Hi Everyone,

This is my first post here, I've been too intimidated to post anything until now, but I figure the only way to learn is to get some advice from people who are better than me, so here goes. I am working on this old gas station from some reference pics. My goal is to create a portfolio piece showing that I can create next-gen game assets from a reference photo. Here are the reference pics I'm using :


Here is what I have so far:









I also had some questions about how I should layout my UVS and an acceptable poly count for an asset like this. I would like to stay under 25,000 tri's and I am planning on making a 1024 sheet for all the non metal things, then another sheet hopefully 512 or another 1024 for all the metal stuff. Is this right? I would like to make this project using the same pipeline as a game company, so I hopefully might get hired soon.

Anyways I think this is a great site and I hope to continue improving and get to know all of you here.

Zack

Just bumping this since I haven't got any responses

Looking pretty good so far keep at it =)
With polycount if no one responds you can assume one of two things.
1) You're doing a pretty good job and if you keep working on it, you'll get to a good end result on your own.
2) You're doing it so wrong that anyone that happens on your thread, leaves clawing at their eyes.
Either way there won't be much idol praise tossed around and you should push above what you've done. "Art is never finished its just abandoned in a near perfect state".

Ok enough babble...
Crits:
- The scale for things is off just a bit, things are a bit too wide and not tall enough. It's important to get down into your scene on a human level and not hover above it. It also helps to view it often from the perspective of your ref. Also making a measuring stick about the same height as a person helps get a sense of scale.
- The bench gives a good indication of scale. In the ref the top of the seat doesn't match the bottom of the indents in the supports.
- The gas pumps in the ref look to be taller then a normal human, but in the scene a normal person would dwarf the pumps.

good start.

The whole thing is too wide. Look at the sign, and the placement of the pumps and bench, in your shot compared to the ref. The bench is too big too. ETA - Vig beat me to it.

Your UVs need some help. You've got drastic variation in pixel density between the upper roof, and the column and the pump itself. That may work out fine if your textures are different sizes also, but usually it's a good idea to keep things in roughly the same pixel density range.

your poly usage is ok, but a little inconsistent. You've put a ton of detail into the pump, compared to almost nothing in the column right next to it. Obviously the pump is going to draw people's eye more, so it might get a bit more detail, but not a ton. Even the pump is a bit inconsistent. I know the post for it is faceted, but look at how many polys your using on the rounded top compared to the post (which is most of the actual visual impact of the pump). It looks like you pussied out on the base of the pump. Try and get those little scallops in, it shouldn't be too hard. I never have any clue about how many tris a scene should have overall, I just look at usage and make sure it's reasonable.

I don't know where you got your plan to break up metal objects in one sheet, and non metal objects in another. You're better off just breaking individual assets into separate maps. Bench, Pump, tiling brick, tiling cement, etc.

Thanks for the crits guys, I definitely see the height to width ratio is off. I'll have to fix that today. Yeah the pump definitely has issues, I'll also fix that today. I am going to try and finish all the modeling and uv issues also. For some reason I thought that combining as many objects as possible in a uv map would be good, but I will take your advice and just seperate them so I can keep the uvs consistent.

Also remember you're UV's are never set in stone. Later on, after you've textured everything you can create a copy of your mesh(es), rearrange the UVs and use transfer maps to transfer the textures from the old UV layout to the new. So don't worry about doing your UV's "wrong" because they are totally fluid at any point in the process.

But do keep one thing in mind, it works better if you transfer big pieces to the same size or smaller but scaling tiny pieces bigger creates a bit of a blury mess, just like it would if you scaled the piece in photoshop.

Good luck I think you're off to a good start, glad to hear you're working on the scaling issues =) Keep chuggin along.

Bad Storm here last night, so I couldn't post any progress, so here it is.






I have to study for a test for my stupid non-video game job so I am going to be delayed on finishing this one Hopefully within the next 2 or 3 days....

lose the GI renders. it's just going to make it harder for us to give you quality feedback since it hides a lot of shit (I know, that's why it's so tempting!)

The scale is much more reasonable, and that alone makes it feel more "real."

You may have misinterpreted my point on the pump. I stated that th post it's on had fewer polys than the top did. I did not mean you should add geo there just for the sake of adding geo. My point was more that the top is a little over complicated for a passing game asset. If this were a "Fill your tank" game, and all you did was stand next to the pump looking back and forth between your gas tank and the numbers clicking away, that would probably be fine. But If this is just a normal environment asset, it probably does not need to be as detailed as it is.

I still like the scalloped base on the real one more than your sunburst base. I'd try for the original shape.

I know the original picture shows the beams up top to be very thin, but in the renders you show, it doesn't look right. I'd beef those out to 2x4" size or better.

