[UDK] Old Bridge Environment

Chriagr

Hey folks first time poster here:)
Thought I'd share what I've been working on lately for my portfolio to get some feedback. This is my first outdoor environment and I need some Polycount help to bring it to its best;). Inspiration for the Bridge came from The Overtoun Bridge in Scotland.
I wanted the have an outdoor environment with a sense of calmness but also with a slight spooky feeling so I used a blue overlay. I'm having some troubles with shadows and I'm not sure about the lighting so crits & comments are very appreciated.

Mr Significant

Hey. As for me there are too much foliage, and they are all the same. There can be a lot of foliage, but it need to be more organized, and variated (sorry for my english ).

On these columns on the bridge, you have specular broken: that seams to be plastic or something, not stone. You have to tweak the specular.

Maybe some leafs on the surface of the pool can be added.

that's only my word

mospheric

I'd definitely spend some time picking a good composition. 2/3 of your images are almost perfectly symmetrical. It makes the environment less realistic and more created.

Also your bridge doesn't have the wear and tear of the Overtoun Bridge. It looks newer from those shots.

leleuxart

I agree with the more wear and more variation in the foliage. In UDK, you can set up a material for color variation based on the objects position/rotation, which is really good for foliage. If you're going to show the other side of the bridge, I'd put more meshes over there, because it's completely empty right now.

You have a lot of blacks in your shadows too. If you're using Lightmass, you can increase the light bounces or use a very faint Sky Light.

Good progress though!

Chriagr

Thanks for all the feedback, You guys are totally right I went a bit overkill with the foliage and I will also try to break up the symmetry in the scene.
And #Mr Significant That was a great idea with the leaves on the lake:)

Mr Significant

As the guys sad ^^ : tooooooo much black on your scene. Before you start adding any details like leaves on the lake etc, brighter up little bit the shadows, make variation to your foliage, work on the textures on the brigde. Then start adding detials, maybe some postprocessing. It's UDK, very powerfull engine

Chriagr

Hey, just a update on how it looks right now. I tweaked the environment to break up alot of the symmetry in the scene and also added some variation in the foliage (more will be added) Right now I'm redoing a lot of the textures including the bridge and the texture on the ground:)

Shrike

Now the only thing in focus are the really bland plain texture cliffs on the right and the left. All thats interesting is hidden and i can almost not see a thing. You didnt need to put away so much of your foliage, the density was intense but now its bland, you just need to take care so they are not standing aside of each other while beeing nearly the same angle turned. You can vary sizes aswell, and mix plants, they dont grow in herds

The third image was a good starting point. Decide upon a composition and put up your stuff for the best possible shot (or 2 shots max id say which are pretty different)

Chriagr

Yes I agree completely and I will add more foliage back into the scene after I fixed the textures:)

Chriagr

New updates
Finally had time to work on this again after some time. And I did a lot of changes: added more variation in the foliage, changed some textures and redid some normal maps. This is how it looks right now.



After a lot of feedback from my teacher and fellow students I decided to make a second light setting, and just pull the sky and the light down to make it darker.



I really like them both but my problem is now,is it a good idea to put them both on my portfolio or just choose one light setting and post on my portfolio? And as always comments and crits are most welcome:D

silkroadgame

Nice updates!

Mr Significant

Put them both. Real nice progress. Looking good.