UDK – Ludus of Capua

jamiemurphy

[WIP ]
Hey this is a project I started two weeks ago; I’m getting to a point where I’d benefit a lot from other people’s opinions and ideas. I’m doing this project as a portfolio piece as I’d really love to work in the games industry, focusing on trying to be an environment artist but any role would be good!
My intension is to mainly focus on the internal upstairs rooms, and the outside battle area. The lighting is only on preview mode at the moment and I don’t intend to build lightmass at production setting until it’s complete. I need to make my own skydome that’s orangey in colour and make some interesting looking decals to add variation to the scene. I’ve messed around with most of the post-processing settings and still haven’t finished tweaking.
Any opinions/advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks for looking.
[WIP ]

jamiemurphy

*Sorry for the amount of pictures.

jamiemurphy

Apologies, bump*
Still tweaking at the moment, any opinions? Don’t hold backs, thanks.
Going to make some new cliff/rock assets as i don't think the ones i've got at the moment are any good.

Endfinity Jon

jamiemurphy wrote: »

Hey there!

Very large project here, lots of cool scene elements. I quoted the two images above but you'll find that my lighting suggestions apply to most of your work. I don't feel much drama in your lighting - it feels pretty flat. I'd wager to say that some of your shots in the unlit vs lit viewport don't offer very big differences.

The scene is awash with lots of mid-tones. I'd try to introduce a more dramatic attenuation to the falloff of the light pouring into the central pillar section. I'd play with hitting high values there and really letting the light fall off quicker so that the outside walls are a bit cooler and darker. Maybe let the candles do the talking in those darker spaces once you've achieved a better balance of light contrast. Also, the directionality of the light is strange at times. There are some rooms that are washed with light that seems to be coming from ambiguous sources - find some motivation for that light and push a focal point in the rooms you're working with so players will be led through the space better because of the interest that you've put into the space.

Hopefully that stuff was making sense and inspires you to create a stronger light. Good luck on this beast, I'll be looking to see how this project progresses!

-Jon

jamiemurphy

Hey Jon, I really appreciate the feedback and suggestions – I’ve not been at computer much over the weekend but I’ve made some minor tweaks so far because of your advice and it’s definitely helped the atmosphere. I’m using emissive lighting from the candle assets and I had my radius values too high and falloff values too low.
Tomorrow I’m going to work on:

· Cliff assets x2
· Some decals/add them to the scene
· Try and make sure each room has a focal point
· Make some plants for inside and outside
· Keep tweaking my lighting values

Thanks again Jon,

Jamie

Benton

Oh yeah that lighting looks so much better.

DWalker

The ridges for the roof tiles seem too far apart/ The valleys are generally as wide as the ridges.

Blaisoid

few things:

-that table looks way more blocky than candles it holds
-wall texture is very repetive
-candle flames are way too strong and messy. you have those nice smooth sprites (or whatever that is) but there's also additional sprites around them which just don't act in a way candle flame does.

THRILLHOUSE

I like it! very impressive for only a few weeks worth of work especially the outside. I think once you get that orange sky in there that should make it look like more like a battle zone. The only thing I would say is that the silhouette of the structure looks a little too clean, I would like to see some bricks or shingles broken off and some big cracks breaking up those nice clean edges against the sky.

jamiemurphy

Hey, thanks for all the comments! - I’ve made some good progress and taken all the suggestions on board. Been working on the cliffs, i will be making some smaller rocks to help break up the tiling and will also populate the places where the terrain meets the landscape. The textures on the terrain and the cliffs are work in progress.
I will post some updated screenshots tomorrow.

Benton – Gratitude for the kind words. J


DWalker – Thanks for the reference photo, I’ll adjust the textures and rework the shader I’m using so the dirt congregates in more appropriate places and blends better.

Blaisoid – Thanks a lot, I was hoping for some criticism on the smaller details – It motivates me to improve on them. So far, remade the table and changed the flame sizes, still working on decals, I have the textures made just working out how to use decals as instances while having a parameter to change the opacity.


THRILLHOUSE –Definitely going to try and develop the silhouette, I’ll work on that tomorrow. Thank you for the praise and recommendations.

jamiemurphy

Hello all, I’ve brought this project to an end and put it on my website, the total time spent on this project is 3 weeks. I would be highly interested in your opinions on my work and the presentation of it.

I do look at this scene an see things I could improve upon but I do believe it’s important to stick to deadlines and right from the start I wanted this project to take no longer than 3 weeks. I could have easily spent another week+ on tweaking the lighting, adding more decals/dirt and populating the scene more but I was anxious to get this on my website and start reapplying for jobs. I have also put some breakdowns & textures on my site if anyone was interested in looking. I’ll be working on a sci-fi scene next, I’ve lots of ideas and I’m excited about starting it.

Again, thanks for time.
Jamie

P.S *Also looking for C&C on the rest of my work/site if anyone has any, I’d be very happy to hear them. Basic question = Am i good enough for an entry level environment artist position?

Link - http://jamiemurphy.co.uk/wp-content/ludus_of_capua.html