Nordic/Viking environment

[Xeon18]

hey guys been working on some stuff lately and need some feedback. it a Nordic/viking environment gonna be hand painted textures and all that no next gen. so I need more props for scale I made some weapons,torches,free standing braziers, but I think it needs more. So lemme know :)

[Hans Schrijvers]

What is the function of the structure? I reads medieval to me, but not necessarily viking or nordic. Thinking about the movie the 13th warrior and such, I remember the buildings looking a lot less technologically advanced. Got any reference that you are basing yourself on?

Good to see you get back into gear though.

[Amad]

Hey Morgan,

Nordic/Viking stuff is totally up my alley, so I have a couple of things to contribute :D

Like Hans mentioned, 13th warrior is good for reference. More than that, just consider the materials and structures of northern european living. Everything would be made from logs, stone and things like steel bindings. Iron would probably be good too, especially if you could capture some metalwork details in places like the awnings of doors. When Vikings constructed communal halls or large structures such as these, they'd often use roofs supported with rafters that would resemble more modern day sloped rooves. Fortresses were usually a very crude looking structure, where the rocks were generally jigsawed together, and not as cut and formed as a conventional castle might seem.

Films like Beowulf take a lot of liberties in portraying castles and things as 'Viking'. You might look up 'Viking Ring Castles' to get a sense of what Swedish and Danish vikings used as fortress schematics. You could certainly do some smaller thatch-roof buildings within the confines of a ring castle, but then your project scope is massive.

From what I can see, I think you're on the right track with a lot of it. The rafters for one, are indicative of the right kind of architecture. The columns might be a tad.. ornate or illogical in the shape of the bevels there. If it's a design thing and you wanna stick with it, I'd recommend doing some curved support beams going from the sides of the colums and meeting in an apex above the center. Repeating the curved wood supports will help with the realism as well. I dig the lanterns a lot, and the small details like the fire torches and weapons will be sweet too.

Oh and for more props... what would a viking hall be without a long table covered in tankards, gold candelabras that were looted from a monastery and a lot of food? Also, what about a firepit with some hot coals in the center of the circular room for warmth? After all... Sweden is f-kin cold man. :)

[SpiralFace]

I haven't really researched viking architecture all too much, but I can just give you a few pointers on the basic design of the place.

First off, GREAT job on the rafters. Its a common mistake for environment artists to simply create "flat" celings when they should have a bit of detail to keep them visually interesting, but this piece takes care of that.

My only complaint is that now the floor seems pretty bare compared to the celing.

Try to plan out things that would populate the floor based on the function of the room. Is it a mess hall? Then stick rows of tables with bits of food on them. A reception hall? Then make some visually interesting rugs or dividers and a central area for a reception to take place.

Basically try to make the eye level and ground details as visually interesting as what you've made the rafters and celing details.

[Xeon18]

Awesome guys thanks so much for the feedback!!! This is more of a transition hall between two parts of the main building (not shown) so there will be a door at the end of it. I was playing off the idea of those medevil transition hallways that had the pillars looking out onto the kingdom and just wanted to incorporate that idea into a Nordic theme with a balcony. that's also the reason for the weapons is that if I remember correctly Vikings were pretty much constantly at war and you wouldn't want to find your self unarmed. Also in that sense I wanted to keep the floor semi clear of stuff but I am always open to put stuff in. the floor and walls will be yes stone and the pillars and rafters as well as the weapon rack will be made of wood. keep the feed back comin' I will continue to update you crazy kids :)

[Rushn]

The floor looks too empty and clean for Viking hall. But I think the props, like tables and such will do the trick.

The columns have too much rectilinear crude shapes that, I think, are distracting. Making them less defined will be much better.

Hope this helps

Best.

[Xeon18]

Update changed some stuff around and added doorway at the end. This is not an eating hall btw...

