WIP - Birth of an Environment Artist

[Sastrei]

Nice start, I'd say!

The rock wall and door panels seem a bit flat though, and the sidewalk looks too perfect. I like the extra stuff scattered all about, and the foliage placement, both the weeds and the wall-toppers.

-Stefan-

[Ramza]

I really like the scene so far and your take on how to start is really smart. A few things you might want to look at is the door, looks alittle clean, the stone wall could use alittle variation with a normal map, and the curb looks off with the sidewalk they just dont seem to mesh. If you were going for a newer curb with an older sidewalk then maybe rough up the sidewalk alittle. I hope that helps I can't wait to see more progress. Keep up the good work.:thumbsup:

[blank]

Ok ta for you comments so far:

To clean I agree though mainly at the join of wall and pavement (sidewalk)

I had a closer look at the wall last night and theres all the mossy/green stuff growing at the bottom, water staining in places needed to grunge it up a bit.

So whats best in this situation? to work into the textures as much as possible and then use a few well placed deco materials to break up repitition or just keep a clean base and go crazy with deco materials on top?

Are deco materails ok to splat around or should they be used carefully?

Is there any way you can take the lightmaps which are generated and integrate them into a material to use as a mask?

will update tonight

Ta :-)

[urgaffel]

It's a good way to start so props to you for that, it's a lot more sensible than some things I've seen!

As for your scene, one thing that pops into my head is that you have barrels and pallets on the sidewalk next to a busstop which doesn't really make much sense. The texture on the pallets look very bland as well. Your lighting could be a bit more interesting since you have a strong light coming from one direction but you have an overcast sky in the background. Make it a sunny day instead with a nice blue sky and just a hint of yellow to the sun... I would also use some other surface for your sidewalk so you don't have two asphalt-y surfaces next to each other, give it a bit more variation, some good examples to be found here (http://cgtextures.com/textures.php?t=browse&q=1306). Now apart from all that, it's a good start so keep doing these smaller scenes. It's also a good thing that you finish your scenes which I know I struggle with sometimes... :D
(http://cgtextures.com/textures.php?t=browse&q=1306)

[blank]

A truely massive update for my little street scene.

I give you a ...Bin,

yup just a bin, slightly stinky with some stuff in it.

450 triangles,
1 overlapping UV set for Diffuse/spec and Normal maps
2nd non overlapping UV set for lightmaps (as for now this is static)

Out of interest I created these textures using my Phones camera (nokiaN95) as i walked past the bin on my way home yesterday, not as good as a proper camera as alot of distortion in the image due to the phones FOV, but still usable. :)

Plus been making some other little assets, going to start to grow the scene outwards slowly to include the other side of the street.

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/5139/rubbishbininue3tw4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[CodeVeroby]

I really like the bevels ! they aren't just there like most artists do they are there for added quality !

[blank]

Ok thought I'd post up what at first glace appears to be a simple asset and its settings to see if theres anything badly incorrect. Its as you can probably tell a 'Roadworks' sign, but I have tried to design my texture map and UVs around being tileable on the horizontal allowing me to place my UVs outside the normal 0,1 space to maximise texture usage and increase resolution and also prevent any seams along the signs frame and legs.

Heres the 1024 Diffuse map showing UVs on Channel 1 and how they overlap and tile the texture:
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/9039/roadsignexplainationkl3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

(Theres also a non overlapping set of UVs set to Channel 2 for light mapping withing the engine if needed if I were to set the mesh as static)

And heres the setup for the material in UE3, I have added a 'Constant' Expression to the 'specular power' to tighten up the speculars spread to make it a bit more Metal-ish and I have also added a Fresnel effect to the specular map to try to capture how the real thing reflects a bit differently to normal surfaces depending on viewing angle.

[URL=http://imageshack.us]http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/8468/roadsignexplaination3ea7.jpg[/

Cheers

I'll try to increase the "interesting" factor soon I promise, :-D

So any issues with this model as it is if used for the UE3 engine and is it actually ok using outside 0,1 UV space as i have here?

Cheers

[urgaffel]

One thing you could do with the uvs on that sign is to use the triangular grey space for the rectangular piece as well. It would give you a bit more space for the two triangles (if you took out the rectangular grey area altogether on the texture sheet) since you basically have two grey areas where one would be enough. Good stuff anyway. Tiling uvs is an essential tool when it comes to environment art, some of the cliffwalls in my level are quite large so the uv sheet stretches quite a few units in all directions... :D

*edit* nice touch with the fresnel specular.

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