Bannerlord Creative Competition: Scene Design Contest

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Imgur was blocked, but it seems open right now. I created account & put one scene's screenshots (from @KingKastro ) at first. Then, i combined all other scenes' screenshots together & uploaded them in a second post. I don't want to upload each scenes(~30) separetely, it takes lots more time.. So.. This repond has the fast, but still effective results.
Btw, i dont like how imgur's upload mechanism work..It doesn't show which images not uploaded healthy. Just an info text shown that there is a problem, which is unclear & i can't check all images all the time. Not a good system..



If i haven't had a problem with the total upload process, there should be ~350-400 screenshots. & Note that these screenshots are just my own screenshots of scenes(There can be some good/bad/interesting/funny points that i captured in related scene) .

As a result, i think i uploaded all of my random screenshots from the scenes in these two posts:




There are 379 screenshots in total in both galleries, so I think you did not encounter any problems. Thank you for fulfilling my request; I appreciate it. I hope so will do the others.
 
Hey!

Since “cuce” sadly didn't find the time to give feedback, I'll do it instead, I hope that's ok for the creators.

It's been a while since we promised to give you all feedback, so apologies that it took that long in the end for these last few scenes, which are all real gems.

@Yurek
Visuals:
The motive the scene instantly pulls the player into, with the valley corned by the great cliffs, with the village embedded into the side, could come straight off a postcard.

A great attention to detail all around, especially praise for how you added some green to the cliffs with the ivy. It's incredibly useful to break the otherwise grey background.
The color palette as mentioned is very well suited, the village houses have a lot of great color variations without standing out in a bad way.

The serpentines and the cliff rocks blend very well with the terrain and flora you placed around it.
Overall this is a beautiful scene. Only thing missing would have been more love to the other seasons outside of summer. In winter you could’ve done well with a “no snow” mud layer, to paint below roofs and such. Also nothing changes with the (beautiful) vineyard in between the seasons.

CiJXd.png

A look inside the cozy streets of the town

Gameplay | Design:
Great use of verticality, which we don't see often in M&B scenes. The important areas of the map not only stand out because of the structures/buildings there, but also of the terrain extremes they are on. From the common areas in the valley river, to the village on the cliff side, that you literally can't miss / go around.

Some technicalities hinder the gameplay, which you laid a very great base for with your terrain design and layout. Some accessible areas lack navmesh (pictures below), or they would need to be blocked off by barriers.
bG8YZ.png

Navmesh leads along a cliff where AI could fall down

iVJqu.png

Navmesh stops in front of accessible area

You used the barriers in a lot of places to prevent AI from falling down from cliffs, which is great. But there are a lot more spots when they could get stuck. Its a sad downside of your great vertical scene, that there are inevitably more stuck spots here, hence more barrier work required.
The area you designated as the fighting ground, with your battle set placements is a bit narrow and not well supported by the tactical positions, you could use some more at the market and the road leading up the vineyard for example.

The common areas positions are great, but they could’ve used a few more props around to help to highlight them.

Innovation:
The terrain itself and how you made it work is already a great innovation in itself as we dont see it often in the M&B franchise. As I mentioned above, it can really change up the gameplay, with putting the mechanics in a new context.
Also you made subtle but still noticeable color changes to the plaster of the buildings, giving the village a very unique look and at the same time making it actually more fit to the setting.

Other highlights are the custom buildings you constructed and small details like the oven at the market and the valley crane. This all comes together nicely inside the village where you constructed cute little roofs across the buildings and added a nice feel to every corner in there, with the shrines and so on.

Summary:
Overall this is a super solid scene. The visuals work very well together with the outstanding terrain, that as mentioned above has its own very unique impact on the gameplay of the scene and how it will be perceived by players.

If you work on the gameplay problems this vertically brings a bit more, this scene would be near to perfect. Great work!

@Gwae
Visuals:
The entry to this scene is great. The pyramid obviously stands out, I can only compliment you on how you made it. It doesn't only look good but you weren't too proud to break the pyramid apart and have it be a bit ragged instead smooth with perfect edges.

Inside the pyramid you went all about putting details, but struggled with the lights a lot. The pyramid is packed with small rooms and side corridors. Even leading out into the baths, or across a jumping puzzle into the treasury.
Instead of using negative lights, use the local env probe, or just use GI. In this example I just placed a local env probe and scaled it up so the room is covered. You would probably have to place quite a few inside your pyramid, make sure they don't poke outside!

