Fantasy Graveyard Mini Scene

Thanks for the comments. I've been wrestling with the lighting for a while, it started off darker but the textures were also brighter so it doesn't look like it's changed much from update to update.

What do you think of this? Hopefully it's got that night time feeling. I would probably use this (or similar) for all of my still and maybe fall back on the original sunset-like lighting for the turntable which I think needs to be brighter to balance out the movement.

[Blocked Image: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/jenno_bing/fantasy_graveyard_scene_frontlighting_wip1.jpg]

Doing it in a games engine is certainly an option, and I hope to eventually do a complete environment in this style in the near future. But I'd need to really get to grips with one to do it justice (Source won't cut the mustard here), I'm only loosely acquainted with UDK and I think Cryengine 3 would be best for the foliage, right now I want something quick and effective for my Portfolio while I apply for jobs.

So I'm going to call this final. Thanks everyone for the input and feedback, it's crazy how much better this looks when I compare it to my first post. I've learnt a lot just working on this small scene, which in the end was what I hoped to do. Now I plan to apply all these new-found skills and insights to a larger project which I will be starting in the near future.

I went back to the sunset lighting because apart from that one shot shown with the night-time lighting, everything else ended up very dark and flat. I didn't want to have that one shot with different lighting mixed in with the rest on my portfolio, so I felt it best to stick to the one sunset theme. I did however improve upon the backdrop, and worked on the lighting so it still has the increased contrast.

[Blocked Image: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/jenno_bing/fantasy_graveyard_scene_zoomfront2.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/jenno_bing/fantasy_graveyard_scene_rearoverview.jpg]

I am going to work on a couple of brief tutorials / workflow write-up style things soon, with the aim of sharing some of what I have learnt whilst working on this project. I'll post them up when they're done.

Cheers guys.

Here's a shot of all the texture maps and their components, aswell as a couple of wire frame shots, the Toolbag doesn't seem to handle occlusion of the wire-frame render too well so they are a bit busy. Every solid asset was baked from a high-poly model, with most of them using sculpts from Mudbox. The foliage was a mix of purely hand painted bits, and parts baked from max using Object Paint to arrange separate hand painted foliage pieces to create texture planes. I also used object paint for the grass and leaf textures. Like I say I hope to go into more detail with an article of sorts. I haven't done anything ground-breakingly-awesome, but at the same time I had a hard time finding similar explanations from other artist and I'd like to give something back for all the help I've got on this.

[Blocked Image: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/jenno_bing/fantasy_graveyard_scene_frontwire_large.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/jenno_bing/fantasy_graveyard_scene_rearwire_large.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/jenno_bing/fantasy_graveyard_scene_textures.jpg]

Here's the first of the articles I have planned. Boy did I underestimate the amount of work these things take to assemble well, makes me respect everyone else who goes through the trouble with their work even more. I started with the grass because it has received some attention, and the majority of search engine hits on my blog are from people looking for painted textures. I'm going to do all the talking first as it's a bit on the epic-big end of the length scale.

So, in short this is exactly how I handled the grass in the scene. With a few refinements that I was able to make going over the process again with the gift of hindsight. In all truth, I'm not sure the crazy camera set-up is completely needed, and I would love to hear from anyone here who may know a quicker, simpler alternative. That being said, once it's set up once you can basically just import that se-tup into any scene you may want to render in a similar fashion. I tweaked this method to also produce the leafy texture used at the back in the forest area. Next I'll probably tackle the foliage in another similar tutorial, and after that a more general walk-through. If anyone want's to know something specific now's the time to say.

There's a sharper HTML version on my portfolio for anyone who can't stand JPEG artefacts

Epic-Picture-Time:

[Blocked Image: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/jenno_bing/hand_painted_grass_tutorial-1.jpg]

And if your scroll wheel has gotten you this far, here's the diffuse textures for the examples

[Blocked Image: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/jenno_bing/examplegrass_diffuse.jpg]

I feel dirty in how I keep bumping this thread weeks apart, this time I can put the blame partly on Skyrim though. I've written another tutorial, this time about my workflow in creating the rose. I picked the rose over all the other foliage as this is much more complex, it's also the next most viewed/searched item on my blog after the textures. I realise it's not quite as unique as the grass texture was perhaps, but hopefully some of you may find it of use.

As with the last one, here is a link for those who want to forgo the jpeg artefacts.

And here is another epic-long picture.

[Blocked Image: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/jenno_bing/climbing_rose_tutorial.jpg]