SUBMISSIONS - Ugac - Prop 102 - Ultimate Crate/barrel

#19

ok, here we go:

bazooka tooth - razor barrel thingy
So does this barrel give out “hugs and kisses”? get it, “xoxo” haha. nevermind. Uh, I actually thought that the crate/barrel was supposed to be something that the player WANTED to get. Not something that’ll kill them. I would have liked to see the blades look more metallic. The wood texture looks good. Some stretching around the outside barrel texture.

spirogyro - glowy ammo barrel
Nice job putting most of the detail into the texture sheet. It’s hardly noticeable that it’s not polygons, and i always like efficient poly counts. Well layed out texture sheet.
The blocks of green look too plain and dull. Like normal color fills. They need glow and highlites. Kinda boxy around the top area too.

supervlieg - bio barrel
I really dig the way it looks liek the strings around it are actually holding on the skin cover. I dig “weight” when it comes to 3d objects. The textures around the top look to be stretching a bit and are blurrier in comparison to the bottom half. haha i just noticed the cigarette now. nice touch. The model still fails IMO from the fact that the teeth aren’t noticeable unless you’re looking from above and majority of ingame crates and such are usually placed at eye level.

gordon 7up - rocket thingy
Textures look flat. Same consistency overall, could use some variation of hightlites and contrast. Fins look cartooney, but barrel looks mroe realistic. I’m guessing it should look more cartooney overall. Poly layout looks pretty standard.

JamesMK - bomb locker
Wow, seriously cool. I actually don’t care for the concept overall, but the modeling/rendering/texturing is cool. I think the extreme contrast of the lighting just reaffirms the placement of it in doom. That’s how everything in that game looked. Great use of normal maps. Beige strip down the middle looks a little too plain though.

blog - plant
Creative concept. I like how one of the ‘arms’ is actually going into the box too. Texture is the weak part. Even if it’s cartooney, i would still like to see it a little sharper. Well atleast the balls that are attached to it. Some variation of green from the tip versus the base would help. The texture sheet could be layed out much more efficiently too. Need to work on that.

lonewolf - medical box
Sweet, another one that looks like it came out of doom3. Another great use of normal maps. Tubes came out nicely. The stickers help add to it. Hmm nothing to reall crit. I like it and think that it’s great for an env object.

naenae - watery barrel
Pretty standard. Asked for a barrel/crate and that’s what was created. I guess it’s too basic for my total liking. Although it’s well executed. Texture sheet is well layed out. Wood texture looks good. Well done overall.

kobi - spring barrel
Pretty standard too. Actually this is probably the most simplistic of them all. It looks kinda blocky for a cylinder. But the flattened parts don’t necessarily look banged in or smashed in any way. That’s why it’s a bit unexpected. Don’t think the flower helps in anyway. More detail and creativity should have been given to teh spring and red base.

migusan - cactus
Well defined and nice outline, but kinda boring IMO. If it were in a game i wouldn’t even notice it. Need to spice it up a lot. Especially since this is the “ultimate” competition.

hanzo - data storage
“daita” storage… i’m confused. oh well. I would liked to have seen the curves on top a bit smoother. Otherwise pretty flawless. I dig it. I really like the renders too. The touch of orange and blues. The insides don’t read very well. But i presume that’s on purpose.

Invadererik - clown
The wire render actually looks better than the final render. The clown looks liek a floating ghost in the end render. Normals is unnecessary. Could use better layout with textures. I don’t really see this being a crate or barrel though, it doesn’t make me want to do much with it. I also don’t see how it could contain anything in it when it’s transparent and has nothing in it to begin with. I guess again, it would have been best to leave the plastic white. Give it that element of surprise.

gamepat - piggy bank
Looks more like an enemy than an object. I think it reads too much flesh like, and alive. When it probably shouldn’t be. The armor looks battled, but the skin looks untouched. It’s definetely creative though!

sascha - suitcase
It looks simple, yet impressive. The textures are sweet. Looks like something out of silent hill. I think there needs to be an enticement to “open” or interact with it though. Maybe having it slightly open or something. Nice work overall! Yeah, definetely good texturing and lighting job!

swizzle - trashcan
Barrel looks a little awkward. Slime coming down it looks more like molten copper than slime. I think it needs some highlites overall. I dunno it just isn’t creative enough compared to the rest.