MTrXD.png

Negative lights

hT7T8.png

Local Environment probe
If you have a powerful machine, try yourself with building GI. It will make all this a lot easier for you.

The outside buildings have their own touches to them and you build them from scratch. The one near the pond has a great interior, while the other one is kinda lacking in that regard. But instead it has a great statue, wall paintings and bath.

Flora wise, you need to explain where you put your lush grass better. Its good that you used the height blend grass texture, but it tiles a lot and also doesn't help with the transition to the sand around it. Also the sand is the same everywhere, maybe use some varying sand textures and blend the soil a little better.
Still overall this scene is really impressive visually, not only inside of the pyramid.

Gameplay | Design:
You chose to keep the scene really small. It was probably a good call to not let players fight inside the pyramid, but it is kinda sad that the fight doesnt have much to do with it. Also the small scene makes the fight happen really quick and no real time for the defenders to use the tactical positions.

You did a very good job on the navmesh, but many of your navmeshes are gonna lead to AI getting stuck, mostly because they are really narrow or will lead them off ledges.

You also need to place more barriers around possible stucks spots for ai or to counter the player abusing it.

Usually I would complain about your common areas not being visible from afar, but its fits the theme of the map really well that they are inside the pyramid and since the entrance is obvious enough, I am sure players can guess that they would be inside.

Innovation:

The scene makes it obvious that you thought about our assets in very creative ways. Not only how you created the pyramid, but basically everything around it, putting those assets in a new but fitting context. Special credit for this wall painting of scaled objects and the parkour leading up to the treasury.

mXy6U.png

Cool custom building

Still (and I am sure you are aware) you went a bit overboard. Scaling objects this mush leads to problems with their LOD and the textures on them. Also just applying new materials on objects leads to a very stale look, while changing the texture density to the worse.

Summary:
The main feature and your creativity are really shining through with this scene. The pyramid is great, the idea of having the common areas in there as well. The problems with the lights inside are easy enough to fix with GI and/or local environment probes and you have shown that you have a great eye for detailing so with more time I am sure you could make every area of this scene look as nice as the side house interior.

You would probably have to go over or make custom assets for most of your creations and need to take a look at gameplay again so it's not lost like the treasures of so many pyramids.

@BeefBacon
Visuals:
Undoubtedly a beautiful scene. The fantastical town inside the swamp fits in very well. Every corner inside and outside is full of details and has its very own feeling to it. All of it is connected by very nice looking paths, which you have spend a lot of time fitting into the landscape and they really do.

The village as mentioned feels more like a town, maybe a bit too grand for its location, but nevertheless very beautiful. A lot of work went into making each building different, not only with coloring but also adding external structures or repurposing existing assets.

ElD7j.png

View of the inside harbor with the custom railing and the cool little boat house extension

What I like a lot is that even though you spend a lot of time on the very nicely detailed market and entrances to the town, you weren't too proud to make the place dirty. Just as a vlandian village should be.
As mentioned the swamp feels great, but the flora inside it has too much repetition going on. Spreading and colouring it differently might help.

Also color wise some rocks don't really match the colors around them, especially the stone houses, but that's complaining on a high level. Also the blue color of some of the building parts stand out a bit too much. All the other house colors are great though.
Technically you did a overall good job with the scene. You use parallax in exactly the right amount, without overdoing it. Also good use of height blend overall, but still some mushy parts inside the forests.

Also sadly there are a lot of texture problems with the winter version of the scene, just like for most other scenes in the competition. Snow below roofs, snow inside tents and the market still having (snow covered) vegetables for sale.

Gameplay | Design:
The paths are not only visually pleasing but are a great guide through the scene, not leading the player to dead ends but instead span through the points of interest.

The common areas clearly stand out, even from a far and all have their own little touch to them. One of them is suspiciously close and in shooting distance of one of the village watchtowers though.

vunlq.png

Great common area, but maybe a bit too close to the gates

The way you use the barriers is very strict. You clearly thought about where you want the gameplay to happen and which areas are off limits. I personally really like that approach, but I can see why some people don't. The tactical positions for the raids are well placed, but sometimes with wrong tags attached to them. There are some civilian animation spawn points without navmesh. Also sadly there are many positions that attackers get stuck in.

kD8hz.png

Inf gets stuck behind the cart, there is navmesh but no room to go through

This spot for example has navmesh even though units cant fit through there and since its the shortest part (no navmesh cost was used), the entire army tried to squeeze through it. Outside of that you did a great job with the navmesh though. And if AI doesn't get stuck, this is an awesome scene to fight in. Especially the approaches into the town, which can be the ground for some really nice chokepoint fights.