[Hans Schrijvers]

You can get rid of a ton of polys by optimizing the geometry of those arches you have underneath the crossbeams. Make triangles. Where you can. It'll make a big difference overall

[Xeon18]

sweet just did it thanks Hans that got me on an optimization streak and I took out about 1400 tris just from deleting faces you cant see.

[Rushn]

Update changed some stuff around and added doorway at the end. This is not an eating hall btw...


Now that looks more Viking!

[Xeon18]

Ugh painting floors suck any ideas going for a 512X512 for the floor

[dabu]

cut additional geo into the floor and then you can add secondary textures...

[Hans Schrijvers]

Yeah dude, there is no reason to make a 512x512 if you are just going to mirror the texture on the texture map. might as well make a 512x256 then.

Make the floor more interesting. It's simply a flat plane now. Put some steps or ramps in there, some platforms or dais and mix materials. Wooden steps with iron reinforcements and stone hewn tiles or so....you are the WoW man, take a look what they do for their floors, maybe.

[Rushn]

the texture looks like leather... Dont know if that is what you wanted.

[gerasimimumu_George]

You have this massive environment (or so the gray scale seems) - and then u drop this 3 brick texture onto the floor and it looks now like a board game. Imagine walking on this floor - each block is twice the size of the character length and width wise, and there's no detail in it whatsoever.

You need to a) shrink ur tiles in maya so they are not so huge or b) add a shitload of detail to the texture.

I recommend that u drop the whole painterly approach and just make a photorealistic environment. Snag some photos from cgtextures.com, make them tileable, and fill in ur scene. Also, u should uv ur env. and drop base colors on everything - this way u can at least have a vague idea of where u're going with this and work out ur color scheme before u get too in depth.

I also suggest that u up ur texture sizes. Right now ur working in 2nd gen PS2 specs - unless u want to work on mobile phone games or handhelds (both requires awesome drawing skills) u need to step it up.

Good luck,

G

[Amad]

Hey Morgan,

Some of the GDC guys gave off the impression that next gen environment and prop art is a different discipline than hand painting textures. I think with the realism in games going the way it is, they really are fracturing those two types of art. I think the key is to grab some photosource, control the saturation and channels of the texture, then blend it with others that appeal to you. Anyway, long story short, I second what they said.

Also, be happy cuz that cuts your worktime in half, easily :P

[Xeon18]

Sounds good guys that's the direction I am gonna start to take it. just needed someone to snap me out of hand painted land :)

[Xeon18]

ok so I stepped away from the whole "hand painted thing" and now feel like I am going in a better direction.

[Amad]

Yeah it's already looking cool. You can always flesh out some of the artistic details in how you treat the lighting and the color.

[Xeon18]

More progress worked on the pillars

[dabu]

awesome Morgan, keep going.

[Hans Schrijvers]

much better than the hand painted stuff you had
I took a look at the wall.jpg texture you posted. It looks a bit off. Did you have two different brick textures and overlay them somehow in blending modes? Doesn't work that well, as stones don't tend to be transparent. Usually you can overlay some grime and dirt layers or so, but to get some rougher brick looks you need to either find an image of stones that match more what you are going for, or either spend more time reworking what you got.

texture one the pillars seems a bit stretched or so

also, generally speaking, I feel you should try to be more consistent in the types of textures you use. The pillars look like polished marble or stucco or, not sure to be honest... and then you got a rough stone wall at the back and then some baked bricks for floor.

As a Norseman pavilion, I'd start thinking about what materials and technologies were available and then make your texture choices based on that.

[Amad]

Kind of expounding on what Hans said here, I think in this setting it's ok to have a lot of muted textures. What you can do is pop out some focal points with some intricate inlay designs or some gold trinkets somewhere that were robbed off someone... glinting firelight of weapons, that kind of thing. I think this environment is perfect for showcasing items like that.

[Xeon18]

Ok so this is the pillar up close it is supposed to be wooden but I guess that doesn't come across. so here is a shot of the pillar and the wood texture I am using any suggestions on how to make it read better from a distance?

