Monthly Community Noob Challenge July 2014 (21)
interpolator
Welcome to the Monthly Noob Challenge July 2014 (21)!
I'm testing out a secondary prop challenge for the month!
Join our Skype group too if you want! Add me on Skype and I will add you to the group.
Skype: alexmasterofcats
You don't have to join the Skype if you don't want to though, you don't need to ask to participate or anything, just start doing it and post in this thread!
This month's concept:
http://www.artstation.com/artist/Torewesolowskidesign
This month I added a secondary prop challenge if you don't have the time or skill to take on a whole scene.
Feel free to approach this however you like but I'd recommend making it as modular as possible to save time and keep things optimized:) It's up to you, as long as you are learning then it doesn't matter right?
Also if you want to change up the concept a bit as some people wanted feel free, interpret this concept how you want.
There are some things that I would like to point out to for newcomers,
if you only want to do a few props as best you can, go for it! This way you can work on building up to a full scene.
RULES:
Please read all the rules.
When you are just starting out making a scene can seem complicated or imposing, so break it down.
Think about how you can re-use assets, re-use textures, break it down as simple as possible plan it out, a lot of people will break it down in their own way when they start out their challenge. Gather some refs as well for different parts of the scene, maybe gather some refs and make it your own.
Take your time planning and blocking out, it will set you up for success later on.
All that matters is that you learn and give and get advice and are willing to be critiqued.
So here are the specific rules:
I'm testing out a secondary prop challenge for the month!
Join our Skype group too if you want! Add me on Skype and I will add you to the group.
Skype: alexmasterofcats
You don't have to join the Skype if you don't want to though, you don't need to ask to participate or anything, just start doing it and post in this thread!
This month's concept:
http://www.artstation.com/artist/Torewesolowskidesign
This month I added a secondary prop challenge if you don't have the time or skill to take on a whole scene.
Feel free to approach this however you like but I'd recommend making it as modular as possible to save time and keep things optimized:) It's up to you, as long as you are learning then it doesn't matter right?
Also if you want to change up the concept a bit as some people wanted feel free, interpret this concept how you want.
There are some things that I would like to point out to for newcomers,
if you only want to do a few props as best you can, go for it! This way you can work on building up to a full scene.
RULES:
Please read all the rules.
When you are just starting out making a scene can seem complicated or imposing, so break it down.
Think about how you can re-use assets, re-use textures, break it down as simple as possible plan it out, a lot of people will break it down in their own way when they start out their challenge. Gather some refs as well for different parts of the scene, maybe gather some refs and make it your own.
Take your time planning and blocking out, it will set you up for success later on.
All that matters is that you learn and give and get advice and are willing to be critiqued.
So here are the specific rules:
Try to do one crit for every post you make, this will make for a better learning environment and help us grow as artists.
Must make your own textures, no stealing, we can't keep you from it, but the goal is to learn, even tileables, I mean you can take someone else's image and make it tileable, that's fine.
You must use a game engine OBVIOUSLY. UDK or Cryengine will probably be the most used, but feel free to use any.
You must try your best and finish as much as you can in this month.
Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique and we don't have 1000 disjointed threads littering the forums.
Well that's about it, if you think the rules should be changed let us know.
I would strongly encourage you to go and look at other games and see how they make their assets as well as get concept art to give it your own feel, but it must stay very close to the concept, if not super close.
Please stay away from Ddo, yeah, it's great if you know what you're doing, and for a production pipeline supplement, but other than that, please don't use it. Ndo2 is allowed. This was talked about in the other thread, please don't complain.
Must make your own textures, no stealing, we can't keep you from it, but the goal is to learn, even tileables, I mean you can take someone else's image and make it tileable, that's fine.
You must use a game engine OBVIOUSLY. UDK or Cryengine will probably be the most used, but feel free to use any.
You must try your best and finish as much as you can in this month.
Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique and we don't have 1000 disjointed threads littering the forums.
Well that's about it, if you think the rules should be changed let us know.
I would strongly encourage you to go and look at other games and see how they make their assets as well as get concept art to give it your own feel, but it must stay very close to the concept, if not super close.
Please stay away from Ddo, yeah, it's great if you know what you're doing, and for a production pipeline supplement, but other than that, please don't use it. Ndo2 is allowed. This was talked about in the other thread, please don't complain.
Replies
You can barely make out the name Tore Wesolowski at the bottom of the image.
Found this artstation link http://www.artstation.com/artist/Torewesolowskidesign
On another note, I also found the image here along with a lot of other badass concepts.
http://fengzhudesign.blogspot.com/2014/05/student-work-entertainment-design.html
Do you need to use Game engine as i don't have access to any ?
Did a quick color coding of the different elements:
Also started the first blockout:
I'm not happy with the rear part as it's a little dense/small. I think I will strecht it a little bit more.
At the moment the scene is in 3DMax only as I plan to create all elements there and then export them to UDK.
My plan is also to do this all modular so it can be used for multiple similar buildings/rooms.
Most engines nows a days are fairly cheap and work on a monthly subscription basis so you could certainly gain access to something like CryEngine or Unreal fairly cheaply for a period of time. There are options like Unity as well which is a freemium Engine. It doesn't come with all the bells and whistles but it is easy to use and functional for the purposes of the challenge.
I think I am going to attempt one of the knifes for this month, I'll probably get started on it much later though as I am still plugging away on last month's environment.
Wow, they're beautiful! Would love to see some of those creep into next months challenge. Cheers for the link there.
nice!
just stopping by to say I've done those knife sketches. Nothing against you guys using them, just thought I met let know in case anyone was curious!
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Awesome work man, regretting that I don't have the skills to do one of your wicked holo-knife concepts. It was bugging me that I couldn't who to credit, I should be better at goggling I guess.
