Old Kitchen (Civil War?)

[jdoyle20]

Originally I had planned on keeping this first page updated, but I've decided that it will be easier and less confusing to just continue adding to the bottom.

Below are some pictures of how this project started to see how it has evolved over the course of comments and critiques given by fellow 3dtotal users.

If you are interested in seeing the rest of my portfolio feel free to check out my work at www.justindoyle.net (http://www.justindoyle.net)

[Kage]

Welcome first of all :)

That scenes looking pretty good so far. This is breaching on low poly though? You plan this for a game scene?

You may want to fix the CG Talk bit though. This is 3D Total :p

[jdoyle20]

Haha, yikes! Not a good way to start out. I'm actually going to be a first time poster on that forum as well, but unfortunately they make me go through a screening process where I can't post attachments until they review my first two posts which "can take up to 24 hours each". Kind of annoying, but oh well.

Anyways it's great to be hear...I just got back from Siggraph not long ago and bought 3DTotals "Digital Art Masters v.3". A great book that has given me a lot of inspiration.

I definitely don't plan this for a game scene by the way. I mentioned that I graduated in Game Design, but the vast majority of what they taught there was high poly. So mostly I have been applying to Animation and VFX companies since I feel like that is what my portfolio caters more towards. I would like to learn some more low-poly stuff though, but this is definitely not one of them.

[DigitalPutty]

:dance:

Welcome to the site! :) It really is a great place for critiques and learning new things as well as helping others. Ive learned a lot here. :)

Your scene looks pretty good so far. Im waiting to see the finished scene with textures and lighting. :)

[jdoyle20]

I'm very excited to get texturing as well. I will keep this thread updated as I progress with this project, but I must warn that it may be a little slow going. I'm currently working full-time as a finance assisstant until I can get a career in the CG industry, and I am also starting some wedding planning as well. So it might take a little while.

[dhin]

The scene looks pretty good. Though I would ask what type of area are you depicting. Southern City, Plantation, or Farmstead? This scene looks like it would fit into a city or plantation, but it is too pollished for a Farmstead. There wouldn't be molding on the walls for example in a farmstead, the walls would likely be earth and log, rather than plaster with fancy mouldings. Also the stove in a kitchen was often a cooking stove, what you have is a heating stove, good for little else than boiling water on as it has very little cooking surface (enough for one pot or pan at a time.)


The flintlock pistol is the only thing I would really crit in the scene itself. The barrel of the gun sat on top the wooden body/handle not inside of it. You would get a u-shaped channel carved out for the barrel. It would recess into the back of the body very little, then metal bands would be strapped around the front of the body and the barrel to hold it in place. Also the flintlock would be near the back of the barrel so the spark or the cap would ignite the powder in the camber, otherwise the spark wouldn't do anything. (I can't really tell though itf it is a flintlock or cap you have there though. the design wouldn't be too different regaurdless.)

By the civli war though, black power pistols had been replaced almost exclusivly with revolvers. Poorer soliders may have still had cap and ball pistols. But most would have had the cartige shot revolvers so that they could fire more rounds quicker. A single shot cap pistol was a lyablity when it came to survival due to the 6 to 8 shots a revolver could fire for every one it could fire before the need to reload.

[jdoyle20]

dhin: Thank you very much for all of your advice. I think I'm actually going to be changing the walls more to what you were talking about by being made with earth and logs. I just feel like it would fit better and give the overall scene a bit more of a rundown feel.

As far as the pistol goes, I actually modeled that after a type of pistol called a Boxlock Pistol. Before modeling it I did a search for Civil War Pistols and found this interesting image below. I was going for something simple and straight forward and even though I believe it's still in the Flintlock Pistol category, it didn't appear to be built in quite the same way. But at the same time I am not sure if they used this particular type of flintlock pistol during or around the civil war era.

