The problem people are having I think is that when you have like a car that has not been used a very long time, the foliage starts to creep over it. Fine but then the foliage is connected to something, and a free floating car with foliage sprouting from nothing is rather odd to look at.
Would perhaps then be ok to model some parts of the ground, and exclude it from the total poly and texture count?
The best explanation would be an example;)
As far as I get it, it could just be a tree, or a rock, or an old entrance to a temple, or a machette, or a map, or a water bottle, or a ruck-sack, or an NPC animal, or a torch (flame or electric), or a crashed plane, or a hat, or lost artifact, or a mud hut, or a campfire, or some beefy off-road tires, or or, how many examples do you people need?!? (Iāll update this list as I think of more, Iāll either edit this post or make a new one)
EDIT: Now look, Iāve sacrificed my 100th post to help you lot! 
Hmmā¦ temptingā¦ Iāll have to see if I can free up some time for this.
Already got some ideas floating thourgh my headā¦ 
Hexodam: I believe the point is to not get carried away. You have 1k tris (not much) and the idea is to focus on the prop. So of course, if it makes sense to show where the weed is coming from, then do it. But keep it simple.
The point is that if youāre modeling a gun on a car, donāt waste your time spending weeks modeling this killer car with shocks and headlitesā¦etc. Thatās not the point of the comp. So unless the prop relys on another prop for reference, then just ditch it.
can we get some specs on what this āgame engineā we are designing for can do?
i.e.
normal mapping
alpha channels
basic environment reflection map - based off alpha channel map
etc.
Thanks!
Mark
Any advices about how to light the scene? ambient light or something? I have no idea what kind of lighting would be ānormalā for a such a task. But I think thatās important for texturingā¦
Well be it that youāre not animating it and itās only a pile of polygons with texture sheets, then it can fit into pretty much any engine. (edit. Rules have been updated)
Basicallyā¦
stop worrying about all the minor details. JUST HAVE FUN!!
I may be wrong but Iām pretty sure it says you can use a normal map or a bump map in the first post:
TECHNICAL SPECS:
[ul]
[li]1000 triangles LIMIT[/li][li]ONE 512x512 colour map[/li][li]ONE 512x512 spec map[/li][li]ONE 512x512 normal/bump map[/li][/ul]
some of you might have been ocnfused as to where an alpha map comes into play. I took it for granted that you would be using a TIF or similar extension for your colour mapā¦my bad.
ā¦the rules have now been updated to reflect that your colour map can have an alpha attached, for whatever use you see fitā¦
If you were going to put vegetation and stuff around your prop, does everything have to fit in one 512x512 texture. If not is there a limit to the number of textures.
If the vegetation is just part of the scene, for the render or something, then I donāt think so, I think everything to do with the actual prop does though.
all we want to see in the final render is your propā¦your prop must incorporate aspects of the jungle in itā¦so yes, what you show in your final render must fit on to a single 512x512 sheetā¦
does it have to be rendered with max (or whatever 3dapp anyone is using) or are we allowed to show an ingameshot of this object, in my case this would be the bridge over a canyon, i wonāt show any objects around that prop but the landscape is what this object was made for, i guess it works better with the right environmentā¦
A durā¦ Iām new to the unofficial game challenges. Will there be a thread to post finished entries when itās all done?
Do whatever makes it look good. Be honest with yourself though. Do you really think a realtime model would use HDRI or Brazil or something fancy? In game shots work fine as do simple 3 point light setups.
The best lighting in the world canāt make a crap model look good, but nice lighting will make an average model look more impressive.
