(UDK) Ancient Arena Environment

mikhga

Hi!

Been working on and off in my spare time on a little scene inspired by the Roman Colosseum and other ancient arenas, mainly to become more comfortable with lighting in Unreal and texture re-usage. There is currently a lot of stuff to do before I call this finished, but I feel as though I have come far enough to create a thread and ask for some feedback.

Some of the stuff I'm planning to add in the nearest future includes some foliage (grass and ivy etc. to add some green), a couple of small props like hanging banners, chains and ropes, a night sky and of course some fire effects for the torches which are currently only placeholders.

Would love to hear what you guys think and if you have any suggestions about how I can improve this scene.

Thank you for looking!

Final images:

mikhga

Update:

Altered the lighting a bit and started on the fire for the torches.

mikhga

Small update, placed out all of the torches so far and done some minor layout changes of the wall modules.

mikhga

Another update, been iterating on some more props and tweaking stuff in general.





Some of the props in Marmoset:

AlexCatMasterSupreme

I really like the spec on that barrel, it was the first thing I noticed.
It looks good, but a bit busy or at least lacking an area of particular interest.

Wingednosering

I like what I'm seeing here, but it feels very monotone. When I first opened the thread I got an overwhelming blast of brown before I really started paying attention to what the scene consisted of. Getting a nice camera angle with a decent skybox above might help this (it will add some cool tones to the mix).

I also think Alex is right, you need more Hero pieces that really grab the viewers' attention. The dais looks like a good place to throw a statue or some other object of interest.

mikhga

Thank you for the comments! I'm going to add a skybox as soon as possible, however I don't really know what else to add in order to break up the brown monotony. Would love to hear any other suggestions you guys might have.

Daft.Eng

Been silently following this for a while, maybe some highly saturated red flags or something could help break up the brown. You could maybe even make the blood splatters in there more saturated.
I don't know, maybe just mess around in photoshop and see If you come up with something you prefer.
Got to say, It Is looking really good though.

mikhga

Thank you for the feedback!

I increased the saturation of all the blood and the banners, boosted the contrast and gave the lighting a blue tint, as well as some other minor stuff.
Hopefully this is better than before and not as monotone.

brandoom

Just curious about the ground you have in here.

Is it sand? If so there should be lots of mounds throughout the arena.. around the walls and props.

Depending how worried you are about keeping textures and polys to a minimum.. Try take the ground plane into zbrush and create the mounds that way.

Cool scene though. Might benefit from some more color. More flags? Plants maybe? Would be cool to see a day time render of this too... after you're done this of course

Keep up the good work!

RaPtoR_v9600

Yeah more flags more light like torches or lightning posts or something like that that sand is too flat raise it on some area, add some chains , but cool scene great job bud

mikhga

brandoom: Thank you! Yeah, it's supposed to be sand and I'm currently blending between two tiling textures in order to reduce texture repetition and create some sand dunes in the corners. However I might redo some of that to make it more polished. Flags and plants are also on my to-do list, and a daylight version is a good idea, will definitely try that out once I'm nearing the end.

RaPtoR: Thanks! I'll try to give more depth to the sand and add more torches!

Here's an update:

Added a basic skybox that's pretty placeholder:ish. Also tweaked the lighting and post-processing a bit and added some bigger "torches" in the middle of the scene to give something to focus on. Hopefully a step in the right direction.

joshschmitt

Reminds me of Chivalry and their arena map.

mikhga

Thank you! I hope that's a good thing.

Another update, tweaked some things based on a paint-over I got from a friend. Going to make a horse chariot next to place in the middle as a focal point.

Daft.Eng

Nice, it's come on leaps and bounds, It's looking a lot more striking now.

mikhga

Thanks!

Here's a small update, did some post processing changes and added a vignette among other things. Would love to know if there's anything critical you guys think I should add or change since I really want to finish this up and move onto something new soon.

brandoom

mikhga wrote: »

Thanks!

.. Would love to know if there's anything critical you guys think I should add or change.

Hey man,

scene is coming along great. Looking really nice.

Quick crit from me, I think your scene would benefit if you were to rework these cages.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but these are just planes/boxes with double sided faces? They would show/present much better if they were properly modeled.

mikhga

Thank you! You're right, they are only planes, I might fix that later but for now I am calling this done. I have learnt a ton from this project and I'm eager to move onto something new. But thank you and everyone else for all the help!

Final images, more in my portfolio: