Unity Community Art Challenge - December 2014 - The Christmas Ornament

Looks like some great ornaments are brewing!

Nice one @shaderbytes - first as usual

 

My Work in progress - COOL SPOT SANTA

 

Personally like what you got there. Christmas ball itself could look slightly more attractive/different?

Thomas

 

I think I'll submit an entry, but I'm wondering whether Sketchfab models allow custom shader-based effects? Because that's what I mostly do.
[Edit: it looks like Sketchfab doesn't allow custom shaders. Would you be open to the idea of allowing a Unity file or webplayer file? That seems like a natural way of doing things for a Unity contest....]

 

My last two penguins. Moving on to a new ornament.

Looking great!!!

 

@GreenGaruda Looking good. I do think they look a bit too glossy and reflective, like they are wet or something. Perhaps tone that down just a little.

 

I would much rather see you use what everybody else is using. I can't change the rules mid-way and I am sure you understand

Thomas

 

@GreenGaruda You should send those designs to a Juggling Balls Company, they remind me of a set I used to have as a kid, only much much better! I would buy a set of those tomorrow(make sure to send all 5 designs if you do!, and a link to where I can buy them). They really are great

 

It's great to see so much activity.

@Evil_Moo - awesome use of the Camera Effects

@GreenGaruda - I definitely want a penguin

@HonoraryBob - your best bet might be to bake your custom shading/lighting

 

My idea : an ice cream cone used as a christmas tree by insects.
The 5000 vertices limit is a real challenge, but I'm confident


A rough sketch

 

Yeah, i agree. I will play around with the sketchfab settings.

Thank you. Can you send me a link or a specific "Juggling Balls Company" website?

 

Are there any plans to add a custom shader feature to Sketchfab in the future? I think many people would use it to display their models using the original shaders which the models were built for.

 

@Frogames - That's looking like a cute idea there mate! Loving it already Bring it on!

 

Latest on Zanta Claws. The orientation is all screwed up. I'll fix it later.

 

Well, seems the morph ball got a bit cold up in space. A little something to hang it with should be the finishing touch. I can't really think of anything else to add, so this is probably it from me. Nothing compared to some of the fantastic stuff others have been posting, but I'm happy to have had an excuse to get some practice using Blender.

 

trying out some diffrent ball designs

 

Coming soon to a @Sketchfab embed near you : Sinister Santa Tree Lights

Something for all the deranged families out there, or perhaps for those individuals who like Christmas but don't like Santa or anybody else who is looking for something different and comical to add to their tree.



The red body piece is semi transparent and the bones are what light up when lit. Still some work to do but the concept is looking great so far.

 

@Frogames I love your concept art Im looking forward to see the final 3D result

 

Great stuff so far. Here is a bit of an update on mine...struggling mightily with textures.

Any advice on getting clean lines on the candy cane ring?

 

Use your paint program to anti-alias them? Or didn't that work?

 

@HonoraryBob - The original was anti-aliased, but it looked way worse that the current version, which looks pretty terrible. Even running some test with 4k textures, it looked really bad.

This is my first experience with texturing, so I have no clue where to turn.

 

I often resample the texture at a lower resolution, but of course you'd need to start with an image at least twice the resolution you want to end up with.
The jagged edges in your candy cane texture may be due to compression, so you could try either saving the file without compression, and/or disabling Unity's auto-compression after it loads the texture (click on the texture in Unity's Project column, then in the Inspector, go down to Texture Importer and click on it to open it up, then scroll down to the bottom where it says "Texture Format" and choose something other than "Compressed" (such as "Truecolor").

 

I'll give that a shot. Thanks!

 

I should have added that after changing the settings, you need to click "Apply" in the lower-right of the Inspector to have it reimport the texture without compression.

 

@HonoraryBob It might help to show your actual UV Layout

 

Quick WIP, almost done texturing:

 

@pett-ber Simultaneously great and a bit creepy at the same time!

@Frogames Love the concept.

I've been having a bit of nightmare with some of the detailing for the seat in my Sleigh, but finally managed to get something I'm happy with:

 

Now that I actually have some detail to do it with, here's a quick test of my High-Low poly baking with a section of the seat. Just using a Normal map and some AO as the diffuse:



High poly for that section was around 24k tris (14k verts) and the low poly 28 tris (23 verts). Quite pleased with that

 

My 1st WIP... Going to add some gifts... Nothing too fancy..

 

Looking great!!!. By any chance, will you be making his eye ball coming out, dangling?

