Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Submission Title: Holy Room of Prayers Submission Tier: Rising Star Assessor: Dominic Shaw Artist @ Firesprite Research & Development There was some good research done on this project and I like how you did concepts and studies before starting the 3D side of the projects has this really helps to understand the environment that you are making. It would have been nice to see some time management stuff like asset lists and time plans as this can really help the production of a project. Creative Art The final environment matches your idea pretty well and it’s good that you can concept an idea and follow it through the final environment. There is a good focal point and storytelling in the piece. I think to help improve the visual quality of the project I would reduce the amount of contrast in the scene and brighten up the shadow areas as at the moment they are really dark compared to the light. I think making the shadows brighter will make the environment more interesting to look at as you will be seeing the other elements to the environment and not just the book and window. The window, I would add more dirt and roughness variation on this mesh to make it look more realistic, the window is an important part of this piece so I would make sure this area is as good as possible. Technical Art You show a good understanding of the basic workflows to making an environment but there are a few areas that you could improve on to help optimize the level. This is mainly things like looking into more modular workflows such as making the walls out of modular pieces rather than placing it all to one texture as this will cause bad texture resolution. The modelling was good to a point that you matched your originally concepts but to help improve this area I would look into chamfering more edges and creating high poly meshes to then bake down on to your low poly meshes. The materials are pretty good and I like the roughness variation you have on the floor material. Looking at your workflow in the documentation, I would try to do textures such as brick fully in substance designer rather than using Zbrush first. This isn’t a wrong workflow and I know you can get more control by doing the mesh in Zbrush first but if you make a brick generator in designer you could get a lot of reuse and variations and I would say that is way more valuable to a studio as this will speed up future work. To further develop your skills, you could try doing some more texture variations and look in to vertex painting workflows to help break up your textures. Documentation There was a good breakdown of the materials and the process used to make this environment. It was easy to see how processes you used to make the concept art and the 3D environment. Final Presentation Overall, I think the environment has good composition and story and I like that you did some concept art first. Moving forward I would focus more improving your modelling skills by looking into the high to low poly workflow and optimization workflows such as making environments more modular.
• Great to see your reference and the drawings/line art concepts that you wanted to take further in 3D. Your prop modelling has a good amount of geometry detail and the UVs look well positioned. Even though the scene is small it would have benefitted from using a modular wall kit as the UVs don’t have to be restricted to the 0-1 space. The textures you have made fit the stylised brief you set out for yourself. The only thing I would add would be to get the images from your ZBrush sculpt and run them through Substance Designer to get additional surface break up and noise. The same could have been done for your stained glass window. I really like that you stuck to a small scene and had a solid composition of assets from the start. The lighting is good (the blue/orange contrast works well). The volumetric fog is a little strong but does fit the scene and look described in your reference.
• Really good work in the research phase, I'm impressed! You could use overlapping UVs to get a bit more texture space in the candle holder. The wall could be made of modular pieces to save UV space and recude your workload. I'm not a huge fan of the designs of the pillars against the wall, they could use a bit more attention. I like how much effor you put into making the wall. This is a really big part of the scene so it's great you gave it so much attention. The floor tiles look really interesting and have lovely colour variation going. The material response in the final scene also looks great. I feel that the lighting is too dark in the shadows, and it hides the detailed modelling you did, which is a shame. Also, the lovely floor is hidden underneath the window pattern. The window doesn't seem to quite fit into the window frame, and hand-drawn look of the strokes in it are distracting. I think it is a bit of a shame that the window is the real focal point in the scene, just because it's bright and so big. You put so much effort into the detailing in your other assets, I was hoping to see them better. Perhaps this could be fixed with a bit softer lighting (it would remove the drama but ass more spirituality) and making the window smaller and a bit more realistic. You modelling is quite advanced, but you still have some unnecessary polys that don't affect the silhouette. Some small details could have been baked down into the normal map to lower the count while keeping the same look. I think you've done a really good job, and the final presentatioon doesn't do justice to your skills.