still working on a game with friends, and since discovering the love of my life (unity 3d) i've been doing alot of experiments on art style, and just the ins and outs of unity.

The whole game wont be wow'ish, as im not a fan of most of the player and monster graphics in the game, i'll probably go for a hand painted look but with bumping where i like it, a combo you don't see all that much.

heres a clearly wow inspired tree though, dont think i need a bump or spec map, and i've also made a version with more color variation that looks more interesting. 512 map for trunk, 256 for leaf, are these specs okay for something i want alot of? Whats the tri count on most wow trees? Any suggestions appreciated, aiming at the 360 platform when unity gets support for it,

somewhat of a ref

First thing I notice is that your branches curve down, giving you tree a dieing/sad look. In your ref picture the branches either go straight or in a slight upward curve, making the trees look healthy and alive.

Really quick and dirty example in photoshop. My example is a bit to much, but just to give you an idea of what I mean.



Also the roots could be a bit more optimized at the tips.
The color of the leafs/branches are a bit to light for my liking, personaly I'd go for a bit darker and less yellowish color.

Other than that, I'd say keep it up!

i'd say go darker if your going for an evergreen type look, which is what i gather from your ref. I'd also recommend making the branches in the leaves look a bit less prominent. They kind of look like veins right now which is kind of unsettling.

Cool man would love to check out this RPG of yours! I see your tree is over 1000 tri's, i think the wow trees in your ref would be under 150 tris, maybe even less. Can you bring them up in the wow model viewer ?

Originally Posted by Hazardous

i think the wow trees in your ref would be under 150 tris, maybe even less.

oh god, thats hard to believe, someone go get proof now, all you need is a wow account and that directx 9 model stealer, forgot what its called, think i got the link of pc

i have no wow account

when i had a wow freeserver account i captured the base male orc and a few other characters, i think they were all like either 1k or 2k tris exactly, dont remember which, probably 1k though

that is eastern side of Scholzarbasin of Northrend in World of warcraft I believe...If you are taking the ref for your model than you are on the right track. Good work so far. =) Your tree looks abit more realistic than the one in scholzarbasin ref.

Your leaves look like lettuce.

These use a 128x256 for the trunk and a 256 map for the leaves.

There you go my estimate of 150 was TWICE over budget holy crap!

wow

house, built with some modular assets, wood blocks, cloth thing, planning on deleting uneeded faces once i finish up the design, trying to make something that looks unique

Where are the distinguishing features that make this a house? No doors, windows, chimney...? Anything?

I'm guessing that piece off to the right is the roof - why isn't it attached, or at least in place? If those horizontal pieces are supposed to be part of the support frame of the building, you need to consider thickness and scale - how big is this house, or how big are the beams that make up the frame?

as far as function is concerned the fabric can be lifted or moved to work as a window, door etc, the edge lifted in view will serve as the door, it will be black behind it to make it look like an entrance, the overgrowth is there as an insulator as the fabric is really just a wind breaker, i was thinking for fires the slats between the roof boards would allow ventilation, like a teepee...

That's a lot of explaining for something that still doesn't look like a house. You, sir, need a concept.

I thought it was a basket and that it was one of your best models so far. Then you said it was was a house and I was like... "what?"

The large beams in the exact center of the structure don't make sense for a house. On a house you might expect to see that at the bottom or around the roof, but not intersecting the middle.

Originally Posted by Frump

The large beams in the exact center of the structure

I'm not sure what you're talking about here, the beams go around the house, there's no center pillar...

Okay, how can i make this more like a house?

I don't think it'll be quite as confusing once you've got it sitting on the ground with a path going up to it and some furniture and other paraphenalia strewn about. At the moment there's no real point of reference or context so it's a bit hard to discern.

How big is this building? Does one walk through the entrance or crouch under it like a tent? If you added some rope bindings or nails it's help with a sense of scale.

To sell your wooda bit better, you might want to change the texture on the ends to a lighter coloured one with a radial wooden pattern on it.

Kinda like this.

progress?

desperately needs shadow map and grass texture

personally I think you need to step back and ask yourself if you think the work you are putting out looks good and is pleasing to look at for the end user...

honest crit - the colors are horrible and need to be looked at (neon purple chimney and what I assume is seaweed on the structure) the rest of the textures are very blurry, especially for low poly models. you want sharp textures with vibrant colors that work well with each other, sharp details which don't get lost in a blob of ugly brown or green...just because you are working with such a low resolution and texture space doesn't mean you can't make it look as good as possible.

i'd suggest researching basic color theory and understanding how different colors interact with each other. shadows and darker areas for example don't usually look that great if they are just a darkened shade of the mid tones and highlights vice-versa...using cooler colors for shadows such as towards the blue and purple spectrum helps a lot, especially for outdoor low poly scenes which don't have engine shadows or great lighting.

keep on keepin on

...Not enough fruit on top of your house.

Seriously though, listen to these comments. Do you live in the woods?? That house makes no sense. Go get some reference!

yummy fruit house mmm

Originally Posted by achillesian

Sir, if this just a hut, I might suggust you need an entrance way to enter it at certain point.

Nice work though, assuming that you are hand drawing the maps, you are doing great!

The biggest issue is well, everything. I could maybe buy it as a kid throwing some cloth on a warped stool and pretending its a dollhouse. The scales are all off, the wood is bending? Get some good reff and come up with something new. I wouldn't waste my time with this. If you are going for cloth then make it look like cloth not like sack cloth on a 5 inch minature, where are the seams where its stitched? I know you are going for low res but dude, there is a lot more you can do with even these specs.

Keep at it though ;)