Crystal Cavern UDK Scene
This is my last portfolio going into my Demo Reel before I start my next reel.
Crystal Cavern
~70k Tris
4 weeks at 130+ hours
Feedback would be appreciated!
Crystal Cavern
~70k Tris
4 weeks at 130+ hours
Feedback would be appreciated!
Replies
You should decrease the saturation and this effect of patwork (too much color) then add more uniform lighting
I do agree that the saturation could be toned down a little.
My biggest fear with the lighting was having light sources coming from nowhere. I originally had more uniform lighting but my Instructor had me delete them all and start over
My Demo Reel overall is pushing more towards dramatic lighting. Less of an actual playable level and more of just an art piece in itself.
The format is JPEG and yes it looks worse than it could look. These stills aren't being used other than to show people for critiques on the level and not the photos themselves. However, it may be more helpful to have clearer images. I will use something else next time.
My rock texture has 3 vertex painting channels and one of them simply changes the spec and normal. I was considering having it also modify the detail normals so I can control where things are grainy since it works for some places, but not all of them, imo
Otherwise, good work so far.
The main corridor (above)
The end hallway
The entire scene
Here's a shot with lighting only on the Crystal Area. I made 5 Variations of crystal and ultimately only used about 3 of them. I reuse assets as much as possible!
Here's a better shot of the Emmissive Mushrooms. These are all made from 4 variations of models that use the same texture. Originally I had the emmissive lighting turned on but later decided to turn it off to speed up light baking.
I ran the detail normals into the "smoother normals" vertex paint because I realized I was already using the Alpha channel to control the falloff on my sand path vert paint channel.
Here's an example of how the effect turned out! (below)
By just effecting the normals and specular, I can control micro and macro detail better. Also the left side just appears really wet which works for some areas (but not all).
The outer Cave walls are the only thing that is non repeating. I chose to do this to have more control over the way it looked and achieve something far more believable (and I found a really good tutorial on how to do it this way
I have 4 models of rock shelves which use the same texture and are just flipped around in different ways and scaled to make different shapes on the walls and also to hide nasty UV seams (there are A lot of them in the waterfall room.)
Sorry it took so long to reply! I graduate in 1 week from Full Sail and I've been really busy making my demo reel. Thanks for the critiques, Your input is invaluable!
I'll post more soon!
I think you are REALLY missing out here on making a story with the scene, you said you didn't like it projecting from no-where, well here is a perfect chance to make a story, maybe someone got lost and left a lantern, or there is a team setting up lighting gear for exploring, or make up some story and give the scene meaning and some emotion, not just some crystal cave.
The best screen is the one of the green mushrooms. Play with the lighting, less can easily be more and subtly good lighting takes time to get, look at some other people's set ups for reference, I recommend Skyrim's caves as well.
As far as a story, I completely agree that it needs a certain human element in there. I was planning to make it out to be a crystal mine, but time ran out. I will be adding to it once I graduate and have the time to do so.
Lighting is definitely not my specialty (although I'm trying to learn how!) I always felt like Skyrim's caves felt really washed out and bland when it came to lighting... but that's my opinion.
let me see you latest screens.