Model looking epic. Just like Thomas Pasieka said, showing your UV layout will be helpful and probably your texture. So we can give you a better suggestion. For the hat seams, put it on the back or near around the back. Looks very odd when its on the front, in my opinion.

 

I think you were addressing that to PSJ, since he was the one asking about a texture problem. I was trying to offer suggestions to him.

 

This is my own opinion. I saw your model in Sketchfab and texture looks great. But you should extend the snow piece to hide the house mesh.

 

@HonoraryBob - Thanks again.

@GreenGaruda - Thanks for the input. You're absolutely right about the seem. I'll see what I can do about making some corrections in the coming days, and post an update.

 

So, thanks again to @HonoraryBob and @GreenGaruda for taking the time to help, as I fumble my way through this stuff. I've moved the seem on the hat, although it could still use some work. And I have "mostly" fixed the issue with the texture on the ring. I rebuilt the texture, again at 4k, then resampled. I had to set the filter mode to Trilinear, and had to bump up the Aniso level. I still had to use a 2k texture or I continue to have the issue. I suspect it has to do with the angle of the stripes. When reducing down the texture size at this angle, it produces exceptionally fuzzy lines with a 1k texture.

 

@GreenGaruda - Hey thanks, I appreciate it. And yes, I do plan to have the eyeball dangling out! Once I'm finished with the final retopo I'll add the eyes and it should be totally finished. Going to be a very gruesome Christmas for all who believe in Zanta Claws.

@bsj - I feel like perhaps the ring doesn't have enough UV space, which is why you're getting such jagged lines, but I can't be sure without seeing the UV layout. It also appears that you have a nasty seam along the right side of the ring.

 

I don't think the problem with the stripes is that noticeable, except at one point when you rotate it counter-clockwise 90 degrees and there's a definite break at one point, probably because of a UV mapping issue (it looks like a seam). Other than that, the stripes are only slightly jagged or pixellated on the edges. If you want to know how I get rid of that type of thing.... I generally use a pixel shader to produce a procedurally-generated surface pattern on-the-fly, so the resolution is basically unlimited (it's whatever resolution is needed based on viewer distance). But Sketchfab doesn't allow custom shaders.

 

@HonoraryBob - That's good to know. Thanks. I will see if I can correct the obvious break. I didn't even notice it, as I was focus on the line quality. Thanks again for all your help on this.

 

@bsj I found a similar issue with my scrat model , the logo on the acorn was not behaving like your candy strips. I found changing the filtering mode in sketchfabs setting to point mode got rid of the problem. You might not want this for the entire model so create a unique material for the ring , even if it points to the same texture as the rest of the model. Then in sketchfab select the rings material and under the diffuse settings change the filtering mode to point mode. This should get rid of that blurring based on what I saw with mine.

 

I hope this help bsj and this is also for people that contemplating making candy cane stripes. I am not worry about the seams, it's only for reference.

Each donut Verts: 576

 

My WIP: A platypus trapped in a snowball

 

@GreenGaruda Thanks for the suggestions! I was kind of hoping no would view the model from below and notice all the UV errors though haha. Will see if I can make some changes.

 

This is very cool, but in my opinion I think the colour is too bright, maybe it's better with dull colour, as zombies are dirty.

 

Does it look like a platypus? I keep thinking it's more like a duck

 

Another version, flying snowball platypus.

 

@cloverse I think the head should be less of a sphere shape. Real platypus have a much much flatter head. But the texturing could also do a great deal in making it look like a platypus. Another thing, the hands and feet look like they would be too far from his body. I think he would be really streched out this way. Perhaps move them a little closer to the head/tail.

 

@Sanderdl Thanks for your feedback! I'll try to fix it.

 

@shaderbytes - Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I am not seeing a "Point" mode. I have three options under filtering: Nearest, Bilinear, Trilinear.

@GreenGaruda - Really appreciate you taking the time. My texture is not at a 45 degree angle, which I think is the problem. In your image, the anti-alias is very clean because of the appropriate angle. Because of the angle in mine, as well as the messing around required to get the darn thing to line up, it distorts the line edge. Thanks again!

 

@bsj that is bizrarre , those are the only options I see now as well ( mine is on bilinear ) maybe they changed the API or perhaps Ive straddled the lines between reality and some dream I had about that reality with different variables haha.

Anyway i dont see the blur issue I had with it so bilinear is working for me then

 

No problem, I hope you solve it.
I was working on Planet Xmas, but it takes too much time. I have less than two days for my next entry. So i just wanted to show you guys, what i was working on.

 

Here is My Shocking Santa creation in 3D..