UDK - Diner Environment

Flaw

Hello,

I'm working on my demo reel and I'm using my new environment as the intro. The reel is a work in progress but the diner is finished.

Feel free to leave feedback about the scene, just note that I won't be going back to this scene unless I manage to finish my other ones early enough.

This environment is Dead Town Diner, a fallout 3 inspired diner, set after some type of world disaster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuJ52jTY7VI&feature=youtu.be

BARDLER

It doesn't look beat up enough, and make shift enough to be Falloutish, and setup after a world disaster. It looks like a diner that would be in a poor part of a city, that is just a little rough around the edges. It would be good idea to really think what the diner has been through in order to sell the look that you want. Also study some of Fallout's environments to get a better idea of what they are like. Those environments have broken everything, and walls and floors are patched up with all kinds of random stuff.

In terms of the technical stuff. A lot of your textures are really noisy, the floors, wallpaper, and wood especially. Try to think about how the detail you are putting into the textures is going to come through. A lot of your textures could benefit from simplification, and some added large/medium scale details.

The lighting is really even and flat through out your entire scene. You should make use of that green sign as a light source, tint your ceiling lights blue and turn down the brightness, and find a way to add some warm colors in there.

Hope that helps a little bit, and good luck on everything else.

James Ordner

If this is going in a demo reel, you should go back for it, just completely redo the lighting. It looks so flat and monotonous right now. You have very few dark areas. Make your lights look more like they're the objects that are emitting light, right now it's hard to tell where the light's coming from. There's the one flickering light that's nice and obvious, but the others not so much. Consider using more colored lights too, I think the scene would look a lot better with more color. This scene could be really cool, just experiment with the lighting!

Flaw

Cool, thanks for the quick and very useful advice. If I look at a scene for too long I feel like sometimes I stop noticing things like what was mentioned. It almost blurs together a bit. I wasn't planning on working on it because of deadlines for my reel, but now I don't have a choice. I really want to give it that extra push to improve its overall look.

Thanks again guys. I'll do some work on it and update soon.

Flaw

I went in and reworked the lighting. I tried to give it more contrast because it was quite flat before. I hope this update on the lighting looks a bit better. Thanks.

[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaoJLeld7cM[/ame]

DWalker

I really dislike checkerboard patterns for floor tiles. At best, they distract the eye to the floor; at worst, they look like a temporary texture. Keep the floor tiles simple; a neutral, solid color with grout as the base combined with a grime overlay.

Neon signs are made from tubes bent into shape. The segment of tube connecting two letters or words is painted black to appear dark when lit. There's also a simple black support frame to hold the tubes in place.




Jukebox lights are almost never pure white. Depending on the era, they're neon, pastels, or even color changing lights.

Fluorescent lights are also rarely pure white. Depending on the era & use, they typically have a blue, yellow, or orange tint. To provide visual interest to the scene, consider having a few that are burnt out, or flickering. You can also add a faint hum sound effect to them; this will enhance the video, and is quite easy to do in UDK.

In a similar vein, consider adding music playing from the jukebox. Of course, copyright concerns limits your options a bit here, but you could probably get away with a skipping record considering the environment. (Of course, part of me wants to hear the Ink Spots...)

You have far too many cash registers. A diner this size would only have a single one, not the half dozen or so you have.

The props seem far too perfectly placed - the salt shakers all arranged neatly and standing up, the chairs placed squarely under the tables. etc. Knock over the occasional prop; have things lying at odd angles. In other words, add some chaos to the environment to give it a more natural feel.

AimBiZ

I wouldn't get rid of the floor tiles as it's a classic diner element. The problem is that they are too pronounced with the heavy black lines between them. Make them flatter, less contrast and they will blend in more as a whole. Although I think it's a bit too much to use them as wall trim.

The lighting is better but needs to be pushed a lot more. Don't be afraid to exaggerate. You can always tone things down later. Use the lights to enhance the focal points in your scene and darken the rest.