[dabu]

the celtic pattern is way to dark and not reading as part of the wood material. Is it carved? Burned in?

[Xeon18]

More work done to pillar. shrank wood texture so it wasn't as stretched and re-did pattern on base and top, unbeveled wood block closest to top.

[dabu]

edge hi lites my man

[gerasimimumu_George]

I can see seams at the edges. I can also see a lot of the clone/healing brush patterns in it. Let's say ur texture is 512², when u do the offset, u go 256 on both axes, after that u can go 128 on both axes, to fix those corners u could not get to, just remember the #'s to revert back to the original, it will be fine (if that's even necessary - once it's tileable, it does not matter). If I can see the stamp marks, the pros will see it for sure

The texture itself reads like leper bamboo (patchy as shit), get a different one. You should get 'fine wood' textures for it - since it is indoors and supposedly made with love by whoever built it - vikings made beautiful woodwork. Then put on your apron, cuz it's going to get dirty - it's time to paint some mofo grunge on it. If u got shit for brushes, go online and google 'grunge brushes'. They are very simple to set up in PS (most have instructions on how to get them into PS), and save u a shitload of time when painting.

Use some dodge/burn tool to push highlights and darks, but don't overdo it, it becomes obvious really easy (play with 'highlight/midtones/shadows settings for both of those tools - you can get some nice effects)

Wherever column parts form corners, u'd have wear-n-tear on convex edges and dirt/grunge on concave ones. Right now, where the column shaft connects to it's capital, it just disappears - u need to separate it visually. Same goes for every object intersecting with the column GEO.

Put down the WoW, and rock this thing man!!!!

G

[Xeon18]

ok changed some more stuff on teh pillar...better?

[gerasimimumu_George]

Slightly. I was talking to Hans and he had a good point: they would not have wood on wood - the parts circling the columns should have metal on it or be metal. If u insist on having wood on wood, put some nail heads into it, so it is not magically held together. Where the column connects to base and capitol needs to be much, much darker. The more contrast, the better.

G

[Xeon18]

hey guys I am turning this into a war room and thus it needs a big ol table!. The type I want is the round tables that are made from the section of a tree or a cross section if you will. I am having trouble getting to look down atm and the internet is not being helpful. the bottom of the table is a little below waist high with the top slightly above that (angle is weird on shot) and and all suggestions are most welcome!!!

[dabu]

take the rings down and make them more subtle. Watch your jpeg artifacting on the edges...

http://pro.corbis.com/images/42-15556370.jpg?size=572&uid={13970ACB-0358-4772-97FA-04379870A4A5}

[Amad]

Cool model and idea, Morgan! You might go into the texture and see if you can smudge the rings a bit in and out. Right now the circles are a bit too uniform to be natural. Maybe have a section where there was a knot in the tree, so the waves are conforming around a dark shape. Also, I wouldn't bump them out as much with the shading. You don't really need much more than material variation and lines with a little crack detail.

[Xeon18]

Update symbols on banner are viking compass (sides) and Odins Valknut (god of war) in middle

[Hans Schrijvers]

looks a lot better than what you used to have
I am a bit concerned about your proportions though.
the place doesn't seem like it is built for humans
the weapon rack and table and other items aren't even as tall as the base of your columns.
I don't know, you can argue that it's just a big place, but I think you would be better making a scene that shows that you have an understanding of proportions.

[Xeon18]

TBH Hans I was thinking abut that very issue today so I am gonna try scaling it down...

[Hans Schrijvers]

word........

[Xeon18]

Update: scaled down environment a bit, added border to top and bottom of walls added texture for wood beams...

[gerasimimumu_George]

The highlight on the metal beam buckets (the metal inserts where beams attach to each other) need to be flipped, now it looks lit from the bottom. I've encircled them with pink and red. The buckets in pink - google 'simpson ties' to see what i am talking about - the part of the bucket against the vert. columns would be bigger, cuz they drive nails through it to nail it to the surface. Make it artsy, some metal carving or pattern, so it is not just a big flat surface with nails in it.

