Decayed city [environment]

[Vilperi]

Metal stairs. The different wire colors show different elements.
http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/4849/metalstairsyp9.jpg

[Vilperi]

Update...

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/6407/subway02le1.jpg

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/49/subway03db0.jpg

[Vilperi]

Wow! Over 500 views and not a single reply:) This just has to be some kind of record. Or even better, a conspiracy against me.

[GenZ]

We are spying on you.....nop,not that :)
What you have now is nice,but not enought for people to post crits.
I do see some places that can be optimized,like the escalator.You dont actually need the rubber part for the inside of the escalator,the texture can handle that.Also,you would get less polys by not welding the round part to 1 vertex.You should create poly strips so you will get better results in an engine and also less polys.
Hope this helps.Post updates when you can,this is looking promising :)

[Vilperi]

You dont actually need the rubber part for the inside of the escalator,the texture can handle that.

Do you mean only the straight part of the escalator?

Also,you would get less polys by not welding the round part to 1 vertex.You should create poly strips so you will get better results in an engine and also less polys.

I've red about poly strips but I'm having hard time understanding how to use them correctly in this specific situation. I would really, really appreciate some further help.

Thanks GenZ!

[ElFuego]

hullo mate :>

Scene looks good but a bit empty. I would add a lot more detail geometry to make the scene look full(er). I dunno how WIP this still is (geometrywise) but trashcans, benches, poster / graffiti billboards and stuff like that would be neat! But nevertheless it looks good at this stage.

I'm no env. modeller so I don't know if it would actually work but it looks ok.

[euclidius]

yup I agree with most of the folks here, it's quite early for a constructive critique but I am liking what I'm seeing already though :buttrock:

[GenZ]

Maxmate,np i'm here to help :)
Ok here's what i mean.The red part can be welded thus reducing polycount.Also check out the polystrips i made instead of the all in one vertex weld.Hope you understand what i mean :)
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/3667/strf7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Btw the escalator's area is my favorite in your model.

ooops forgot smth,please try to resize your images when you post them.They are taking too long to load.
Or you could edit older posts and remove the pics :)

[urgaffel]

Nice start. If you post wireframes and shaded wires, use gif instead of jpg, it will be smaller in size with better quality.

[Vilperi]

Thanks everyone!
LoL that escalator topology could not have been more obvious. Oh well, nobody's perfect.

I think I'm almost finished modeling the station. For some reason MAX doesn't want to export gif files.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/3302/subway01so0.jpg

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/8420/subway02do4.jpg

[urgaffel]

Print Screen -> Open Photoshop -> ctrl+n, ctrl+v, crop -> save for web :) Although gif files are only useful if you are showing wires, as soon as you add textures into the mix jpgs are more efficient.

If you are going for decayed style, you could add a lot of detail to the model by chipping away corners, denting things etc. This depends on the style you want of course but it will make the scene look more interesting and believable compared to the straight lines you have now. Also, you can focus most of the detail to the silhouettes since the flat surfaces can be detailed with normalmaps. A few examples would be the benches: you could add a few segments to them and shift them around so the benches are a bit bent and sagging. The pillar supproting the roof: add more segments to it and maybe take a chunk out of it as if something has colided with it. The plattform edge next to the rails: bevel it a bit and again, add a few segments so you can make it not perfectly straight. Depending on the floor you're going for you could have tiles that are broken and shifted around. Lots of things you could do with this.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind when constructing an environment is to have some sort of story in mind. If a subway would crash into the platform, what would happen to it, what would break, what would it look like? Maybe a gang of used the place as a temporary base and tagged the walls and had a fire somewhere etc etc. I hope that helps a bit :)

[Kickflipkid687]

Reminds me alot of The Darkness subways. If you want some ideas or inspiration look at those.. they are the best I've seen in a game.

[BadBruzer]

Reminds me alot of The Darkness subways. If you want some ideas or inspiration look at those.. they are the best I've seen in a game.

I agree the darkness did an amazing job on the subways I loved them. Anyways keep up the good work with he subway I can't wait to see it farther along I will be keeping up with progress.

[Vilperi]

Thanks guys! Urgaffel you're absolutely right. i need to add more randomness.

Here's a new better trashcan. It has normal map, bump, specular and ofcourse color. 160 tris.

[pic deleted]

[GenZ]

nice,but i've got some suggestions.Since its a decayed place,you should add some rust,scratches and paint-less spots in that trash can.It will make it more interesting and should fit the ambient perfectly :)

[Vilperi]

Yeah, some rust made it much better! Still need to work on it tho.
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/323/trashcan02pr9.jpg

Damnit I accidentally inserted the specular map to specular COLOR in that previos pic I posted, so it looks all wrong. But this one has the specular map in the right place. The difference is huge!

