[UE4] Skyrim: Riverwood Environment

DriveJunky95

Having seen some demo works with DFGI/AO recently and having just above .5 skill at lighting, this happened over the weekend as some practice. Here are the changes with DF    \o/

Maya, PS and UE4

Original Images: http://polycount.com/discussion/153856/ue4-skyrim-riverwood-environment#latest

Panupat

Definitely recognizable as Skyrim at first glance so I guess you nailed that.

Now I would totally redo many of the shading.  Right now it looks like flat texture back in UT2004 era. Totally not what I'd expect seeing the word UE4 in the title. Especially the path in the shade. That's like super flat.

DriveJunky95

Okay, that sounds good ^^. I agree textures could be bumped up. Will start with landscape textures since those are lowest res.

Focusing on the lighting at the moment but will do texture work along the way. I dove into the post processing settings and discovered stuff like LUT and the different DOF types which I tried tonight. Disabling the auto dimming feature took the accomplishment for the evening    \o/

Fewer pics though I like these ones more. Here are the changes.

griffiti

I agree with the shading comment. For me the thing that stands out is that it doesn't feel like a lived in place. You should have a look at the villages in Witcher 3. They layer the thatch roofing and have tufts of grass and small plants sticking out around the pathways. You could also wobble the fence a bit and have a few beams modelled off axis so they feel a bit more worn.

DriveJunky95

Cool idea, thanks!:) I'll see how I can run with an overgrown look with the scene. Those layered thatched roofs are definitely  lifelike, can't tell yet if they're modeled/textured with tiling strips yet or not. The damage running down the middle tells me it's unique. I'll take a look at more references.

clinington

This is looking nice! That path is still a bit flat looking though and I think your material could do with some work there. I totally agree with Griffiti about needing some more grass and weeds around the edges of the pathway etc. The vegetation you have already is really nice, just need some more!  Maybe you could add some colour variation to the wood too. All of the wooden logs/beams look a bit samey at the moment. 

DriveJunky95

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate you guys taking the time to do that - it's a huge help:)

Took the opportunity when upping the landscape texture resolutions to enable tessellation on the road spline and foundation walls. It's distance based which I thought might help FPS.

This project also had a vertex paint chain in the master material so going with the aged settlement vibe brought that to life:) Still needs some tweaking but works great to break up repetition.

Here's what I've managed to accomplish with the feedback thus far. I think it's still lacking color beyond yellow / light brown / green so I'll make note of that. Also new water shader!     \o/

griffiti

It's definitely moving in the right direction now!

The stone roadway still needs some work and the shape of it doesn't sit well with me. Is there a reason why it's raised in the middle? You could add in some stone meshes to help make it uneven. As it's a cloudy day you could have some of the environment under the shadow of a cloud and add in a couple of subtle (bg) light shafts. Some depth of field (again subtle) wouldn't hurt either. If you have time get some more clutter in there eg. barrels, buckets, weeds, etc (look at medieval villages) to help break up the larger areas of mud. For now I'd leave the water shader and get everything else working as water tends to be a lot harder to get right!

Hope that helps..!

DriveJunky95

Awesome stuff, Griffiti:) Done and done!

Updates:
Plugged in a rotating cloud texture as a light function into the directional light and viola, moving clouds! I really like that effect due to the various shades in the shadows now, MUCH more interesting. Again, ty Griffiti!

Added back the DOF in these screens so the background is blurry again.

Light shafts are now at the gate entrance, the ramp leading up to the Sawmill - will post a pic of that at some point, had a weird issue with DFAO in the background that needs playing with, and some sifting through the trees in the background from where you'd have left the cave in the original game.

Varied the heightmap on the stone path so some stones are cropped higher than others.

Some new [placeholder] foliage, want to see where I can go with it in general.

Going to go back and custom edit the vertex normals on the trees to see if it helps the shading at all.

Figured I'd try Epic's new fog planes on the backdrop mountain range to see if it would add more depth, much like the original scene. Super cool.

Kit bashed a water well together that sits in the yard of the 'curved house' .

Played with the water shader... and decreased the fire pit's max smoke opacity to something less than the original smoldering bonfire. xP

And also 5min cabbages in the cart on the road. Gotta have those.

TL;DR - Here are the changes, let me know what's up!