Nice to see so much participation! Congrats to the community!

1st place - lonewolf - medical crate
2nd place - JamesMK - bomb locker
3rd place - hanzo - data storage

anndddd…
finished!

#20

Well apparently time is too short for me to finish one of these, but let’s see if I can put together the time to judge one!

Bazooka Tooth - Cool concept, although I’m not sure whether it’s a barrel that’s full of pickups, or one just for death? Modeling was clean, but I felt the textures lacked dynamic range. More contrast would’ve helped this barrel pop. I think if it was meant to surprise the player with it’s attack, perhaps a design (on the textures) that would’ve hidden the side blades a little more…

Spirogyro - Interesting concept for how you’d get the pickups. The design is a bit generic, but the proportions work well. A bit of the glow coming through on the texture or added with alpha planes would’ve really sold this, as well as some colour variation in the glowing area. Merely desaturating the diffuse channel for the bump and spec doesn’t work. This gave it the rough look of newly mined silver still in the rock, and not the look of a machined object.

Supervlieg - The design and execution are excellent. As others have said, I think even a photoshop generated normal map would’ve been a great addition to this piece, particularily to fake some thickness on the alpha’d areas. Top notch though.

Gordon 7up - Cool idea, very original whilst keeping with the traditional barrel. I could totally see this as a standard barrel, then just as the character was about to pick it up, it transforms, flies away, and returns as a missle hitting the character! The details you painted on, look painted though. It looks like to me that you applied a bump map, so I would’ve exaggerated that map more, so the metal belts look raised.

JamesMK - Really nice, good use of normal maps! The spec map seems a bit wrong to me, like all you did was desaturate the diffuse. Usually the spec should have less of the shading that is already on the diffuse map, and play with hot spots and grain to enhance the look of the object. The bomb looks a little cartoony for a Doom3 type game. All in all though, a nice piece.

blog - It’s a nice concept, but I think you missed on a few key points of game art. First is, it looks to me that you were, at the very least, counting polygons, not triangles. Secondly, you smoothed, or converted to sub-Ds for your render, which takes away the point of low polygon game art. Thirdly, no major game engine so far supports displacement maps as they are very expensive and it would be very difficult to get them to run in real time. Normal maps have a similar look with the minus of not affecting the siholuette, which takes a certain skill to make less noticeable. I’m not rating this either way because of your not keeping within the challenge specs.

Lonewolf - Nice work! Crits would be; some textural indication where the tubes fit the rest, so they don’t look intersected, and look like they belong. It could help to hide the polygonal edge too. Secondly, to achieve a metal look with a one colour specular, try having the spec generally dark, with some 1 pixel lines around the raised edges. This will help fake an anisotropic look to the metal, and make it look less like plastic.

Naenae - Nice model, nice idea too. I think it looks a little to bland as far as the texture goes. I think it wouldn’ve looked better to have more value contrast generally, and more hue contrast between the barrel itself and the seaweed. I think most art directors would probably tell you to make the eye much more prominent as well, as it’s a fairly poly heavy part of your model, and in game, it would largely go un-noticed.

