Roadside Inn

This is another scene I'm working on along with my Hero's Tomb. I want this to be stylized handpainted texture. A lot of things was changed from texture, models, and presentation. This is currently in Maya. I might put this either in UDK or Unity. Only color map will be used, and alpha map for foliages. I don't want to exceed a 2048 texture set. I can still optimize my texture by compiling my tileable texture to one file, like what I was doing before. Only recently that I learned how to add color and connect a channel to a material in Maya. Right now, the polycount is about 13500 or more.

Hero's Tomb

I enjoy looking at architectures, from their ornaments, the geometry, to the structure. If only I have an architectural background. It might help me with my projects.

For this project, I want to tackle Gothic architecture. I was overcome with obstacles, such as modeling techniques and knowledge of their design. Using Maya, 3ds Max, Photoshop, and Zbrush, I wanted to be able to create their tracery.
I used 3ds Max to create the trefoil and quatrefoil using the Symmetry modifier. Despite the seemingly ordinary design, It took awhile since I was experimenting with boolean. I was using just the Line tool when I could have used the Torus or the Cylinder primitive.
I wanted to take it further and have some traceries on the side of the quatrefoil that's bound in a square. For me, this is where things got tricky real fast. They have some overlapping edges, negative spaces in between, their geometry requires some knowledge of their construction, and just where to start.
Even now, I still can't get the results I need. I used the programs I listed above, but I still can't model the traceries. The topology is just not working. There were a lot of geo to clean up. I used Photoshop to generate quick normal map. It worked in some way but I wanted to create an Ambient Occlusion and baking it in Maya is slow, but the results are worth it. Dark Souls did it well, especially in Anor Londo. Their traceries are beautiful. I saw the models in Turbosquid and they are awesome. Of course, David Lesperance's sculpting are truly to be behold.
 I reused some of the models to save time. I also plan to reuse my textures. 

My porfolio book for this environment

Things added: emissive on the walls. Played with post process. Tweaked ao settings, tone mapper, minor bloom and bur to add some "feel" to it. It got darker since i deleted couple of point lights but i'll bring them back.

Water shader

With the help from 3d motive's tutorial, i expanded it with using of course alpha clusters and manual panner to control the speed and direction of the water movement

Simple water mat

Many thanks to 3d motive's water tutorial. Though i still had to implement a lot of stuffs regarding clustered textures

Minnie Spec

Added some spec

Minor tweak on normal map cluster

Rather than using the component mask, since I'm getting error when I include the alpha channel, I just used the Switch node so i can choose which normal i'm using. My instructions almost doubled

Same shader network, but I deleted the original normal map network. This is using the derive normal z.

A shader using alpha clusters for the diffuse. I'll change this so that i'm using derivenormalx rather than having these normal maps on their owm texture file. Most of these are parameters so that i can have more control on my material instances.

The ceiling is just a 512*512 black and white image, no alpha. I just used an existing texture to add... texture.

1. I'll bake out the patterns in order to make my trim set in my level.
2. The hilt of my sword. I might just apply a metal scratch texture rather than sculpting it
3. One of the cap for my columns. I use zsphere and just drew on my mesh. Still needs to be refined

And more stuffs

More stuffs

My second environment. Never expected applying tiles to be difficult in objects that tapers. The objects that has a corner was also challenging, depending what the texture is

Just worked on more assets for my first env. I first made tileable textures and reuse them for most of my assets. No grunge yet. I'll do it probably once I finish texturing everything. Still needs more work of course.

Please ignore the ugly texture. I just needed textures real quick to test my udk mat. So, I was thinking, rather than creating multiple unique texture maps for my objects, why not use the same tileable textures for objects with the same material: wood, metal, etc. This will save me a lot in terms of texture budget. I have map that depending which channel you connect it to upon Lerping, the textures will only appear on the area. Cons: I find that I'm using more polys to align my uvs based on my texture. It seems flat, especially on a wall surface. There should be a contour or sort on the edges that lets you know it is its own area (marked by the red line). I might have to use an AO maybe? Or just darken the edges in photoshop. Pros: Saves a lot of texture map. I can control the tiling much better. Reusable for other objects

Just did more uving on my assets. I also redid some of my models based on the feedback. I really don't like the tongue.