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Monthly Community Noob Challenge August 2014 (22)

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polycounter lvl 7
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Wulf polycounter lvl 7
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Hello everyone and welcome to the Monthly Noob Challenge for the month of August.

Now I may not be the person that you'd usually expect to post this thread, but for this time, I was put in place by Alex to handle the issuing of this month's challenge. All of the rules are the same and this is still the awesome monthly challenge that you guys know and love. Cheers!

Join our Skype group if you want! Add Alex or myself on Skype and we will add you to the group.
Alex: alexmasterofcats
Me: noble.wulf

You don't have to join the Skype if you don't want to though, and you don't need to ask to participate in the challenge, just start working on it and post your progress in this thread!

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Artist - Morgan Yon
www.morgan-yon.com/

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From Venerated Laboratories of glorious Soviet Worker’s Paradise, we are presenting the newest in modern convenience. Never again will our brave citizens have to stand in line to buy their essential needs.

Artist - Matthew Cook
http://xn--m3h.net/

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Feel free to approach either of the concepts however you like but I'd recommend making it as modular as possible to save time and keep things optimized. It's really up to you, and as long as you are learning then it doesn't matter right?

Also if you want to change up either concept a bit, as some people wanted, then feel free. Interpret these concepts to your liking.

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, then feel free to go ahead and do it. This way you can gradually work on building up to a full scene before diving head-first into the whole ordeal.

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Please read all the rules before starting.

When you are just starting out making a scene, it can seem complicated or imposing, so take the time to break it down.

Think about how you can re-use assets, re-use textures, break it down as simple as possible and plan it out. A lot of people will break it down in their own way when they start out their challenge. Gather some reference images 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.

Here are some specifics.
  • Try to post one critique for every post that you make. This will make for a better learning environment and help us all grow as artists.

  • You must make your own textures, no stealing. We can't keep you from doing it, but the goal is to learn. You can use other textures and images to create your final texture, but please, no blatant copying of another artist's work.
  • You must use a game engine to present your work. Unreal Engine and CryEngine are very common engines that can be used, but feel free to use any alternatives that you want.

  • You must try your best and finish as much as you can in the timeframe provided.

  • Post what you are working on in this thread so that way it's a more centralized place for advice and critique. We don't need to have 1000 disjointed threads littering the forums.

  • 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 using Ddo. 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, so please don't complain.

  • Well that's about it. If you think that any rules should be changed, or there should be new additions to the rules, please let us know.
All that matters is that you learn, while being able to effectively critique others, as well as accept critiques on your own work. Remember to have fun! Cheers!

Replies

  • AlexCatMasterSupreme
  • Mrfido
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    Mrfido polycounter lvl 11
    ooooo This will be a lot of fun!!! :D
  • dystopianghost
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    dystopianghost polycounter lvl 10
    I will jump in on this one lets just hope I can get a break from overtime at work to do it lol :)
  • BurnTheHorses
    That's funny, I already did this a few months ago!

    Unity Webplayer

    vendingmachine.png?w=1500&h=660

    This one was really fun. Let me know what you guys think!
  • skyline5gtr
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    skyline5gtr polycounter lvl 9
    Good stuff.

    For the environment has anyone tried using maramoset ? I dont have access to UE4 yet so debating how to display it
  • dystopianghost
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    dystopianghost polycounter lvl 10
    @skyline5gtr I am sure using Marmoset would look fine displaying the prop and honestly probably even the environment, I personally like marmoset but UE4 is nice. I guess if you wanted to you could even use mental ray. I have seen a few little environments in Marmoset but never a full blown environment, might be fun to try out though.
  • skyline5gtr
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    skyline5gtr polycounter lvl 9
    I really want to try marmoset, i just didn't know if anyone had before. Since i know each prob will be its own thing. Probably works for small area's. Going to give it a go this time
  • KustomZero
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    KustomZero polycounter lvl 6
    why don't go with udk or cryEngine? I mean you get free sdk to work with and have no need to buy UE4.

    But will definately give the prop a try now, this challenge seems like fun.
  • skyline5gtr
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    skyline5gtr polycounter lvl 9
    KustomZero wrote: »
    why don't go with udk or cryEngine? I mean you get free sdk to work with and have no need to buy UE4.

