Buried in hell(substrata)

Stromberg90

Here is a substrata entry me and SveinY made, he did most of the highpoly sculpting and texturing for tileable parts(ground, rock, moss).
I did setup the scene inside udk and modeled most of the lowpoly's and modular pieces.

Feedback is very appreciated

Final:

BootScoot

From what I can see of your model and textures I think it looks good, but your lighting and skydome let the scene down. Its hard to read the tower against that dark purple sky and that sky conflicts with the orange lighting on the water.

I'm assuming that you're trying to create the effect of a sunset, with the sun setting to the left. If that's the case, the tower on that side would be bathed in an orange/red/pink light and the gradient of the sky dome would have a bigger transition from from orange/red/pink to blue/purple.The suns rays will be travelling paralell to the horizon line, so the effect would be quite stark.

Have a look at photos of sunsets. Bare in mind that they can heavily 'color' your work, and that the areas in shadow will be pretty dark.

Hope that helps

antszy101

To me, the water read more like clouds and this was some sort of church up in the sky. Though this probably has something to do with the skydome suggestions BootScoot gave you. However, I would totally dig a church like this up in the sky

Stromberg90

BootScoot, antsy: Thanks for the great, the "water" was supposed to be lava btw

However back on this scene again.
I changed the lava over to water I am also going for a more dramatic lighting this time around, have quite a few things left to do on the lighting there is 2 directional light atm and the GI.

I am going to re-export all the meshes as fbx files since the ase format did mess with my uv's some places.

The church needs quite a overhaul too, way too boring and made almost completely from cobblestone, also a few more props some rope and maybe some torches.

Would love some more critics on this, since I know it's far from what I can be

Iciban

the lightening needs some work on. Its too dark, where the shadow is. It almost looks like a constant colour, just showing the silhouette.

Stromberg90

Iciban: Yeah, it turned out to dark, not quite sure where I am going with the lighting in this scene, it's quite a bit different from what I usually do.

Stromberg90

Worked on the lighting, materials and composition.

LordSebbington

I like the new lighting - good work! But I'd say the top of the tower needs some light. My eye is led to the top of tower but the tower feels left out of the scene. Could also do with something like moorings on the shore - something water related, otherwise it's easy to miss. Either that or a wave crashing on a headstone, etc.

Mr Significant

I like the last lightning too. And agree with that words above. You could make some mountains on the horizon, slightly visible.

Great textures. What engine is this?

Gannon

much improved, it's still a little dark though on both of my monitors though. Try dropping in a rim/fill light along the right side?

Stromberg90

Thanks for the comments

LordSebbington: I am going to redo parts of the tower, so the top will either get some sort of light fixture or light in a window, cause I do agree with you that it's nothing there to keep the viewers attention. Also wanting to do some sort of crashing waves and water particles at the shore.

Mr Significant: We are using udk, only me doing the in-engine work
I will take your advise to have some mountains at the horizon, also thought about doing a ship wreck or something to break up the horizon some.

Gannon: mm, it is a bit to dark, I will try out adding a rim or fill light on Monday, since I am gone until then

Stromberg90

Todays little update.
Working mainly on the church atm.

Gotshoes

this is looking really nice! right now the only thing that is distracting for me is the water. It some how looks low res against everything else in the scene. It also feels to solid, if that makes sense. I think it could have a lot of depth and mystery...

All in all really great work!

Logithx

Looking good, I do agree that the water needs work. Maybe give it some transparancy so you can look through it. Some reflectivity might look good (not sure how water should look with this type of art style).

Stromberg90

Thanks you two.
I have been working on the water and the church

ZeroBigSis

Niiice. Like the atmosphere you have going on.
Water reads a bit better with the transparency now. Had a quick google image search for water at night and from what I can see water acts as a mirror the darker the day gets.

Stromberg90

Thanks.
mm, I agree the water might not be realistic but I do like what it's looking like atm, if that makes sense

Stromberg90

Thanks for all the critics everyone, the scene is now done

Will be posting breakdowns in not to long.

Catchingdusk

The newest iteration of the scene gives me chills! Well done!

Polygoblin

Very nice! I like what you've done with the perspective, and the touch on the water comes off very impressive in the end. Only things that bug me are what looks like some proportions don't line up across some props (mainly building blocks/bricks/rocks) and the building styles/shapes appear to mismatch as well.

Very nice work!

LANKUS MAXIMUS

Looking really good. I like the changes you have made to the sky. Much nicer contrast between your background and the tower.

I look forward to seeing it develop!

Sam Hatami

Turned out great Andreas! Kudos to you and Svein to power through! Already looking forwards to your next projects .

seth.

looks ace! my only crit is that sharp wave in the bottom left corner, my eye keeps getting pulled to it cos of both the sharpness and the highlight. Other than the nitpick I think you did a great job

Stromberg90

Thanks everyone

seth.: you where not supposed to see that wave, it annoys me to ;D

Here is a little breakdown of the scene.

Highpoly props: all made by SveinY

Tileable Sculpts: SveinY did them except from the brick wall that was me.

Shots of the props for the scene: I did most of the lowpoly and texture work, SveinY did the pillar, the cross, chest and the bones.

A few of the modular pieces.

The tileable textures: I textured all except the top left and bottom right that was SveinY.

Mr Significant

My only suggestion is that you are using too much dark in the textures. The reason is too strong AO. Like in last ground + stone texture, the first rounded stones, and the bricks.

When I'm looking at the scene now, I think the stone pillar is waaaay to big; I mean the bricks are very, very huge.

You have a very nice sculpts!

Adding horizone was a good idea.

Keep this going!

SveinY

Heya I am glad you guys liked it. I totally enjoy making this with Stromberg! And the best of all I learn a shit load of stuff when it comes to tillable textures and other cool stuff.

Rhoutermans

A moon/Skybox could be cool
Love it overall!

Stromberg90

Thanks, I wish we could keep adding to the scene

Mr Significant: I do agree with the ao I did overuse it in the textures(bad habit) and will keep that in mind on my next project

Stromberg90

Ohoy, bump here.
Something we wanted to do when completing this was making it available for download but we forgot it, so now when cleaning up parts of my hard drive I remembered it :P

Hope someone will find some use of it, the scene is not optimized at all and runs pretty badly.

Instructions:
Substrata_water.udk is the map, place under "UDKGame\Content\Maps"
Substrat_A is the package, place under "UDKGame\Content"

Link: http://bit.ly/1brjIrw