UDK-Tomb Raider Based Environment

XRevan23

Been working on a new environment for my port, so i thought i would show what i have so far. Its based off a Tomb Raider concept that I found and thought would be a good challenge to do. Right I'm working on the textures and adding more foliage, and will post them when I get it to a farther point. Any and all Critiques are more than welcomed so feel free to tear it apart along the way:\

GOBEE

Can you post the reference you're using as well? I love Tomb Raider so I want to see this again when it's complete.

What's lacking right now is contrast. Everything is white. The other color you do have is ok, but it should be saturated more. Give it more of that orange fire you're looking for. You can make parts of the palm leaves green, the bark brown, with the snow more scattered. Not everything has to be 100% covered in snow/ice.

The textures are looking blurry as well. Specifically the 8 bases at the bottom of these sculptures running down the middle. You might be better off making the top of those solid white, or having fire/lava flowing on top.

The proportions seem off. Look on the left side where the stairs lead up to the brick texture and then lead up to the palm tree. I'm thinking the stairs are too big and the palm trees are too small. The plants on the ground compared to the step size of the stairs may be too big as well.

With concern to the trees, they are very specifically and evenly placed throughout the scene. Place them more sporadically and with different variation. Each tree is the same size and looks like the same angle. Scale one down, scale another one up, rotate one left, rotate one right. You will get a more natural look that way.

I like that you have your focal point locked down. You want the player to head down into the mouth entrance there so keep making sure to draw their attention to it. The scene may benefit by darkeing the sky as well to allow the orange glow to be more dramatic.

Keep it up, it's a good start. Post some updates after you fix a few issues here.

XRevan23

Thanks for the comments Gobee, here is the concept and an update of the scene. Sorry about the confusion about the colors, it was just AO and normal map. I changed the size of big palm and stairs. Starting with the foliage first so i can base the temple and stuff off of those colors when I'm done with them. Also working on the tiled grass texture so it doesn't look so tiled and bad looking. Might add some rocks and tree stubs. Rain and falling leaves i probable won't add till close to the end.

garriola83

i believe the scale for your textures is definitely off. if you look at the concept theres a tiny lara there....now ive compared it to the blades of grass that youre using on the ground and the meshes that you have and its a lot larger that the one in the concept.

also the treeline in the back is a little too lined up. make an interesting silhouette out of those trees.

i know its still early, so i hope these tips will help you in the long run before its the point of no return.

good luck!

GOBEE

Right on, yea I thought you were going for some type of snow scene. The reference clarifies what you're trying to do. And the update you've posted is much better already. Keep at it man!

XRevan23

small update, couple of things textured, new terrain and rain

chrisradsby

You need to work on the trees to get them to feel more like jungle trees, don't forget vines and jungle ivy to spread around in your scene to make it more lush. I think scale is a big issue here as well, place something that will show how big a player will be. Going from the screenshot it screams : EPIC! , yours..not so much.

You can't make a jungle feel like jungle if you don't make sure that the background feels lush and awesome too. Mountains and big cliffs with low to medium sized bushes and palmtrees together with really high jungle trees with vines.

Like the others said, think and plan for this now before you hit the point-of-no-return. Good work and Good luck!

GOBEE

I agree with chrisradsby. The thickness of the trees are throwing it off. You could add more leaves to the trees to make it more lush, but a quick fix would be to scale the treet trunks down and elongate them up in the Y axis. Get them skinnier. This method will stretch your texture maps, yes, but at that distance for this one shot, it won't matter. Keep at it man, it's improving.

XRevan23

Ok thanks Gobee, chrisradsby and garriola83, ill work some more on the trees and background and add some more foilage and such around to make it more lush. Also added a UDK Ironguard guy to show size.

AlanSMitchell

very cool! the terrain is looking better are all the peices in there pretty well untextured with an AO? one thing I learned from a buddy of mine a while back is hue and saturate the AO to be a blueish color in the where it would normally be black. It's worked well for me so far ^^

XRevan23

thanks dudealan2001, most of the assets only have AO and the Normal map applied. Here is another update. Any advice is welcome. Going to start to really get into the temple now while messing with the lighting along the way

XRevan23

new update, still messing with lighting, would liked to add some rocks and more foilage to the trees after I got the temple textures finished and more polished:poly142:

Chimp

good work man, id say you need more contrast in those pics, maybe some sort of gradient wash too for a subtle vignette or something.

XRevan23

New Update. Thanks Chimp, ill try to do that in the lighting, but most likely will happen in post effects. Still working on textures for the temple and also adding some more things here and their.

