HEy guys This is a new Environment that I am working on. It is a Nordic/viking environment.

Things to be added:

1) beer stein on table
2) weapons in weapon rack
3) proper sky dome


Any feed back would be greatly appreciated!!!

Looking good so far.

I think the bumpmap for the ground texture is a tad strong but everything else is looking good. I was trying to think up some more props you could add in to fill some space but couldn't come up with much except for maybe a bear rug or a bear skin hanging from the wall.

Keep going though!

fireplace that place would be chiiiily

Lighting is too dark, lacks ambiance. Basically, all your lighting is one solid light floating in the middle of the room, and any shadows it casts so be it, the end. But, light doesn't work like that. It bounces off of surfaces. Until you learn how to light properly, a quick fix is to add low intensity lights in the dark areas. Anyone, once you figure out your skybox, the color of these ambient lights should appear similar.

Your modeling is too perfect. Everything is planar, as in perfectly straight up/down, perpendicular, parallel, etc. You need to rough things up to make them appear more natural, organic. Simple tricks to this is knocking chunks add chips out of profile edges, modeling stones up/out of the floor and wall. Here's a visual example of what I mean:


the black version is display silhouette enhancements.

The tattered edges to the banners are too inside-the-box. They are all the same size and distance all around as though a cat used it as a scratching post. You don't really need to alpha out at the same amount all around, just take out little cuts and tear it here and there.

Love it, I like how clean and ordered it is while remaining in the realm of feeling like its used there. I mean, often people go too far with the 'authentic living space' thing and throw rubbish everywhere and noise it up enough that they lose the scene as a whole.

This scene looks natural, I would not be surprised to see a Viking wander over, sit down and draink ale, I wonder if another would then return from the balcony and tell the other what news he just received by raven.

It's just got that sort of feel, pregnant with atmosphere enough that those viewing it might wonder about whats going on.

I'd still like to see the suns rays strengthened to illmunate swathes of the interior more so as to open the scene a little further to speculation about what is outside and also to show some of the 'pop' side of each materials specular value and contrast how things still hold up in the darker more musky areas out of the lights rays.

Oh and Chris is right about some more profile interest in 3d being helpful on your large forms... but control it!

Overall, I like it. It's nice.

However, the main thing that bothers me is the lighting, it's too flat. I did you a little paintover to show how it could possibly be improved: Clicky It's not the best, and I'm not sure if those stands are meant for fire, but hopefully it helps...

You could also add a large carpet underneath the table (as seen above) in the same style as your flags, insignia included. And, as has been mentioned already, I think the bump on the ground is too strong.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

Keep it up!

It's looking good and other than the flat lighting it feels more like medieval rather than Viking. Like a mix of Vikings and Middle Ages.

Vikings rarely(or never, not sure) had such large buildings as castles. The biggest typical viking structure found through out scandinavia was the Long House("Långhus"). This building typically housed a single long table("Långbord") where they celebrated and drank themselves to death.

The axe you have lodged into(the stone table?) seems more like something Native-Americans used. Viking axes had long handles with more a straightforward and thinner head.

Also, if you plan on putting a helmet somewhere in there, skip the horns

I'm really liking this.
Would love to see some more atmosphere in it though.

Looking good so far but as said before lighting needs some work. If the table is meant to be the center of focus maybe try to show this through the lighting.

Nice one with the paintover Szark, personally I'd maybe go for a more natural colour for the fire than green. They really help to illuminate the rear of the room though.

I think it looks really good. If you wanted to add some more props you could add some a hearth or fire pit and maybe some animal skins strewn about, maybe some discarded Armour laying on the floor.

Ok so here is an Update I decided to import it into the unreal engine for some lighting help. I am still in the process of importing the parts into Unreal. The lighting at the moment is coming from a single light above each free standing torch and one in the middle for bounce light.

looks cool, but i can't say that i've ever seen a stone masonry viking structure. Looks more like Lord of the Rings or something

the lighting could be a lot brighter too, more hotspots cast by the torches, right now it looks way too dark.

Originally Posted by P442

looks cool, but i can't say that i've ever seen a stone masonry viking structure. Looks more like Lord of the Rings or something

yeah thats cos alot of LOTR style is taken from viking/norse mythology

i like it but yeah needs soem more detail, esp the super flat floors, add the odd health and safty risk paving stone and maybe bow the floors a bit and it will light alot better

Originally Posted by SHEPEIRO

yeah thats cos alot of LOTR style is taken from viking/norse mythology

Ok, let's look at some viking structures.


All made of wood.

Let's take a look at Viking Structures within LoTR like Rohan.


The structure itself is made of wood.

Let's look at stone structures, like Minas Tirith.

Clearly the influence is not from Viking architecture.
If he's going for something more like Minas Tirith, that's cool, but all I'm saying is that a Viking structure would be made of wood and probably less lofty.

