Props from a noob to game art

[ScottMichaelH]

I am going to post a few basic props on this thread to get some feedback as to whether or not I'm on the right track. I'm a freelance animator in advertising who wants to be in games as an environment artist. I've been trying to figure out this game art thing in my free time for a while now between work and a second degree. I just put together a new PC which can run Mudbox so I'm finally making a push to get this portfolio of game assets going. This is my start. I'm using 3ds Max 2009 (for these), Maya 2011 (for others), mudbox 2012, UDK, Photoshop.

1. I'm wondering how to best display the objects (background and scene-wise). I've seen single color and grad backgrounds done. Is that a comp in Photoshop or from the editor?

2. Am I right in assuming I should be simply doing a "PrtScn" of the in game look for the final image (that's what I did above)?

3. I'm really struggling with this whole low-poly count thing. Could I have gone higher with those plants? I'm thinking PS3/360. Should I just model things how I know and worry about the count later because it's really just slowing me down worrying about it?

4. Anything else I'm crucially missing let me know. I know these aren't "good"...I'm just getting my feet wet.

[TheChan]

Your models and textures are way too low res. They look like they were made for Half Life 1.

[ScottMichaelH]

I am so glad to hear that. Thanks

[TheGoozah]

Also try to define the materials. Now I can't really say what it is made of.
And indeed, give the texture res a boost.

[RedAppleIvy]

Hey Scott,

1.People usually either display work in a stand alone program like the marmoset toolbag Toolbag | 8monkey Labs which costs a bit of money or an engine like UDK or the Cryengine.

2.Pretty much, you can use the command 'tiledshot 3', by hitting the tab key in UDK which spits out an image 3 times larger than the current play in editor resolution and down size it to get crisper results

3. You could have gone higher with the plants, its tricky to say how detailed something should be I think it's something you slowly learn and it differs from genre to genre. The most important thing is if it affects the silhouette, if you see a segmented 'videogamey' look to the silhouette you need to add more tri's and round everything off. It also helps if you look at other peoples portfolio's and see how they approached things

4. I would try and make some 'realistic' props brick walls, piles of garbage etc anything that exists in the real world as its hard for people to crit something as they just end up looking at the material definition and lose sight of the overall model. If it's something everyone recognises it's much easier for people to suggest improvements

5. Avoid using tools like Crazybump to create specular maps and the like, you will get much better results if you create it by hand in PS

6. Download a program called nDo its a set of actions for photoshop for generating normal maps in photoshop there are some really good set of tutorials here

7.Learn to create subD models in Max, you can create normalmaps in photoshop using the above tool but you will always get the best result baking from actual geometry. Plus the highpoly stuff is often the big draw on peoples sites. Here is a decent video tutorial Once you have mastered both you can jump between the two depending on what you want

8. Ensure the islands in your UV's are kept at a minimum with as little stretching as possible between them. You have lots of separate islands which will make seams more visible and texturing alot harder. Also try experimenting with higher resolution textures then down sampling and sharpening them once complete

Hope this all helps!

[ScottMichaelH]

Here's a wall. The mesh is a plane only. The textures were done at 1024 x 1024 at 1024 resolution. I used the Nvidia filter to generate the normal map from the height map. Was it right to set up the unwrap as I did (keep in mind the plane is twice as long as it is tall)? All thoughts are welcome.

[ScottMichaelH]

Here's the final:

[Solidcrash]

Texture:-

If you plan to use this texture for just this wall, u can use 1024 x 512 to remove an blank black. Keep it power of two.

Or save it for extra modelling and u can reuse this texture for other model.

Both way winner really.

And you use dirt add to wall before make bump map.. It made a hole look like earth damage.. If you want it look dirt and moss... Add dirt after bump map it. So brick will still flow and dirt add on top. Brick look brand new..

[scooba01]

good effort so far.
But there are things you can do right now to make these look better.
Make textures a bit higher res. When i make Textures i make them at a high res like 2048 or 1024 then shrink them down to a reasonable res.
Use photo reference for materials and use parts of photos to make your texture. you need to be able to blend them seamlessly though. have a look around the internet for various techniques.
Also look up Ambient occlusion. it will give your textures more depth and contrast.
Also weathering and grit ie dust dirt mud scrapes scratches wear and tear. Think about where this stuff should go and apply it to the texture. even brand new surfaces have a certain amount of these details.
With the wall texture you can use tiling textures to get better resolution out of a smaller texture and the symbol can be a decal.
Hope this helps you out.

[RedAppleIvy]

Real solid progress so far Just echoing what everyone else has said so far, one way to get a quick occlusion map without baking one out from high poly geo is to copy the blue channel of your normal map into the diffuse then tweak it as necessary