Dead Forest Hermit Treehouse...thing

[nec9]

Haha, don't know what else to call it...those were the first words that popped into my head to describe this scene :lucky:

This is basically a project for a class in Background Design and Layout and probably going to be turning out to be one of my better pieces...but I thought I'd post it up on here to get some real crits and to possibly make it that much better VS the other peeps in the class :D

Things to note: Still need to unwrap/texture some stuff; going to add more nitty gritty detail in later (such as twigs, fallen branches, dead leaves on the deck) as well as some alpha maps for the ground and trees for moss and vegetation; also going to add some supportive geometry around the bottom of the treehouse to show that it's not just magically floating on the trees :approve: ; and a lot of the grainy detail on the textures will be nulled out in post when I get done with the lighting set-up as well.

Setting all that aside, have at it! Looking for crits, comments, suggestions!

http://www.postimage.org/PqAjAuA.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=PqAjAuA)

[zachlantow]

I agree that it's one of your better pieces, but there are some places that could use work. The polycount seems awfully high for what is being shown in the scene; is there any other detail that we cannot see from this angle? If its intended to be a static shot from this angle (probably not considering the design/layout aspect of the class), I would reccommend removing a lot of detail that is hidden on the other side of the treehouse etc. The texturing is comming along nicely, the attention to detail of the trees that are close to he camera gives an immediate sense of understanding to the scene. Please keep us updated, and I'm sure some of us would love to see a wireframe so we can tell you a bit more about what needs tweaking.
That being said, I love the design of the scene. It remdinds me a lot of that tree village in everquest 1, mixed with some hobbits or something :)

[free-willy]

very nice feel to the scene,but those textures look way to noisy when seen at anything other than close up.

[Rick Stirling]

I'd like to see it really integrating with the tres themselves - wrapping arond the trunks, using the branches as support platforms and as suspension platforms.

Those Ewoks did get some things right.

[nec9]

zachlantow: Thanks! and yeah the polycount is getting up there, and thats mostly to do with the trees. There are a lot of trees off the scene that you will not see... but even though this project is more for the "scene" layout, I intend to give it more detail and depth in the future so I figured having some extra stuff in there wouldn't hurt. Though I tend to keep my scenes as optimized as possible, in terms of polycount (with game making in mind), there really is no limit set by the instructor for this particular project so I have been a little more lax than usual about it. But I will definitely post some wires up soon as well as some different angles.

free-willy: Yeah I totally agree. Even though this is just a viewport screengrab I think I should probably lower the contrast on some of the textures. I do intend to smooth everything out in post once I get my lighting set up properly and have time to play around with some DoF effects and light glow.

Rick: That's an awesome idea. Initially I was just going to put mass amounts of 2x4s under the deck attaching themselves in all sorts of weird ways with like moss and other vegetation hanging down as well, but I think I will end up adding some more relationship between the tree itself and how it could possibly hold up the house on its own.

Keep those crits coming, I'm going to be posting some more screens up soon and possibly a WiP render with a bit of lighting :D

[nec9]

here's a wire on the house, more to come later

http://www.postimage.org/aVQDanS.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aVQDanS)

[nec9]

and here is an early lighting render...VERY early lighting, still not sure if this is how i want it to look

http://www.postimage.org/aVQDfn9.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aVQDfn9)

[Matroskin]

cool idea nec9, you can get realy interesting effects in ur forest, like light beams passing through tree tops, nice projected shadow effect on the ground...
Since u got bunch of dead leaves on the ground, I suggest adding some on roof top and balcony.
I think it also might be nice to add a gap between tree trunk and a floor. Kinda planks that r cut in a diferent manner to wrap around the trunk but never in a perfect way ;)

Look forward seing more updates!

[nec9]

sorry for the delayed update, but here ye go :inocent: , not quite finished yet, still want to add a lot of minor detail and still trying to get it into unreal 3 (need to resize all of my textures and re-tile them :brick: ), turning this in right now but i definitely plan to keep working on it and will keep posting progress :approve:

http://www.postimage.org/PqZiZzi.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=PqZiZzi)