Art for my RPG
still working on a game with friends, and since discovering the love of my life (unity 3d) i've been doing alot of experiments on art style, and just the ins and outs of unity.
The whole game wont be wow'ish, as im not a fan of most of the player and monster graphics in the game, i'll probably go for a hand painted look but with bumping where i like it, a combo you don't see all that much.
heres a clearly wow inspired tree though, dont think i need a bump or spec map, and i've also made a version with more color variation that looks more interesting. 512 map for trunk, 256 for leaf, are these specs okay for something i want alot of? Whats the tri count on most wow trees? Any suggestions appreciated, aiming at the 360 platform when unity gets support for it,
The whole game wont be wow'ish, as im not a fan of most of the player and monster graphics in the game, i'll probably go for a hand painted look but with bumping where i like it, a combo you don't see all that much.
heres a clearly wow inspired tree though, dont think i need a bump or spec map, and i've also made a version with more color variation that looks more interesting. 512 map for trunk, 256 for leaf, are these specs okay for something i want alot of? Whats the tri count on most wow trees? Any suggestions appreciated, aiming at the 360 platform when unity gets support for it,
Replies
Really quick and dirty example in photoshop. My example is a bit to much, but just to give you an idea of what I mean.
Also the roots could be a bit more optimized at the tips.
The color of the leafs/branches are a bit to light for my liking, personaly I'd go for a bit darker and less yellowish color.
Other than that, I'd say keep it up!
:poly122::poly122::poly122:
oh god, thats hard to believe, someone go get proof now, all you need is a wow account and that directx 9 model stealer, forgot what its called, think i got the link of pc
i have no wow account
when i had a wow freeserver account i captured the base male orc and a few other characters, i think they were all like either 1k or 2k tris exactly, dont remember which, probably 1k though
These use a 128x256 for the trunk and a 256 map for the leaves.
house, built with some modular assets, wood blocks, cloth thing, planning on deleting uneeded faces once i finish up the design, trying to make something that looks unique
I'm guessing that piece off to the right is the roof - why isn't it attached, or at least in place? If those horizontal pieces are supposed to be part of the support frame of the building, you need to consider thickness and scale - how big is this house, or how big are the beams that make up the frame?
as far as function is concerned the fabric can be lifted or moved to work as a window, door etc, the edge lifted in view will serve as the door, it will be black behind it to make it look like an entrance, the overgrowth is there as an insulator as the fabric is really just a wind breaker, i was thinking for fires the slats between the roof boards would allow ventilation, like a teepee...
The large beams in the exact center of the structure don't make sense for a house. On a house you might expect to see that at the bottom or around the roof, but not intersecting the middle.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here, the beams go around the house, there's no center pillar...
Okay, how can i make this more like a house?
How big is this building? Does one walk through the entrance or crouch under it like a tent? If you added some rope bindings or nails it's help with a sense of scale.
To sell your wooda bit better, you might want to change the texture on the ends to a lighter coloured one with a radial wooden pattern on it.
Kinda like this.
progress?
desperately needs shadow map and grass texture
honest crit - the colors are horrible and need to be looked at (neon purple chimney and what I assume is seaweed on the structure) the rest of the textures are very blurry, especially for low poly models. you want sharp textures with vibrant colors that work well with each other, sharp details which don't get lost in a blob of ugly brown or green...just because you are working with such a low resolution and texture space doesn't mean you can't make it look as good as possible.
i'd suggest researching basic color theory and understanding how different colors interact with each other. shadows and darker areas for example don't usually look that great if they are just a darkened shade of the mid tones and highlights vice-versa...using cooler colors for shadows such as towards the blue and purple spectrum helps a lot, especially for outdoor low poly scenes which don't have engine shadows or great lighting.
...Not enough fruit on top of your house.
Seriously though, listen to these comments. Do you live in the woods?? That house makes no sense. Go get some reference!
Sir, if this just a hut, I might suggust you need an entrance way to enter it at certain point.
Nice work though, assuming that you are hand drawing the maps, you are doing great!
Keep at it though
First thing I'd do is ditch what I'm assuming will be a brick chimney once it's textured. It doesn't really fit with the rudely made nature of the rest of the building. I'd suggest that people who live in these sorts of temporary typed structures would cook their food on a fire outside. Having a central fireplace out the front of your structures might be a nice way to make the area feel more lived in.
You really need to put some thought into how these buildings are constructed. While they're not possible, a more obviously constructed structure would sell them better - have the fabric sections clearly attached and the scaffold more obviously built. I might knock together a quick example to show what I mean there as it's hard to describe simply.
