3d bg

[Buckethead]

hey,

after messing around some time I discided I'm gonna make a FP 3d game. I made this first BG and was wondering if I made a good start. I don't think it needs that much critics but if you still have something to comment, be my guest.

[Tuomas]

Wow. Looks awesome. can't say more, let the others do the crits.

[Ali]

This image looks a lot of fun, but I would make a few observations.

The camera should be lower for a first person view, unless the player character is very very tall.

Ther is a noteable distortion on the sky and moon. Better results could be achieved by mapping the sky to a flat plane in the background, or by using a much larger texture for the sky.

The tree image looks suited to a winter environment, to the extent that I saw those stars as snowflakes, however your image is full of warm colours. Experiment with tinting the texture red, orange or even purple, and use smaller less blotchy points of light for stars.

[MrColossal]

Is this the Unreal Engine?

I recommend a lot of photoshoppery.



See these images of paths... Especially the one on the right. It's all broken up and there are weeds growing up from the stones and around the sides of it.

Google Image search images of castles. The castle you have now is a castle by the barest sense. It's blocky with some stones on the top to make the jagged "castley" look.



Now that's an interesting castle! It's so huge and imposing. Walking between those two huge towers on either side of the door would be pretty frightening. There are decorations on the top that add interest and we can tell it's a castle by looking at it but it isn't a cartoon of a castle.

The trees look to be the X style billboard trees of the early to mid 90s 3d game engines and they're not lit. They're full bright textures with no shadow or shading. Take the trees out and add better trees in photoshop or edit the trees you have in photoshop.

There is no shadow on anything. The lamps don't even have a shadow on the ground. The trees cast no shadow on the ground, the castle casts no shadow from the moon, etc.

The scale of the lights in the scene are very huge. Those burning fires are giving off a whole lot of light...



Look how little orange light these fires give off. I'm guessing you placed 2 lights where the fires are and that's it? You're going to have to light your scene with a lot of little lights if you want it to light well. Small lights for the fires, small lights for the windows, light for the moon's reflective light on the earth.

The sky is bad. As Ali said it distorts something terrible. The stars are huge and it's really bright. I'd recommend putting in a full bright magenta skybox and then making your own night sky and dropping it in later in photoshop.

I guess what I'd like you to come away with from this post the most is that you can't do everything in your 3d program. Especially not if it's a game engine. You're going to have to touch stuff up in an image editing program. Everyone does it because it's easier to do many things in 2d with a rendered out image than it is to set up in 3d.

[Buckethead]

thnx for such good and quick responses!! it really helped alot. I just saw my old version back and I went like : "yugh what's that!!?". So here's a better version. You guys gave so many comments that I might have forgotten to follow a few. Plz tell if that's the case.

PS: I never said the building was a castle (sorry for the confusion, I should of said it wasn't). It suppose to be some sort of mansion in the mountains 





Oh and the view can't be from a person because it's taken to high. But I like it this way, does it really matter?

[m0ds]

Nice alterations, but now the path looks like a slab. Can it be made lighter?

[MrColossal]

This image looks much better, though the path is still awkward.

Also, if it's a mansion then get some mansion reference. The way you have it now I can bet that 100% of the people will say "Castle" when asked what it is.

http://www.visitjimthorpe.com/new/images/Harry%20Packer%20Mansion.jpg

http://www.wallpaperbase.com/wallpapers/photography/blithewoodmansion/blithewood_mansion_1.jpg

I also still suggest photoshopping in highlights on the tree branches.

[Neutron]

i don't think the moon should be skewed like that.  i would change the camera lens, or photoshop the moon in afterwards.