Glaring Through Oblivion

I'm not replying to your argues because I don't want to argue, nothing to do with guts. I say what I think on the subject, and you say what you think on the subject, and then it's up to the reader to form an opinion. Argues are bad. Just as bad as using burn and dodge. Becaaause weeeell… it's bad practice. Why? Obviously because I say so.

 a transparent gif! Animated, no less! >! 

If you want to show animation you should have more than a single cycle. It flashes so fast it's impossible to see anything properly. Have him walk in one direction for a few seconds before you jump to another animation.

It's all fine and dandy, and I really appriciate your simplistic designs, but come on man, those blood splatters look like you made pixelart and then your 5 years old brother came in to "help". They lack any kind of volume or weight, they defy gravity, they have no direction or shape, they just look like random, freehand scribbles. SHAMEFUR DISPRAY! 

Allright, I got a bit ahead of myself. To rephrase, working with normal maps does not start with a low poly mesh, I mean, yeah, if you want to use that as a base mesh, subdivide it to coupple million polygons, sculpt the actuall model in zbrush, it makes sense, but I think showing this and asking for tips is a bit premature, as I said, it's as basic as it gets and there's nothing that can be said about it apart from the fact you followed your anatomical reference correctly. Showing a low res screenshot from a viewport, not even a render and talking about normal maps do come out as a bit random. Normal maps workflow is basically the oposite of starting with a low polygon base, unless as I said - you want to drop it into zbrush and subdiv it a lot, then again, working with z-spheres and retopology tools is faster and easier. You make a highly detailed model, you bake it to normals and apply that to a simplified geometry. And yes, immagine that your high horse attitude and colorfull underlining can get on people's nerves.

Thanks guys, and yeah, Canyon it is. I'm definitely not a spelling bee. >! [http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20140628.png](http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20140628.png)

Well, to be honest it was an accident, it was supposed a view of two mountains from far away and two or three planes closer to the viewer, but when I started to shape out the slopes, it started to look like a canion from inside, so I went for that feeling. Thanks.

 It's the second stage (I guess) of my recent painting, I'll update it from time to time when I add detail to it, there's obviously going to be some more stuff on the cliffs (vegetations, some huts maybee, details on the rocks). It's probably going to change a lot in the process, it's also resized, as in that's not the full size. Comments ideas and any other kind of feedback is welcome.

> I don't quite understand the problem with the method applied here. I felt like the outcome was very, very nice looking. > > > > Why do computer artists try to conform so much? I thought that artists were supposedly free to express themselves. It's not as much about conforming, if the end result looks good it's not that important how someone achieves it, then again, if someone is taught bad practices especially as a beginer the probability of his works looking good goes down. You don't teach a child to draw with the wrong end of a pencil. And I think we're discussing a tutorial on how to draw a basic tree for a video game, not a gallery exhibition. Using burn and dodge looks unrealistic and ugly and IS a bad practice, just as using eye-burning fluorescent greens.

The only thing I would change here is moving the floor cracks from under the tables to make them more visible and recognizable as what they were supposed to be.

Thank you for pasting images from wikipedia, Implying I never seen them, don't know what I'm talking about and that I need explanation on what a normal map is. I don't lack information, in fact I'm absolutely sure I have more than enough to freely speak about your work. You seem to have a problem with taking advice, don't ask for it then or learn to take it. You made a model that has too few quads to even animate properly and now you drop examples from tripple A games, everyone can make something like that from refference pictures in minutes, it doesn't require talent or skill, just a basic understanding of modeling tools and a realy basic modeling tutorial, there's nothign you can screw up there if you have those two, there's no black magic here, you're not doing anything exceptional. Show that you can make a propper UV map before you start giving people lectures on techniques they probably understand and can apply far better than you do. Mkay?

Personally I'd go for a good quality, hand painted texture instead of normals. On that geometry normal maps won't actually give the feeling of detail. Sharp, nicely shaded UVs would do, like so: >!  Whoever made this, never bothered using normal maps and as you can see effects are more than nice. Bottom line is - it depends on what you're aiming for, so normals are a perfectly viable way of doing stuff, but with lowopy models the final effect is entirel dependant on the texture itself.

That sentence is exactly why I asked the question, if you know that burn and dodge is bad why would you teach beginers to do it, instead of showing them a proper way to working with color tones?

> I agree Rory, but those who still have no knowledge in chromatology, burn n dodge will help understanding the shading better than having to choose a certain palette, wich can be pretty hard for newbies. :P Learning bad habits is never good. If you make a tutorial, why teach others to use techniques you know are bad?

Shadow under the logo blurs it too much, and that blur doesn't sit well with how clean and simple the site is.