[UE4] Tavern by the road - WIP

19ulrich90

Hi, I'm starting my first project in UE4, also first 3d environment project from own concept.

Here are reference pictures for interior and exterior.





I'm going for a TES: Oblivion/Gothic/Witcher inspired but more realistic, less game-like look.

Here are some lowpoly blockouts in Maya. Trying to work modulary.











Trying out different color variations for interior.





I would love any kind of feedback on current blockout, layout, color scheme etc.

aquila

The good old tavern by the road . Great start. looking forward to a textured version. Are you also creating the surroundings outside?

19ulrich90

@aquila

Sure, I'll probably add some stone fence, signpost by the crossroads etc

Savannakhet

Do you have a character model so we can get a sense of scale?

At the moment I feel that tall patrons would bang their heads against the chanderlier...

19ulrich90

Here it is in UE, chandelier will have to be scaled down though as I see it now

19ulrich90

Making some progress, textures are temporary, stone wall texture from Vincent Derozier's tutorial is a placeholder. Any kind of critique is appreciated. Does wall stone texture fit rectangular floor tiles and overal scene design/practicality wise in your opinion? Will have to fix some props like windows, made them too wobbly

yukonwanderer

I really like the wood floor textures (maybe slightly too much shine) but the stone isn't doing it for me, but you said that was a placeholder anyway right? 

yukonwanderer

I really like the wood floor textures (maybe slightly too much shine) but the stone isn't doing it for me, but you said that was a placeholder anyway right? 

19ulrich90

@yukonwanderer yeah, textures are temporary, current ones dont have correct roughness maps applied yet, just uniform color in UE4. The floor and wall textures are placeholders yes, to see if rounded wall stones and rectangular floor stones would fit. Maybe both should be more rounded or both rectangular? I'm still modeling props, so i will concentrate on that later.

CodeferBlue

This looks amazing. I've had an idea to do this for such a long time. Not mustered up the skills yet to do it though.
Hopefully you'll give me critique on my medieval UE4 project when I get around to doing it.

Hope you don't sue me if our projects look similiar :P.
May I ask where you got your concept from? Struggling to find good concept.

19ulrich90

@CodeferBlue hehe, old tavern must be one of the most common "my first environment" projects I noticed . It's my concept, but inspiration is taken from the reference images I shared in first post (found on artstation, pinterest etc). I don't think you need that much skill for this environment. I have basic/intermediate knowledge of Maya, Zbrush, Substance Painter and Unreal Engine. Those combined can make your props/scenes look "pretty cool" quite fast. You just have to start, be patient, learn along the way and NEVER GIVE UPUU:D

CodeferBlue

Yeah by concept I was talking about your reference images. So you got everything from Pinterest and Artststion? Or bits from around the net.

Yeah I agree with you, a simple medieval tavern environment isn't too hard. However I plan on implementing a complicated layout I have in my head. I'm thinking elevations, a tavern on a hill maybe that leads underground or up above. Instead of having just a square, I think I'll be implementing circular building layouts too.

It can get as complex as you want it to be. The thing is, you are using really good colours and materials in your environment. The same type of colours and materials I was thinking of using before I even saw this post. That is why your work appeals to me so much.

19ulrich90

@CodeferBlue Pinterest, Arstation, Google. Glad you like it

CodeferBlue

Thanks.

19ulrich90

Back after a while with some progress









I'm having trouble with the lighting in general though. I wanted to achieve natural interior lighting just with combination of directional light coming through the window and skylight, but I had to add some point lights, because some parts were too dark, so it doesn't look too natural. On top of that I have artifacts appearing in some places, and I don't know what are they caused by. 



Second thing that's bothering me are too opaque extrerior shadows. Shadow from the pillar is visible on the wall, but not on the ground.


So here is interior lighting setup:


World settings:



Directional light settings:



Skylight settings:


Post process settings:


Any tips on how to improve the lighting and get rid of the artifacts?

FreneticPonies

Just set the number of bounces to like, 100, ditch a lot of the occlusion stuff for the lightmass settings as it's just make your dark scene a lot darker. Also max the lightmap resolution, as the artifacts your getting seem to be from that. Finally either add an interior light (from the chandalier or something) or cheat a little by setting the diffuse boost to 1.1 or so.