    But will definately give the prop a try now, this challenge seems like fun.

    cause i want to do a PBR approach
  • fullchaos13
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    fullchaos13 polycounter lvl 6
    cause i want to do a PBR approach

    Yeap you can definitely render this out with marmoset toolbag 2, although I imagine that rendering this inside of a game engine will allow for more flexibility and more complex lighting system. I found an old polycount monthly recap that shows a mini environment being rendered inside of toolbag2.
    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2062529&postcount=4830
  • dystopianghost
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    dystopianghost polycounter lvl 10
    @fullchaos13 I agree with you can do it inside of marmoset toolbag 2 but inside of a game engine you will have alot more shader options and also more control over some things and nice find on the environment in toolbag 2 :)
  • AlexCatMasterSupreme
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    AlexCatMasterSupreme interpolator
    Just do what you want....
  • dystopianghost
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    dystopianghost polycounter lvl 10
  • SaboR1996
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    SaboR1996 polycounter lvl 8
    Didn't an artist on here actually create a near PBR shader for UDK anyway? pretty sure I saw a thread about it a while back.

    Any way, I might actually do this one, saw an artist did the environment concept a while back and would love to tackle it.
  • JedTheKrampus
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    JedTheKrampus polycounter lvl 8
    I absolutely adore the prop concept for this month. He even gives you orthos. ORTHOS! So nice.

    Anyway, here's what I've got for tonight. Since no one has posted anything of theirs yet, I'm off the hook for critique for this post.

    VRoTHLJ.png
  • JoeTyas
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    JoeTyas polycounter lvl 4
    JedTheKrampus:

    Cl54osx.png
  • ScrotieFlapWack
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    ScrotieFlapWack polycounter lvl 5
    Wow I may give this one a try! :D
  • KustomZero
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    KustomZero polycounter lvl 6
    YoRy9b9.jpg

    so here my current state of work. It's kinda my first prop without tutoring.
  • carlson bench
  • JedTheKrampus
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    JedTheKrampus polycounter lvl 8
    Mr. Bench, you may wish to revisit the bottom part of the main facade of the machine. You've got five notches on the bottom, and the concept has seven. Additionally, your notches are not evenly spaced. Also, the capsule region on your machine looks fine to me, but there's a mismatch with the concept, where its shape is closer to a rectangle with parentheses than the capsule shape you have. So, you may or may not wish to revisit that. Other than that, your model looks quite good to me, and it's mostly spot-on.

    Mr. Zero, I really like the way your model is coming together so far. But I couldn't help noticing that there's a little bit of stubble underneath the fan grate:

    1cIs461.png

    To me, this indicates that you may have trouble with Z-fighting if you take that into a game engine. You should take care of that as soon as possible.

    Here's my progress for the day. Got to go paint a wall now. How boring. :poly124:

    6M8kW4m.png
  • Valitri
    As stated before I am completely new to this. I failed horribly on the July challenge, felt like trying again. This is what I've come up with on my first day.

    30db9rr.png
  • dystopianghost
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    dystopianghost polycounter lvl 10
    Blocking everything out finally got a little time,still very rough Blockout_zps61edceaf.png
  • carlson bench
    @ JedTheKrampus thanks for the crit i have tried to fix the bottom and added a few more bits

    kzfvnak.png
  • aaronmwolford
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    aaronmwolford polycounter lvl 8
    @carlson looking great! proportions seem spot on and your mesh is clean.

    My highpoly so far.

    VendingMachine_WIP01_zps7d22032d.jpg
  • Kbrom12
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    Kbrom12 polycounter lvl 8
    good luck everyone, ofcourse you pick the one environment I'm doing in my spare time when not at work :poly142:
  • fullchaos13
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    fullchaos13 polycounter lvl 6
    So I decided to tackle the environment this month, and my first order of business is to complete the washing machines. Here's the high poly progress of the washing machine to the far right. I'm pretty happy with the results and if nobody has any critiques I'm going to start moving on to baking it out.
    5vDSTF8.png
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  • Valitri
    @fullchaos

    Very nice washing machine! Wish I could model that well.



    Day 2. 3 notes I take away from it.

    +I'm getting much happier with my ability to make textures.
    -I'm getting way too much bloom effect from the skydome/directional light. Fought with it almost all day.
    -While modeling the window frame, twice the zoom with mouse wheel, and pan with middle mouse button's sensitivity lowered an extreme amount. Like to the point they were almost unusable. No idea why...

