Sci-fi Sick Bay UDK
LATEST:
Howdy, this is my first Polycount thread, I'm pretty stoked to be here!
This is a scene I created a little while ago, and have revisited once or twice as a sort of practice area. I was an environment artist for a while, but for the past couple years my focus has shifted toward lighting. I decided to revisit this scene one last time, with a focus on getting the materials and lighting to a good place.
This scene is intended to tell a simple story, with a bit of an eerie suspense/horror feel. Basically someone has been rushed in here with a major injury, moved to the surgical table, but was unable to be saved. I'm imagining this location is on a water-based vessel(carrier or submarine), so there's plenty of drainage and such to deal with flooding, venting for air circulation, and the wiring is in thick protective coating.
These images are grabbed straight from the UDK viewport, sans post-processing, and the lightmaps are only rendered at medium quality.
Any critique on the materials/textures and lighting will be greatly appreciated. Any other critique is welcome as well, but I plan to focus on the surfacing and lighting primarily.
Thanks!
Howdy, this is my first Polycount thread, I'm pretty stoked to be here!
This is a scene I created a little while ago, and have revisited once or twice as a sort of practice area. I was an environment artist for a while, but for the past couple years my focus has shifted toward lighting. I decided to revisit this scene one last time, with a focus on getting the materials and lighting to a good place.
This scene is intended to tell a simple story, with a bit of an eerie suspense/horror feel. Basically someone has been rushed in here with a major injury, moved to the surgical table, but was unable to be saved. I'm imagining this location is on a water-based vessel(carrier or submarine), so there's plenty of drainage and such to deal with flooding, venting for air circulation, and the wiring is in thick protective coating.
These images are grabbed straight from the UDK viewport, sans post-processing, and the lightmaps are only rendered at medium quality.
Any critique on the materials/textures and lighting will be greatly appreciated. Any other critique is welcome as well, but I plan to focus on the surfacing and lighting primarily.
Thanks!
Replies
Material wise i'd say a lot of the materials are too matte?
In this instance, a simple spec pass would REALLY bring this entire scene to life. Your materials (painted metal, bare metal, scratches, glass, etc) are all just blending into one, and really takes away from that initial wow factor.
I like the scene though, and I feel it has a ton of potential. Another thing, feels a little bare. Not really sure the story behind anything at first glance, just feels like a colorful (a good choice btw) sci fi hallway/scene. Fill it in with more props to tell that story, also think about your wear in the scene. Roof tiles are probably going to have very little wear, right now the tiles near the ceiling have equal wear to those where your feet and other objects would be rubbing.
I think once I get the materials and lighting dialed in I'd like to work on set dressing.
Pretty much with Add3r, the metal plates look pretty flat. I like the glass. Looks like you have some reflection going on? but its kinda hard to tell in these shots. The panels on the floor read a bit more like metal as well, but orange panels on the walls/ceilings are the biggest culprits for making everything look flat.
Definitely get a nice strong specular on there...using the same orange color in the spec will help make it look a bit more like an orange metal.
I appreciate the critique, please keep'm coming!
Crits - I'd say the metal overall is a bit to flat still. & in terms of a Medical bay... traditional imagery utilizes a lot of white/ looks sterile, this looks more like an engineering bay etc. If you are trying to avoid the sterile look, whilst also looks great with dirty stains across it... xD
Whilst its good to challenge perceptions, it could be worthwhile to include some visual clues so a player immediately understands if only sub-consciously.
More detail regarding my color choices are on my blog.
For me... The diffuse work is a little too "generated looking", a lot of the edges of the metal panels have heavy scratching or wear.
Think about how the panels are used,are object/people are likely to interact with them? (bump into, open, close, etc) if not then there should be less wear/damage on it. Whereas a panel that are opened a lot will have wear around the opening points, screws, handles, general scratches on the surface, etc. For me its just trying to think more about how the various objects in the scene are used and it will help make the individual assets in the scene more believable.
Also the darker surfaces will help display the reflections and specular's more but generally medical rooms are white (or near white) as it is easier to see dirt and therefore easier to clean/keep clean. That being said its can still totally work as a medical bay, I wonder if you can push the graphic design a bit more to help sell the medial theme rather than have to change the colour scheme.
Look forward to seeing more updates, hope you find this feedback useful.
Cheers
Chris
I set up a matinee for each of these camera angles that controlled the FOV and DOF per shot, then I captured these screens from that sequence.
There are a couple more shots posted here:http://www.chrisclaflin.com/p/sick-bay.html