The House of FogHat FineBean ( new update pg2 )

Neutron · Sun 17/04/2005 22:08:48

this is the potion makers house.Ã,Â i know it's kind of dark, but it's supposed to be a bit dark.

Stefano · Sun 17/04/2005 22:48:40

I do not think is dark. I think is great!

Two things bothered me, though:

the trees texture look like rock... it can be gray, but it should have a more vertical aspect, like in this examples:
what is creating the white glow above the door?? Maybe if there was a lantern, or a magic source of light, like a glass orb...

Neutron · Sun 17/04/2005 22:52:55

hm, i think you're right. i'll make a new bark texture.

Neutron · Sun 17/04/2005 23:51:45

ok, i think this bark works ok,... i gave it a stronger suggestion of a lightbulb as well. changed the levels slightly too.

Vince Twelve · Mon 18/04/2005 03:04:56

The new version looks much better, though I think the bark could still use a bit more of the vertical lines.

Also, I would give the base of the house a different color to make it contrast the background a bit more.

I would also like to see some more bushes or vegetation stretching along that back. Anything that gives a visual indication that I can't exit to the north (unless I can... in which case it needs more visual indication that I CAN) so I won't waste my time walking around up there or run into an invisible wall.

Really looking forward to this project. Looks amazing.

Gregjazz · Mon 18/04/2005 07:04:55

Quote from: Neutron on Sun 17/04/2005 23:51:45
ok, i think this bark works ok,... i gave it a stronger suggestion of a lightbulb as well. changed the levels slightly too.

Time to add some roots to those trees! Also, what if you made the top of the mushroom house lopsided to give it more character? Like have it bent sideways and kinda tapered, so it's bigger on one side. Also, what if you had a little dirt path that goes to the door? Also try turning down the brightness of the light above the door -- it attracts too much attention, IMO.

Neutron · Mon 18/04/2005 18:17:21

i left them smooth on purpose. note that not all trees have defined roots at the base. especially coniferous trees tend not to. lots of things i could do to this pic, really, but the real beauty of this pic, is that i did it in less than a day, and i can move on to the next thing. in this case making the character for foghat finebean. btw, there will be exits off all sides in this screen.

Neutron · Mon 18/04/2005 18:47:41

here's my sketch for foghat finebean. he will probably take a couple days to make, but with luck i'll finish him today.

Ubel · Mon 18/04/2005 19:29:13

That's just great man! Just great! I love it. Wonderful!

I especially like the way you've made the hat.

Totally waiting for the game!

Neutron · Mon 18/04/2005 21:34:29

thanks. here's another update. i guess i will finish him today. still i need to rig/animate him. i think i will portray him gardening in the herb patch.

Alias · Mon 18/04/2005 21:54:26

Quote from: Neutron on Mon 18/04/2005 21:34:29
thanks. here's another update. i guess i will finish him today. still i need to rig/animate him. i think i will portray him gardening in the herb patch.

What program do you use to model you're characters? You seem to do them extremely well, I've tried it myself and am not good at character modelling.

Neutron · Mon 18/04/2005 22:36:19

use blender or wings. both free, both good modelling programs. 3dsMax and lightwave are good, but expensive. z-brush is good too, but is also expensive. it has a unique approach to making models though, which some people find more suitable, and is especially good for high poly stuff and bump mapping.

Neutron · Tue 19/04/2005 01:28:53

rigged him and rendered his normal view>>

i don't think he'll need to walk yet, so i'm going to make a gardening anim

Stefano · Tue 19/04/2005 01:34:37

Ha! This guy soooo fits the house. I imagined he would look like this.

Ever considered giving him a pipe?

Loved your "sketch".

Cheers,
Stefano

stuh505 · Tue 19/04/2005 01:41:59

Your character model is very nicely done. Ã,Â Will the beard be a soft body?

Your scene looks not nearly as good as the character, unfortunately.

The texture on the trees is still looking very much like rock to me. Ã,Â I suggest you use a high amount of sub-pixel displacement, and a much more treelike and striated texture...perhaps more brownish in color.

Your tree models are also quite simple, and I think they would benefit from a few branches.

But most importantly, I think you need to add more vegetation in the forest, it looks very much like a flat infinite ground plane with some pillars coming out of it, and does not give the forest atmosphere!

Finally, please align your camera so that the horizon is horizontal.

Alias,

I can't suggest Max or ZBrush for modelling. Ã,Â While Max is a great program capable of modelling, it's a all purpose program and modelling in it is far more tedious than in dedicated modelling programs. Ã,Â ZBrush is an amazing program, and it is NOT a suitable choice for general purpose modelling...it can be good for organic modelling, but it's primary advantage is the ability to create displacement maps. Ã,Â Having tried Max, Maya, Blender, ZBrush, XSI, Rhino, Silo, Modo, and Wings 3D, my personal preference is Silo, which is cheapest to all but Wings which is free. It's very much like Wings actually.

Neutron · Tue 19/04/2005 01:55:52

you're right, the camera is slightly tilted to one side, but straightening it won't cause the horizon to become straight, since it is not a plane but a displaced grid, and is higher on the left than it is on the right.Ã,Â you're right though, it needs more twigs on the ground, and possibly a couple of bare branches hanging down.Ã,Â I guess i might as well sink some more time into it, since it is a scene that the character will come back to again and again.Ã,Â
<edit> oh, and good call on the pipe. i think i'll work that in later when they go in the house.

stuh505 · Tue 19/04/2005 02:00:45

I know how daunting it is to create all that groundcover and foliage and stuff. You might consider a few options to ease your life, such as 1) getting an app that will make generating trees and bushes etc easier, like XFrog 2) rendering your trees and foliage separately so that you can composite tons of them into one image in Photoshop without suffering through hours of rendering time.

Neutron · Tue 19/04/2005 02:04:18

no worries, i've done highly vegetated scenes before. the trick to not having a sluggish scene that is full of tons of vertices is to render the background in layers, and then, instead of having 50 high poly plants in your scene you have just a few in the foreground. those sunflowers alone are packed with polys.

Neutron · Tue 19/04/2005 04:29:08

ok i added some stuff,...how's this,...

stuh505 · Tue 19/04/2005 06:50:55

Ok, a little better...you've got 6 or 7 plants...how about 300? It just looks so darn empty back there. And still, that bark doesnt look anything like a tree.

heres a quick little photoshop jobby to show you slightly closer to how im imagining it...instead of pasting a bunch of individual plants i used some parts of a forest image for a faster edit