[UDK] School Library Environment WIP - Critiques needed!
polycounter lvl 7
Hey guys, I'm a couple weeks from finishing my Masters project, which is meant to be a 1900s boarding school library set in a survival horror game.
I took a couple of days to work on lighting and would appreciate any feedback or critiques as it is def not my strong point!
The scene is really empty so imagine more things in there to get the creative juices flowing.
So basically I want the lighting to be Seven-ish with a hint of Hannibal's office. I still need to add the stained glass light patterns, some light shafts and dust motes.
This is what i have so far.
So...
one of the main problems i have is thinking it is too dark, and needs more contrast. But I don't want it to be too dark, because I want to be able to see the environment.
Also, I'm not sure how to get more contrast. Do i do it with textures? Negative lighting?
Also, I'm not sure if the colors are too same-y (lighting wise)
Any feedback would be awesome! Thanks for looking
I took a couple of days to work on lighting and would appreciate any feedback or critiques as it is def not my strong point!
The scene is really empty so imagine more things in there to get the creative juices flowing.
So basically I want the lighting to be Seven-ish with a hint of Hannibal's office. I still need to add the stained glass light patterns, some light shafts and dust motes.
This is what i have so far.
So...
one of the main problems i have is thinking it is too dark, and needs more contrast. But I don't want it to be too dark, because I want to be able to see the environment.
Also, I'm not sure how to get more contrast. Do i do it with textures? Negative lighting?
Also, I'm not sure if the colors are too same-y (lighting wise)
Any feedback would be awesome! Thanks for looking
Replies
SO I added some books to the scene, and hope to texture them all today and finish the door/doorframe and bookshelf textures. Oh, and ignore the space-y sky, it will be changed.
With the lighting: I would still love any feedback...so fire away!
I added an animated light to the scaffolding, where a work light will be, hopeing it will add some spookiness.
I changed the upper wall lights, but |I think they are too green?
Overall I think the scene needs contrast. I plan to keep working on it this week...adding some light shafts etc.
Actually...looking at the previous lighting...this ione looks MUCH brighter...do you think its the white material on the books bouncing around light?
The models are looking pretty good though
Thanks, Yeah, I will probably tweak the second pass to get more contrast. And I have a whole list of lightmaps i need to tweak! i keep putting it off though til I get more objects in the scene.
If I was lighting this scene there are a few things I would cover:
1. That awesome dome is missing out on some serious love, get a mask and get some emmissive on the go and set it to static lighting, very low, very subtle, but it shall bounce some color from it into the scene, very subtle remember as you just want to give the illusion that the glass has captured the light. You can also create planes for the dome from the moon direction to fake some volumetric lighting. These should have some depth bias alpha and emissive, not static lighting...
2. Same really goes for the windows, but add some directional lighting from the moon through a window and that shall boost the scene.
3. For a library there also seems to be a lot of negative space, get those bookshelves around the show, try and play with the layout, but remember 'gameplay' and 'player space' even though this is an art piece, its still something people look for in environments for portfolios as it shows a level of understanding.
4. Definitely add a dynamic light to that scaffolding, in a way it will add to the scene.
5.Other that you got to be careful in the point lights making sure they have the correct radius.
6.What might help is the use of a legacy light, the skylight. This does not compute in terms of global illumination, but rather its an old school UDK light from the old days, but one of these at a VERY LOW setting will add an overall ambient light to the scene, just don't let it wash out shadows!
7. Try and get as much of the lighting correct and realistic, and then use the Post Process to add the contrast to the scene, controlling midtones will be important to this scene.
8. Good luck for the Masters
ps. 9. I recognise your name from another thread about books, instancing and culling is a debated topic in UDK :P if you really hit performance make sure to tick the used for instancing check in the static mesh editor!!!
Thanks for all the advice, I know I need to redo my UV maps, I just need a UV break. It was like the first 3 weeks of this project was an exercise in UVing
When you say static lighting...do you mean in the material itself? I did have the emissive higher before, but it looked super neon. I will have to re-try it as i had high hope for the stained glass lighting.
layout: yeah, I just had a meeting with my tutor and he said the same thing, so I will have to play around with the space. I keep trying to think about where the player would go, and so far it's pretty boring in terms of gaming.
I replaced all my books with low poly models and it helped ridiculously. I can't believe I have actually hand placed 157599 books. I'm such a noob.
I will give your lighting ideas a go and make some improvements!
As for static lighting, if your asset has a material with an emissive (select and F4) will bring up its properties in world and if you got to the lighting / lightmass section (dont have UDK open to check) but there is a check box for 'Use Emissive as Static Lighting' this will treat the emissive faces as a lighting and calculate it in GI the way it would if you had placed a point light.
You can use emissive boost in this properties window to control its strength, even though it does come the material as well, its more important it looks realistic in the material and powered through its mesh properties if that makes sense.
have fun, check my thread I am doing my MA project as well :P
Ahh..okay, cool. i know how to do that
Quick Update
Made some changes to the library to help the mood hopefully. I darkened the bookshelf wood, as I thought eh other was too yellow- red and warm.
Added some lamps / light sources
Added emissive to the windows, but i don't know if they are too bright...especially the windows.
And...added some other small things like the ladders and a Globe.
I have a week til handin. Today I am going to get the layout sorted, as it is pretty much a yawn fest at this point. Tomorrow I am going to look at all the light maps and try to get the light shafts and stained glass pattern as a light function or something.
Feedback is welcome
p.s The quality of these pictures is really bad sorry, somewhere between photoshop, picasa and polycount they got all pixellated.
All and any critiques are welcome as I would love to improve the scene and get more awesome for my next environment!
I only have this week to make changes and would like to...
--improve on lighting - dome light shafts, stained glass window effect, light maps...