Tsar Hoikas wrote:As I have already stated, lighting is a huge issue--I immediately thumb past anything that appears shadeless. You can bake primitive lights by simply placing a 3ds Max (not Plasma) light into the scene. For more advanced lighting techniques (including baked shadows), we have a decent tutorial on light mapping available.
For an example of what I believe Adam is talking about.
Early shot of Fehnir's house;
Unfortunately a lot of Ages keep the flat lighting and (often use flat textures or "bryce textures" as I call them) and it makes them look off.
Then (later in the process) we have something like this;
Where shadowing, and depth has been added which makes the location look a lot better. Course even in this picture I can see much that could be improved but that's besides the point.
An example of what I call Bryce Textures:
If you're using textures, I highly suggest taking from photo textures or stock photography. If you're making textures in GIMP or Photoshop build from a photo texture base. It gives textures a more realistic feel and not that washed out "plastic" feel from "bryce textures"