Ultimate RTS Building - Results!

[doylle]

Another competition has come to an end. With 13 entries not a bad one at all. With an unexpected delay we are happy to announce that Tiros is the winner of the Ultimate RTS Building Competition. Congratulations! The first runner up is Yin, folowed by Reeke. congrats. I would like to thank everybody who participated, and we will be back soon with a new competition.

Originally Posted by Alchemist101

Flam: An original idea for an RTS building, you can easily picture this in a game working away. The modelling stands out strongly and the normal map is used to good effect. The diffuse map looked a bit blurry in places though

Yin: A really cool concept. The execution of the tree is excellent, the whole thing looks stunning for 1500tris, and the extra little structures help it to fit into the RTS building theme. Deep, rich colours and a nice presentation means there’s really nothing not to like here for me. Definitely my favourite of the bunch

DaveW: I like the way you have the buildings all bunched up and the containers are a nice touch. Apart from the air conditioning unit, I don’t think there are enough details in this for a competition piece. There is quite a lot of repeating in the textures too.

Tiros: Loved this one in the WIP thread and it turned out really strong. I’m a huge fan of settlers and Fable styles so this stuff always appeals to me visually. The stone work has the best texturing of all the entries. The only thing that lets it down is that it’s not as original a concept as some of the others. Still a simple idea really well executed – a very close second for me

ColdRolled: The design of this looks a bit confusing; it wasn’t really obvious what it was at first glance. Strong modeling though, the texture could use some work to make the individual elements tie together better and even a quick CrazyBump normal map would really have helped the brick work

Murloc: Again I like the concept and I can easily imagine this in an RTS game. Can’t fault the modelling but I felt that there was a lot more variation to get out of the texture

AchmedtheSnake: Another original idea. The thing that stood out for me on this one was the personality. It was a building but it had some cheeky character to it. The little orb reminded me of wizball, which is always going to get you points 

Pruvaloo: I like the idea for this one and the little details like the rails and the slag heaps. I just think that the subject matter didn’t give you much room to play with the textures. As a result it doesn’t really pop out as a competition winner for me but a solid all round entry.

Laughing_bun: In pure modelling terms this was the strongest of the lot for me. I wouldn’t even think of attempting that many complex shapes with only 1500tris but you pulled it off perfectly. It’s a real shame you ran out of time though or this would have been challenging for the win


Addi: A nice idea with the western theme but a ton of wasted geometry on the little details meant that the actual building looked quite plain. The spokes on the wheels eat up a lot of your precious polys which could have been saved by using alphas, and a lot of the building detals could have been handled with normal maps.


UnsteadyTeddy: Another cool idea but it looks kinda sparse at the distance it is shown in the presentation, I would have bunched it up more and presented it much closer to camera. The texture could have used a lot more detailing too, especially the blue roof


Reeke: A really original idea, very Gieger-esque with the ribcage look to it. The normal map is very strong but the texture looks a little bit wobbly in places

Kinten: Again the style is right up my alley and I love the idea of the water wheel, which really gives the building a sense of purpose. The base model is very nicely done too but I can’t believe the amount of wasted texture space. I don’t see what you gain by having the wooden beams in their own UV space? That’s what really brought this one down and made the texture in the final presentation look very low res and blurry

Originally Posted by Andrei313

flam: The concept is pretty interesting. I don't think I have any crits as far as the model goes, everything looks just right. The textures is also well made, although I find it a little too dark. My only big crit is about the UVs, you could have made this a lot more detailed if you organized everything a little better. For a structure that is this repetitive I would have used a lot more tillable textures. Not sure what I should give for the final presentation... all the hard work comes together in that 1 image and it looks good

Yin: I really like the concept on this one. The model is well executed, the texture feels like it could have used a little more work but it's still very very good and the final presentation is ok. The normal map is not really showing so I think the week spot of this entry is the texture.

DaveW: I don't know why but I like how you used the UV space in this, the textures look really detailed. I like the use of polygons, and how you added the windows, very effective. The concept isn't that impressive though. I guess it fits well with the theme but it's just... a building. As for presentation, the background wasn't very inspired... the scale is off. Yin made something similar but be made it a little smaller. You have to love cgtextures.com

Tiros:Y ou all know that I like Tiros but you have to agree that this is one of the best entries I still hate the roof but as someone mentioned it makes it stand out as an important item in the game so that should be a plus. There are some tris used in places that are too small to be seen and the normal feels a little "fake" but those are really minor things. The building has a lot of personality even if it's just a little house, it looks used... it gives the impression that someone lives there. Great entry!

ColdRolled: Your concept is pretty strange but just because I don't understand it... it doesn't mean it's not cool The problem with this is that you wanted to add a lot of round small shapes. With the small polycount some things just can't work. The texture is really blurry and you have a lot of space with that very small brick texture... a better way could have been used to make this. The final presentation goes well with the model, the ground is blurry as well Sorry for the low score, don't let this stop you from trying harder.

Murloc: Everything looks good with this entry I especially like the presentation, it fits nicely with the theme. Some minor quick crits: the texture is a little too green and it makes you believe that this is really old... the problem is that the model looks pretty new. You could have used the extra 400tris to give it a little damage... time does that to a building The rest of the texture sheets look fast generated from the diffuse... but they do the work so that's a minor complaint Overall I like it.

achmedthesnake: Great concept. You're one of the few that spent some time to come up with something original. The model is well executed, the texture is clean - maybe too clean - and the presentation is ok.

pruvaloo: My first reaction is to compare this with DaveW's entry. You concept is a little more interesting, there's a lot going on there and that's cool. The use of texture space and the detail on the texture is not that great though You have a better presentation too. So I guess the concept and presentation gives you that +0.1. Nice overall work.

laughing_bun: Impressive model. I could say that the concept is interesting... although I think it's the scale that makes me think that I guess it's a great use of repetitive shapes. Good overall model, bad use of texture space (what's with the repeating arcades at the bottom?) Overall looks unfinished but it does enough to make it look ok. The final presentation is a little unorganized and unbalanced.

