Steppenwolf

I enjoyed FO3 a lot more then NV so no.

I enjoyed FO3 a lot more then NV so no.

Portfolio is king. This time of year portfolios of graduates pop up on places like polycount. It's often abysmal what's on there after 4 years of study.
I would only consider spending so much time and going into debt over it if the school is known to produce kickass artists/designers. So if you want to go the study route check portfolios and projects of students who went there. Otherwise your degree is worth squat when you have a portfolio by the end of it that is subpar. You would be way better off to continue with your regular job and work on some indie games/self educate in your free time.
 
As for your other questions. Be a bit more specific. What exactly do you want to do? Environment art, levels, concept art, characters, coding? I can give you some pointers but more information is needed.

Portfolio is king. This time of year portfolios of graduates pop up on places like polycount. It's often abysmal what's on there after 4 years of study.
I would only consider spending so much time and going into debt over it if the school is known to produce kickass artists/designers. So if you want to go the study route check portfolios and projects of students who went there. Otherwise your degree is worth squat when you have a portfolio by the end of it that is subpar. You would be way better off to continue with your regular job and work on some indie games/self educate in your free time.
 
As for your other questions. Be a bit more specific. What exactly do you want to do? Environment art, levels, concept art, characters, coding? I can give you some pointers but more information is needed.

Super awesome! You guys are legends!
If ther's one minor crit that i have it's that the lighting is too evenly distributed. Could use some shadow areas at the back and ceiling for more visual depth and better readability.
 
edit: crappy ps of what i'm talking about.
 

Super awesome! You guys are legends!
If ther's one minor crit that i have it's that the lighting is too evenly distributed. Could use some shadow areas at the back and ceiling for more visual depth and better readability.
 
edit: crappy ps of what i'm talking about.
 

Super awesome! You guys are legends!
If ther's one minor crit that i have it's that the lighting is too evenly distributed. Could use some shadow areas at the back and ceiling for more visual depth and better readability.
 
edit: crappy ps of what i'm talking about.
 

Super awesome! You guys are legends!
If ther's one minor crit that i have it's that the lighting is too evenly distributed. Could use some shadow areas at the back and ceiling for more visual depth and better readability.
 
edit: crappy ps of what i'm talking about.
 

Super awesome! You guys are legends!
If ther's one minor crit that i have it's that the lighting is too evenly distributed. Could use some shadow areas at the back and ceiling for more visual depth and better readability.
 
edit: crappy ps of what i'm talking about.
 

Super awesome! You guys are legends!
If ther's one minor crit that i have it's that the lighting is too evenly distributed. Could use some shadow areas at the back and ceiling for more visual depth and better readability.
 
edit: crappy ps of what i'm talking about.
 

Hello Folks,
 
I've been interested in doing handpainted stuff ever since I started getting hooked on the Blizzard art style.
I found this great tutorial by Tyson Murphy. the result can be seen below.


When I completed this I took my World of Warcraft Collectors edition art books and scoured for some usable concepts. I found one at the start of the Lich Kings art book and modelled it after the concept.
Results below.
 

 
Comments and crits very welcome!

Was struggling with the mat editor tonight, unfortunatly I dont think there's a way to enable RT reflections on glass, so I had to do some trickery, bake a cubemap, etc to get this working.
 
Added a very soft wobly normal map (needs work still), and the usual glow map, looks much better when looking around but there's a very quick shot from my plane test, can't wait to start using these properly in monitors and such.
 

 
Watching Enders Game was a really good inspiration last night, I wanted to get a similar look to the hologram monitors they have.
 

Your edges look super hard. Loosen up the support loops where possible. Will give you a nicer normal map.

Hey guys,
 
About a month ago me and PhilipK decided to do a little collab for Unearthly Challenge, any excuse to make good art is a good excuse. Unfortunatly there's not a lot of entries this year, but we'll still finish it of course, we're having loads of fun!
 
