Well apparently time is too short for me to finish one of these, but letâs see if I can put together the time to judge one!
Bazooka Tooth - Cool concept, although Iâm not sure whether itâs a barrel thatâs full of pickups, or one just for death? Modeling was clean, but I felt the textures lacked dynamic range. More contrast wouldâve helped this barrel pop. I think if it was meant to surprise the player with itâs attack, perhaps a design (on the textures) that wouldâve hidden the side blades a little moreâŚ
Spirogyro - Interesting concept for how youâd 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 wouldâve really sold this, as well as some colour variation in the glowing area. Merely desaturating the diffuse channel for the bump and spec doesnât 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 wouldâve been a great addition to this piece, particularily to fake some thickness on the alphaâd 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 wouldâve 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 - Itâs 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. Iâm 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 donât 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 wouldnâve 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 itâs 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 canât 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 itâs 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 wouldnât look like a pickup in a game, just set dressing. It leaves it kind of difficult to judge - as a realistic cactus, itâs a bit rubbery, as a cartoony cactus, itâs a little too⌠âŚliteral. Itâs 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 thereâs 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 itâs in. The drawing on the bag is a little rough, but so are most of those kinds of novelty item, so I canât 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 couldâve 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) youâd want to avoid an object like this. Good job though!
Gamepat - Nice concept, but I think thereâs a few too many disparate elements there. Mostly since you chose to have a semi-realistic pig, and a floppy disk, the concept wouldâve 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 wouldâve 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, itâs hardly noticable, and not really worth the extra processor hit it would take to have it on the model. Either go without (it doesânt really need one) or make it quite a bit stronger.
Sascha - Nice work! I think that while the suitcase itself isnât 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 donât seem to line up with any supposed use - meaning itâs 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 couldâve 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 wouldâve worked better.
1st: Supervlieg
2nd: Hanzo
3rd: JamesMK
TO ALL: Donât be afraid to bump your UV space a little closer together, and maximise the space. If itâs 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 youâre 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. Youâre much safer to blend the colours out until they bump up with other painted areas that have been blended out. Itâll look less âneatâ, but be more robust of a texture sheet.