The ones circled in red need to go, they wouldn't put those there, cuz they only put the buckets to nail to vertical surfaces and the beams already have supports from the arches below.

Buckets circled in green - the lighting is ok, because there's nothing below it to drop a shadow onto the metal, but they just encircle the wood and not attached to anything but the beam itself. That's bad, why would they waste metal to frame the end of the beam?

You have to remember that everything there is build for structural support and they hide, decorate and shape the connectors to look artistic and to hide the crudeness of plain metal/wood work. Unless it is a framed painting or a walled bear skin, anything connected to the structural aspect of the environment needs to read as structural/w decor - not just there for the sake of being there.

Keep going homie

G

[Amad]

Just wanted to say that your banners are sick. Keep going.

[CNecron518a]

Kudos on the banners Morgan. Did you hand paint those folds in the cloth?? that looks really good. Anyways the main thing that catches my eye are those giant bricks in the back round. Make sure that you check you proportions and that they are scaled down so it looks right. Besides that, this is looking good so far.

[Brandon Hillman]

I like how it is coming along, but I do agree that the proportions seem a little off yet. Still I like the whole idea of this environment.

[Xeon18]

Mega update screen shot + textures stuff

yexture flats are Weapon rack, free standing torch, door and Blacony

[Amad]

Hey man great work. The textures are really looking nice.

I know that you want this to be a diffuse only texture-centric project, but you might just try a version in HQ with spec and normals. I say that because this could easily sing as a next gen project, especially with some cool real time lights. Companies can already tell that you know how to texture... you might wanna show em that you can compile a great current gen environment. Just my two cents.

[dabu]

desaturate a bit, everything has too much color right now

[CNecron518a]

Agreed. Amad brilliant. If you get crazy bump it will make your life much easier.. and its always good to have current generation stuff Morgan. I'd say go the extra mile and current gen this stuff. textures are looking interesting so far. De sat as Dabu suggested and you are on the right track. It looks sorta empty though.. are you going to add any more props?

[AdamT]

looks fantastic right now, if your into it add in some fire emitters for light sources it would be the finishing touches for a great looking room

[Brandon Hillman]

I like how your textures are coming along. It isn't always easy to model, unwrap, and texture a whole environment to good quality, but you are pulling it off quite nicely. Look forward to seeing the final product.

[Xeon18]

Ok so on the advice of many of you I have begun to Normalize and spec this beast to next gen lvl. the lighting is not done yet but I am still working on Maya lighting :). Would appreciate thoughts and ides from you guys on this as usual. Also I cant get it to render. it keeps saying maya out of memory or it crashes. I dont think its my comp cause i have a beast of a machine so maybe something with Maya. the entire scene is only 17k tris atm.

[Amad]

First off, I wouldn't render it... just viewport. Lighting for renders and lighting for viewports are two very different beasts, but you'll have more immediate results in the viewport that is perfectly acceptable for your portfolio. Also, rendering tends to show mistakes more than it shows what you're doing right in a project if that makes sense.

And yeah for lighting, just start by defining where your light sources are. Here, I'd guess it's torches (warm) and maybe moonlight (cool) as an atmospheric influence. So what you might do is experiment with point lights at the torches, trying to get the right level of intensity that you want. Then, go in and either do a spotlight as the moon in a soft/desat blue, or make an ambient light that is that same desat blue (instead of the spotlight), make the intensity relatively low and crank up the ambient shading. What this does is it infuses the shadows with that blueish color which is a good lighting trick that makes 3D stuff pop. Ultimately what I think you'll have to do is make the spotlight for the light source, and also make the ambient light to fill in the shadows with that desat blue. Remember that ambient lights won't in and of themselves make the bump/spec work right, so you'll need to rely on your light sources for that. Fortunately, localized lighting such as a torch is awesome for showing those key little bursts of detail, like you see in the streak on the floor of the current default shot you have there.

