Final Render Sheets

Here are my final render sheets for the Asteroid environment, I am really pleased with the result and would love to see it in UDK; unfortunately I don't have time so the 3DS Max renders will have to do.

Environment Renders

Here are a selection of different lighting techniques I am trying out to best achieve a hallucination like appearance, whilst also keeping that cartoony hand painted art style. 

Progression with Environment.

Now I have successfully textured every asset in the Environment, I am really happy with the result and can't wait to add some atmospheric lighting and other effects to give it that hallucination like appearance. For this I tried to add fog, however the attempts were unsuccessful due to the Mental Ray lens effect I am using to render, making the fog invisible; therefore I created my own using a plane and opacity maps. I also added the rat silhouettes, I feel it is beginning to match the concept more closely. Also notice the added bump maps in the path and rocks, as well as a Mental Ray glass material used on the window.

Creation of Plantlife & Sign

I have got to a stage where my environment is almost complete, however I feel it was still lacking something and looked fairly bare; so I decided to create some plant life to occupy the plant pots and hopefully add a little more depth to the design; I chose to create a stylistic tree rather than a realistic one, due to the art style I thought an obscure design would fit the environment better. I am quite happy with how it turned out, quite a memorable design; something a little different than your standard opacity mapped planes.

I have also textured the sign, with the annotation "The Love Shack" due to it being the home of a once happy hippy couple; here is a close up of the sign:

Progression with Assets

Today I textured the Piano asset for my environment, using Mental Ray to achieve a realistically reflective look whilst still having a hand painted texture, I am quite happy with the result and think it works well in the environment.

I followed this tutorial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7IZStYmImY, to make some grass for my environment. I then added it to the model but wasn't happy with the result, as I feel it didn't compliment the art style I had gone for.

I will try a different style of grass that will hopefully work better with the Art Style.

Environment Development

I have modeled all the assets for my sign and painted textures for the Asteroid and the House; I have decided to go for a stylized hand painted style, reminiscent of Zelda: The Windwaker. Now I need to work into the models, added hand painted textures and bump maps. Also need to figure out how to get a realistic glass texture for the window, and a nice reflective surface for the piano!