    2ur5weh.png
  • tahakitan
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    tahakitan polycounter lvl 9
    I am working on making one object a day. This is my first contest! I am pretty knew to this so it will be fun. I am trying to make it at low poly as possible. this is only 4 sided and I focused more on the normal map because it is further in the distance in the image.
    http://fav.me/d7tli0t
  • xChris
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    xChris polycounter lvl 9
    How are people planning on doing layers of cloth? Never thought of doing a laundry basket, interested in the techniques.

    Good luck everyone!
  • fullchaos13
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    fullchaos13 polycounter lvl 6
    @xChris

    I'm not sure if this is the best way to go about doing it but I plan on modeling out a t-shirt that is in it's perfectly normally position (no creases or folds) then just give it a simple cloth simulation and drop it into a basket, do this a few more times to fill up the whole basket. Until I think of something better this is probably the way I'll go about doing it.
  • aaronmwolford
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    aaronmwolford polycounter lvl 8
    @fullchaos Loving the overall design of your washing machine. You've nailed all of the right forms, but everything is a bit too sharp. You're going to lose a lot of detail baking your normal as is.
  • ross185
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    ross185 polycounter lvl 6
    interesting idea, so the entire environment should be a launderette of some sort? I've not taken part in a monthly contest before as I barely have enough time to create a simple object. I will try and make time to complete this :)

    Looking forward to seeing everybody's work!
  • fullchaos13
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    fullchaos13 polycounter lvl 6
    @fullchaos Loving the overall design of your washing machine. You've nailed all of the right forms, but everything is a bit too sharp. You're going to lose a lot of detail baking your normal as is.

    When you say too sharp are you talking about the edges? If so should I round them off a bit?
  • aaronmwolford
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    aaronmwolford polycounter lvl 8
    Yep, exactly. Smooth all of the edges a bit so the light catches the edges nicer.
  • LANKUS MAXIMUS
    ross185 wrote: »
    interesting idea, so the entire environment should be a launderette of some sort? I've not taken part in a monthly contest before as I barely have enough time to create a simple object. I will try and make time to complete this :)

    Looking forward to seeing everybody's work!


    It is in fact the the Nursery Laundry room area from the 2012 game, ZombieU :)
  • Jedairusz
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    Jedairusz polycounter lvl 13
    I will follow this thread! I started enviro from this concept long time ago, but unfortunately I don't have time to finish this now. Maybe some other time.
    Latest WIP:
    screen21.jpg
    thread: www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=135702
  • Lukebryan101
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    Lukebryan101 polycounter lvl 5
    Hey guys.

    I follow the site a fair amount but only really as a curious artist who just likes viewing other people's art. I've decided after a while that I should sign up and give one of these Monthly Noob Challenges ago!

    So for the last couple of hours I have been working on the vending machine as I wanted to do something relatively small for a bit of practice. I have never textured something using PBR so I think this might be a good time to try that before I head back to University in a few weeks! So if there are any tutorials or documents I should look at regarding PBR texturing through them my way!

    Here is what I have done so far! lots more to add still!


    ffctql02l
    ffctql02l

    All crit welcome, Need all the help I can get!
  • Fisher007
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    Fisher007 polycounter lvl 8
    Hi,

    This is my first MNC, I'm really excited about it! :) So here is my vending machine.

    snPdH9S.png

    QyDIf71.png

    Also, it would be good to see more wireframes without smoothing to see different approaches. :)
  • KustomZero
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    KustomZero polycounter lvl 6
    looks really good so far, but at the vent part where you place the bolts, the metal could be thinner. But I am really interested how your first MNC will end :)
  • fullchaos13
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    fullchaos13 polycounter lvl 6
    Progress report #2

    Ok guys, so I took aaron's advice and rounded off almost all the edges on the prop, I also increased the size of the bevels so that things register slightly better from a distance. Keeping all this in mind I designed the second washing machine and I'm generally happy with the results thus far. Also I decided that it be better for me to finish creating the highpoly versions of the machines before I move on to retopology/baking, reason being is so that people can critique the highpolys/give me advice and I'd be able to correct it without having to change the low poly and re-bake everything.