I think you made the right choice in going high rez, even tho it turns your computer into a mental defective (believe me, I know what you're going through, ughhh).

If you aren't already aware, you can go to shading -> interactive shading. That turns your scene to wireframe when you move... sometimes helps with workflow speed when it's so processor intensive like this.

You can also do real time shadows if you turn on raytracing and then activate shadows in the lighting menu, though this is an added stress on the scene.

[Xeon18]

wow thanks josh all that helped a ton I am excited to try some of this stuff now!!!

[matthewparis]

Floors are looking real nice.

[Steve Mittlestadt]

Really liking the progression of your project. I think some variation on the walls would help a bit as well.

[WipEout]

That table really ties the room together...

Seriously, though, it's coming along quite nicely.

[Xeon18]

I think I am getting close to being done with this thing...finally lol

[dabu]

try rendering out a lighting pass and get some shadows from the pillars in there...

[Xeon18]

Well atm it wont render I keep getting a crash when iI try any ideas on how to maybe just get the shadow of the pillars I need?

[Amad]

It still looks like default lighting only... are all your lights turned on?

If so, I think it could be more dramatic. Right now it looks like it's ambient lit with no distinct source. So I'd designate a source, at least dimly but with some kind of light contrast to play it up a bit.

[Amad]

And yes, make a light specifically to create shadows. Enable ray trace shadows, then under shading (I believe), turn on shadows. You don't have to render that, but you will have to mess with it to get it to look good.

[Xeon18]

I have three light sources right now with them turned on guess i will tweak them

[Xeon18]

ok so I enabled ray traced shadows on my light then under lighting i enabled shadows and yet nothing happens...

[Xeon18]

nvm I think i got it you need to use depth map shadows and my scene freeze'es when I do this too.

[Xeon18]

ok so this is what i am getting when I enable shadows from one light. I just blankets the scene in shadows. Also I cant turn on the shadow light without it freezing when i chooses high quality. Any ideas?

[Amad]

Weird there must be something off... cuz raytrace should work. Did you enable ray tracing in the light itself AND in the render settings? As for the freezing, it's probably a ram issue.

The other approach, and probably the one that will give you the most freedom, would be to render a lighting pass. You have to use a layered shader and apply 2 UV maps... one is the existing one (which is probably a mess considering you're doing an environment and they're never really packed) and the second would be a top/down UV projection of your floor. Then you create a light that will be used to make your shadows... turn off all other lights except that one, select the light, shift-select the floor, and do a batch bake under Lighting. Mess with it until you get a bake that looks right. Then you have a texture that you can tweak, color, blur or whatever and you can really get some awesome detail.

I know Ryan did a tutorial on this on gamestepper this last semester, so you might wanna look that up. I also have a tutorial file myself that I kept to remember the whole process... it has a simple setup and you just hit bake and you get the shadow map. So you can disect that file to see how to do it. I also have a version that does the same thing with alphas. If you're interested, just toss me your email and i'll send you the .ma and files.

[Xeon18]

yea that would be great and in the same sense would you mind if i sent you this scene cause I have this sinking suspicion I am missing like one step to get this thing running. my e-mail is Heavyarms443@msn.com

[A_GAME]

is there another light hidden somewhere?

[Xeon18]

so I am at a complete and utter loss right now. For some odd reason my Maya does not like depth map shadows at all (and yes josh that is the only way to show shadows in the view port :) ) I tried using a simple box and plane to test out some stuff and as soon as I hit depth map shadow it freezes ever single time. I have duel Nvidia 8800 gtx ultra cards and quad core 3.4 gig processor and 4 gigs of over clocked ram to 1033 fsb. I highly doubt the error is my machine at this point. does anyone have any suggestions?

