Hi guys

I deicided to create a spanish/italian inspired environment for udk.
This is what I've got so far.
The woodfence, hills, groundtexture, trees are all placeholder so they need fixing.

Im also thinking of adding a waterstream and a small bridge to make it more interesting.

my next step is adding some more spanishlooking trees

This is looking cool. I like the colours and composition. You've got some pretty dark shadows though on the fence and the house. I can see this beaing very beautiful with a filled in background and mid-ground. +1 for the stream and bridge!

Its a good start, Id suggest to lower down the AO power, its too strong right now

This is looking solid, great start here. Your shadows are a bit dark as mentioned before. Maybe the lighting is a bit high because the wall of the house is just pure white right now. I can't wait to see what kinds of trees you add to it, it's going to be a great piece.

Quick update before I start working on the trees.
I tried adding this fugly bridge to get the feel of how it might look.
I dont know if i like it yet...

Nice blockout for the stream it looks better already.

yea I agree with the shadows and the AO, I tend to always over do them haha
Ill fix it in the next update.
Thx for the compliments and tips much appreciated!

I approve of this stream *thumbs up* , greener grass around the stream might be nice? Might look a bit odd though ^^

Okay so I tried making some trees
didn't turn out that great...
Im having trubble getting them to look the way I want. Well here's a print

Stream and bridge look nice. I kind of feel that side of the house facing the sun looks a little to bright, what does everyone else think?

I find that when making trees having a texture that has a lot of negative space is better than having solid pieces with alpha only in the outside of the silhouette. Here's my alpha chanel for most of the trees in my scene. After you have a good texture you can move on to the actual models. I find that creating a canopy works well by creating a group of maybe 5-10 polygons all rotated differently for randomness. Take that group then move and rotate it as you need to until it looks like a tree canopy.

yeah I agree with Darkleopard regarding that the front of the house looks just a tad too bright. Also I don't know if it would look a little off, but maybe you could add just a little more life into the grass. It might throw it off though.

Okay first off thx marq4porsche for the foliage tips!

I was going for a "monterey cypress" look on the trees but Im thinking of switching to leaf instead of conifer because I just couldn't get it to look right

if anyone has any tips on how to make the trees look more like monterey cypress please tell me.

Anyway I decided to put the trees aside for the moment and focus on some props.
here's a quick update with some props.. and a bridge =)

aaaand the ao and overexposure will be fixed i promise =)

Looks great. About the trees- might help if you show the texture you used for the leaves. Go by what marq4porsche said and use more negative space- more gaps between the leaves.

here's a tiny update i just got the grass and trees to sway. Ill post viedos later on.
I also remade the trees.
They're each about 1000 tris at the moment, Is that to much?

Too tired to crit. . besides, too distracted by all the awesome.


Okay, so one crit. Maybe try to get the grass looking a little less in rows.

Keep tweaking, this piece has an awesome "feel" to it.

Start to looks like a painting, which is awesome. I would tend to make the rock sharper, now it looks a bit plastic. But overall, I like it.

Looking good so far. Maybe you can change the environment color so that your shadows aren't pure black. Maybe go with a dark blue?

Agreed with pseudoBug, this piece has a really nice feel :] I love the stream and bridge addition! Also looking forward to when you fix the ao/overexposure, it just feels like your lights are too bright or something. Another thing maybe, the top bricks for the bridge feel a bit blobby, kind of like loaves of bread or something x] Perhaps give them some sharper edges? Anyway I really like this, keep going!

Looking nice but tone back the SSAO.

Do more with the background. The fog isn't cutting it. More houses, trees, maybe a windmill.

Just an idea, how about the field to the left of the shot, making that look as if it has been ploud (if I have spelt that correctly). To my eyes it looks like its empty but anything taking up the verticle space would be to much since you already have those trees there.

Just a suggestion of course :P

pseudoBug: haha thanks for the crit =) and I agree. Im not overly happy with the grass

megalmn2000: Awsome, thats what I was going for. I have drawn a lot of inspiration from old oil paintings.

marq4porsche: Yea Ill try that out =)

Jessica Dinh: Yes the top row looks a bit wierd. Ill fix that!

jeffro: The backround is just a placeholder terrain, Im thinking of adding some crop and small villages in the backround.

l.croxton: Yea thats a good idea!. Aside from the trees I haven't much in that area. I was thinking some sort of crop...and a broken down wagon =)

Thanks everyone for the crit and nice words. Much appreciated!.
The reason this is moving a bit slow is because im in school working on a game project at the same time so bare with me =)

this is kinda what I want the hills in the background to look like

The Mediterannean Cyprus trees are looking pretty nice.

Wine barrels don't break down like that. They're friction fit. If the Bands fail, the whole thing could come apart into individual planks. Not to mention that the bands would never fail in that fashion. I'd find something else for clutter. Maybe an abandoned donkey cart or something of that nature.

Also, you've got steel bands crossing over into the inside? o.O

How barrels are made:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_%28...l_construction


Best vids I could find on the subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LBGPKgQ2ac

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/disc...rrel-video.htm

It always helps to know a little bit about what you're Modeling, especially if you're going to try to break it down into it's components.


Also: Bright white spot on the stone texture.

Wow I watched the videos and I had no idea such hard work went in to making one barrel

Thanks pseudoBug for really going the extra mile with your reply!

And about the white spot. thanks I hadn't noticed and now its all I can think about haha.
Im on it!

Okay new update.
I made a landscape surounding the scene. I think it came out pretty nice (going to add houses to)
And added some more color to the scene.