Sai's Background Workshop

[Sailerius]

So, I'm working on learning 3D modeling to produce backgrounds for a game I'm working on. Follow my progress here and offer suggestions, if you care to. Always looking for feedback!


My first attempt. It was originally meant to be a bus, but it looks more like a train. I'm pleased with how the lighting turned out.

[Ren]

My first suggestion would be to look for references. The environment you drew looks way too spacious for both a train or a bus. Plus, the pole is put in a very weird position and is so thick I'd expect people to have trouble holding it for long.
I'd also say the texture on the windows makes them look as if someone painted them outside (with the same image, too). Was your intention to make it look like as if the weather outside was so cold that the air condensed on them?
The shapes of the seats are somehow too simple, they kind of look like a toy, rather than real or stylised seats.

The light to me looks a bit too defined... perhaps there's a way to blur it a little, so that it doesn't cast such sharp shadows?

[Blue Sky]

The shape of the windows isn't right. No train window is going to be square with a big window pane around it.

I'd suggest looking at old train references online. There are bound to be several of them. However, the actual modeling looks good. Just keep trying. :)

[Sailerius]

I gave it a second shot, trying to fill more space. I also adjusted the lighting/shadow type, as well as some textures.

[Counter Arts]

Think about how a car is 3 seats wide and a bus is 5 seats wide... no spaces. In the picture you have space, seat, space, 3 seats, space, seat. It looks like the bus would take up two lanes.

Edit: Sorry... that's the side of the train right? Then having 3 seats going along the width of the train would be too much in the trains I've seen (in Toronto and Japan). The 3rd seat would block the middle part of the train.

[cloudyssky]

Even with your second shot you still need to look at references more closely. Yes all the little nit-bit features and lighting is nice, but the design is simply weird. No form of any transportation would put seats like that; they're too far spread out and the three seats put together kind of make it awkward for the seats in the back.

[Samu-kun]

References, you say? Samu to the rescue!

[Sailerius]

Got a third try. I feel this one is a lot more accurate as far as details go but I really, really don't like what happened with the lighting. Still tweaking it...


EDIT: Here it is from another camera angle. I like this one better.

[kinougames]

I'm not really great at judging 3-D stuff, but...please paint over this carefully with 2-D. The biggest problem with using fast backgrounds in 3-D and then putting them in VNs is that more often than not, parts still look 3-D and they look completely odd with the normally vectored, high saturation sprites on top. I always get this very huge sense of the old meme "my hed is pastede on yey".

[Sailerius]

I'm not really great at judging 3-D stuff, but...please paint over this carefully with 2-D. The biggest problem with using fast backgrounds in 3-D and then putting them in VNs is that more often than not, parts still look 3-D and they look completely odd with the normally vectored, high saturation sprites on top. I always get this very huge sense of the old meme "my hed is pastede on yey".

Is 3D really so out of place when many visual novels use photos as backgrounds?

[Blue Sky]

Well, I think if this were used as a background, you would need to make the camera have a larger scope of the room, that way the sprites won't look smaller than the chairs.

[Wintermoon]

Is 3D really so out of place when many visual novels use photos as backgrounds?

In a word: yes. At least with 3D in the style you are using. A style that makes heavy use of hand-drawn 2D texture maps would blend in better with hand-drawn 2D sprites.

[fortaat]

I began writing a detailed response yesterday, but eventually Kinougames and Wintermoon summerized what I wanted to say.
In short:



If you want to learn 3D and use VNs to motivate yourself, than ignore us and keep learning. If you want quick results, draw the backgrounds by hand.

[ashewalton]

References, you say? Samu to the rescue!

I really like the first image, do you think I could use it for my visual novel? I'm not sure if they were taken by yourself or internet stock, so I thought it would be best to ask permission first (:

[Samu-kun]

The photos were taken by me and yes, you may use them for all non-commercial purposes.

(shameless self promotion: more photos available here)