I have been working on this for about 2 weeks now off and on.Basically I am just posting to get some crits.Everything is in different stages and the lighting is temporary just playing around with some ideas.

Any comments or crits are welcome.

Whoa! a flying city block! I never thought of doing that as an environment.

Srsly though, that's a good start. If I had to critique it, I would say that the balcony is too narrow and the columns supporting it look too burly. I think some old rusty metal poles would be better suited for that.

Lighting wise, I think you need a nice strong directional light to achieve that middle eastern desert look. The sky could be lighter as well maybe.

Texture wise, some things look a little low rez right now.

Other wise I think there si quite a bit of possibility here. It will be interesting to see where you go with this.

Your scene shows some promise. I think jmchristopher is right about your lighting, it will be the key to getting that middle eastern feel.

Aside from what's already been said. I think the tops of your palm trees could stand to be a bit fuller and larger. If you make that change you might want to shorten the trunks a bit as well. If you really want to get authentic with them do a image search for "date palms".

Part of this scene reminds me of an art test that I've seen before, if that's the case good luck with it

A bit of an update here.Kinda placing stuff in more fixing up some textures and what not still need to get some decals and dirty the scene up a little bit.Still it is moving along nicely but still needs work.

Any comments or crits are welcome and thanks to those who already gave me some, good suggestions.

It's getting better. For what it's worth, here's my take on it, though I think the sky should have less clouds and more of a haze. More contrast from some deeper/larger shadows will help too.

Hope that helps.

Really like that paintover Ben.



Just to add to it a bit (maybe you can get some more ideas from this Justin) to also help break up the tiling on the back buildings (besides fixing the texture seams) maybe try adding some smaller windows. It looks like that area could be a stairwell. And for the building next to it (the right one) maybe make a quick canopy and place it over a couple of windows, this will help break it up some more.

I really like the sand idea Ben, so maybe around the sidewalk edges (road as well) you can add some wear and tear decals to it / or sand build up (defiantly where the sidwalk meets the road).

The house's pillar texture has this repeating black spot on it, I don't know if this is just a temp model (i know you had sculpted a pillar) but see if you can match more of the texture to the building? Unless its different then stone / concrete... maybe wood?

And also the front walls there, I think you should reaaallly try and break those up a bit, because its blending way to much with the backwalls (which I think should be a different texture... or something different, graffiti maybe?)

And for framing purposes (and just to busy up the scene a bit more... if you need to) why not try bringing that one phone / electric pole over a bit so its actually in the scene. You can also add some transformers to it to bulk it up some, would look pretty cool I think.

Annndddd... the focal point I still can't figure out really what needs to be placed in the scene, but its like... you have everything else, and now you just need that 1 thing that makes everything come together. I know we talked about a car or something, but I also know you want to get this scene finished off, but it needs something...

It's coming together, I think if you hit Ben's paintover (the lighting as well, fits really well) you'll have a solid portfolio piece man

NAPPLES NAPPLES NAPPLES!

Textures seem a bit blurry from the distance of the camera there plus the way the props (mainly the woooden planks) are arranged is way too uniform, you need some stuff on the floor too and it needs to be random!
If you could add some stuff like beer cans and puddles of oil I'm pretty sure you could have a cool scene with some upgraded lighting as was mentioned.

Good luck

Good crits here. I think you should go with a brighter lighting choice like Ben and Jason are pointing at, whilst keeping the same skybox. Your last shot deserves more shadows and contrast. I am the worst at getting away from flat lighting, but once you do, the scene will look much better.

Alright abit of an update on the scene.I have gotten farther along with the crits from everyone.So yeah here is it's current situation and like always crits and comments welcome.

area around the sidewalk and roadway seem devoid of any dirt or sand.. Or perhaps its just there I just cant really make it out.. There would normally be some small piles or some sort of drifts piled up between the curb and the street. Looking good BTW

The lighting is still very flat. Get some strong directional shadow-casting light in there as a priority I reckon. Nice work on the updated textures, the pavement's looking great.

Ok well I think this is it hopefully.

The lighting looks a lot better however the bloom strength is too much in my opinion. What you're missing that is putting this piece down are the lack of cast shadows. You need to bake in some lighting as based on your lighting, the propane tank area should literally all be in a cast shadow.

The lighting still needs a lot of work. I can hardly see any shadows and the bloom is overdone since the lighting isn't strong enough to suggest bloomed surfaces.

Judging from your skybox you seem to be going for a bright overcast day.

Try using a yellowish directional light to act as the sun, then add some dull blue/grey lights to act as skylight.

Ok so went back and fixed up some stuff.I am done with this now though gonna move onto something different.Thanks to everyone for comments and suggestions it really help and thanks to Jay,Adam and Ben for all their help.

After working on Six Days in Fallujah I'm pretty much an expert on the slums of the middle east and rule number one is mix up the building materials. Exposed bricks, exposed cinder block, stucco. Everything was thrown together and poorly constructed. All the buildings were made by different people and look completely different from each other. Also free standing walls like you have on the left there are about 7 feet high on average. just high enough that people cant look in. Lots or exposed pipes and wires. Since everything is built out of concrete and bricks, that doesn't really allow for anything inside the walls like modern house. Hope this helps add some more to your scene. I'll be following this... keep it up

There is something weird going on with the textures on the building :S it looks really blurry.

Photobucket seems to blur out the image (I uploaded his base image in imageshack and everything was nice and "crisp") also Polycount image view thing seems to enlarge the image just a bit.

Justin, post the imageshack version instead :P

The changes look good, this scene has come a long way

Are those birds in the top right corner of the sky? At first glance they don't really look like birds, kind of like blurry specs, might be my bad eyes, or the compression of the image.

I think even with the apparent afternoon sunlight you seem to be going for, this scene still needs more contrast in the lighting. I think you need to make the bright areas much more bright, the dark areas might be dark enough already.