Florentine Library by simonoc on Newgrounds

Author Comments

An architectural concept to explore the layout possibilities of a new photo sourced texture set I have been developing. The scene is of a dusty old medieval library with tall bookcases and richly coloured tiles on the floor. The vaulted ceiling is sprouting forth from the central columns and the room is split into warm and cold light spaces. The room is dressed in simple wooden furniture and copious amounts of large medieval books covered in cobwebs.

Reviews

9LivesSoldier

Rated 5 / 5 stars Feb 17, 2012

this inspired me to write a story :D

Kajenx

Rated 3 / 5 stars Feb 11, 2012

Not sure what more I can add to what m1k said, but I think the textures are a bit too "zoomed in" for their surfaces in some places. The details on the columns, for example, seem much too big and dark, like the texture itself is a close up detail even though we're seeing it from further away.

m1kclark

Rated 4 / 5 stars Feb 2, 2012

Hmmm

(This review applies to all three "Library" 3D pieces.)

First, a detail: this isn't "Pixel Art", it's "3D Art". This is important because NewGrounds has fans of 3D Art who *only* look at 3D Art submissions. Those people (your target audience) won't see your pics if they are mislabeled.

Okay, the image. All your textures are properly anti-aliased, but your geometries are not. The wooden pieces of the window, for example, look highly pixelated when they should be smooth. Also, you have a pretty low polygon count: there isn't a single round surface that isn't clearly made of flat polygons. Now, IF this is for a game environment, that's fine, but you need to tell us that. If it's to make high-quality 3D art, a la Pixar, then you need to increase the detail in your geometries.

There's also an inconsistency in your detail level overall. The textures are really highly detailed, specifically on the scratched marble columns. But the object itself looks very low detail: a single rectangle. Again, this is something I might expect in a game, but otherwise you should use a normal map to make those scratches stand out a bit. (And some modern games DO use normal maps for this purpose, even in real-time.)

Finally, the lighting. The light from the windows make some sense, although the color and brightness of the light from the windows doesn't match the color and light of what we see outside. If it's that dark and cloudy a day, then I would expect a dull, blue-tinted light instead of that bright white. Also, the lighting around the torch (on the right) again doesn't match the light source. It looks too white, when the torch should be giving off a soft-yellow glow. It also looks like that light is a spot-light instead of an isotropic lamp: the torch clearly isn't illuminating the ceiling. Which brings me to my final point: you appear to have an ambient light that just illuminates everything uniformly. That's okay, but a better approach for such a detailed environment-model is to use radiosity. The newest game-developers have special tools that pre-calculate radiosity so the game-engine can handle that kind of dynamic lighting in real-time, but you aren't restricted that way. If this is truly for a game environment, then you'd want to include radiosity anyway, in the hopes that later game tech will permit its use on a home computer's graphics card. For technical delivery of your concept, I rate 6/10 if it's a game (if not, 2/10).

THAT SAID. It's an excellent level design, and the feel of the hall is pretty consistent throughout. It feels like an old castle. And the work on the textures is truly intricate, and it is the textures that are the *most* realistic part of the image. It's obvious how hard you worked on those, in all of your images. The placement of the incidental objects (chairs, books) is also a nice touch. I give you a 10/10 for your ideas and creativity. It's a great level.

6/10 + 10/10 = 8/10 starts and a 4/5 vote

simonoc responds:

Wow! Now that is the kind of feedback I wished I got earlier when I was developing this scene. My mistake on the category, I did not realize there was a 3D art section, I assumed it was computer pixels for me (this is certainly not drawing stuff).

Well the lighting is something that started out going in the right direction and then due to me changing the sky to something more cloudy affected the indoor setup. The original scene had blue ambient lights for the ceiling to create the impression of cold above but the light entity size was too big and created a flat texture look instead.
I have changed the torch light entities to have a better fall off value so that the floor circle light pattern is not too harsh anymore. I have switched both window sides to blue and turned all the central lights to yellow. It certainly creates a better contrast and makes the central area feel warm. I have bumped up the central area lights to give the torches a more hot light feel against the marble background.
The original scene was more about me testing out the photo sourced textures on some architecture to see how well they perform. (Which is why there was not much detail or dirt to the scene) The textures are photo sourced from my summer holiday trip to Italy (Florence area mostly) and should feel vibrant and detailed. I do plan to create a final normal pass for them but I wanted to see if the diffuse is good by itself.
The prefabs (chairs/tables) are really basic 3D items because I wanted to create a medieval theme with a rustic feel. The wooden texture is certainly not great up close and lacking a normal map makes it painfully obvious. The current test engine I am using does not support normal maps so I have doubled the texture density instead.
I have deleted the other artwork images and have updated the image above with the better version. I did not want to resubmit because I wanted to keep these comments.

Thanks for the feedback, it was exactly what I needed. :)