Low poly environments. The Maya journey continues.

[hotnwormy]

I'm still trying to work on Maya. I'd appreciate any and all advice that you folks could give me.

First up is a low poly mall. The idea was to take the mall photo and make it look post-war with the use of textures.
http://www.3dave.com/Maya/mallwlightsnstuff.jpg

The next group is a basement scene.
http://www.3dave.com/Maya/basement.jpg

And finally I am posting the one that I am working on right now and I am looking for any advice that people can offer. I'm going to be adding to this one in the form of garbage, gutters, and such. Oh, and if anyone has a good tutorial or advice on how to make a nice looking puddle in Maya, I would appreciate. I want to add some puddles to my alley.
http://www.3dave.com/alleywip030103.jpg

[John Doe Humpface]

the first, add a mixture of small objects like the second image, the little details like the pots along the stairwell or some of the architectural elements from the photograph broken on the floor. right now it seems a little too sterile/clean, not in the textures but in the symmetry of the geometry. the only angle that really breaks the space is the orange sign in the background.

the second, the one object that really is static is the chair. there is a bunch of attention to the structure of it but not it's aesthetic

the third, the moon is really taking away from your lighting.

nice work on the wall textures in the first two, the bricks in the third need a little attention.

when rendering play with the depth of field a bit more and don't be afraid to really push the lighting

[hotnwormy]

I couldn't agree more about the first one. I left it very "clean" on purpose, because I was trying to keep the poly count as low as possible. I think I will be going back very soon and adding in a bunch of details to make a high and low res version. I will work on that.

As for the second image, I didn't really care for the chair either. I'm going to be tweeking this as well.

Yeah, you aren't the first to comment on the moon in the third image. I was experimenting with color on this one, but it ends up looking like some kind of radioactive moon. Oh well... a lesson learned. At very least, I have now dropped the glow substantially on it, and added a couple of extra lights that are more orange to offset the purple. The final image can be seen here:

http://www.3dave.com/Modeling/alleyfinal.jpg

You are the first person to have a problem with the brick texture in the 3rd, but I would really like to hear your thoughts on it. If you were to change it, what would you do? Are the bricks too clean? Let me know what you don't like about it. In the first two images, I textured the walls, one at a time. In the third, I created a repeating texture. That may be part of the problem.

I will work on depth of field, and lighting. I've only been using Maya for a little over 3 months, so I am still just trying to wrap my brain around a small portion of it. However your feedback was exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks.

[John Doe Humpface]

the moon looks a little better now, if you have the chance, try another style of background, like a late sunset atmosphere. The bricks are too clean, as well as the pathway, make the path texture more of an alleyway look with a lot of dirt, think about what you usually see in an alley way. I like what you started on the light above the door. Think about how the light would bounce around the area. try not to use too many ambient lights if any, they tend to wash out textures and flatten the whole image. check out highend 3d for some downloadable lighting scenarios like the noisy.mll v0.1:: in the plugins section of Maya (rendering and shading) for your lighting inside the room with the desk. really take the time to work the combination of texture and lighting complexity. it helps to add a very very very small amount of glow to everything in the scene. This will give a little more life to it all.

[hotnwormy]

"John,"

Thanks for the great advice. I have put more of it into place in the image here:

http://www.3dave.com/Modeling/alleybettergroundsml.jpg

You can also see in my previous post that I tried one with more of a sunset feel to it, as per your suggestion. I have mixed feelings about the result, but I think that is due, in large part, to my implementation.

Let me know what you think now. I will also work on a new background, and also plan on turning the fence in the back into a true fence, rather than just a plane with a texture mapped on to it.

Thanks again for your help. I wish more people would provide feedback like you have.

:chug:

[John Doe Humpface]

One thing that catches my eye that didn't before is the bright white hotspot by the dumpster, ask yourself where this light is coming from, is it a street light, the light above the door, or the moon? A street light would have more fog to it and more of a defined cone-shape to its light. Also it wouldn't drop dead at the base of the dumpster. If it came from the door the color of the light would falloff rather quickly and probably have a wide diffuse. The moon would cast a overall diffusion to the scene kinda of how you have it but the shadows wouldn't be as sharp as they are now. Remember it's the little seemingly unimportant details that will really sell your lighting. If you get a chance, the broken window is a nice subtlety, yet the reflection of the bricks is hurting it. If it is a dirty window texture it and play with the transparency. Are there lights on inside the building? If so, it might be nice to have a specular highlight on the edges of the broken pieces. Take down the reflectivity a bit. By the way the path is looking real nice. Another thought may be to dent the trash cans so they aren't so clean. Have fun, the more time you spend the better things get.

Have a nice day,
John Doe Humpface