I am workin' on the leaves now. I would normally just do a plane for these, however, with how stylized they are and that she (the plant) is the Prima Donna of the piece, she should get some additional mesh.

I also included a better shot of the updates I made yesterday to the acorn, wax seal, and mushroom stem.

I'm waiting on feedback from clients, instructors, and about to hop a plane for a relaxing sunny beach, and some highly regimented work time :D 

In the meantime, I worked on this gorgeous concept by Yuliya Belaya. 

I switched from placing meshes directly in the scene, to referencing external Maya files. I anticipate that means I can edit the referenced version in a symmetrical grid aligned state, and have the changes reflect in the scene. Working off alignment is a nightmare...yikes.

I'm sorry Danielle, I didn't Twitch stream this! I've been super focused, and needed to make rapid progress. I confess, streaming deters me from working despite enjoying it once I sit down. :(

The main changes in this from my portfolio piece are the details. I've added in some mesh for the acorn cap, mushroom, added art on the seal of the envelope and fixed some non-manifold geometry along the way. It's my goal to get this high poly model to Unreal in low poly textured form, but I'm a ways off from that.

Update on this post: 6/24 I received my feedback from Jared Sobotta. He said my textures are way too saturated. He also said good things, the main takeaway though was that I need to pay more attention to my PBR values and crank down the saturation. You can see the saturation difference between a moss texture on texture haven in the photo below.

== Original Post ==

I made this rock texture today and added it to my scene. Felt really good seeing it come together in Unreal Engine 4.

And here is my cliffside view, overlooking the 'waves' as the sun sets :)  

And for good measure, here is the bark work in progress for my trees. This was just a test, to make sure the texture worked as I imagined it might. Everything is so new, I had a hard time getting this up at first. Really appreciate the help from Alice, Monique, and Alex.

I made this in six weeks as a part of the CGMA vegetation and plants class. I'm proud, mainly because I see the growth in my understanding of UE4 and art creation for games. I am also embarrassed because I believed I'd get further on the piece than I did. It is interesting how you can hold both emotions at the same time.

I'm looking forward to my instructor Jared Sobotta's feedback. 

Update 6/18: I have so much to learn. >-< Thank you to Alice and Monique Desero for helping me set up the TexCoord in my graph, so that I could tile my UVs.

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Update 6/17: It is a world space versus local space issue in UE4. I was tiling it according to world axis, when it needs to be tiled by the local axis. 

I'm not 100% sure how to do that, but I can figure it out. Thank you to Alex_J on Polycount and Alice Biban for helping me understand.

Material world position basic info --->https://youtu.be/8aYe54XrZYI
Excellent video on world space seamless rock tiling ---> https://youtu.be/pXOknekvmwE

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Original Post 6/17:

Is this a UV issue, or a texture issue? I'd appreciate help, just a nudge in the right direction would be much appreciated. I love the way this lines up with the trunk, but the roots and branches all look incorrect and ropey. I might need to make a different texture for them? 

Addendum: The incredibly skilled Alice Biban (Her plants are amazing, and she was teaching my teacher a thing or two.) just said I need to adjust the UVs to reflect the flow of the bark. I'm going to start researching how to do that, but I would appreciate any links or feedback on where to go for the best info. 

What do you think?

You get a better idea of what the tree mesh looks like below.

I am starting to create something a bit more challenging. Bark, and aerial roots, and roots integrated in the trunk. I'm not 100% sure how to do this but I can figure it out.

Finally.

I'm thrilled to be working on one of Sky Ride 3D's roller coaster cars! This car is a classic, used on wooden tracks.  So far I've created a concept drawing, a rough block out, received the redline, and just today I finished revising the block out to more accurately represent existent train cars.  I've arranged to share our work in progress, so here you go!

Concept drawing with redline.

First blockout and redline.

Revised blockout.

Getting the dimensions helped substantially. For the first blockout, I was eyeballing it based on my references. 

This is looking good for the blockout stage, I'm going to be adding bevels soon. 

Side note: I learned Blender specifically so I could take this job on. I approve of the Blender hotkeys and enjoy the interface. I highly suggest if you're new to Blender to set up a mirror modifier immediately. (That is if your piece is symmetrical.) 

I'm looking forward to using the bevel modifier, which is, apparently non-destructive beveling? Yes, yes please. :D

I've just attained a new skill, God Pencil.

Which is to say that terrain creation in UE4 has me basking in absolute power. 

With the full time focus on ZBrush, followed by the rapid switch to learning Blender...I neglected Substance Designer. It feels good to be back, just playing around with this moss/brick texture I made in April. I'm going to borrow and improve on it for my vegetation scene.

It is not within three hours of waking up.

It is after midnight. I do a minimum of 30 minutes of modeling every day, and today has been scheduled poorly... so I'm up, getting the modeling in. It is like a daily run, except less sweaty.

I usually go to sleep at eight. 

Yes, eight.

 I cherish my sleep, and you should too for a variety of reasons which I won't go into in my current hypocritical state.  

I will however, point out that I set aside my floor plane homework which required some new skills and problem solving, and picked up these anthurium leaves thinking they'd be something I could manage in my dreadful state. I momentarily forgot how to scale them, finding the ztool took longer than it should have, and after finally laying these leaves out on a plane, I remembered why I hadn't baked the anthurium maps out yet. I need to make adjustments, add more variety...and a flower.

Which just goes to say, please get abundant of sleep. 

It is important.

Sweet dreams.