Wacraft-inspired enviro
polycounter lvl 3
Here's most recent screenshot:
Original message:
Hi everyone!
I'm pretty new here, but eager to learn.
Recently I discovered Hearthstone and reminded myself Warcraft 3 and I got very inspired to improve my enviro modeling and painting textures skills. However, I'm quite a newbie and I'm here to ask you help - how to make my workflow better and paint better materials.
I decided to create a small Warcraft-inspired village and I started with simple well.
I passed trough modelling and uv-mapping phase pretty smooth, but now I've got some troubles with texturing. It's my first work in such aesthetics, so any advice will be appreciated.
Model has 979 polys.
Original message:
Hi everyone!
I'm pretty new here, but eager to learn.
Recently I discovered Hearthstone and reminded myself Warcraft 3 and I got very inspired to improve my enviro modeling and painting textures skills. However, I'm quite a newbie and I'm here to ask you help - how to make my workflow better and paint better materials.
I decided to create a small Warcraft-inspired village and I started with simple well.
I passed trough modelling and uv-mapping phase pretty smooth, but now I've got some troubles with texturing. It's my first work in such aesthetics, so any advice will be appreciated.
Model has 979 polys.
Replies
first of all I'd like to mention I'm not a 3D specialist but no means so I'll just talk about the color/texture.
First thing I notice is the fact that the stones on the well are too small. Blizzard has a tendency to use large bricks in their enviros. The color scheme is much more saturated than what you used, with a lot more contrast. They usually use shadows blended with purple/green/red rather than just a darker color(i.e. green+ black, they mix green with purple undertones and grey rather than black)
Try making the darker areas between the "mouth" of the well bigger but not blacker..just extend the shaded area a bit. From the first shot I didn't even realize there are separate polys for each stone.
Also because you mentioned Hearthstone here's a pic with the usual style they use when painting textures:
http://www.cinemablend.com/images/gallery/s62506/Hearthstone_Beta_13934544974242.jpg
here: http://www.gamershell.com/static/screenshots/4/43063/712345_full.jpg
a shot from the cinematic, granted it's much more refined than the usual ingame stuff but you can get an idea of the style they're aiming.
Maybe reduce the number of polys of the rope and use them for the well geometry? it might help convey the roundness better. Also, the grass blades are too thick, try reducing the size near the tip otherwise they kinda look like algae...
I'd say it's a good start modelling wise but needs work on the texturing
The stone wall texture is far to "small", Warcraft is all about stylized and big shapes. So make the stones on the texture bigger.
Also I would sugget to take a look at the MoP textures (or WoD if you have Beta Access) and try to match your's to them.
The other textures are far to simple for WoW nowadays, again take a look at actual WoW models and textures.
For the model itself:
The basic silhouette is ok'ish and I like the small setails (gras, stones, cuts).
Some of them (especially the cuts) can be added to the texture to spare some verts.
I would also seperate the roll from the top bar, making it an extra object, by this you would get a cleaner geometry.
I always try to separate things as they are in real life, it's easier to UV and texture and it looks better (I think).
Also if you going for some high poly/baking sometimes, this will create the small panel-lines like in reality.
Thank you for feedback. I did a little research, watched some tutorials and sketched few scraps.
I refined the model a little bit and practised painting stone a little bit.
Improved model:
Stone texture:
Tiled previev:
I have a hand painted textures collection for references at pinterest, it may help you:
http://www.pinterest.com/felipealves3d/hand-painted-textures-artstudy/
After your feedback I decided to spend some time watching tutorials and just practicing painting smaller pieces of textures. Now I'm back to well and here's my work in progress:
Realy good improvment over all.
I think to get it a little more wowisch you need to work on the wood. You're wood looks a little too flat. Just take a look ingame (at the new MoP stuff).
The base stones are good, but try to add some bevels to them by adding shadows where two stones connect.
The Bucket looks really good.
Thanks for feedback!
Here's most up to date model and texture:
But it still don't scream "Warcraft" to me, but I can't say why...
Do you tried to put it next to some warcraft screens? Simply make some ingame screens of similar objects, put them in a folder, then put this piece between it an raffle through the "pages". This helps me a lot to find the differences in art styles and nail them down.
Thanks for feedback. I'll try your advice, but it wasn't my purpose to completly copy Warcraft style - I'm just inspiring from it
One guy asked me on facebook about my process, so I made a simple gif showing my work on stone texture:
Yesterday I had some time to model and texture basic crate. Now I'm going to work on some texture variations.
Here are screenshots and basic render:
Today I made another basic object - barrel. Below is 3dsm screenshot and diffuse texture:
I keep working on my scene and at the moment I'm about to finish modular my modular fences.
Here's a little snapshot from all my models I already made:
nice work amigo
But overall these are definitely coming along! Keep it up!
I'm a little bit confused and I'm somehow drifting into more realistic proportions. Since I started this project I've seen load of great models here at Polycount and my inspirations changed a little bit, but I'll keep in mind your words!
Have a nice day!
For example these soft wood-textures. I like them!
...but anyway, the leaves should be bigger. Both composition-wise and because they dont make too much sense beeing that small.
And what Nosslak said about the sides of the crates beein pushed in to much is right I guess.
like to see how this advances!
I'm still tweaking already made models and I'm about to start something more complicated. In the meantime, I played around with particles in Unity3D (you can preview them at Vine: vine.co/v/O5b0U2b2Tt9 )
Thanks for feedback, @fab-camp
Before that, please take a look at my models rendered in Marmoset.
[vv]112036197[/vv]
I am right now working on similar project but in realistic style so it is interesting to follow your progress on this.
Cheers
Yesterday I created a terrain for my scene in World Machine and imported it into Unity3D.
The release of Unity5 with all new features was like a gift. The GI works like a charm even in such simple scene. The textures are just placeholders for now and I'm going to draw my own, but I wanted to set up lighting and map areas.
Do you have in mind a good tutorials on creating foliage in such style?