So I've begun my senior year of college after a summer out in LA as a 3d art intern for Codename Games (images of my work there to come at a later date). One of the classes I'm taking this semester focuses on environments as I want to focus on building an environments/props portfolio. As much as I enjoy doing characters, I'm told it is easier to get a job with doing environment art.

The first assignment was to create a "courtyard" which could be interpreted very loosely. The requirements were that it:

1) Have a transition from indoor to outdoor space
2) Playable in UDK with collision meshes
3) No texturing whatsoever (to focus on lighting, modeling, etc.)

So this was supposed to be a bit of a throwaway assignment to practice modularity, but I'm pretty happy with what I've come up with so I think i'm going to continue with it wherever I find the time to do so. During the critique today I got some good advice but I'd like some more input from people who don't care about my feelings.

Critiques I've gotten thus far:

1) Too monochromatic...add some warm color somewhere.
2) The icicles hanging down look kinda tacky as they are now.
3) The mountain looks really blobby and has some shading issues
4) Lightmap seem on the generator needs to be fixed.
5) Lighting is pretty meh.
6) Needs background elements to sell the space as part of a bigger whole.

As you already mentioned, some background elements would definitely help this scene, especially from a game play perspective. The player won't be able to take in the grandeur that is your North Pole blaster from some of the perspectives you posted unless there are other areas nearby for them to view it from. I feel like the three big wall anchors (the two above with the suspension cables attached, and the big one on the very bottom) could use some higher mesh resolution as well, since everything else is modeled fairly intricately and those shapes are rather blocky. Awesome concept/modeling though!

this is loooking suuuper cool already dood! keep it up!

I really like what you have and I am detecting some very clear halo 3 art style influences, especially in the steps. I agree that the background should probably be fleshed out a bit but nonetheless I think your coming along quite well.

I needed a quick break from my other projects, so I decided today to start learning World Machine. I did some quick mountains, then tweaked one of the udk skyboxes to my liking for this new shot here. This project has been on the backburner for a while, and is probably going to stay there for a while, but this was fun to do.

awesome Even though it's an other-worldly environment, try to make the mountains look good. Slopes man slopes

agree with chrisradsby. You said these were quick, not sure if they're placeholder, but they're not holding up too well as blobby mash potato hills. Giant sculpted static meshes will probably serve you well. I mean, with this scene the way it is, you have a warrant to go nuts and make those mountains like 20k+ tris each and it'd be fine on performance.

The structure reminds me of halo. Hope you can get some more work done on it soon.