Eggpod (2)

[Viech]

I see, go ahaed then! Also, note that the egg isn't ejected from the pod but it is supposed to blast (technically speaking, it is hidden while a particle effect plays).

[SyphonX]

Total triangle count 3667, 2k diffuse/spec/normals/gloss

[kharnov]

Very squishy! Triangle count is perfect, and the shape looks good. If anything, let's see what Pevel and Viech have to say about the colors. Once they give approval, then we can get to animating it.

[Pevel]

Awesome! You may think about improving the concept, adding more details (e.g. veins, sinews) and colors (e.g. darker skin tones near the bottom). Another thing you may change is the color of the egg thingy itself. It looks darker than in concept.

[Viech]

I agree with kharnov and Pevel: Shape is fine, as is the tris count (you could even spend some more triangles if you wanted to). Right now I'm not entirely happy with the texturing. While the interior looks good, the exterior lacks detail/variation and also doesn't seem to match the art style of our other alien models so far, which I think is a result of the color homogeneity of the lower two thirds of the egg. (Pevel might want to show you some examples of existing models.) For the sphere, instead of a bright color, maybe try a darker tone with a sublte glow(map)? The texture resolution on the sphere also seems a bit low, given the complex details on it.

[SyphonX]

Alien Egg sculpt/texture pass 2. Total tri count ₃₈₀₀ 2K Diffuse/Spec/Normal/Gloss/Emissive. I looked at the color palette on some of the aliens and went with a darker hue/lower saturation. Added additional web veins and bump variety for exterior. Interior remains relatively the same except a bit dirtier. The egg itself has a slight emissive for the veins to pop a bit more.

Without Egg Emissive

Lighter Texture Version with Egg Emissive

Darker Texture Version with Egg emissive

[kharnov]

Fantastic job as usual! I'm sold on the creepy veins, and I think I like the darker version more. Let's see what Viech and Pevel say.

My idea is that we can perhaps have the egg's glow map pulsate, similar to how the reactor does.

[Pevel]

Great job! I like how you blended the concept with overall feel of other alien structures. I like the darker version better (obviously). My only concern right now is the color of the membrane (base color is now #3F5315, and I'd rather change it to something around #97C540). It's only a matter of increasing the intensity of the color, I guess.
Pulsating glow map sounds cool.

[Viech]

I guess the level of detail could be increased by varying the color on each segment from the center towards the left and right corners. Right now you can hardly tell that they are different segments as the texture runs smoothly over the seams.

I wouldn't limit the glowing effect to the (existing) veins, looking closely you get very hard shading with that. You could try to have a rather smooth diffuse/specular/normal map without veins and have the veins "shine through" via the glow map. If you want the veins on the surface (i.e. in diffuse/specular/normal) you should make the glow smooth instead. I think the first approach might look better in dark environments.

The texture resolution on the outside of the segments looks a bit too low for those fancy details, maybe you'd want to boost antialiasing (or export as 4k and scale down) or rearrange the UV space to give more to the outside and less to the inside, if that's possible without redoing the entire texture.

[SyphonX]

Alien Egg 3rd pass. The exterior now takes about 80% of the UV texture space. Segments are a bit more noticeable with some color shifts from middle to left and right. the egg itself had its color changed more closely to the concept, though I had to keep it a bit darker for the emissive map to produce the glowing veins. I am not sure how you would invert the emissive map to produce darker veins, maybe a coding thing? The egg itself now has flat normal/spec/diffuse with the emissive map doing most of the work to "glow from the inside".

With emissive glow.

Without emissive glow.