[Amad]

When you're baking shadows, you don't need to turn them on in your scene. Just do it like you're baking an AO pass, but instead of the normal procedure, you select the light that will be making your shadows, then your floor plane which should now have two UV sets on it. Then just go into Lighting and Batch Bake the floor. You could even do this in default quality to speed it up. Mess with it til you get the shadows baking correctly.

And yeah I'd abandon trying to get good shadows from the viewport as a direct process, and rendering is a whole other ballgame. I don't think I've ever been able to get shadows in viewport that didn't look infinitely better as a bake that I edited up in PS.

Toss me that .ma if you can and I'll take a look.

[Xeon18]

omg so it has been ages since I updated on this thing but learning unreal and doing this at the same time has been fun! Still have to get some of the props in and work with lighting but its getting there!!

[CNecron518a]

Way to see this thing again kicking ass and taking numbers!

It's still looking a tad dark. Brighten it up a tad more...

Fire effects are nifty, did you put this in Unreal or a similar game engine?

Also- What were your texture sizes?

[Xeon18]

2 - 2048x2048's rest are primarily 512's

[Amad]

Wow, Morgan. The base of those fire braziers is really nicely done, I like the inlay details. I also like that it's feeling more cohesive overall.

Now on to the crit I get a lot, and the crit I see on polycount all the time.

Fill it with more stuff! It needs grass growing out of the stone, some chairs, or more tables with silverware, goblets, spilled wine, strewn about weapons, some tattered banners. As a composition, it'd be cool to put this stuff around the base of the pillars and walls to give that visual blending between those and the ground. Just my 2 cents, cuz this thing is really beautiful otherwise. :D

[Xeon18]

So it need a background for the balcony but she is pretty much done any crits are more than welcome

[anyms]

For some reason the environment reads as ps2 spec...maybe because I don't see the spec map. Looking good though. And the textures to me seem a little stretched and blurry if I was expecting ps3/360 specs.

[Amad]

How'd you do the fire? Looks nice.

[dabu]

is this in an engine? Nice to see you cranking out some industry quality work for a change, great job Morgan.

Wireframe? Texture flats? Seeing a breakdown would allow a better critique.

Also, would slide some shadows under the furniture...

[Xeon18]

I will get wire frames and texture flats together tonight to post up. Yes this is in the Unreal 3 engine. Josh there is a tutorial video in the bonus dvd fro the game that show you how to make the fire I just went back for mine and tweaked it a bit to make it look how i wanted.

[Amad]

Cool man :) I'd be interested also in comparing notes on the setup your materials in Unreal to get your textures and everything to read so nicely. I'm just now getting into unreal and there's so much you can do with materials to get some good results.

[SpiralFace]

Very much improved from when it first started.

One way to push it further though.

Right now, there is really a lack of a focal point in the enviornment. Even with the big table there, it still looks like a hall way because there is no special arangements of the props to really bring out the table in the center.

I think its really the lighting that is doing it. Right now, the brightest parts of the scene are the fire mantles on the sides of the wall, and not much else. I would try to bring more light to the table area to create a natural focal point. You can put a ring of fire mantles behind the table, put some candles or firepits in the center of the table. Really anything. Just right now its still looking a bit like a hall way.

[Xeon18]

here are some wire frame shot as well as texture flats!

[Xeon18]

one more Texture Flat.

[Xeon18]

I have no idea why some of these show up as blurry because they do not in the engine...

[A_GAME]

Great job on this scene, man.

[Xeon18]

by the by does anyone know a good file type other than .jpeg for posting images so they look clear?

[SpiralFace]

by the by does anyone know a good file type other than .jpeg for posting images so they look clear?

.bmp or .tif would be alternatives. But .jpg is still not bad. I've never had an issue with them. If you want good quality ones, just bump up the compression in photoshop all the way up to 12 for the max quality which gives you a virtually loss less compression.

The main culprit of "blurry images" has more to do with re-scaling images. As if you re-scale something by half, it the pixels that get merged will sample from eachother and average themselves out.

[A_GAME]

.png is aight