run down city environment
polycounter lvl 8
*Finished*
_____________________________________________
The original concept was this guy here
I wanted to go a bit more grungy with the scene, heres mine right now (below). I need to get moving with props, but this is the general shot I want the scene to be...seen from. This is kind of how I want the lighting to be set as well, but recommendations are welcome. A few things still need to have light maps set (some blatant lighting errors are being addressed). Currently making a small fancier lamp for the small door closest that has a bright light in the top left of the brick wall.
I am also making this steam punk kind of cart to put somewhere in the scene. This is just the hi-poly. I was thinking off to the far left in front of that kind of fancy building. It will also get the grungy treatment.
Looking for more prop ideas, lighting tips, anything else that sticks out as messed up. Thanks all!
_____________________________________________
The original concept was this guy here
I wanted to go a bit more grungy with the scene, heres mine right now (below). I need to get moving with props, but this is the general shot I want the scene to be...seen from. This is kind of how I want the lighting to be set as well, but recommendations are welcome. A few things still need to have light maps set (some blatant lighting errors are being addressed). Currently making a small fancier lamp for the small door closest that has a bright light in the top left of the brick wall.
I am also making this steam punk kind of cart to put somewhere in the scene. This is just the hi-poly. I was thinking off to the far left in front of that kind of fancy building. It will also get the grungy treatment.
Looking for more prop ideas, lighting tips, anything else that sticks out as messed up. Thanks all!
Replies
If not, definitely try to find some areas where you can incorporate more color with props and such. Looks very grayscale right now.
In the concept, there is a weak old gate that separates the tunnel area from the rest of the scene, and that portrays a sort of separation from the two areas. That could work really well in your version.
Looking forward to updates!
Awesome! thanks, Yeah right now I added a bit of desaturation to the whole scene that I think I'm gonna pull back. I also wanna add some color with the props as well. The gate is a great idea, after looking at the image for a while everything just blends together ya know, thanks again!
also a quick sign change to encourage more crit!
I like that you deviate from the concept a bit to make it your own. Really getting a sense of scale as well. I don't mind the desaturated colors so much. I suppose its all about the mood you're trying to achieve. Right now it reminds a bit of blade runner with its gloomy feel and the neon signs.
You might be able to benefit from a bit of color correction as it seems to be a tad dark overall(might just be my monitor too). Are you using UDK? I can't tell. If you are, you could try the color lookup tables if you haven't already. You might be able to use that to tweak your exposure to your liking.
Agreed, I was thinking of adding the graffiti to the main arch with the door under it. thanks!
Yeah, will make them wider, they were originally fatter slabs of wood but I thought it made the door a bit small, but the door is small by design anyway so it would make more sense if they were bigger. Thanks!
Thanks! I wanted it a bit desaturated but I definitely feel there needs to be a bit of color correction and a bit brighter or punchier in spots. I am in UDK right now as well, should have specified that in the OP lol thanks!
Right now its just this block but I was thinking of expanding just a bit over the the right so I could get a shot of the dome roof building without just nothing behind it lol thanks
Edit: forgot to resize wood planks, doin it now.
If you had that much air pollution you would get a lot more bounce lighting to.
below are the main aspects lighting the scene. overall I dont think the spotlight in the alley is giving the desired bright godlight effect that I'm looking for.
heres the fog
main dynamic light source
Heres the spotlight shooting down the alley that isn't giving the desired effect, I have the "god rays" effect on, but I just feel like its giving me anything significant.
Light shafts in UDK will only give you a sort of blooming glare effect as the camera passes by. If you are looking for more effective light shafts go with a 3D model.
Scene is looking great by the way! The ground could use some more debris/detail but I'm sure you're on top of it
Yeah I was thinking of just putting something in there with an emissive and transparency because the light shafts isnt giving me the desired effect. Yeah I have some some more ideas for the ground, gonna do some vertex painting with some stuff rubble like stuff and maybe some large puddles, and obviously some garbage, papers etc to be thrown around. and thanks!
Everything right now looks like a proper city street (which is good :P) however at the moment, the playful and stylistic forms of your models and architecture are met with a dull and muted lighting/post processing theme. It is this art student's opinion that everything in this image should complement one another. The gritty urban fantasy models should be met with complementary textures that drive home the same visual background and style, along with the lighting, post-processing, etc. Everything should come together to tell a visual story! Kind of like finding the right jigsaw puzzle pieces to fit together, instead of forcing things into place that don't go with each other.