Kobi - I really like the idea. The execution is not too bad either. What I would keep in mind on the next one, is to try and make the damage/dirt on the object make sense. I would see a lot of vertical scratches on the inside as the button scraped the walls of the barrel, and the scrapes on the outside seem a little long, and I can’t think of a good story of how they would get there. I would think little nicks and dents would suit the piece more. Also look to settle dust and dirt on the tops of surfaces, and mold and grime on the lower parts of the object. The object will look better in game if it’s not all one tone - if say it was darkest at the top, or at the bottom.

migusan76 - I was quite excited to see yours when I saw the concept, thinking a really cartoony entry was exactly what we needed. I think the final fell a little bit short, ending up fairly realistic. I think as a reasonably real looking cactus, it wouldn’t look like a pickup in a game, just set dressing. It leaves it kind of difficult to judge - as a realistic cactus, it’s a bit rubbery, as a cartoony cactus, it’s a little too… …literal. It’s a cactus, and I think it lost all the cute energy present in the concept sketch.

hanzo - Great execution on the metal crate idea. Much like the others with the Doom3 look, the normals really punch this out. I think yours seems to have the most metalic look, which is great. My only crit is the inside looks a little low-res. My one gripe would be the concept is a little bland, but overall, a nice piece!

Invadererik - VERY original idea! Nice job on it too. I also think there’s a bit too much transparency, and it would be hard to read in game, but that might not be too much of an issue, depending on the levels it’s in. The drawing on the bag is a little rough, but so are most of those kinds of novelty item, so I can’t fault you on that. Because this is such a simple object, I think a little more work on the normals - puckering and wrinkles, and perhaps some scuffs only visible through the spec map, and this could’ve really sang. As far as actual games go, most have issues with transparency, particularily double sided transparency like this one, and this object would likely cause all sorts of rendering issues. Therefore in a game (rather than just a challenge) you’d want to avoid an object like this. Good job though!

Gamepat - Nice concept, but I think there’s a few too many disparate elements there. Mostly since you chose to have a semi-realistic pig, and a floppy disk, the concept would’ve worked better if the armour all over the pig also resembled things from our own world, rather than Halo. I think something like the casing to a Nintendo 64, or Amiga would’ve been quite funny. The texture looks extra low-res almost everywhere except the floppy and the nose. Either this is caused by not enough shared texture space, or by a blurry texture. Try over-sharpening your work, this often works really well. Also your Normal map is really subtle, it’s hardly noticable, and not really worth the extra processor hit it would take to have it on the model. Either go without (it does’nt really need one) or make it quite a bit stronger.

Sascha - Nice work! I think that while the suitcase itself isn’t a terribly original case, when presented with your game idea, it works quite well, and I could easily imagine it being iconic, like the herbs in Resident Evil. I think the texture seems really good on the straps, but on the case itself, it feels bland. The detailing and scratches don’t seem to line up with any supposed use - meaning it’s just generally damaged the same amount all over the whole thing, with no more damage in the places that would be likely to get damaged, like the leather near the straps, along the edges, and the opening. Altogether I would count this at the 70% finished stage, with another 30% of tweaking to get it just right.

Swizzle - There is no lack of garbage cans in games, so I think it would take a bit more to make one look iconic - and like a pickup. One thing could’ve been some sort of recognisable iconography so one could tell the difference between a gabage can that contains things you want, and one that is just set dressing. The other main crit is while you photo sampled for some of the parts, the rest looks too illustrative. I think either a fully realistic can, or a stylised one would’ve worked better.

1st: Supervlieg
2nd: Hanzo
3rd: JamesMK

TO ALL: Don’t be afraid to bump your UV space a little closer together, and maximise the space. If it’s pretty much the same texture all the way around a barrel, map only one quarter of the barrel, and overlap your UVs to get more resolution. As long as you’re using tangent space, you should be able to use this with normals as well.

Also, most games use mipmapping - a techinique that lowers the resolution of the textures as they get further away from the camera. Black or white between the painted areas can tend to show up when the texture is reduced in resolution. You’re much safer to blend the colours out until they bump up with other painted areas that have been blended out. It’ll look less “neat”, but be more robust of a texture sheet.

