Game environment

[andrewG]

I working on a environment for an online game. It's a "tree house" village for a lizard race.

Here are the concept art.

[andrewG]

concept art for the huts

[andrewG]

over view of the ground area
total tri count: 4000

[andrewG]

here is the tree
total tri count: 2322

[andrewG]

close up of platform

[andrewG]

closeup of platform

[andrewG]

Here are the huts I have created. There will be a few copies of each hut in the village.

Tri count;

hut 1: 2523
hut 2: 2320

I am trying to make them look like mud huts that are falling apart. You will be able to see the sticks inside that wall that are the support structure for the hut.

right now i'm not sure if they are too high in poly count. each stick is three sided.
The sticks have a tri count of 642 for hut 1 and 536 for hut 2. I could cut down the sticks to two sided and save a couple hundred tris.

Any thoughts on whether i should cut down the tri counts or leave them?

[SpiralFace]

seems like a good start to me.

I know that if this is for portfolio pieces your not going to be too concerned about technical limitations, but I think its always a good exercise to at least think through while your working. As you never know if it will come up as a "Can you do / accommodate this limitation" interview question.

So think about things like how are you going to light the scene to accommodate for particular engines. Vertex lit? Per Pixel shaded? Self Illuminated maps?

None of those things are really important to the art, but they are also very important to how your work flow would work on a job where you will have to accustom your artwork to the limitations of the game engine.

So while its not something you absolutely need to factor in, just be sure to think about it and what that would imply for your if you indeed where hog tied by particuler limitations of different engines.

[brentonsmith]

I really don't think the sticks need so much geo, especially considering the poly distribution through the rest of the scene. I disagree with Spiral face. I don't think it's important at all to consider such things as what engine this could be for (there are well over 200 available). I think the most important thing is that it is internally consistent, and that it can be broadly analoged.

[SpiralFace]

I disagree with Spiral face. I don't think it's important at all to consider such things as what engine this could be for (there are well over 200 available).

I think there must have been a misunderstanding in what I said. While its true that there are over 200 engines out there, there are consistency's within the engines that you should take into account when thinking about texturing models.

And that boils down into about 3 or 4 broad texture concepts that would COMPLETELY alter the work flow you have when you are making your models / textures.

And those are:

Self illuminated textures
Vertex lighting
Per Pixel lighting
Procedural shading.

All four of these types of lighting drastically alter the way your work flow would be. For example, Self Illuminated textures basically means that you have NO lights in the scene what so ever, while Procedural shading is just a broad term for what the cutting edge graphic engines use that pertains to effects and nodes beyond just simple map inputs. (Things like Fresnel effect, Fall off shading, Subsurface Scattering, And multishading.)

As a student you don't need necessarily limit yourself to any kind of engine out there, but it is good to at least know EXACTLY how you would go about preping a model for use in any of these kind of light set ups that an engine usually dictates. As all of them have different ways you would approach doing things, and while you don't need to make your work analogous enough to work in all of them (Trust me, it can't be done and have it still look good in all of them) But I find it is healthy to at least think about how you would approach your work from different ways for different engines. As not every job out there will be on the Unreal 3 engine, nor will it be self illuminated maps.

[dabu]

The main 2 limitations that u will be up againts for last gen engines are vertx lighting vs light maps. Always good to have a demonstration of both techniques.

[andrewG]

detailed out the platforms and ramps leading between them.

tri counts:

tree: 2324
platforms: 3758
ramp: 1128

total: 7210

[z_2]

really cool concept. If I were you, I would think about how each of these steps/stairs work. How do they hold up weight, are they sitting on vines that are wrapping at the tree's body in a spiral way? or are you going to build some support system for stairs (ie. like a simple support beam going diagonally). Also base of the tree doesn't seem to taper out evenly.

[AndyLittleton]

Pretty cool.

Your gonna have lots of fun UV unwraping the trees :)

[dabu]

once you wrape a tree, I don't think you can un wrape it. the damage has been done, the tree, scarred for life.

ignore me, Im on vacation and don't feel like working.

;)

[andrewG]

I put the huts on to the platform. I'm working of the scale between the platform and the huts. Any comments would help.

[dabu]

some smaller branches off the tree that are in scale to the huts, that will help the scale of the tree read...

[andrewG]

here some shots of the tree house.

I added some smaller branches closer to the platforms.

[andrewG]

Here's the uv layout for the the platforms.
I was thinking of using a 512 map for each.

I am debating on if this is the best use of the uv space. if anybody has a better solution please let me know.

[z_2]

why not use a tileable for the platform, and make some alpha decals to cover up repetition?

[dabu]

I agree, just tile. a 512 will be blurry as all hell for the ground....

[andrewG]

I've started texturing my scene. I have a created a tillable texture for the tree, the platforms, and the huts.

[Amad]

I really dig the green/yellow and the brown for the huts. You gotta put a bubbling cauldron in here somewhere!

[dabu]

that is pretty fning adorable... the textures on the logs are looking kinda meh...

[andrewG]

here's update

[dabu]

need some color variation on those planks, and the contrast is making them swim a little...

[andrewG]

here's and update.

[gerasimimumu_George]

Your textures read flat (WIP?). Maybe some light grunge and shadows/highlights would be good.

Also, I think your log stairs should not be so evenly placed around the trunk. I'm looking at the fence and it is busted up and jagged like bad teeth (that fence needs braces and a new dentist), but the stairs look just too neat in comparison. I would stagger them a bit and maybe leave some gaps for a few missing steps; fake alpha holes would work well, u won't need to change GEO of the tree.

Good luck,
G

[dabu]

to me, its not hat your textures are flat, its that you're missing smaller details, like rocks, shrubs, etc... feels too empty atm...

and make some obvious attach points where the stairs meet the trunk...

[andrewG]

So I've been trying to add detail, like shrubs and rocks to fill the scene.

Here's my progress so far.

I'm running into a transparency sorting issue that I can't seem to fix. As I move the camera around the .tga image flickers. I posted a pic.
It seems that a plane with an .tga with alpha channel intersects a plane with vertex alpha, the .tga file has a sorting issue. I've played around with the object transparency sorting option and polygon transparency sorting. On or off it doesn't seem to help.
Any ideas?

[AndyLittleton]

wow good progress. It is starting to feel like an environment. I think you got lots of potential to make a good environment artist.

I would keep playing with the lights and shadows. Do paint overs and get it to look good. I like your cast shadows If anything I just think its missing that atmospheric feel to it. Try using the real time hardware fog to fade the background. Maybe desaturate your texture colors in the background to make the scene feel like it has more depth and atmosphereic and not so flat.

Ya maya doesn't handle transparency sorting to well so your gonna have to live with it and try not to make everything perfect. Plus if its going on your website all you need is to find that one good angle to take a snapshot from. A game engine handles transparency sorting much better.