Harbor Town Environment
polycounter lvl 8
Hi everyone, this is my first thread on here, I'm currently making a harbor town environment in UDK. The general idea is that it is an old town slowly being dragged into the future. I've taken a little inspiration from the Unreal Samaritan demo. Any comments/feedback would be much appreciated!
Thank you to Al Hasan for the Ocean Shader Tutorial!
Thank you to Al Hasan for the Ocean Shader Tutorial!
Replies
First of all, lighting very well done.
Once you have knocked out your main assets make sure you focus on making the environment lived in.
Also I know it cool and everything but consider turning down the depth of field unless your looking at a close up object. It just doesn't look right.
The DOF is something I'm still playing with, trying to get that sweet spot, i will carry on developing!
Thanks again!
Extremely dark, I recommend brightening up the place, bring some life to the world.
Heres a perfect example, its a dark map and could still require night vision but it's very well illuminated.
Add some bright light to the traffic lights as they look out of place, like you've just added them in for no reason/details.
Maybe consider using those street lights on the floor as your main source of light.
First off, GeneralAtrox, thanks for the pic (is that BF3?) that's really put things in perspective lighting wise. I've been working on just getting all the major meshes in at the moment, then going to start hammering the lighting.
I've added some slight blue light in and also changed the street lights to blue, but I see where your coming from, I need to push that much more.
VVCephei, for the road texture I used a few road texture samples for a base with some sculpted detail...pot holes, cracks etc. I then adapted the wet surface material from the UDN ( http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MaterialExamples.html#Wet ) until I had the effect I want it, I'm forever playing with it though, trying to get it to look perfect.
Marionmanzanares & Subtle 1rony....I definitely agree now it's been pointed out, its way to dark once I've finished what I'm working on at the moment I'll play around with the lights. Thanks for your advice!
I've been working on adding a second floor to my buildings, it was looking to squat and out of proportion, it's still a work in progress, I need to hammer the textures a bit more.
I'll be following this one ;]
Though it was worth mentioning that this isn't the entirety, the harbor front is off to the left of the picture, there a lighthouse too which is yet to be finished.
Will post more progress soon!
The bricks on the building opposite the cinema, they are very dark!
I recommend looking at this,
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TexturingGuidelines.html
And getting a better understanding on how bright a texture should be and what difference it can make in a scene.
As I've said in the past, if a texture looks too bright, more than likely it's right!
A pitch black sky is rarely the case if you have urbanity, even though to the eye the sky may seem pitch black because of the street lights
I think you need to brighten up the sky a bit to contrast the building silhouettes. Maybe give it a gradient, and some light pollution effect. It doesn't have to be final, but it helps with the "It's to dark" at the moment. And as a consequence you can increase your ambient brightness, without it looking "not night"
If anyone knows anyway to make a mesh unaffected by DOF I'd love to know!
Anyway, love the rest of it, cant wait until you give it life with cars and whatnot
Google some brick buildings and you'll notice that there are very few times where the lowest floor are shorter in height than the upper floor. Many times it's actually higher (since you many times have a type of foundation that raises the lowest floors).
Get a player model in there and start consequently change the height and scale of your buildings.
Going to do some work on the harbor and come back to this later!
Also please ignore the boat texture, I'm aware its horrible, it was done a long time ago, its a place hold until I get round to re-texturing. Still needs a lot of work...but I shall prevail!
And I know those wide strip lights on the street:
Have spot lights attached (could use a hacked strip light if it was supported) but the specular highlights would look better if they were done with the impostor reflections, the reflections don't look right with the point light specular.
As for the curb lights...It's already been pointed out about the spot light reflections looking weird, I just haven't got round to changing it yet. Thanks for the feedback though...much appreciated
not much more progress
Seriously good control on some of that water specular and IBL, some of the lights may be a bit too powerful in areas, mainly the statue and the left most set of Traffic Lights.
I say this only because your industrial spot lights scattered aren't as strong as those two lights alone,
Much prefer it without the rain, gotta say this shot, looks pretty real to me,
There is something bugging me about the scale of the crosswalk in that last shot. At first I thought the white rectangular shapes were too big/not enough of them, but I think they are OK in that respect after some research. Are they decal textures? I think the high frequency detail in the normal is too large relative to the asphalt surface of the street.
This is an ambitious project and you've made great progress. Looking forward to seeing more.
I'm finding it difficult to get the right level of bloom in the post process, its quite hard to get the balance for each light. I'm forever adjusting values and emissive strengths trying to get that sweet spot. I'll keep playing, I'll get it right in the end!!