#21

hey

just a little note: i see alot of crit about the mis match top edge on the crate
just wanted to let u all know its been fix long time ago

i just didnt render it again
i can post new render if nesseccery

:slight_smile:

#22

As a new comer to the game art catergory I realize now that I confused “Normal Map” with “Displacement Map”. Opps! I guess that is part of the learning experience :wink:

#23

so who wins?

PS: we all actually are, but well ya know…

#24

well here is a summary…i think supervlieg should be announced as the winner.
4 voters so far…(won’t bentllama vote too?)

dargon sez:
1st: Supervlieg
2nd: Hanzo
3rd: JamesMK

neil sez:
1st place - lonewolf
2nd place - JamesMK
3rd place - hanzo

Andy H says:
1st place - supervlieg
2nd place - sascha henrichs (andy h, you are allright! :wink: hehe)
3rd place - lonewolf

Poopinmymouth (what a name:argh:):
1st place - supervlieg
2nd place - lonewolf
3rd place - hanzo
[b]

so far overall rating i’d say:

  1. supervlieg
  2. hanzo
  3. lonewolf

[/b]

#25

Sounds good to me :smiley:

Anyhow, I think we still need the vote from the first “official” judge though.

Bentllama, come out of that hole!

#26

my vote…

1st: Supervlieg
2nd: JamesMK
3rd: Hanzo

so do we have a topic for the next challenge?

#27

Sounds like the next topic is Arthropods, or basically “invertebrates with a segmented exoskeleton” - some people want insects, some want crabs, some want spiders.

#28

Okay, after counting the votes of all five judges I get this total (with first place getting 3 points, second getting 2, and 3rd getting 1 point)

1. Supervlieg - 12 points
2. Lonewolf - 6 points
3. (tie) Hanzo, JamesMK - 5 points
4. Sascha Hendrichs - 2 points

So hurray to me, and the other winners.

Anyhow, I suggest we start the next one, with anthropods (or “invertebrates with a segmented exoskeleton” as Adam put it) as the subject.

Back to you Bent. If youre too busy, I’ll be happy to set it up. If you’re not, start it up!

#29

Congrats Supervlig, your entry was sick! Seems like everyone is ready for the next one, I think you shuould set it up and let a mod tweak it if they wish.

#30

Thanks Bazooka!

I’ll set the brief for the next one up during the weekend, if Bentllama doesnt beat me to it.

#31

Thanks Bazooka!

I’ll set the brief for the next competition up during the weekend, if Bentllama doesnt beat me to it.

#32

Yeah, nice one Super, gratz to everyone too.

#33

Nice one superfly - you should do more stuff around here more often. Aint seen you in the main games gallery for ages.

#34

I was actually going to set it up today and move the crate/barrel threads to the archive area so we have a clean slate for the next challenge…not to mention a front page plug

so while I am in meetings all morning, why don’t we discuss the duration of the challenge…some were thinking that this challenge should be longer, due to the character nature of it…we could justify a shorter challenge like the ones we have been doing through making the “ARTHOPOD” be a secondary or swarm type of character…in others words, making it a character that you cannot blow your budget on real time…

#35

Thanks guys

Yeah, Ive been meaning to do more game art. Just been too busy at work lately to do some work of my own. Ive got a lot of idea’s for characters I want to do. And seeing guys like you putting out the cool stuff is very inspirational as well. Im glad the simple nature of the barrel comp allowed for me to actually finish something in the little time between work and home/relaxing.

This has my vote. And maybe up the specs and time a bit. Like say 1500 polies, same texture size (512) and six weeks to complete.

#36

Yeah, congrats to the Supervlieg and all ye others - now bring on the bug specs :beer:

#37

HA, SUPERVLIEG! Somebody agrees with me! We are still going to duke it out though I hope :surprised

6 weeks is a long time… how about 3-4. and what about animations?

#38

Have to agree there, shorter is better IMHO.
And animations would certainly add some spice to it!