deceiver - 3D Sketchbook Thread

I'm gonna steal your idea HP =P...well others have probably done it, but whatever, I saw yours first !

So yeah, this will be my sketchbook thread and I'll post any WIP shots and eventually final ones of 3D models I'm currently doing. Would love to get everyone's feedback on anything!

Today, I just started texturing the models I've done for my demo reel in the last month. I'm starting by this house, this is just the base clean texture, still need to dirty up the rock and such (windows and such are done though). All the nice details and complete texture should be done by tomorrow if all goes well:

Arrr, didn't manage to finish roof and electric meter today, but here's how it's looking so far:

[Blocked Image: http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/2609/houser.th.jpg]

Here's the wire for the chair as well, was kinda a bitch to model since everything had to be connected together, but I got through it eventually. Almost scrapped it and restarted at one point cause wasn't too happy with it.

[Blocked Image: http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/8145/chaira.th.jpg]

Yeah, I was a little too conservative on the polycount as this was one of the first models I started with and was thinking most of the detail would go through the normal map. I've been trying to keep "game-ready assets in mind". How do you think I could improve on the normal map?

farm overview.jpg[/attachment]

Finished the texture today:

[Blocked Image: http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/2153/housefinal.png]

Onto another building, probably the barn or grain elevator you see in the shot.

Yeah, I reduced the glossiness in the spec map. Per my ref, the whiter bricks were a tad glossy, but looks off, so took it out. Wasn't too sure about the roof, but that kinda confirms it. I'll see if I'll need to desaturate it a bit after I do the lighting for the scene today.

I'm a bit in a dilemma for the grass in my farm. Don't know if I should go with a greener version or a yellower one. The greener version is more visually interesting (I think) as it creates a better contrast with most of the models whereas the yellower one makes more sense (since it's kinda abandoned and noone takes care of it), but has less of a nice contrast with most of the things. Given that I'll be adding dead crops in the background in the field you see which will be yellower, I'm leaning toward to greener version of the grass so they don't blend too much together, but there's still this nagging feeling of using the yellower one because it makes more sense =S. What do you guys make of it:

EDIT

Currently trying to overlay the two green and yellow variants and see how that goes. The mix of the two is the last pic.

EDIT2

After some more tweaking, added a some variation of green in yellow on the grass plane texture itself and changed up ground texture and arrived at the last pic, think I'll keep this for now (I'll probably change my mind again at some point =P). Newer one is the first pic:

Don't you find it kills the contrast a bit between everything though?

Nearing the final render for the school demo scene. Here's the test render with composited layers:

[Blocked Image: http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/8020/0763251postprodrendutes.png]

Still a couple of issues to sort out with the render layers. Realised that I'll have to separate transparent parts and such.

Whatcha think guys?

Yeah, I reduced the normal map on the blue building, haven't on the red one though. Toned down normal map on ground as well...wayy too strong. Yeah, I changed up the anims on the turbines so they're not in the same position.

Rendering a scene with a bunch of stuff in transparency + render layers = a bitch.

The fence and scarecrow doesn't do the job for foreground elements?