I'm on a 9 hour train ride at the moment, so I thought I'd tell you what my thoughts were hehe. Keep it up man. You have a really good foundation of an awesome image here, and with the right elements added/reiterated you can come out of this with a strong portfolio piece. ^^
So at the moment the way I have the lighting scheme and fog set up (recomended by his lordship Joyal lol) its in a late day/early evening time where a shadow is being cast on most of the main scene from some of the buildings unseen from the right, which is why its mostly light by street lights and such. When I tried to have the main light before coming down from behind the buildings before though it just kind of washed everything out I felt and made it all look yellow and formless. At the time though I hadn't messed around much with color correction or any post processing, so maybe that would help bring out the forms of the buildings. I'm gunna give it another go though with the original lighting scheme from the back now though because I have a lot more models in there and maybe if I set a few things up differently it could work out better. I'll be back in a few hours with the results and details of what I changed
Not sure which lighting scheme I like more :poly127:
Me too, the more I look at them the more I lean towards that one.
Nice scene by the way ^^.
I think I have an issue with the compositional layout. it seems like you have your camera positioned so as to squeeze in as much of your center building, and because of that it feels like 'squeezed" within the composition. The left side of your center building and the foreground arch have an uncomfortable tangency to me. What I mean by that is the two forms seem to touch, or get very close to one another, along the line of the arch.
Raising your camera up and tilting it down ever so slightly might help this. If you did, we would see more of the ground and you would probably want to detail that out a bit more.
In your concept, the artist has a barrel on the right side of the foreground, which I would wager was placed there to balance out the imposing weight of the arch on the left. Might be an opportunity to use your cart or other prop to do the same.
That being said, were this a frame from a camera move, I think this could be the beginning of a wonderful reveal sequence, with the camera tracking and panning around the corner of that arch. I can also imagine myself walking around the corner of that arch as a player in a game.
But right now, as an image on its own, the balance seems off(left heavy because of the arch), as well as the worms eye camera angle, and there could be more depth, as I think was mentioned by others, with the most contrast/saturation/darkest darks in the foreground.
So the camera angle was originally (before I posted it on here) angled pretty much exactly as suggested, very reminiscent of the concept. The issue there was that it left it feeling very calm and removed from the place, and doesn't really bring you into the scene close to all the modeling work and scale of the buildings etc. that had been put into it. That being said I agree with the unbalanced feel, the cart that I'm making is almost done and will be added most likely to the right in the scene which should help balance it out greatly. I had considered making the barrel and putting it there but the cart will be a much more impressive addition to that area. And trash bags and other scraps are being made/have been put into the scene, waiting to add the cart and the other props before the next update though but it shall all be in shortly!
A little more material definition is also needed get some spec highlights hitting on places.
Btw, I am a sucker for orange and blue colors, not a fan of green. But look at the last two frames and you can clearly see what I think you should work on. Otherwise great job!
This is coming along superfine Matt. You dun gud.
Editz: The orange theme lights it way more similarly to the concept not only in color, but pushes the saturation and darkness to happy extremes. Just noticed when perusing through the beginning of the thread.
Your latest shot is as you said, by far your best. Some nitpick things I would like to see is that you fix the bricks next to that door on the left, as someone posted earlier, too big. And also some more color in the shadows. Just a tiny bit, some purple or blue could lift it up the last kick! I did again a small paintover to show you an example, the above one is your latest pic, the second one is the same pic but I painted in some purple in the shadows. I hope its ok that I did this and I hope it helps ^^
Its my personal preference to have it like that, I also over did the purple a bit I see now afterwards, but I hope that what I mean is readable. Play with some more colors
//Nuke
Cheers!
I kinda went in a very different direction with most of the buildings in the scene, pretty much all of them I think haha Is there something you would want me to add or change to the door that I replaced it with? Thanks
Edit: hmmmmm the more I look at the wooden door the less I like it. A bit unfit to be right there.I'm gonna make a new wooden one and fit it into the brick frame I got in there tomorrow.
There are ways of making a city look grimey and run-down without just adding a lot of noise to your textures. Working more with putting the grime in the right places instead of everywhere helps a lot. One good case would be Dishonored, it's a dark, grungy game without being noisy
- Focal point buildings in a slight different and brighter color to draw the eye there.
- Brightness from the strong directional light has been pumped up a little bit.
- Reduced overall noise. In a scene like this I think it's important to think about "detail" and "implied detail". If you just add too many things for the sake of having detail you end up with a lot of visual noise.
But this is just a suggestion