19ulrich90

@FreneticPonies Thanks, setting bounces higher helped, also turning occlusion in lighmass off. I didn't want to add candels and fire in fireplace yet as I wanted to see what iI can do only with sun light. I did cheat with point light over the bar though (and it's noticable)

So this is final video for now, as I had to finish it for school in time. A lot of things could be improved (models, materials, lighting in general, shadows are to opaque outside). But I will probably come back to it in the future, add second floor, try night scene, add candels etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrV0JAR53Ro

CodeferBlue

You have a really good mood, set for the tavern. Loved the first person view. Wouldn't mind making a fp rpg with an environment like that.

vertex_

Nice work

Thanez

This looks really nice. I love how much effort and detail you put into the scenery, but your props are now falling behind in quality and definition, so you should probably tighten up the graphics on those. Also if you add a nodraw angular box to cover the stairs, you won't have to jump to get up

19ulrich90

@Thanez yes, I know, all I'm seeing now are props that could be better (fugly barrel) ..hehe thanks for the tip about stairs!

Justin Wagner

Great work so far! I think you will be in good shape with some extra detail on the props but I think you are lacking detail in the effects and post processes. I would recommend a few things:

1. A particle system using GPU sprites for dust particles. (Fill that scene)
2. Faked volumetrics coming from the windows using transparent meshes 
3. A lens dirt mask. This can be added in the post process settings under the "bloom" tab.
4. If you would like. I would recommend making some spider web cards and adding some simple grass WPO for some extra life.

If you need some further explanations on some of this feel free to ask.

Keep up the good work!

19ulrich90

Justin Wagner said:

Great work so far! I think you will be in good shape with some extra detail on the props but I think you are lacking detail in the effects and post processes. I would recommend a few things:

1. A particle system using GPU sprites for dust particles. (Fill that scene)
2. Faked volumetrics coming from the windows using transparent meshes 
3. A lens dirt mask. This can be added in the post process settings under the "bloom" tab.
4. If you would like. I would recommend making some spider web cards and adding some simple grass WPO for some extra life.

If you need some further explanations on some of this feel free to ask.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the tips! I actually thought about all of them. But I had enough problems with basic lighting, so I didn't go further with effects and post process. I will do some other smaller projects to learn how to improve models, materials and lighting, then come back to this one and upgrade it

Justin Wagner

Sounds good! Just keep making awesome work and it can only get better!

Thane-

I think it looks very nice. Wheres Aragorn and Frodo, or is this not the Prancing Pony?
My only thought beside it looking great was maybe dirtier floors that reflected people burnishing it and flattening and lighting the wood. If your using tileables, maybe create an alpha overlay to just affect the regions you want?

19ulrich90

Thane- said:

I think it looks very nice. Wheres Aragorn and Frodo, or is this not the Prancing Pony?
My only thought beside it looking great was maybe dirtier floors that reflected people burnishing it and flattening and lighting the wood. If your using tileables, maybe create an alpha overlay to just affect the regions you want?

Thanks! Frodo is still in the Shire and Aragorn is waiting in the dark corner so you can't notice him  

Yes, I was thinking about that too. I will add dirt, spils to the floor when I figure deferred decals out. I tried to apply them on the exterior walls but wasn't happy with results, they were hardly noticable. I think it must be because of the lighting which isn't the best yet. See the plaster wall materials for instance. I used the same material for interior and exterior walls, but the exterior ones are washed out.

Ged

This is cool! I would make the camera transitions linear so theres no speed up and slow down on the end of each shot, more like a real tv show with cuts between cameras. Cheers 

Tomiajayi

Gorgeous! especially it you're only still in school. wow!

My only advice is that I notice in some areas, the light falling from the window is surrounded by darkness..
that's just weird. You can't have a hotspot surrounded by darkness. doesn't make much sense logically.
Still looks natural and pretty to the layman though imo.

19ulrich90

Ged said:

This is cool! I would make the camera transitions linear so theres no speed up and slow down on the end of each shot, more like a real tv show with cuts between cameras. Cheers 

Thanks for the advice! Will keep that in mind for future projects.

Tomiajayi said:

Gorgeous! especially it you're only still in school. wow!

My only advice is that I notice in some areas, the light falling from the window is surrounded by darkness..
that's just weird. You can't have a hotspot surrounded by darkness. doesn't make much sense logically.
Still looks natural and pretty to the layman though imo.

Thanks! This was actually project for my diploma at Institute and Academy for Multimedia (IAM, Slovenia). It is more of a media generalist-oriented school. We had Photoshop, Illustrator, photography, management, web design, 2D animation, 3D animation (very basic) courses but I wanted to specialize into 3D environment art so I learned most of what i know from polycount, gumroad tutorials and Youtube

I think the areas you are noticing are where the point lights are placed, so yeah it doesn't look real . Will try to repair this in future.