Isn't a lightsaber knife Sci fi?
Dude you could totally make this knife look sci fi like, like the thread post says, feel free to modifiy the concept as you wish haha :P
I'm currently attending FZD but I started off as a 3D environmental modeling guy. I kept telling my class how if they do cool work that their stuff will show up on here and students who are learning how to model will want to work on it. Well, guess what, I get to show off a bit of your stuff. I will make it known to the school that some of their students stuff is the challenge this week and I'll try to find the guy who drew it so he can see.
Cheers and happy modelling!
Pardon my ignorance here but what is the downside to chamfering things? I used to be an entirely supporting geometry guy until I read this. I've been getting better looking edges on my models due to this. Should I go back to the running edges alongside things method?
Going to jump onto the knife concepts, doing the Slice of Life contest this month so not expecting to have enough time for both that and the full challenge.
Nice analysis !! I'm new in that methode. Do you use photoshop to split each part in differente color ?
@Dethling thanks so much for posting your color blockout! I know it'll be important for me to break things down into parts to get it done in time
Thanks
Honestly what matters most to me at this stage is just forcing myself to look at the concept in detail to list all the unique assets and get a feel for the size of the space.
My plan is
- Set up a Maya file with the same grid units and snapping as in UE4
- Get the simple BSP into it and iterate on it
- Start modeling and going back and forth between Maya and UE4 for testing
Didn't see this post, thanks. Any tips before I start exporting to UDK?
I jump in the arena and try my best on this beautiful dungeon
Like Poinball and Dethling, I drew a small color pass on the original picture to identify similar assets and the environment in general.
So here is the color pass :
Here is my simple blocking pass in max+ simple omni lights ( max 1h on this one to get right proportions) :
And right now I'm modeling an "advanced blocking", more like a "almost complete Low poly environment" :
Now, I need to finish some details like the Falcon Head over the door
I'm open to critics so don't hesitate (I really need to improve
I've posted my work thus far below, and am going to be rendering it in both UDK and Unity when completed.
As I want to approach this scene from a modular standpoint I cut my blockout into several "modules".
I don't like the water-basin "module" at the moment, I thinking of splitting it further.
As I have no experience with this kind of work my question is:
should I group several objects together for one texturemap (e.g. the pillars, the vase, the "fence" into one texture/UV) or should I create one seperate texture/UV for each object? (and the of course smaller texture maps for smaller items)?
Probably going to go into the unwrap process pretty soon!
Started here but like I said it just didnt feel right.
This is when it got interesting.
This is a simple lighting setup test. Not sure if I want that much light. Also thinking about adding cloth.
Hope that wasn't too much..
@VincentM: Nice work already, I think you pretty much nailed the proportions if you're going for a still image recreation. Maybe check the pillar spacing bottom left side though.
@MDStranger: Not bad so far, but I would adjust the height on the trim blocks for the gutters at the sides of the pool. How I see it, these are things that are pretty close to the floor so they're easily stepped over.
@Dethling: There are no real rules for grouping items. I usually try to be a bit logical and group things by material and purpose. For instance, the vase props here look very similar, so I'm going to texture them in one go. Same for the stone trims along the walkways. I see them as part of a set that should look and feel the same, so I work on those props as if they're one big item, so to speak.
@Joebewon: Not bad so far. I would check the slope on your staircase. It should be a little bit steeper.
@hollywoodjae026: Interesting changes you're making... curious to see where this is going.
So, I've been going at it really slowly by replacing the BSP piece by piece, setting up links for materials, etc.
I'm not going for the still image final result, I want to be able to run around in it and see it in motion as well.
This is obviously still very rough, next things I want/need to do:
- finish up the BSP replacements with meshes for stairs, more trims, more props
- fix the size of the pool which is off a bit now and clashing with my building block approach
- start on the first tiling texture to get a large amount of screen space worked up already
Need to cut down my poly count
Also try to setup the first in-engine shot, but due to lackof UDK experience... I failed
Still one question remains: How to arrange the UV-Maps? One texture-map/prop or get some props together on one texture-map?
@JoachimC: Thanks man! I didn't even noticed the stairs! I will definitely be making those adjustments!
@Dethling: Great start! I set-up my workflow to be about the same as yours. And I totally understand where you're coming from. I haven't touched UDK in ages, so this is definitely going to be a huge re-learning experience for me!
I would check out this video from 3D Motive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXoG2kNe5Ok
Those guys have a lot of good info when it comes to 3DS Max & UDK stuff!
As for UV-Maps its really a personal preference. I'm going to try to condense all of mine down to maybe one 2048. We will definitely see once I finish this unwrap process!
Everyones stuff is looking pretty good! Keep it up!
Energy Blade Shader:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5I0m500aT4&feature=youtu.be
I thought it would be nice to participate too, here's my progress so far.
I've put a grid on top of the image to better understand the proportions and scale.
1 box= 1 meter. this way it was much easier to blockout the level.
Also, i quickly imported the blockout in UE4 using 3d person blueprint preset.
After importing in UE4 i've noticed that the scale was wrong, the right scale would be 150%. so i rescaled the scene back in Modo.
@cameronthughes - The knife is looking great, I'd just keep an eye out incase the model starts looking a little 'soft' Especially on the bolts and the top of the hand guard area.
Here's where I'm at with mine currently, nearly happy with it. A couple of area's are looking a little skinny, could probably do with 'chunking' it up slightly.
Im getting ready to release my modular map builder script, and will be testing it with this scene.
Here it is, very basic so far. The only custom room is the bath hall, I plan to add several more custom rooms, and custom halls for the script to generate, as well as more cubetype variations.
Sizing for Source Engine (Since Changed in the engine to fit better.
First Blockout within game engine.