through, similar to some of these other examples (leaning more towards production design in WoW), you might consider grabbing a whole chunk of one of your buildings and doing some lattice work to create more of the tapering or flaring effect you see in some of pixelpatron's reference. Either method is a valid approach, it might just be something to be aware of. Good luck, I'll check back soon!

Alismuffin · Jul 2013

Hey guys thanks so much for all the feedback, advice and reference images! You are all a huge huge help!

I didn't have time to do a whole lot today unfortunately, but I started giving more attention to the wood and corner blocks.
I also did a slight adjustment to the roof, but haven't yet been able to make the changes you have suggested! Definitely will get onto them though!! Busy days suck so much

I am not planning to push it towards WOW style as I want to try and match the concept art more, but those references are golden for handpainted nonetheless! Will definitely use them as reference and inspiration!

SnowSkadi Environment Modular Build

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