Thanks for the quick response Tumerboy, I'm using maya ambient occlusion for renders, do you think a gray lambert or my uv check texture would make reading the forms easier? As for the pump, I'm going to get rid of the extra polys and redo the base, I kind of dug the sunburst shape, but I'm gonna go for a model as close to the ref as possible. Back to work for me.

It all depends on the stage your at, and what you want critiques on.

If you want crits on your modeling, then grey with wires.

If you want crits on UV, then UV checker as well as UV Layout.

Normals - Grey, w/normals and a light to show it.

Not until you get to full textures and lighting would I start throwing AO around.

A little bit more done. I am thinking of doing two versions of this model, one from the reference and another version after a zombie outbreak.

Quick update. Pretty much done modeling, cleaning up uvs. Had a couple of questions about textures and stuff. As of now the ground is a bunch of planes next to each other. I am planning on making 3 or 4 different 512*512 sheets for the asphalt that fit together. Is this the right way to do this? I am trying to to do this project just like a game company would do it, so anyone who works in the industry and has some advice would help me a lot. I also was wondering what would be an acceptable size texture for the building itself? Sorry for all the questions, I haven't really talked to anyone who has worked on any next gen games so I'm kind of flying blind here. Entire model should be right around 25,000 tri's.

yea, now things are shaping up nicely! Keep going!

Thanks for the kind words Vig. I know this is probably a pretty boring environment to to look at, kind of wish I chose something with more pop, but oh well... By the way, I had another quick question, can Zbrush 3 support overlapping uvs?

More stuff done. Keep getting delayed from working on this, stupid job and life stuff taking too much of my time. Anyways C & C is appreciated.

Try taking a less saturated pass on the reds and textures in general. Your references push more toward the desaturated orange end of the red spectrum whilst your version pushs more toward the opulent red / burgundy end of the spectrum.

I'd let realism in terms of cinematic realism be a guide here instead of photo replication.

Look at old photos of the deep south, those faded hues and sepia tones, try to let that style be a guide and turn this piece into a true slice of americana, its got enough distinctive cultural elements to work well in this style.

it says GULF on the street sign, frontier gas on the building sign, and texaco on the pumps. make up your mind and use consistent signage.

same thing with your colors. you have three different reds being used right now, and none of them match even slightly. be consistent, it helps to sell the scene.

very blurry renders, if your using max change your render settings to something like hmm I cant remember the name... catmull clark?

Thanks for the replies.

Kevin: After looking closer, I agree with you. I am going to try and match those colors closer and make them less saturated.

DiminishedSelf: You're right , the Gulf and Texaco signs don't make much sense, I think I am going to change the pumps to Gulf signs. As far as the frontier gas sign, I didn't know that Frontier was an actual gas company, I just thought it was the name of a gas station. After looking at it I think I am going to change that sign too, maybe I will just make it exactly like the reference.

Ged: I am not sure why the renders look so blurry, I am using maya MR with a HDRI dome and final gather set to 500. When I render at HD 1080 settings everything is clear and nice, but the CCIR 601/Quantel NTSC setting is much blurrier. I can't figure out why this happens. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them so I can get better renders.

What do you guys think of the lighting?

There's lighting? I thought it was just enough to show what's up. If you're trying to actually light it for a final render, I'd a) hold off until you're closer to done with modeling/texturing and b) ditch the skylight approach and try standard 3 point as a starting position.

You've got smoothing errors on the curb pieces, causing each one to look rounded over.

Diminished was simply saying that ALL signs should match. They are all signs for the same gas station, so they should all say the same thing. Yes, I understand that in reality there are franchise stations so the station has a name, but is selling Exxon gas, but it doesn't read right to your viewer, so it's better to just make them all match.

On the subject of blurry MR renders, try playing with the filtering. It defaults to a Guassian 3X3, trying going to a mitchell or lancos 4X4.

Quick update. Changed signs to match and tried to match the reds better. I haven't fixed the smoothing errors on the curbs yet, but I do see what you guys are talking about. I also changed render settings to lanczos and I think they look better. I am going to try and finish texturing today and then work on normal and spec maps. Thanks again for the comments, it's nice having other 3d artists taking a look at my stuff, especially since no one lives near me that does 3d. Heres the pics:

I wonder how come the GULF sign is so scratched ;) (The hanging one)

Is the scratching too much? I kind of thought it might have been through some tough weather so it would need some weathering. We get a lot of tornados and hail where I live so I kind of based it off of that, but I can tone it done if it looks out of place.

Yeah i think you could try making it look more like worn off paint or some other natural decay, it looks to me now more as if someone would do it manually. I would also expect the decayed part to be rather dark than solid white.

keep up