Pentheselia Environment (WIP)

Razgriz

Hello everyone,

This is a level I'm putting together right now for a class. The class has very strict limitations on the amount/types of assets we are allowed to use, and it's due as a final next week. Right now I'm very happy with my assets, but it's not coming together in UDK how I anticipated.

It's a vast desert landscape filled with ancient ruins. Most of the inspiration came from ancient Persian and Iranian ruins like Persepolis, and various deserts from the region. I would appreciate any critiques on composition, lighting, color, level arrangement, or anything else that sticks out. Thanks! I'll post update as they come.

EMC3D

Good start, if you're limited on model space then definetly take advantage of the shader network for breaking up tiling textures and assets. For now I would say dirty up the meshes you have with vertex painting or decals, and add some variation into the sand itself.

I think you could do with some sort of focal point, like a temple maybe, the scene is a bit generic atm.

Goodluck!

SimonT

really nice!

BlvdNights

Looking real good man! I think you could add a small subtle amount of more dirt on those stones.

Zack Fowler

It looks like you are using per-vertex lighting on all your static meshes. Switch to lightmaps if you're allowed to, it will make a huge improvement. Bump up the resolution on your terrain lightmap too, it looks pretty splotchy in places. Your shadows are too dark -- are you making use of the View > World Properties > Lightmass > Lightmass Settings > Environment Color setting to simulate bounced blue light from the sky? For a standard realistic outdoor lighting setup your should have a slightly blue Environment Color and a slightly yellow Dominant Directional Light.

Razgriz

I've adjusted the lighting per your suggestions, Zack, and I think it's a big improvement. I had it backwards - blue directional with yellow environment. Toning down the shadows also helped a ton. The resolution on the lightmaps is low, but that will be fixed later, once I do some vertex painting for blending the columns into the ground. Also, High Poly renders if anyone cares.

StealthSilver

Nice job with the sculpting! My only concern is that it feels overly barren. Aside from the green grass, there's really only two colours. If you look at this image of Persepolis, you can see that there is quite a bit of variation in the surrounding dirt and sand. In addition, I would make the stones of the ruins slightly more brown in colour, as they are quite grey at the moment.

Razgriz

I agree about the colors and the barrenness of the environment, and those are two major critiques I'm going to focus on with my next project. I just don't have time on this one, it's due as a final in a couple days, and then I have to move on to other things. As a quick fix, I blended some brown dirt into the bright sand to break up all of the yellow. I also completely reworked the main composition, I think its a lot more interesting like this. As part of the class restrictions we weren't allowed to use unique assets for focal points.

ZacD

needs sand piles and sand in the cracks!

Razgriz

Well, I've run out of time on this, I'm going to have to call it done. I learned quite a bit, as short of a project as it was.

SimonT

would be a nice multiplayer map i think. i like the light really much

Barnstable

That's looking really nice.

I like how it's day time, but the baroness of it still gives and creepy feel to it. The atmospherics of the final render also make it look hot (as it should).

I need to keep that advice by Zack for lighting my own scenes. That piece of advice improved your scene seven fold.

SouthpawSid

well done. Very realistic. I get cotton mouth just looking at it.

Rurouni Strife

Your last update was a huge improvement. I feel like as you went through to improve it based on feedback you also created a more balanced level. If you play through some of Valve's games and listen to their commentary, you can learn a lot about level design. That was the weakest part earlier. Now, while not perfect, it makes more sense and isn't so confusing. Nicely done!

raul

This is really cool!!! The ligthing on the last updates is awesome!

BlazeF

Dig all the lighting for that last one. It's a simple design, but man there are so many applications for this. Conan anyone?

PixelMasher

looks pretty awesome man, lighting is getting there for sure, the pieces look nicely detailed and not too over destroyed. I think right now as a whole the scene is lacking contrast, all the textures are evenly detailed and colored. get some hue variation and contrast in there with some vertex blending in areas to help break it up.

Also the ground needs some variation from just sand, some chipped off debris or small rocks would really help give it some variety.Larger forms like small rocks intertwined in there would help give things a sense of scale. here is a quicky paintover of some of the ideas i mean. cant wait to see more progress, this is lookin fantastic dude.

Jonathan Marshall

I want to play it!