    Uwcdpju.jpg

    Wk4MvfW.png

    EDx08jO.jpg

    P.S. The machine to the left has quite a decent amount of floating geometry, so some parts might be somewhat strange to look at until I finish baking it. Also I'm quite surprised at how well maromoset toolbag 2 handles high loads of geometry/resolution. Inside of blender I was lagging to shit with these 2 machines in my viewport, but in marmoset everything ran smooth as butter.
  • blackkeys25
    Hey Guys, thought I would have a go at the prop this month, Got a few things to do before high poly is done but got most of it done. I was wondering what you guys would do for the holes in the little generater holder down the bottom. Would you bother doing the geometry or just do alpha maps to create the holes. fullchaos13 I like your washing machine but personally I prefer your first one. It looks a little bulky know to me but that's just my personal opinion. I like things that are a bit more subtle, but everyone has their own taste :)

    f1cada3e-4729-44e3-b382-d1d318806326_zps090fa5ba.jpg
  • aaronmwolford
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    aaronmwolford polycounter lvl 8
    @blackkeys. For the vents down below, I am just going to create a normal and darken the area a bit to represent depth and shadow. This will ultimately save memory and tris as my plan is to not use any alphas for this. Just my workflow.
  • blackkeys25
    Good call aaronmwolford, I don't like using alphas either. I think this will be interesting to retop, some weird shapes in this one.
  • blackkeys25
    Calling the high poly done, accept I can't figure out what those things are on the top 2 shelves. Anyone else know?

    9b473751-3e97-4e9c-99af-90c3a7d46214_zps744848cf.jpg
  • fullchaos13
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    fullchaos13 polycounter lvl 6
    Hey Guys, thought I would have a go at the prop this month, Got a few things to do before high poly is done but got most of it done. I was wondering what you guys would do for the holes in the little generater holder down the bottom. Would you bother doing the geometry or just do alpha maps to create the holes. fullchaos13 I like your washing machine but personally I prefer your first one. It looks a little bulky know to me but that's just my personal opinion. I like things that are a bit more subtle, but everyone has their own taste :)

    f1cada3e-4729-44e3-b382-d1d318806326_zps090fa5ba.jpg

    Hey blackkeya, I agree with you in the fact that the machines are getting slightly more bulkier, but the reason I did this is because both washing machines are a fair distance away from the camera, and if I kept everything nice slim then I found that a lot of the details just simply doesn't register very well due to anti aliasing and simply just being too far away. I noticed that it's starting to take a somewhat stylized approach, which I don't want. Oh well, I guess I'll see whether or not I like it when I finish the texturing.
  • JedTheKrampus
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    JedTheKrampus polycounter lvl 8
    Calling the high poly done, accept I can't figure out what those things are on the top 2 shelves. Anyone else know?

    I believe those are supposed to be potatoes.
  • Fisher007
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    Fisher007 polycounter lvl 8
    Calling the high poly done, accept I can't figure out what those things are on the top 2 shelves. Anyone else know?

    Potatoes? :D That is the only thing I can think of and imo it is a pretty funny idea actually.

    Btw, your HP looks pretty smooth. :) There is only one thing that came to my mind; there are a few things that got smaller compared to the concept. It's perfectly fine if you planned that way, although imo it read a bit better with the larger details. For example the screws around the vent, the skirt (or whatever is that :D) on the big metal ball on the side. (nuclear kettle or how do you call it? :D) Ohh and you missed the yellow-black stripped part.
  • blackkeys25
    A nuclear potato and toilet paper dispenser.. I like it!! Thanks for the feed back Fisher007, I wasn't sure about the bolts, think I will change them. Can't believe I forgot that stripy piece though.
  • JedTheKrampus
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    JedTheKrampus polycounter lvl 8
    My bakes are looking a bit odd in a few places, so tomorrow it's time to add some more geometry and supporting edges to try and even a few things out. Here's my progress, I'm at 4714 triangles but it's pretty clear I'm going to need to add more to get the bakes looking better.

    EVROPmo.png

    In the background you can see that I've been messing around with light propagation volumes a bit. Those reflections on those balls are 100% realtime, partly from the light propagation volume and partly from screenspace reflections, and that makes me smile because it means I don't have to bother with a second UV channel. Thank you, based Lionhead Studios rendering engineers!

    Fisher007, I really like your mesh so far. Keep going! I'm interested in seeing how you approach to the smokestack thingy.
  • billymcguffin
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    billymcguffin polycounter lvl 11
    @Jed Open up your normal map in unreal and try checking the flip green check box along the right side (it might be hidden a bit).
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