Assassin0323

XRevan23,

Hey man, its looking pretty good. I agree with Chimp that you should work on some more dramatic lighting. I was looking at the concept and your WIP, your lighting seems a little washed out right now. Its really coming along though, can't wait to see it finished.

Regards,

Alex

XRevan23

Thanks for the advice Assassin0323, yeah the lighting is defiantly not dynamic enough right now. So I'll continue to work on the light more.

salman_fas

I am not sure if you are aiming for day or night scene. I did a quick paintover to show how I would light it(I hope you don't mind).

I would darken up the area that are not in the focus and add some warm lighting in the focus area. Added some cool rays and fog also to give a a bit more atmospheric setting.

XRevan23

thanks salman-fas ill try to incorporate some of those elements in my lighting.

Prtofdacrowd

Surprised I hadn't bumped into this on the forums yet, I usually automatically click the UDK environments first!

I am really enjoying the concept, the scene its building really nicely.

My only criticism that isn't too nit picky, is the entirety of the temple piece feels squashed compared to the concept.

In the concept its much more dominating and impressive in its relation to the character especially in its length from the characters position on the piece to the opening. Yours feels short and squashed to my eyes. But thats not saying I dont find it beautiful

XRevan23

thanks Prtofdacrowd, i moved the spacing between the elements in the temple to try and make it look longer. Also moved the camera up higher.

chrisradsby

I feel that the whole scene as a wierd FOV and is more stretched than it needs to.

Something like this would be better:

2 second paint-over



What I basically did was to smash it together more in photoshop, then added a little bit more on the right side (which you can do by just moving the camera )

XRevan23

ok chrisradsby ill play around with the fov a little, also getting some problems with my lighting where they don't show up the same in game and in the editor.

FOV 90


FOV 45

XRevan23

getting some problems with my lighting where I build and it looks one way and whenever I either go into game or reopen it, some of the lights are different. Mostly the point lights in the scene, like the lights for the eyes. YAY

XRevan23

Update on scene still working on lighting to try and build some more contrast, working to try and get my point lights to work right, and soon as I get them to work i can change the fov.

SirCalalot

This is definitely coming along nicely!
I'm not sure how closely you are trying to stick to the concept though:



The original image is more of a daytime, grim and overcast shot, making the scene more green, white and yellow than the deep blues and oranges you currently have.

I'd suggest trying to closely mimic the exact camera angle and FOV in the concept too.
Taking your existing camera up a little higher and moving it forwards, maybe making the FOV about 70 too?

This way, you'll find everything else like scaling and texturing a helluva lot easier.

XRevan23

thanks SirCalalot, i guess it wouldn't hurt to do two different lightings, one daytime overcast and the other night stormy.

does anyone know how to change the fov in the actual editor not just in game.

SirCalalot

You should be able to change the Viewport FOVAngle under [UTEditor.UTUnrealEdEngine] in the UTEngine.ini file.

LW3

Alright. It looks wrong for four reasons:

1) Your perspective is off; raise the camera and tilt it down [in yellow]
2) Your "valley" is too narrow; bring in the walls. Part of what makes a great jungle is the claustrophobia effect. [in orange]
3) Your skyline is too visible. Compare to the original, and you'll see you have way too much sky. [in purple]
4) You're missing a wall; the unfinished pyramid on the right is built into the rocky walls of the valley. [in red]

Hope that helps. - Louis

XRevan23

Thanks SirCalalot and Dan Aykroyd, ive started working on another lighting and fov setting to be more like the one in the concept.

SirCalalot

That's already looking a lot better
Louis has done a fantastic paintover and it might be an idea to actually recreate those lines with some in-editor unlit geometry (maybe with nice bright, plain emmissive maps).

That way you can screengrab from UDK and overlay that to the concept paintover above to try and get it to match perfectly - jumping back into UDK to make adjustments.

XRevan23

Thanks SirCalalot, I not too worried about getting to be exactly the same as the concept, but I would like to get the daytime lighting more like it in the concept.

chrisradsby

if you're not going to have it like the concept there really is no reason for you to have that angle of the scene. Maybe try another angle?

XRevan23

no I want it like the concept, im just not worried to get it angle by angle with it. Thinking about adding some of the foreground elements(cliffs and vines) that the concept has. Working also on adding some puddles like in the concept.

Serith

Something that might help in future projects (and maybe even at this stage with this one) is to put in a basic human model to the scene for scale. Personally, I don't model a level without a figure to help my sense of scale and perspective.

XRevan23

Thanks Serith, I had a unreal character in some of my early screenshots for scale and also used a box the size of a unreal character in maya while modeling for ref.

BlvdNights

low rez centerpiece is low rez