Man that last castl photo is so surreal :O.

Loqq, with your lighting, imagine it is an illustration, and try and place your lights to creat the most interesting composition and colour variation. Remember that whatever colour your light will be the shadows will be the opposite temperature. Warm light= cool chadow, cool light = warm shadow.

p442: its not that easy, it is totally a thing on how you define viking, there have been viking tribes all over europe, i.e. the rus (russia) or the normans (normandy, france), all with the same roots but very different architectural styles, its not in the style of the viking age, but vikings are much more then just scandinavians, but well i have no architectrural knowledge so i can't say it does or doesn't look viking without further investigation and i'm not that much into architecture

p442- the title is viking/nordic and there was alot of gothic arcitecture in norway quite similar to mont saint micheal later on and there would have been alot of crossover between as new stone based techniques became available and would have been mixed with old roof and wooden frame building.

i dont think there is the intention here of an ultra realistic history lesson, and the exagerated lofty scale of this lends itself to videogames well, you will notice in alot of (3rd person not 1st) games you need to exagerate the size, this is true of film and tv, as both needs to fit a camera in aswell.

anyway back to the art i think you need to re-do the stone floor, they would have been smoothed off and polished by many feet, so remove the noise and get some nice big shapes in there again will help with lighting

The Normans, descended from the Viking raiders, were really competent at building castles and built many in Europe. In fact they built the first castles in the UK. Before that the anglo-saxons were only using wood.

The scene needs more shadow and light in certain areas. At the moment the scene has no strong defined areas. It looks like you're going for a dark, overcast and moody feel, some bright torch light in areas would create some nice contrast. Lighting looks too diffused IMO.

Originally Posted by Target_Renegade

The Normans, descended from the Viking raiders, were really competent at building castles and built many in Europe. In fact they built the first castles in the UK. Before that the anglo-saxons were only using wood.

right, but they were normans. by that time they had taken in a significant portion of french culture, and even talked old french. they were also some of the first people in northern europe to fight mounted. much like the anglo-saxon buildings, the first norman motte-and-bailey castles were made of wood.

anyways, my point is: viking = richly ornamentated wood.

but nordic, isn't

Originally Posted by dejawolf

right, but they were normans. by that time they had taken in a significant portion of french culture, and even talked old french. they were also some of the first people in northern europe to fight mounted. much like the anglo-saxon buildings, the first norman motte-and-bailey castles were made of wood.

anyways, my point is: viking = richly ornamentated wood.

Yeah, I see your point, I guess what I was trying to write, is that for the purpose of the scene theres not a problem having stone walls and such. If it looks good then all the better for it.

French culture wasn't around until later, much of France was split up into smaller territories and the French language, as we know it nowadays, wasn't created until the smaller languages were quashed and unified into the monarchist language.

Erik the Viking is a great point of reference for more authentic style constructions, Terry Gilliam knows more about history and mythology than most of us put together and tried hard to make things as realistic as possible.

That's not to say the production values are realistic by today's standards but it's still a good film to get reference from more so than Beowulf which does indeed have much higher production values.

Around the time that the Vikings were plagueing the Celts on the east coast of Scotland and causing them to move more toward the west and absorb the Pictish tribes and culture into their own, both nations were already well versed in the use of whatever materials ( including rock and stone ) were around them. Both cultures were also used to extensively travelling and interacting with other cultures through trade and warfare so you tended to find a lot of overlap of art styles and building constructions.

I always found the look of Broch's from that era ( that survive today) to be pretty stunning and possibly good reference for stonework, same kind of watery cold climate affects them like they would those in the nordic region.

http://www.gowsport.co.uk/Images/Opt...tish_broch.jpg
http://www.joyflowers.net/images/Sco...oway-Broch.jpg
http://www.walkshetland.com/assets/i...Ness_broch.jpg
http://www.walkshetland.com/assets/i...sa_broch_2.jpg

Personally, I think theres a lot of ground to cover in the regions between realism, low fantasy & high fantasy. Enough ground to grant us the right to plain make up any old shite we want as long as it looks good.

I feel like some of your topology could be cleaned up a little. the pillars have unnecessary loops I'm assuming for guides on where the texture transitions. Arches although would be a little too perfect could be rounded a little bit more so you don't get such harsh angle changes. The accents near the tops of the pillars definitely can be reduced, just pull all those verts to the corner. I'm not sure if you used BSP for your walls or not but that would help reduce the number of objects you've gotta import and have load up. All you'd have to do then is just make sure your texture repeats; Cut out the hole for your door and you're good to go.

I don't think I need to say anything about the lighting... seems like everyone else picked that one up pretty quick. good start so far keep up the good work.

it needs some epic blonde dude with an awesome beard and long hair, and a leather jacket, and some wristbands.


then give him an axe, or a hammer, or a guitar or something.

here's some to choose from: