Is Last Sanctuary - Post Apocalyptic Refuge considered professional quality?

ArkadySkies

I can't stop looking at Last Sanctuary. I'm not trying to be mean, but to me it looks like a decade old freebie item that needs retexturing. The modeling looks simplistic, the texturing has some serious tiling issues, the grunge is over-done and fake looking, a little large, and it almost looks like the same grunge texture is recolored a couple times, and are these giant, inexplicable random paint splotches on the model itself or an overlay on the promo? It looks like it's part of the texturing because it seems to follow the geometry, but I can't comprehend the thought process behind the size and placement of them.

I've heard people complain about the quality of some of the newer products, but this feels very amateur to me. With the exception of the car, it's not hard to do better than this after a few free blender tutorials on youtube and some decent CC-0 textures. I have. Am I crazy or have I spent too much time on ArtStation and BlenderArtists? If this is professional quality and worth $35, I have been way too hard on my own modeling.

arks0ng

I'm pretty sure those splotches are on the promo image, since all the pages have a grunge texture with similar splotches and the bigger splotches go over edges. I see what you mean about the model, it looks a little dated, though with good use of depth of field I reckon it could work nice as a backdrop for more character-focused scenes. I'd really like to see some non-filtered, big close-ups of the model itself to get a better look

Drip

arks0ng said:

I'm pretty sure those splotches are on the promo image, since all the pages have a grunge texture with similar splotches and the bigger splotches go over edges. I see what you mean about the model, it looks a little dated, though with good use of depth of field I reckon it could work nice as a backdrop for more character-focused scenes. I'd really like to see some non-filtered, big close-ups of the model itself to get a better look

I'm not really into post apocalyptic or dystopian stuff, but the product gives a similar vibe to me: very useful as a collection of moviesets for different scenes within a consistent setting, but less ideal as an actual full building for world-building. The large overview shots don't do it justice I think, the smaller subset renders that for some reason got sized down and put into a collage look way more useful.

Sevrin

Is it Stonemason quality?  No. 

Is it awful?  Also no.  I don't do post-apocalyptic stuff so it's not for me, and the postwork on the promos doesn't help, but it seems okay.

FSMCDesigns

I have to agree, it has a very "ported from a non AAA game" look in the promos. The night shot looks impressive though and it probably works well from a distance.

xyer0

FSMCDesigns said:

The night shot looks impressive though and it probably works well from a distance.

I had a girlfriend like that. OK, a couple. No, really. 

vagans

Keep in mind that the business model of Daz requires a constant flow of multiple new content on a daily basis. Sustaining that means the quality of each product is going to vary wildly.

The materials themselves don't seem to be fantastic, or it's the promos that aren't great with the right lighting. The construction of the product seems to be quite good though in regards to having all the different sections loadable seperately. I think it's just how flat and sparse the scenes are but it looks to be designed to be light on resources on purpose. There's definitely a market for this kind of product and there's been much worse than this IMO.

I agree the price is off though. It's almost in the range of Stonemason but severly lacks that quality. I think it's just the scale itself which is trying to justify the cost, and might be if the designer spent a significant amount of time creating it.

DisparateDreamer

not every set is the same in purpose. I think this set is built on modularity; it has multiple shaders to apply to make things look different, buildings can be moved or added or not, signs and graffiti and dirt and mess all to give customization. This is a 'build what you want' thing. Not a final movie scene, I think.

Serene Night

The store seems to be accepting content of varying degrees of skill levels, much as do places like Rendo.  

I have had issues with the quality of men's clothing for years. 

benniewoodell

There are a ton of items in the set that I totally could use and don't really feel like spending the time modeling them myself. As for the textures, personally I retexture everything with textures from Quixel Megascans anyways, unless it's from Stonemason, so as long as I can look at a setting and see potential for what I could do with it, I'm in. Characters are really the only items I look at the textures and decide if I want it or not.

nicstt

Whilst I don't think the product is top notch, for $35 (full price) for what you get, then it isn't bad.

ArkadySkies

Stonemason is a high standard to aim for, but if it costs as much as Stonemason, I'd expect it to look better than this (unlike this, Stonemason is worth the price). There seems to be some pretty basic mistakes in this model that could have been addressed in any 3D modeling forum that does art critiques. The exterior almost looks like a paper craft, and usually when texturing you wouldn't want it to look like you just slapped a large tileable grunge texture over your model, you want it a softer, more subtle touch with the grunge, even for post-apocalyptic, and apply it strategically based on logical wear and tear and where dirt builds up. Texture scaling looks off. A little UV work could have reduced the worst of the tiling - and I still suck at UVs, but for a model this simple cubic it's easy to do. Even an efficient, lower poly building can usually afford a little more detailing in the modeling, or at least some texturing that had more thought put into it These issues aren't specific to the artistic genre either, but for post-apocalyptic art, just slapping a bunch of rough grungy-grunge textures on top and calling it a day seems amateur.

