Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Would have been good to a lot more reference and a style test to see the direction you wanted to take the piece in. Good to see a block out before beginning the production stage. Could to see some workflow and different techniques being used (foliage, tiling textures, master and world space shaders). Overall scene looks nicely composed with a good amount of set dressing. The ground textures could have done with some detailing. The look of the mountain range doesn’t fit the style of the piece but is a good addition (without it the scene would not look as finished or interesting).
• Submission Title: Monumental Submission Tier: Search for a Star Assessor: Dominic Shaw Artist @ Firesprite Research & Development There is a good breakdown of everything that you have made in the level and it was clear to see how you went about making this environment. The one thing that I would have liked to have seen is more real-world reference of props and materials in the environment rather than just seeing the concept art that you used. Creative Art Overall, this is a good start to this environment, you have matched the concept well and there is a good focal point. I think the one that it is missing from the concept is that nice warm directional lighting which I think would really improve your environment and make it more eye catching if you were get this in your scene. The rocks that you have made are pretty good but some of the smaller rocks are a bit too sharp and low poly which makes them look stylized whilst your bigger rocks look more realistic. I think that one of the main issues across the full environment is how the style of assets look different and I would recommend doing a style pass to make sure all the assets and materials look more coherent to the same style. Technical Art I can tell that you have a good understanding of the workflows needed to make game environments and you know how to keep the level optimized. You have made good use of master materials and you showed in your documentation that you kept in mind tri counts whilst you were sculpting your main rocks which shows a good understanding of optimization. There were a few basic issues in the level such as UV stretching on the main rock sculpts so just make sure to give the assets a double check to make sure they are alright before calling them done. The final thing that I would recommend is to use the unreal engine landscape tool rather importing in a massive plane to use as the terrain. The landscape tool in unreal will help to keep the environment optimized so it’s best to use this workflow. Documentation There was some good insight into the workflows that you used, and it was clear to see how you made the environment. Final Presentation The final renders had pretty good composition and showed of the focal point quite well. You have a good foundation of game art skills and moving forward I would do another lighting pass to get the same sort of lighting the concept has and I would do a style pass to make sure everything is coherent.
• Research & Development The concepts look interesting. The material functions apparently saved you a lot of time, huh? Good to know, and the breakdowns of the shader networks are a nice thing. I'd like to see a bit more of real life references. That Miro website seems like a cool project tool, might need to investigate a bit more into it. Creative Art The environment is well lit, and shows interesting emissive runes. There's a nice sense of color. The hurry shows a bit in polish. The composition feel a bit one-sided, and the rock and grass placement seems a bit too random to me. Grass also looks grounded in 3D, with appearance of planes. For smaller rocks, you could have a look at this plugin called DebrisMaker 2, to generate a couple of fast stones and branches; http://www.debrismaker.aarondabelow.com/v1/ Looking into photography or movie scene references might help with pushing the lighting and atmospherics of the scene to the next level. Rocks could also benefit from color variations, either to the texture itself or with the use of Speedtree color variation node, which should already be in the engine. Technical Art Use of speed tree and creating your own foliage shows promise. The Material Functions are done well, and they make graphs look nice and clean. Use of material instances is also good to note. Lighting setup seems fairly optimized and easy to adjust; are the attenuation radiuses of spotlights maybe a bit too long, and what sort of thing are they trying to highlight in the scene? Vegetation could benefit from transferred normals. Runes read as mesh decals fairly nicely, but I might suggest looking into decal materials inside Unreal, as well as deferred decals. Documentation Text is easy to read, and fast to access. Images showcase the workflow well. Final Presentation Final screenshots have nice quality and present the scene well.
• Hard to judge as you say its unfinished but the I think the composition you were aiming for with the massive structure in the background was strong and would have made the scene feel a lot more epic. The rocks you made have a nice style to them and the materials you made for the trees and rocks were a good start although could use some more colour variation in the textures. The exploration of building textures in substance designer is great to see. I would avoid presenting documentation on a red background as it's really hard to read.