Quick one

[Pixelcon]

This was a two day exercise to update an old image and add something to my folio.
The aim was to try and improve my matte painting and rely on 3d as little as possible without it looking too fake.

C&C welcome!

[senior_queso]

Well done! Nice light, i love the pavement!

[MoonDoggie]

I like it as well, the ivy leaves' rotation is all the same, any chance you can vary them a bit so they're not so "lily pad"-esque.

[3DMK]

Very nice work! Especially the lighting


What is the main material on the Buildings?? What ever it is it's looking a bit flat.

I agree with Colin about the ivy leaves....a bit too even looking & the leaves look way too big as well.
Have you tried using the Vertex colour feature of the ivy generator??? It will give it a lot more realism.

....also the melaluca tree looks great but most aussies would find it looks odd. Some melaluca's do actually have pink flowers but never without leaves as the are evergreen & no-where near that many flowers.
but hey it dosen't matter that much as we are not selling trees, we are selling the DREAM...lol and as a dream tree it's perfect!

Cheers
Jamie

[Pixelcon]

Haha you've spotted all of my worries there in one go. Hopefully not too many more :P

The main material is a zinc. I couldn't decide whether to go a bit more glossy with it or not. On the far right of frame you can see it reflecting the Ivy a little which seems about right to me but perhaps it could be a little more glossy?
The tree is supposed to be a jacaranda. And a hack job at that. You're spot on though, its a melaluca with pink/purple 'shopped "flowers". Might be time to get back in to onyx :P

And you're both totally right about the ivy. I've not looked very far into the nuts and bolts of it but it sounds like i should be able to get a bit more out of it. 100% agree with the "lily pad" look of it.

Thanks for the crits and comments guys. I'll have another crack at it when I get a chance.

[MoonDoggie]

Well, you're doing everything right. You've succeeded in creating some sort of a compelling story with (forgive me) boring architecture, very nicely done. Few touchups here and there, but very nice mood. Very dreamy. Doing an image technically perfect is easier than what you've achieved here.

[Pixelcon]

Thanks, Colin! I had a quick play with the more in depth features of ivy. Seems like I should be able to come up with something better sometime soon.

[3DMK]

The tree is supposed to be a jacaranda. And a hack job at that. You're spot on though, its a melaluca with pink/purple 'shopped "flowers". Might be time to get back in to onyx :P

IMHO....Don't waste your time with ONYX. It's a program that had a good life but died years ago. RIP.

If you get a chance download the GrowFX demo and be amazed at the endless possibilities, and awesome customer support that is as good as Chaos group.

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...ghlight=GrowFX
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...ghlight=GrowFX

Hope this helps

[Pixelcon]

I've had a quick play with it but it seems to demand a lot more time than I can afford at the moment. Also, the tutorials just straight up didn't work. I don't know if it's my unit setup, but if the first lesson "how to create a simple tree" doesn't work after the third time then I'm going to start getting frustrated with it... Not enough hours in the day! Your work with it is fantastic btw, Jamie!

[deflix]

nice and triptastic! reminds me of a dream...

[Pixelcon]

So I had another go at the ivy. I made it a bit messier but there's still a little bit of the "lilly pad" effect happening to the left of frame but it's better, at least.

I had a bit of a deeper dig into the ivy options and the vertex colour options seem really cool, but if you choose to have custom geometry then the vertex colour functionality is disabled. I had to decide whether to have custom geometry or vertex colour and in this case i opted for custom geometry to try and reduce the "lilly pad" effect. In hindsite i could have done the close to camera ivy with custom geom and the more distant ones with the vertex colour. oh well. After having ivy crash every 5 minutes, I was over it after a few hours and this is the result. Despite all of this i think the new version is definitely an improvement.

I'm still considering re-doing the jacaranda but as mentioned previously, I'm struggling for time on this one and I'm debating whether the authenticity of the GrowFX route will outweigh the general fake-looking nature of 3D foliage...

Anyways further-crits are most welcome.

cheers for the comments already, guys!