Addi: Cute idea, good model, basic texture, decent presentation - that's the short version It has a cartoon feel about it... I would have taken this a little further. I guess you didn't have any time left to work more on the texture, but you had the same time that the others did... and you're competing with them

UnsteadyTeddy: I see you like the sharpen filter There aren't a lot of good things to say about this entry... so keep practicing and I will some day You made an entry... that's something.

reeke: Good organic modeling with this lowpoly count. The concept looks cool, even if I'm not really into this kind of stuff :S I like the textures, especially the first one (the second one is a little rushed) and the normal map looks very good as well. I think it's the only entry that really takes advantage of a normal map.

kinten: Good... start You got the modeling part well... although I disagree with some part.The UVs feel pretty messy so I can't really crit the texture... since it's hard to see. The final presentation shows a decent model though. The concept is pretty interesting. I don't think I have any crits as far as the model goes, everything looks just right. The textures is also well made, although I find it a little too dark. My only big crit is about the UVs, you could have made this a lot more detailed if you organized everything a little better. For a structure that is this repetitive I would have used a lot more tillable textures. Not sure what I should give for the final presentation... all the hard work comes together in that 1 image and it looks good

Originally Posted by doylle

Flam: Lovely piece. Looks very nice overal, although the texture is a bit blurry, which pulls the quality down somewhat.

Yin: Awsome. One of my favorite submissions. Great concept which was wonderfull executed. I love how the specular turned out, great job.

DaveW: You clearly modeled with the eye on clever texture use. Although you almost have 500 tris left, you could have added more detail. And i'm realy missing a specular map here, i'm clueless why there isn't one…

Tiros: Great building. Clean wire, great map, nice presentation. No more crits

ColdRolled: Hmm, i think both model and texture need improvement. For future models, keep in mind that what you model will need a texture. If your model doesn't tell the story, then the texture must. You spend more than a third of your triangles on those hovering rings, but in the end they are not that great, and it probably was a better idea to spend them on something else...

Murloc: Model and texture look quite alright. It's definitly not the most original piece imo, but the model and texture make up for it. With almost 500 tris left i do think that you could have add something interesting. Vegetation would be my first choise...

AchmedtheSnake: I like the concept. It's beyond the normal . I like the clean style you used, but a propper specular map could have made it look so much better imo. Maybe a little more material definition to. We all know it's probably metal, but it might as wel be synthetic

Pruvaloo: Big scene! There's alot of stuff there for 1500 tris and two 512 maps. Texture looks alright, but personaly i would have spend more tris on the buildings, rather than adding them to assets in the scene, because now you have alot of noise going on, which isn't realy defining the material.

Laughing_bun: Nice work. I realy like the style you're going for. To bad you couldn't add small details or anything, it's realy missing that imo. But a nice piece al around.

Addi: I'm a little disappointed here. You only used half of the allowe texuture space… It could have been so much nicer with windows and some wear and tear on the right place.

UnsteadyTeddy: Concept and model are quite alright, but the texture realy ruined it imo. The sharpen filter on #2 is just to much… Also, i'm having a difficult time finding all your textures on those two sheets. Where did the ground texture go?


Reeke: Great concpet. Model and texture look very nice. I do think that you could have cleaned up the lowpoly mesh somewhat, save some tris here and there and add something extra. Although this is probably nitpicking…


Kinten: All together an ok piece. Modeling is ok for the biggest part, although there are some places where you could have saved alot of tris. (like the rock in front of the big wheel, looks very expensive. Also, instead of unwrapping all the wooden beams it might have been better to reuse a smaller piece of woodtexture. would have saved alot of texturespace...

[ZASkaggs]

Lots of quality entries. I'm kind of surprised AchmedtheSnake didn't make the top three though. Can't wait for the next comp, maybe I'll finish an entry next time.

[chris89]

Grats to everybody it was fun to see al the good quality models.
Now lets get on to the next one!

[ColdRolled]

congrats to everyone for entering! it was a good learning experience for me and i'm looking forward to the next competition!

[Glicerart]

Congrats for the three 'winners'. Great entries .

[Tiros]

Seems some people still dislike my roof. But, I tried so many colours and different types of tiles. So thi just had to do.

And yes, I guess the normals were a bite "fake". I'm sure to try creating a better normal for my next model by painting a height map though. Now that I finally got th Nvidia plug-in for photoshop kickin'.

Anyways, congratulations everyone. Learned a few new things during the creation of this model, also it were a lot of fun. And there's still so much to learn

Cheers

[Yin]

Yay, I got second place
Great compo everyone, looking forward to the next one!

[Fleistad]

Congratulations to the winners!

[achmedthesnake]

congrats tiros, yin and reeke, and thanks to the judges for such quick voting after the forum hiccups...


neeexxxt comp!!!!!

[laughing_bun]

good job everybody Tiros entry definatly stood above the crowd. And i love your roof!

Imma try and finish mine sometime. all the work i put into is kind of a waste with an end result like that. I appreciate my Crits.