When it comes to the stove I would really like to leave the potbelly stove in the scene since, for me at least, it is one of the first pieces that I initially recognize as being around that time period. So I feel like it will help get the viewer to associate this piece around that era, along with changing the walls to earth and logs, and the butternchurn. I may however add in a cooking stove and have it partially cropped on the left hand side of the scene so you would only end up seeing part of it. I'll have to figure out where to place it to end up with a nice composition that makes sense.

[dhin]

Wow, I've never seen that one before. Well I retract my statement about the pistol. Though Civil War would have been more likely to use revolvers, Revolutionary War might work with that one.

You wouldn't have a cooking stove and potbelly in the same room though. If you keep the potbelly just make the room much rougher, so the appearance that is the best stove that could be afforded by the inhabitant. Uneven floorboards or a dirt floor could help this look too.

[jdoyle20]

I had a little bit of time to work on some things tonight. I've changed the walls to fit more of a poor farmstead house and I plan on taking up dhin's suggestion and use uneven floorboards for the ground and maybe have a floorboard or two missing so that you can see the dirt underneath.

The corner of the building where the logs meet is very much just a place holder at this point. I wasn't thinking very well when I was making them apparently because someone pointed out the obvious fact that they would be staggerred and lock together at the corners that way, so I will change that this weekend. I also beat up the little chimney on the potbelly stove to add some more roughness to the scene.

[dhin]

Nice, I think that looks much closer to fit with the props you have for the scene.

[jdoyle20]

Well this past week was pretty busy. I got to work on the project an average amount this past week, but not as much as I wanted to. I can safely say though that I am moving on to the texturing phase. I still have a lot of ideas that I may add on near the end of the project, such as...filling up the cabinet more with china and glasses, adding some silverware or leftover food on the plates on the table, etc. One thing I definitely plan on fixing up is the chair lying on the ground. I knew pretty much from the beginning that I would probably want a chair that had been knocked down, maybe in a rush to get somewhere, but I didn't know quite how I wanted to do that, or where to place it. I'm still not sure actually, and I have a feeling that the placement and layout of the fallen chair is going to change for the final piece. I may add some broken legs, or missing parts to it, but I'm not sure yet.

Since texturing is where I specialize I like to get to that phase fairly quickly to keep myself motivated and excited about my project, and I definitely spent more time in the modeling phase for this project than I normally do. But it was a challenge for me and helped me in many ways...including patience, lol.

Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions for my scene so far...keep the chair, ditch the chair, use something else, etc. I'm VERY excited to start texturing and I hope to have more updates this weekend!

Oh, and by the way, that plane you see on the ground next to the table...it's going to have spilled ink textured on it with a transparency map. My goal is to texture ink running out of the bottle on the table and have it spill on the floor. Rather than trying to texture the ink on those individual floor boards and get them lined up I decided to just use a plane with a transparency map laid over them.

[jdoyle20]

Just wanted to thank you guys for all of the advice you have given me. It has really helped improve the quality of my work and given me different ways of looking at things.

[jdoyle20]

Things have been a little slower lately due to wedding planning, apartment searching, creating invitations, and work. But I've gotten a little bit more done so I wanted to share with you where I am at currently.

I went back and refined the walls to add some messiness and splatter from the mortar to try and blend everything together a little more realistically. I also went ahead and textured the door. I pretty happy with how everything turned out, although the wooden boards on the door are a little reddish looking and I'm not sure if I want to desaturate that or not. I think next I am mostly like going to try and figure out what I can texture procedurally and work on that. Probably things like the iron that makes up the potbelly stove, some more reflective items, and anything else I find that to be suitable for.

I'm still uncertain how I want this scene to be lit, although I do want to try and have some lighting coming from the lit candle and potbelly stove...(will probably talk to a friend to figure out how to create a simple but realistic flame).

Let me know what you think!

[galreg2002]

Well, the models are good, but you need to use textures with more quality ok??? A good site is the www.cgtextures.com, it has many cool textures...vlw