You should add a dirt area under the huts where the grass has been worn away and died from lack of light. I'd recommend doing this with an actual texture rather than the vertex colour you've got on the path. Likewise replace the path with a proper texture.
EDIT:
This is obviously just thrown together roughly with some conveniently Warcrafty textures that I had lying around, but it sort of shows more or less what I was talking about making the construction of the building more evident.
Thanks for actual suggestions, rather than "scrap everything get a ref". Using the fact that this is a different world is kind of an excuse, but I want many of the things in this game to seem new. This isn't going to be a game with dragons, elves, dwarves, and standard fantasy fare as we know it. Ever since Tolkien wrote his opus people borrow relentlessly and will probably never stop, not to say this world won't have humans, mammals or familiar looking life. Fiction must be grounded in reality, but i dislike how fiction tends to borrow so much from.... other fiction.
Dragon age for example, although dragon age has some great writing, and backstory, at times some interesting characters, on the surface nothing has changed from lord of the rings. The zero punctuation review of the game makes an issue of why does every fantasy game/story have orcs, elves, dwarfs and dragons...
On the contrary, Mass Effect creates a canon of completely new and interesting races, with vast differences between races, lifetimes, backstories, temper, things make sense. And although the game is a fantasy, there is a tangible connection to our world, the whole game takes place in the milky way.
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Does this look like a cat? No. ^^^ It doesn't really look like anything besides a creature the first time you see it. But parts of it are grounded in reality, where others are not, this seamless amalgamation of something recognizable and new, is in my mind perfection.
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The cat in the hat could have looked like this, ^^^ but, goodbye charm, goodbye interest, goodbye discovery. It may have been a fiscal success but would it be timeless and loved by generations to come if the cat looked like a cat?
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I would say no. And in the case of the movie, it was neither a critical, or financial succsess /lecture
adding more stuff, another type of tree in this shot, along with a trunk house. I think i am going to remove the chimney, and work on making an entrance for the house.
p.s. anyone happen to know why i get white lines on my t texture seams when the camera gets far away in unity? Unity does a butt load of filtering (texture LOD?) so textures end up getting very blurry when they're already low res, how can i turn that off?
Sorry if I seem harsh but the habit of making excuses for your work has to be nipped in the bud early.
<edit> ok reread your cat in the hat example, it seems like you aren't seeing what makes him work.
Can a house really visually read as a house with no visible doors/openings? How come these villagers took the time to carve lumber into planks and then follow up by draping a tarp over their house?
one last thing, always look for reference. I'm pretty sure the Mass Effect guys used all sorts of animal references for alien eyes, skin, etc. If you're designing primitive huts, research some images. If you're really serious about making a game you have to put serious work into it.
How does cat in the hat not look like a cat? Lets see, nose of a cat, ears of a cat, tail of a cat, characteristics of a cat - in art something is made whole by alot of small details.
What makes an old man old - wrinkles, and colour(grey hair, age spots etc)
What makes a child a child - different proportions and smaller stature to that of an adult.
etc.
Your house is impractical and impossible to use. Follow the rule - "function before form". That is how 90% of the worlds useable objects are designed, first thing a designer thinks of is: What is it's function, then: How does it function, then comes ergonomics(how it is used by a person) and then finally it's form and style etc.
^I'm talking about the real world here - thats where we live.
You have a cross bar that would make it difficult to enter, there is no door, no windows - no ventilations, it would become incredibly uncomfortable in there.
And the chimney you have wood, then fabric, and a stone chimney, that house would burn down almost instantly when lighting a fire even if it where in a fireplace.
And i'm assuming you enter from the path side of the house? How would you do so if there is a massive chimney in your way? slide along the side and burn yourself?
This greater than thou, attitude will get you where in a creative field, you post, listen to the opinions and advice of professionals and your peers, take - digest it, and put it into practice.
unles you are making a game that you are the only fan base you need to make an atempt at folowing enough of a standard so that things can be recongnized.
no offense theres a major difference between you and theodor geisel. who was a skilled and tallented artist in other styles besides just goofy cartoons. i'm sure if he wanted to illustrate a real and acurate cat he would have had no problem at all.
before you can claim to be inovative and ground breaking doing things no one have ever thought of like blue cylinder stone chimneys in confusing cloth houses. you should be able to make a convincing real believable structures.
know the rules and laws of art and then inovate and you can back up your choices.
this is just coming across as poor art made by someone who thinks he is already perfect and does not want to improve.
theres no place for that here at polycount. please stop wasting our time unless you want our time.