Innovation:
Craglowe is full of innovation and creative ways of using existing meshes. From the awesome town entries, to the common areas you hit the right amount of innovation, without forcing yourself to innovate where it wasn't necessary.

Not much else to say, you have a great hand with the editor already. Although you should watch out with scaling, some of your custom assets are a bit skewed.

Summary:
Great scene all around. Even though it has some problems with the gameplay, it still is a great ground for battles and not only because it looks so beautiful.
Congratulations again!

@rainy-rays
Visuals:
Overall you have a good structure to your flora. They fit in place nicely on the terrain that has its very own character. The rocky cliff reaches into the village, the river cutting it in half and the big tree-less slope leading up to the pine forest, giving a nice panoramic view from above.

The basic layout of where you put your flora, like having very thought-out positions for your aspen and pine forests is really good. The “empty” field leading up to the slope where the pine forest begins is really well throughout.

But the flora is lacking though when you come close. The forests are really empty and most fields and openings dont house more than 2 different flora types. The forests are missing some sort of shrubbery or structure. Grass and textures throughout are the same. Definitely think of variations for it.

The village also from the basic layout fits very nicely into the landscape. Its size is nice and the spacing is fine, maybe even a little too wide.

Sadly you can see throughout the village that you didn't have enough time to do the details properly. Many corners of the village are really empty and you have a lot of floating objects around.

Also the paths don't really make sense on the terrain they are one, try to take your time and sculpt the terrain so they are walkable. Also some more way to detail paths would suit the scene really way. For now they are just a texture painted across the landscape. Maybe add stones around them and other small touches so you can feel like people actually walk and use those paths.

7f56h.png


JUts_.png

I added some soil cliffs and different flora to the sides. Also went over the terrain sculpting. Again I am not suggesting that you are not capable of doing it yourself, but rather didn't have the time for it. This is just how I could imagine your paths to be better.

The winter version of the scene is fine. You took your time to remove the snow below most roofs and such, but because of your way of doing the flora (see below) you got a lot of weird winter foliage in high densities.

vkvc6.png

Snow on the bed

gTAx2.png

As you can see you can tick a box in the prefab flags, to avoid assets inside be affected by seasons (snow)

Gameplay | Design:
You did a good job with the nav mesh. Also you made areas that don't have navmesh not accessible with barriers, which is good. You have been very particular on where you want the players to go, but in some spots you didn't visualize it well enough to make sense for them. You did try to do it with fences or shrubs, but in many places like shown below you don't really know if the area is traversable or not.

EQTd6.png

Here it's not clear why the forest on the left is walkable while the one on the right isn't, since players can't see those red barriers. The approach overall is really good though.


The hideouts visually make sense where they are, but some are really hard to spot.

The terrain is a great ground for battles. Sadly it becomes a corridor slaughter really quick because of the defender placement. You did use tactical positions and regions, mostly to good effect. Sometimes they face the wrong way (they are only used by defenders really).

You used the flora paint tool a lot, especially for the clearings. Putting down thousands of that grass entities is neither good for your sanity nor the performance, try to add flora into flora layers (just like material layers), this way you can easily manipulate the desinsity, what flora should spawn and change it for seasons. I would suggest you use that flora paint tool, just for details along paths and such.

Innovation:
The way you did the terrain and explicit forest areas is a great idea to structure your scene. Also some small touches like the toilet house stand out.
Otherwise there is not much going on though.

Summary:
I think it's clear that you didn't get much time to work on the scene after you thought of the initial layout. This initial layout is really good though, even though you could definitely have made the scene reach out wider (without making the actual village better) for a nicer backdrop.

Anyway you have a great start for this scene but it would need a lot more work on details, terrain and other parts. Don't get discouraged, can't wait to have festivals there!
 
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Hey!

Since “cuce” sadly didn't find the time to give feedback, I'll do it instead, I hope that's ok for the creators.

It's been a while since we promised to give you all feedback, so apologies that it took that long in the end for these last few scenes, which are all real gems.
Thank you! Really appreciate you taking the time to write these out, it's very helpful. Agree with all the criticisms, I think I might return to that scene one day to make some changes.
 
Could someone possibly put the contest results someplace high in the OP? It's still easier to find the outdated contest anouncement than the actual scenes.
 
Hello, @Dejan

i am Kingclonetrooper.

I'm going to delete my account on the participant list because I've recovered the account I created in 2013.

Can someone over there press Kingclonetrooper and let me come to my current account profile?
 
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