Alleyway

Ditch

Hey everyone!

It's been years since I worked on a scene from scratch, so I challenged myself to make an alleyway.  However I've been finding it far more challenging than I remember.  Posted are a couple of screen shots of the my WIP scene, along with some of the materials I made for the scene.  I'm currently just trying to make the buildings and some lighting and mood.  However I'm realizing my approach might of been off and think once I finish this project I'll do a few focus studies on level building, and go back to the basics in Unreal 4.  That being said, any tips, suggestions, critiques or even references I can queue up now (and even later) would all be appreciated!

Now for some quick renders I made of some of the more notable tiling materials, made in designer.




This whole experience has been very eye opening in a lot of ways and any help or feedback to help push me forward again would be appreciated.  Thanks everyone for your time, and I hope you have a good one!

Ditch

After spending this past week doing some research, and practice.  I also added in some new assets, adjusted things like the lighting and post effects.  I'm realizing more and more that I should of spent more time during the block out and started dealing with lighting earlier on.  Again any feedback is welcomed and I'm always open for suggestions on tutorials or whatever resources anyone might suggest.  Will be try to do a new scene here soon, smaller scope, with a stronger focus on the blockout and lighting.  Build up from there, thanks again and as always have a great day!

feloxy

Hey there, those are pretty good materials. I find right now that the lighting looks flat. It's hard to tell what's what. You need some different points of interest. Maybe have a neon sign or two, street lights... Vary the types of light in the area, a night scene doesn't have to be pitch black. Something like this. (It's a bit sci fi but most sites were blocked at work and this still showed what I meant for points of interest).

Ditch

Oh, thanks man!  I hadn't even considered adding neon lights, that would of really given an additional layer of contrast and a 'pop' that would of really helped.  I'm struggling to really nail down lighting in unreal though.  I'm hoping between some practice/ tutorials and working on lighting a bit more heavily in the block out stage (instead of waiting till near the end, like i did) that it will prevent everything from flattening out.

feloxy

I think before actually putting a scene together you need a story to it, make it feel lived in and alive. So you could have say a police investigation. Have the red and blue lights, maybe it rained and there's puddles, fog. There needs to be an idea behind it, not just buildings. You could put some kind of club with neon lights, it could be something supernatural, a door to somewhere evil? Just putting out some ideas on the go here.. Whatever you find that would fit your scene but it would help know what kind of mood you want.  

Ditch

Good point, I guess I never really considered I only tried to tell a story after I built the scene.  I should of started out planning my story and then mapping out how to tell it.  Would of really helped me figure out what I needed and didn't need while I was building a scene.  Thanks again for the tip and advice!

feloxy

I usually have a "game" in mind so I build the scenes as if it was a level so it has to have purpose... I enjoy putting gameplay together so it might be easier in that sense. I don't really put a scene together just for a render.