[Vilperi]

I'm now pretty satisfied with this trashcan.
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/9130/trashcan03br0.jpg

[Drevlin]

looks neat :)
The trashcan does look good but generaly speaking the wear and skratches would be along the edges rather than smack in the middle of a side. 'Course, it depends on its location.

Nice work anyways!

[GenZ]

looks much better!Also notice that when there is rust in a painted metal,the paint is gone and the rust is hard edge'd where it meets with the paint.In your case,sharpen the contour of the rust and make the paint more crumpled.Hope you understand :P

[Vilperi]

I have to agree with you Drevlin. The scratches look so much better along the edges. Thanks for the advice!
http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/3786/trashcan04kh2.jpg

[Vilperi]

Update. Nothing fancy. Just a fusebox.
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/9853/fuseboxuu5.jpg

[Vilperi]

I need some help. I'm modeling a barrel but I can't find a good way to unwrap it.
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/7317/barreluvwj9.jpg
As you can see there's a huge amount of unused space. So if someone has a better idea, I'd really like to hear it. I do need to unwrap it because I'm going to use normal map.

[eirenicon]

It's okay to have unused space on a texture for models like these - use the space for another model, something that will likely be in the same scene. That way you've got one texture being pulled for two objects, you're actually saving cycles and whatnot.

[urgaffel]

You could move the bottom circular thing from the bottom left corner up to the left of the other one and by scaling stuff a bit you could fit it on a 256x512 texture (twice as tall as it is wide)

[Vilperi]

I decided to split the round parts in half so that they take less space. Thanks for the tips though. I never realized that one texture could be used for many objects.:)

Here's the barrel textured. I have some problems with the normal map. It's all blocky along the edges. Why's that?
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/7615/barrel01gv0.jpg

[Vilperi]

Small update.
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/1962/barrels01wf4.jpg

[Vilperi]

A little test render. This is the station's machine room.
http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/9282/machineroomnm8.jpg

[Ghostscape]

The reason the normal map is looking weird on the bottom edge is because of your projection cage. With cylinders like that, you want to take the top and bottom of the cage and have them as close as possible to th bottom edge

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/2249/cagetd8.jpg

[Vilperi]

Thanks Ghostscape for the help! That solved the problem.

Here's two mental ray renderings.
http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/9638/basement01wf1.jpg

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/360/basement02ls7.jpg

[requiem2d]

Coming along slowly but surely, keep at it :)

[Vilperi]

Yeah I'm not the fastest environment modeler in the world:) Mostly because I just started learning low poly modeling and I have very little knowledge how to model things as efficiently as possible.

I have modeled this basement from planes of different sizes. The walls, ceiling and floor I mean. Don't know if that's very efficient. Is this something you pros would do or would you model this somehow differently? I'm very confused.
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/72/basementwirevl7.jpg

[Vilperi]

Some update on the textures. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this.
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/6725/basementaq5.jpg

[Alex McGilvray]

looking good


the fence with the door in it looks like you rushed the job though.. maybe add some "trim" like bars along the top and support bars

[Shade01]

Good start- for a decayed environment you've got a lot of straight edges in your models. Punch holes in that fence, lean that bannister, break up those stairs, dent those cans and boxes, chip that wall, go crazy with it!

[Vilperi]

Thanks guys! Yeah i need to fix that boring fence. I mean, RUIN it, not fix it:)

At the moment I'm trying to achieve nice textures for the floor and the walls. Made some huge changes and I hope you think I'm heading in a good direction.
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1373/basemen06ce0.jpg

[Flewda]

Hey man, it's looking pretty nice. I like the lighting much better than the earlier one, and the textures are really starting to shape up. Did you unwrap the floor? Or is that a tiling texture with a lot of decals? It feels like its slightly blurry in places, thats why I figure it is an unwrap. However looks pretty good imo.

Also, the drum top lacks a lot of detail. Especially from the camera angle, it looks completely flat on top and no detail at all (like an opening to pour it out, lips, recessed areas, etc).

Obviously (as already mentioned) the fence/gate is weird. It actually feels like a storm door on the back of someones house. It doesn't seem like that kind of gate would stop anyone from busting it down with one blow. I would suggest going with metal or something stronger than wood.

Lastly, what is the purpose of the gate? Right now, it just looks like they put it up to stop people from getting to the other side of the room. I don't see anything back there to suggest that someone would go to the trouble of putting a gate up to prevent people from getting in there.

Looking really good though, keep it up.

[jalingo]

Are this pics from a game engine (which one?) or from 3D software? I'm going to start design levels and want to know how people do these pre-design visuals. Thanks.