The best part is what you don't see. We all read this. People sitting around at game companies linking threads like these around laughing our ass off at the poor sap that thinks he's so great he can start lecturing people to explain why his bullshit is good. It's like that time you posted that barrel that didn't look like anything and blew up on the people that gave you good feedback. YOu know people remember this stuff and consider it when the boss says "we're looking for a new hire, can he listen?"
It's a small world, brotha, what's your new username going to be?
BTW, that one tree stump house looks like a house because it has a door, but see how massive the tree would have been? Consider that for the trees around it or it's going to continue to stick out oddly. Unless it's the deku tree.
I thought a more normal iron chimmney would suit it. I also thought a border to hold up the entrance would make it seem a bit more solid. You could either have a door inside that border arch, or you could just have some cloth hung up, or maybe even beads. I added an awning because everyone likes some shade on their porch. Windows are also nice, because natural light is probably the only light they have in there. I kept the wooden supports because I think those work well.
Anyways, work on it harder. You're just making things way too fast.
sorry all if it seems like that, thats not the case, i want to learn, its just difficult to detach from what my eyes see i guess. If you look at something you make long enough your brain fills in the gaps, maybe thats what is happening here.
basically i post here for fun, i make art for fun, i make game art for fun, and i write for fun, i'll probably never be a good enough artist to do that as my actual job, but its not my true passion anyways, that would be game design. So i consider myself somewhere between bad(programmer) art and good(artist) art.
Thanks again for everyones input, here's a character concept for the game.
that house is beast it looks like a bong and your character looks stoned out of his mind.
found our demo!
I almost SPAT my tea over my keyboard! i Lol'd HARD!
Keep going with your work man, I agree with what everyones has said here, I think you should keep things reading as they are supposed to, and use your flavour to tweak individual elements, eg. A house has to have a way of entering, and exiting and usually the inhabitants like to be able to see outside without actually going outside.
Also, are you following the phrase that blizzard's game developers believe in? "less is moar!!?"
This is lol-able on hard indeed...LOL!!!!!
Edit: A for effort though, there is improvement over your original.
When designing a roof for a house, consider the local weather. If it snow, make your roof slanty. If it doesn't, make it flat. I see you have lots of moss (which could be darker...) so I'm guessing there's not going to be any snow here. Maybe a flat roof with some rain spouts or something.
Keep your chin up. The only way we get better is by perseverance!
edit* where'd my bong chimney go?
Why a doorway going through the log? So its a cloth house and they put a tree stump for the doorway and cut a hole through it? That don't make a lick a sense. Why not just cut a hole in the cloth and then build a frame (if they need a frame) out of smaller limbs?
I would say you made an original form out of almost-recognizable materials. Fail on the logic though.
maybe something more like this to tie it all together and make sense out of it.
well remove the chimney and just use an outdoor firepit was a suggestion from the forum, and add a doorway was a suggestion. The only suggestion i'm really ignoring is start over from scratch, or work straight from a reference.
To add to others comments about new house i'd say try to avoid straight black patches in the texture/model. If u need to have "some hole where we can't see what's there" try to make more gradient untill it'll reach the "dead end" black polygon. Make the darkening transition less harsh. Or u could also add just a patch of cloth hanging in the door way, because me personally i try to avoid pure blacks as much as possible.
Regarding your last post:
When u r a beginner/hobbyst dont be afraid of starting from skratch many times
By strating from scratch u actually will improve workflow etc way faster instead of sticking to one thing and only keep fixing it.
After all, your scene is quite simple, so is the house - it is possible to do scene of such complexity in 1 day or maximum in one week (week - if u r a beginner). Also all those modificatins that u need to do r so numerous that it might take same effort as redoing all from skratch :P
There is so much ref on aboriginal huts that u can't even immagine :P Everything that MAKES SENCE as a hut was already built on Earth
Make it look more like raw materials with goofy curves and things. Less like finished lumber from home depot.
Maybe something more like this for the roof?
good point, i'll take this into account, might bendy things up some more, i think i'm also going to paint the actual cloth texture, thats just photo sack cloth on there now.
may just save this one and the last one as two similar iterations, to mix them up a little when the village has 3 or 4 of these,
i think the bendy wood helps it, how does the hay read?
Some art-noobs will proudly exclaim "I did this without reference". Usually it's obvious and not something to be proud of.
The grain shows up in cut wood, but for the scale you're going for you're implying whole trees.
Each iteration is getting better.
The hay reads like long grass. It should be a more whiteish yellow, with brown variations. The rug is a nice touch and the explicit doorway. Adds to help the scale relative to its occupants, though as I mentioned, the woodgrain makes it appear the occupants are some form of pixy or gnome.