So the idea is here is that Humans have colonized this planetoid and are in the process of creating an atmosphere similar to planet earth by using an atmosphere processing station. The air outside is not 100% breathable yet, but it already allows for the growth of vegetation.The whole point of this facility is to create an atmosphere, so we want to push for strong elements of O2, water and greenery!
The scene will be set inside one of the outer rooms of the station, more specifically inside one of the big control room, featuring a gigantic window with a beautiful view to the outside world, which from that angle you'll be able to see the other end of the complex, natural terrain and the sky.   We want to make use of bold colors and staying away from the same old desaturated look you typically see in sci-fi, we're also set on staying away from gritty/scary as much as possible and instead try and make the space seem like it's livable and looking almost inviting.   I started out with a concept to get the idea of the visual language we would be going for, I'm taking very strong inspiration from Doom 3 and Halo 4.     But then we decided let's mix this style with COLORS, almost like mixing a Doom meets Mirror's Edge and have a child, PhilK did this amazing paintover of the blockout:   I started making the modular textures and assets, walls, floors all that shit. Everything on the grid, texture included.   So I can just chop the assets very easily like this, and they all fit together so we can create many variations and maybe expand the level later on.      
  While I was doing that, Phil made an awesome blockout of the scene, using modular pieces already and started modeling the middle main area, which should be the focus of the scene. Needless to say it has that awesome PhilipK style that we love all over the place! >D So, whith that here's our latest WIP pic with all my stuff and phils put together with the new lighting. We have two weeks to wrap this up, still a lot to do but man these next two weeks will be hella fun!       Deffo more to come, stay tuned Hurg people!    
    :::EDIT:::   Adding the final scene to this first post, feel free to check the rest of thread to check out the rest of the WIPs.   Guess we're calling it done now. I'll try and put together that breakdown asap and I'll then need to clean the package and release it for anyone who wants to fly around the scene.   Thanks Mapcore, Polycount, Jordan Walker for releasing his scene and allowing me to properly learn UDK, Quixel team for making nDo2 and dDo tools, and everyone who helped us with feedback! You helped it get much better!  And of course, PhilipK for kicking so much ass, it was an honor to do scene with him, this guy breathes talent!   UC_HP_PhilK_shot1 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot2 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot3 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot4 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot5 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot6 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot7 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_extra_background by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_extra_materials by HelderP, on Flickr  

I'll split it when I'm on my computer.

Going back to the original point though, Sentura was just saying that it'd be cool if a load of super-experienced developers got together with a huge budget and made an indie game. Then someone gave an example of a game kind of like that, and someone else started saying that game isn't really indie... but it did fit Sentura's original point, which is what I was saying.

Obviously I'm aware of the different definitions of indie (as silly as it might be), it's just that the point that was made in the first place made it quite clear which one was meant. Unless you're trying to say that above a certain team size/budget you can no longer be considered indie, in which case I guess Sentura's scenario is impossible.

On a personal note though, it delights me to see dens of creativity like Double Fine and the Star Citizen guys controlling their own destiny and making the games they want to. They're the ultimate indie success stories to aspire to IMO and I hope it becomes much more common that developers answer to themselves and their fans.

Unless the reviews are shite then I'll pretend like I knew it was going to stink all along..

This isn't so much a critique of capitalism on my part. That would be silly since i work for a living aswell in this industry.
But i mentioned a broken window fallacy earlier in this thread. And that's what it boils down to imo. People don't buy fewer sophisticated games because they prefer dumbed down games but because there are fewer sophisticated games and more and more dumbed down games. At least in the AAA sector. Case in point are the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises. The first games were great then the second games got dumbed down and the devs got a lot of shit for that. You can't explain that with a "new generation of players" since it happend within the same generation.
 
As far as hollywood goes you're right they not only produce superhero blockbusters but i also remember seeing a stat how the number of new ip's and movies with artistic merrits has gone down and down since the 1970's and how it got really bad over the last couple years. So i'm not really sharing your optimism that games industry will move in the opposite direction.
 
The only things that keeps me positive in that regard is that with new technology like the Rift on the horizon and indie games getting more market share the trend will be slowed down or come to a halt.

Small as fuck levels, very long loading times, terrible body awareness, lack of difficulty, the city hubs were a good idea but with an atrocious implementation, the economy was useless and made the player way too powerful/made the game way too easy, no rope arrows, horrendous in-game cutscenes and no swimable water. The only improvements were in the audio department (but Eric Brosius is a god, so), the addition of dynamic lighting, the art direction and the story.

fov mimimi. boring mimimi. God damn console kids.
 
On a serious note. It was always what made Thief Thief that most direct encounters with enemies would end with ones dead. If it end up like Dishonored where you can basicly play it as fps then it's not Thief anymore imo.

Hell yeah! Oculous like porn right in my bedroom!

Slow but steady progress on my scene :
 

 
edit:
 
brought back some of the colors and put some more shit in it.