Urban American City Block

[capone_adam]

Would love any feedback on this, going to spend another week polishing it. General stuff I'm working on is

1 - Breaking up the floor into different areas. More divided. Signs on floor for the car park at the back.

2 - More work with windows and doors

3 - Cutting more into the buildings, breaking them up such as brick patterns on the sides or around windows.

4 - More wear and tear, didn't have time to go in and make buildings less straight and perfect. Taking chips out of walls in the geometry etc.

5 - More 'life' with more dirt alphas and more stickers/shop signs etc

6 - Want to Map UV2 to have it's own colour mask. Quite a few engines I have worked with allow this technique and it's great for breaking up tileable areas.

7 - Extra props (streetlamps, benches, bins etc)

[deceiver]

Looking real good capone! At a quick first glance, one thing I'd say is off is the green grime between the sidewalk and the main building? There's not really any vegetation or anything to warrant it. I'd opt for something more brownish dirt and such. Would be cool to see some of your texture maps!

[-HP-]

That's really nice. Reading that list pretty much covers most stuff that comes to mind when thinking "what's missing here".

Also, post some wires. And how many textures are you using?

[capone_adam]

Thanks for the feedback! Here are some wires, changed a few things since this shot, mainly expanded the carpark/block at the back (the area with the ramp on bottom image) because when I started to think about it cars would find it difficult to park in there as it's too tight

Here is the dirt alpha that I'm using that you mention on the sidewalk in front of the main building. It's a floating plane and I use this all over the scene. I'm currently making a UV2 colour map so may not need them in the end. Not sure what makes you think it's green, it's mainly brown dirt but I do have a hint of green in there. I agree there is something not quite right about it though just can't figure out what it is, as you say it seems unnatural.

edit : actually, looking at it again, this alpha texture is more green than I remembered it!

[Falc]

Thats a nice one! You could add some more variation on the brick textures and on the railing.

[ShockaPop]

I like what I see. I just can't understand how you guys keep on grid. My 3DS Max just goes off grid all the time and thus I have been having hardtime learning the program when I have used Hammer with awesome grid snapping.

[Bunglo]

Max's grid is pretty finicky, the more you zoom in, the more accurate it'll be.

[DysPatch]

I like what I see. I just can't understand how you guys keep on grid. My 3DS Max just goes off grid all the time and thus I have been having hardtime learning the program when I have used Hammer with awesome grid snapping.

I know exactly what you mean. Coming from Hammer, I expect everything to snap perfectly.

[Nurb]

I think it looks great capone. The one thing I miss the most is the extra props - small stuff to give a better sense of scale, but you are allready on top of that as you listed. If there is one specific area that I think could use an extra bit of love it is the roof of the big white building. It comes across as very massive and plain for it's level of detail. Consider modelling out some of the details there.

[mjens]

What's about the scale and proportions? The fence is a bit small, there's a garage but it's hard to go there with a big car...

[capone_adam]

Nearly there. Next is the colour map, I've set it all up in UV2 and done tests and it's really working well. This is really going to help make everything feel more unique and hide the tiling. Then the final step will be to go in and adjust geometry to be more natural and create light damage.

[Minos]

I think you should definitely put this on UDK or other engine and take some real time shots to have a better sense of how the final product is going to look like.

I like where this is going, keep it up!

[capone_adam]

Finished. For everything you can visit http://www.caponeart.com/urban.htm

[Pomperi]

Hey Adam, this turned out great. Personally I'd probably add a few more polies here and there to break up the perfect straight edges to make it look more natural. Most of todays engines can handle a lot more polies than that, but I guess it comes down to how you intend to use your scene. Also, some texture flats would be cool Especially like your beige brick texture.

Btw, we still need to grab that beer

[capone_adam]

Hey P, totally neeeeed to go and have a beer with you soon. Just not stopped since leaving the studio, either been out of Cambridge or going insane in my bedroom working all the hours on various projects. Am actually going to York for 7-10 days tomorrow just to chill out a bit and get away from my workstation.

Here is a flat of some of the textures I did,