[UE4] Post apo suburban street
polycounter lvl 5
Latest progress
Hey guys. I was very happy with the feedback I got on my last project: Old pump station. http://polycount.com/discussion/157473/old-pump-station-ue4#latest
For this project I wanted to capture the atmosphere and mood of The Last of Us and The Walking Dead. It's a suburban street which has been run down because of an infection a few days prior. The idea is that there may be someone still out there scavenging or protecting the area from looters, who knows.
Please note that the one tree scattered everywhere is just a copied placeholder from my earlier project and will ofcourse be replaced! Its a mixture of some older and newer screenshots, too.
Would love to hear your feedback again on what I have so far!
Hey guys. I was very happy with the feedback I got on my last project: Old pump station. http://polycount.com/discussion/157473/old-pump-station-ue4#latest
For this project I wanted to capture the atmosphere and mood of The Last of Us and The Walking Dead. It's a suburban street which has been run down because of an infection a few days prior. The idea is that there may be someone still out there scavenging or protecting the area from looters, who knows.
Please note that the one tree scattered everywhere is just a copied placeholder from my earlier project and will ofcourse be replaced! Its a mixture of some older and newer screenshots, too.
Would love to hear your feedback again on what I have so far!
Replies
This is really cool, great job. I like the props and the texture work for sure!
I feel like there is a story to the scene, but in order to tell your specific story, it needs to be pushed a little more as I don't quite see a zombie/infection environment. It looks more like a group of houses foreclosed in the fall. You're on the right track though, maybe think of how you can get that point across that this is a neighborhood currently in a zombie-driven universe. Another thing that could help is the lighting. The Last of Us and the Walking Dead are two great examples of lighting. They really knock it out of the park when it comes to that department, so maybe get some stills of neighborhoods in those environments and see how they executed the lighting. With that, try to pick a main focal point because my eye is drawn to the concrete more than the houses and the lighting can help solidify what the eye is drawn too. For example, maybe one house is the safe house for the main characters, so make it stand out with some good rim lighting, or just add more visual contrast so the eye is automatically drawn to it. Finally, and it MAY be because of the angles, but some of the scaling looks a little off? I'm not sure how you went about handling the scale, but adding a human reference can really help it out. It may just be me though.
Overall, I'm liking this a lot. I really want to jump in there and explore the place. Just keep at it and it will be amazing!
Here's some new progress screenshots with the changes I made, biggest of which is the lighting to give more focus on the houses and less on the road.
It feels really weird though.. that the car's doors shade so different from the rest.
https://wewastetime.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/09150404_10_xl.jpg
https://webtoolfeed.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/09150402_18_xl.jpg
http://orig13.deviantart.net/3597/f/2008/131/b/1/holton_abandoned_house_by_falln_stock.jpg
http://aaronwalker.org/family/2007xmas/Originals/An_Old_Abandoned_Car_full.JPG
< ADMIN LINK REMOVAL BY REQUEST OF CONTENT OWNER >
http://commtow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Abandoned+car+64240.jpg
Looking at this it feels weird, and I think that more decay is really going to make a big difference here.
Maybe try to do something with the silhouette of the houses or even the materials, adding a little difference in the planks could make a difference.
Keep it up man! looking fine as it is now =D
I've started to make the houses look more worn out and will give the cars a bit more love as well.
Here's some final images.
The puddle reflection in the first images is weird in the sense that I don't see the disconnect between the street and the water. It looks as if the street is super shiny because I can't tell where the border of the water is. I don't know how to fix it though, maybe turn down the specular of the road? Maybe that is causing it to mix weird. Maybe it is just the angle you have there and another shot from the side of the puddle would show it is actually ok?
http://en.academic.ru/pictures/enwiki/76/Luzha_Garage.jpg
The Bad:
You have all this nice stuff, and then your garbage bags suck!
https://sp.yimg.com/xj/th?id=OIP.M4214bd59c9a82317052db54b84fe9039o0&pid=15.1&P=0&w=300&h=300
I also forgot to post this video I made of the scene!
The only real negative I noticed in the video, is that the tree branches are blowing a bit too aggressively in my opinion.