I was under the impression Daz is a competitive marketplace to get into, and that even if their QA isn't doing a good job these days, the PAs are still held to a high standard and it needs to at least look good. At least, I've never seen a model that looks like this make it in the Daz store. Searches for "factory" "industrial" and "apocalyptic" are all producing far more attractive and professional looking environments.

There are lots of tutorials on modeling buildings free on youtube. Getting a better result than this is not hard.

DisparateDreamer said:

not every set is the same in purpose. I think this set is built on modularity; it has multiple shaders to apply to make things look different, buildings can be moved or added or not, signs and graffiti and dirt and mess all to give customization. This is a 'build what you want' thing. Not a final movie scene, I think.

I love modularity and re-usable shaders, but these are not good shaders.

Sera

I'm frequently shocked by what people think is nice or good-looking, and when I look through the store, I see plenty of items that just make me go "nope!" Sometimes it's the quality, other times it's the aesthetic. So I am not that surprised when I see an item that looks like someone made a cube and slapped a texture over it.

But some days lately, I am shocked by just how many times I see bad quality. My guess is that I'm just noticing it more. Sometimes, when I load up some of the stuff I bought 4 years ago, I think "Geezus, I can't believe I thought this was a nice set..."

plasma_ring

Gonna be real: if people can get into the store at a relatively low skill threshold and get some grocery money, good for them and more folks should give it a shot. The promos aren't misleading or anything. 

I can think of a bunch of products, some of which I bought here, that basically look like building sets for kids in the texturing and modeling detail department. But that stuff is always obvious from promos and--like this set--there are things about them I found useful enough to make them worth the price. I haven't purchased this, but given how many props it comes with I don't think it's priced terribly. I've seen smaller prop bundles or single props of similar quality that, if purchased separately, would be more expensive to collect than even the non-sale price of this.  

Also, IMO the artist did a great job with the promos by explaining how the buildings and props can be customized and clearly showing all the separate props, materials, and camera angles. They put a lot of thought into the set and the different ways people might want to use it, which I really appreciate--I'm at the point where as much as I love some artists' work, I don't buy it if I'm essentially purchasing someone's art project and it's hard to customize.

I'm not vagueposting at anyone specific, least of all Stonemason, whose work is not hard to kitbash. But I've deliberately sought out their older sets, some of which are not super far off in quality from this, because they are light on my computer while being easy to retexture if necessary. I don't know if Last Sanctuary is optimized well, but I'll always get more use out of lo-fi stuff I don't have to struggle with actually rendering and can tinker with in setup. 

blaz

I don't mind lesser quality, as long as it's not hidden with renders. I can then decide if the price is to my liking. I never buy products that have all their promos put through some kind of filter (denoiser?).

plasma_ring

This is a really interesting video about model quality and efficiency. It's understandable to want something you're buying to be much higher quality than what you might put together for yourself, as he says at the end. But if you're buying props because you can't or don't want to model them all by hand, a set like this has a lot of good background filler. Not all of it is stuff I can see myself using, but it could probably replace three or four other products I wishlisted just in case I needed a specific type of fence or debris. 

PixelSploiting

 I think it's a flexible set with more than a few useful assets. It's a toolbox for anyone who can't/won't model from the scratch. The tiled nature of some texturing won't be very visible up-close.

It's a large set. Plenty of meshes for tweaking. Post-apocalyptic isn't my thing, but if it was I'd probably use it.

I'm still using lots of old Poser sets because of how easy to kitbash they are.

Torquinox

plasma_ring said:

This is a really interesting video about model quality and efficiency. It's understandable to want something you're buying to be much higher quality than what you might put together for yourself, as he says at the end. But if you're buying props because you can't or don't want to model them all by hand, a set like this has a lot of good background filler. Not all of it is stuff I can see myself using, but it could probably replace three or four other products I wishlisted just in case I needed a specific type of fence or debris. 

Interesting video. I understand what the guy is saying and why. With Daz assets, it's hard to say how a person will use any particular asset. I think, in many cases, the price is right and the pack looks enticing enough for people to buy it. But maybe few people will ever load it in the software or render it.

The textures on this product should work well enough. They might fall apart in close-ups, but that's true for the textures on many building sets and their props. If I were using that set, I would adjust the material settings to get the most out of what's there. I think it would look great, especially when you factor in a little DOF and moody lighting.

nonesuch00

I like it but didn't buy it. It's meant to be used in some styles of toons and games I think.

MoreTN

I render NPR stuff mainly and may put images through a few filters to get a comic book effect, so I'm not looking for utra or even high detail. For me, this set looks like an excellent buy

Hylas

There's nothing wrong with that product, it looks perfectly fine to me.

tsarist

Hylas said:

There's nothing wrong with that product, it looks perfectly fine to me.

Agreed. I do a lot of animation and could easily see adding that set to a project or two I have in mind. I wishlisted it, same as I did Stonemasons set because I'm skint right now.

Ruphuss

use it for what it can be used

its ok

more than 100 items for 24 bucks now

not a scam