Polycount Monthly Noob Environment Challenge (July 2014) - Blog Update #1

I've decided to do this months Polycount noob challenge in a bid to improve my environment art. My end goal is to become an environment artist so this fits rather nicely. I've done environments in the past but looking back I've not been entirely pleased with them.

My goals for this challenge are to...

• Get better at planning!
• Work with PBR textures.
• Work with modular textures.

The first thing I did was break down the concept art provided into it's various elements to figure out what I would actually need to build to construct this scene. 

Normally from here I would have went straight into an in engine block out. But as I'm trying to work more on my planning I took this opportunity to create an asset list focusing on how long I though each asset would take to create and what textures I would have to create. As I also want to work with modular textures this time around I want to try and have as many assets as I can sharing the same texture, I tried to reference this in my asset list.

I've intentionally allocated extra time to the elements I feel need more time and attention them (i.e. the “Eagle_Wall_Door_SM” NOTE: I'm very aware of my that horrific name!) and any elements I'm not to sure about or will need some extra research into how to do properly, in this case it's the particle effects (as I'm not very experienced in working with particles) and the wall trims (I'm not sure how they'll fit together until I try in the blockout, they may need a different approach to be taken, we'll see).

Using the estimated times (which are totally subject to change, going from past experiences things always crop up that eat up more time!) I created a Gantt chart to plan my schedule for the rest of the month. If all goes to plan I should end up with around a day or two buffer time which I can use to fix errors, polish any areas or to try and squeeze out more efficiency from the scene.

This is what I have so far, apologies for the dryness and lack of actual art! But I'm hoping this will be a strong basis for the rest of the project. I guess time will tell.

Peace and love x