Secret Garden

kaspurr

Hey guys, I have been working on this piece for 2 months as part of CGMA's Foliage course and I got some really great feedback regarding my lighting from a friend. They suggested I really need to fix my lighting, they said I could add fog cards and that I should change the values of my base color materials because its hard to differentiate between fore, mid and background due to the darkness of my foliage. Does anyone know how to change the values of my base colors? All of the foliage is hand painted in Zbrush so I really do not want to have to redo everything, is this something I can tweak in PS or UE? All critiques are welcomed I am trying to get my first job please check out the other shots on my Artstation! 

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zYq86
 

Dubloon

You can adjust the brightness of the textures in Unreal in the Texture Properties  window https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/Types/Textures/Properties/

And I agree with your friend, some better lighting would really make your foliage stand out more. From what I can see the foliage looks nice, it's just hard to see a lot of it. I would just spend some time playing around with the directional and skylight and seeing what looks good.

These videos really helped me with my lighting in Unreal, they're quite long, but there's heaps of useful tips in them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grN5Yd55UIM&list=PLqfZolvobgUDAm-c41cDR8NDA79UKuN4b&ab_channel=51Daedalus

kaspurr

Hey thank you that series was my savior but you'er right its super long and I haven't gotten through all of it! I didn't realize how much my base color would affect the actual values of the scene with the lights in. I have a Subsurface profile on a few of the plants like the tree leaves but I can't really see that it makes a difference. Do you know anything about SSS for foliage and how its supposed to work?

shodan

The hottest spot here is through the archway, and the two points of interest are the archway and the swing. We can use those two things to really push this further.

I would try to light this scene with the origin of your hottest source of light behind the archway, with light spilling in to the clearing and raking across the swing. That will immediately ramp up and define the mood of this shot. Having blown out light beyond the arch will make this feel more like a magical entrance and place. As for color palette, I'd try to go for more greens, blues and fog for this sort of effect in your lighting and fog.

Because the swing is such a focal point of the shot, I would look to making the wood have more detail and patina. More info in the geometry and texture. The same goes for the rope. Unless both were hung yesterday, they would have age and wear. 

Dubloon

I haven't really messed around with subsurface materials on foliage, but this page might be able to help you https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Two-Sided_Foliage_Material

aclund3

Just wanted to add a vote to @shodan's message. That's a really good approach to put some drama and tell a story with your scene. I can see it in my mind already Good luck!

kaspurr

Hey guys thanks for the advice! @shodanI definitely went and reworked everything making sure to balance my warms and cools better, except the swing honestly I totally forgot about it, and I went for a little bit of a different approach towards the mood and I wish I had seen your message earlier that would have been an awesome composition but luckily I think this is still successful. It has a different sort of mood than what I was going for before but I like it more. I had a lot of trouble controlling my lighting and @Dubloon spent all day the other day listening to that tutorial series front to back and the refresh really helped control my contrasts so thank you for reminding me about the series! I will definitely be doing more natural scenes so I will be looking more into SSS and foliage shaders. Let me know how you guys think I did round 2! I need to put this project to bed but I still welcome all critiques they just get applied to the next project!