[Vilperi]

Thanks Flewda! The floor has just one huge ass texture. No tiling or decals. The gate is there because of a generator that I'm going to model and place behind it. I admit that the gate is quite pointless because the basement itself is locked.:)

Jalingo these pics are mental ray renderings, so they have nothing to do with real time game engines. Generally it's not the best idea to render real time stuff, but my plan is to bake the lighting on the textures so it doesn't matter.

[Gephoria]

are you going for a natural decay or like a postapocalpytic scene. looks good so far when i saw decayed city i was thinking about 5-6k years of decay onour modern technology, it'd b interesting i'd imagine

[Vilperi]

Gephoria I'm going for natural decay, water and wind corrosion and stuff like that.

I have a little question concerning texture sizes. I've used 1024x1024 textures for areas of 4x4 meters(4 meters=13 feet). Now is 1024 texture too small for 4 meters these days? I mean in fps-game.

Here's a section of a full screen render of the floor. The camera is pointing almost straight down from the eye level(1.7meters). Is the quality good enough?
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/5440/lattiadb0.jpg

[Flewda]

I think in general a 1024X1024 will be fine for 4 meters. Sure going to a 2048 will make it look that much nicer, but honestly, most places aren't going to go that nuts for a floor map (in fact very games would take the time and memory to make unique textures for floors and stuff.) Most of the time it'll just be tiling with lots of decals.

The weirdest thing about your "eye view" render is the FOV I think. For being 1.7 meters it still looks rediculously close to the ground. Your FOV should probably be altered a bit for that kind of render.

J

[utchamp]

That looks cool but one thing is really bugging me..... the gate needs to be decayed more.

it looks entirely new, like it was just installed. It needs some work, but the scene is coming along very nicely.

[Vilperi]

Thanks!

Here's a highres render with some changes on the textures and without the fence. I might delete it completely.
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/3595/hiresrt4.jpg

[Arcanox]

Some cool stuff so far. Just a suggestion, but what if you did a pattern of splines that wrapped around each other like this- http://img.alibaba.com/photo/50508201/Chain_Link_Fence.jpg

Make sure they wrap around each other and make a pattern out of those. Then assign a dark grey material with a specular highlight, render that out against a black background and then save it as a .tga

If you've done that correctly, you should be able to crop a square that will tile correctly, and then resize it to something like 256x256. The advantage of saving out as a .tga is that you have the alpha map for the opacity. :)

I would put a bar at the top for support, they usually have those on chainlink fences. If you want something worth protecting, perhaps move the fusebox over to that side of the room and add in some extra electrical equipment that could look, 'dangerous'.

[Vilperi]

Thanks Arcanox for the great advice. I have to look into that later.

I decided to change this project a bit. Well actually a lot. I realized that the subway station is too modern for the old spooky look that I'm going for so I'm going to forget it completely. The basement will be placed in an old apartment building instead of the subway station. This allows me to make some cooler props, that wouldn't be found at a subway station. Here's an old chair.
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/7783/oldchairnd5.jpg

[utchamp]

ooh, yeah, old rocking chairs, tables, refrigerator, freezer { where every good criminal stores his prizes} broken floorboards, leaking faucets, humungous chipped bathtubs....... it should be great.!


however, the chair is also lacking in the 'old' department. It would be more convincing if there was some wear and tear on it.... chips in the wood, 1/2 of a leg missing {but don't split it top to bottom, split it side to side, that way it will stand out a little more} the back hanging delicatley ... ect.


looks good though, keep it up!

[Vilperi]

Yeah great ideas Utchamp!:thumbsup:

I started modeling the apartment building. Here's a corridor and the basement door. I need some ideas how to make this look more interesting from the point of view of architecture. This is an old building, so it needs to have some ornaments, wooden strips on the walls and stuff like that. But I haven't found any good references so ideas are welcome!
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/125/corridorjl9.jpg

And here's a stareway. Don't worry. I'm going to punch holes and chip off pieces as soon as I have unwrapped those stairs.
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9599/stairsej6.jpg

[utchamp]

if you want it to be a really creepy old building... put in some gothic arches that hang really low. and you need some pillars in the wall to make it look more interesting, if you don't decide to do arches. [not totally in the hall, just have like a couple inches out into the hall kinda like this http://www.dennisflood.com/photos/gallery/cks/small/cks_0204.jpg but use square ones.]


anyway if you don't like the idea of pillars down your hall, and your not a gothic person.... you may just have to put some dilapitated pictures on the wall, peel some wallpaper off. and don't forget graphiti.... that would be pretty cool. if it is going ingame that is a popular way to pay tribute to people, message through the markups. anyway... looks great!

[Vilperi]

I'm not that keen on gothic look, but pillars and arches sound good. Here's an update.
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/5384/hallway01ih5.jpg
http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/1238/hallway02rq1.jpg

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