Howdy im trying to get better with my maps so Ive started this scene. Any ideas on how to improve would be apreciated?

Hey, good start. I'm always all for dirt, but I think your grunge maps are a little too uniform. Think about where the dirt would actually accumulate, and put it there. In other areas, they don't have to be "clean" perse, but at least less grungy.

I think your dirt also might be a bit too dark, I couldn't even tell that there was a trashcan there at first.

It looks like you tried to put cracks on the cement but they read more like dirty lines. If you could crisp those up some it would help. Also, adding normal and spec would help too, but it might be good to just get the diffuse looking good first.

The no parking sign hanging at an angle feels odd. It would hang like that if it was hanging from a corner. But since it's centered on the pole, it would be hanging from the center, and thus, it feels weird that it's canted off to one side.

I'd recommend working on this one piece at a time first. i.e. start with just the sidewalk. Make sure it has some of the regular lines in it, as well as your cracks. Make the curb a little wider, and reduce the grunge, then post again.

Thanks tumerboy Those are all very good comments that I will be working on. I accually do have spec and normal maps. So I worked on those a bit. A bit brighter also. O about sign totally agree not sure why I dint see that. SO i bent the sign but not happy so I may just leave it normal and strieght up.

added road and walls

What's your goal with this? Seems very synthetic and blurry, with lots of pixel depth changes from one asset to another.

Yeah good start, some things look a little inconsistent though.

Mainly the texture resolution looks a bit off. The building and the street are both very blurry in comparison to the sidewalk.

The trashcan is too muddy/dark right now, Maybe if it was lightened up, or if the texture was sharpened a bit it might pop out more on the scene.

The StreetLamp also looks very dark.

The StreetSign, StreetLamp, and building all look like they are floating off the ground. If you bake in a shadow around there base it might help make them look more grounded into the scene.

Keep it up!

hey thanks great input. I totally agree with u about the building/road . Though not sure how to fix other then giving it a bigger texture and I wanted to keep it all under 1024(512 or under), but maybe ill re think that.

about the street lamp Ill work on it though its supposed to be dark like this ref http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbvi...entral_park.jpg

Ill update soon

O and the goal was to make a garbage can, then an apple, then a sign, and now a depressingly dirty street corner at night.

Edit: ok heres latest render


im not sure how to bake shadows so a tutorial link would be appreciated (using maya)

I'd say, don't concern yourself with limitations right now, just focus on making it look it's best. You'll want to be sure to keep all your pixel depth consistent. It'll also help to have a reference of exactly what you want to do.


Check out this work of Stefan Morrell
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...ge=1&pp=15
His work is a pretty good benchmark of where to go. Look at this cgportfolio for more...
for example: http://stefan-morrell.cgsociety.org/gallery/399743/

o wow hes really good. Thanks for the link will keep him in mind, but im no where near experienced enough. Just learnd how to unwrap a few weeks ago. im also aiming for low poly game limits. which arent so low anymore.

the brown dirt on the curb and under the trash can looks odd. I think it would look better round the base of the wall and post, I guess because dirt gathers there because that's where people aren't walking.

good advice when i work on this later will keep that in mind.

check your mapping on the wall. You've got bricks on the hidden side that are about an inch thick

on these mini-scenes its the little mistakes that add up to one big mistake, so check every element and make sure it all ties together convincingly. you need to do this before worrying about textures and lighting, or it'll all be for nothing. Scale usually undoes people most commonly - for one, your road is *really narrow

Anyone noticed that the sign is incredibly clean and could use some sure desaturated colors instead of the bright red ???

Try visiting a typical street sign in your neighborhood and perhaps take pictures of that sign and just modify it with the details...

hey thanks pliang was thinking same thing about sign
and danr you right will look at little things. But you say look at models before textures, but u only commented on textures, what model wise should I fix

should have update by end of night

edit: small update fixing a few things like:
-Road width
-Sign texture is much darker now (is it good?)
- there is no longer a 1in brick, but the gap between bricks needs work.



O that thing in bottom left corner was like a road block was working on. Didnt mean to catch in render.

ok worked on some stuff and added garbage. Also up to 1006tris now

I think the dirt ont he sign is too intense, and too splotchy.

If it's just been sitting around for a while, without rain or anything, it would have a pretty even coat of dirt:

http://www.uniquetextures.com/textures/medium/01559.jpg


If it's been beaten up, it'll have dirt, rust and scratches:
http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbvi...street_sign.jpg
but that makes more sense for a construction sign or something of that sort.

If it's REALLY old, the pain would have started to fade, crack, chip, and then the metal would rust from the chips:

http://joanperry.smugmug.com/photos/127631184-M-1.jpg

Notice a couple things in that last one. The sign has rivets or bolts holding it to the post, these usually rust first on old signs. Those bolts have directed any water that's hit the sign, causing drip marks (or often, rust-drip marks from the bolt itself). Also notice that if you want it to feel old/abandoned stickers and graffiti help a lot in selling that.

The post itself looks ok, but as someone else pointed out, it feels like it's floating off the concrete. Many smaller posts like that tend to be inserted in the concrete after it has set up. They drill a hole, shove the pole in, and then fill in some more concrete around the pole:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/modpod/1034577985/

Also look at the weathering/dirt/water stains around these parking meters:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/angela9...86610/sizes/o/


Think about reorganizing your scene. The light post might be on the corner, and the garbage can might be next to it, but why would a no parking sign be there? Wouldn't the curb around the corner just be red? Also with your current angle/setup the sign & light post line up and it's hard to tell what's going on there. I'd pull your camera back a bit,a nd move the no parking sign to the top side of the picture on the other street.

Anyway, hope that helps some.

wow those are some really helpfull comments. I see what you mean about layout, things you miss when worried about other things. This is a bit re worked, tell me what you think then Ill retexture.

I moved the sign down a bit so its keeping people from parking to close to corner.
Light post closer to the corner, which moved the garbage can too. Should I get rid of sign? Dont want to pan camera out anymore cause then it will include more modeling then I wanted for this project.

My texture got screwed up on road, but easy fix tomorrow.



edit: moved camera

I'd move your camera, it's perfectly alright if you just have a small area modeled/textured, but let us see it right at least. You're also still suffering from the sign post/light pole alignment that I mentioned.

I'd suggest something more like this:

ok heres new render. road is fixed now i need to dirty it up. Also any idea why my sign is getting clipped? its fine from a streight on shot

updated alot of textures and compiled them so u could see what was going on.

Could you put a grid texture on everything in that scene. With the grid resolution being 16x16 = 256x256 texture res and so on. This will show you how off your texture density is from one thing to the next. Its important to block out your scene with grid before you start making textures so you know what res to make them.

hey im not to sure what u mean by a grid system. Anyway u could explain that?

also these arent actual sizes. the appl is 128 i think and wall is 512. Just was getting them on one page.

Well in max you can make a material with a checker box grid and change out the number of times it tiles to what you want. So you make a few different tiling amounts, like 16x16 and 32x32.

O then u attempt to get the cubes to kinda be the same size?

BINGO!!!