Lord of the Rings - Balin's Tomb Update

HomeGrownHeroz

Hello, recently I decided to revisit a University project that I wanted to improve as I had a great time making it, but unfortunately also had other modules to contend with so I couldn't accomplish everything I set out to do.

The scene is based on the Balin's Tomb scene in The Fellowship of the Ring (before the cave troll gets all smashy). Here's a couple of ref images and the scene at its current stage.












I want to take a step back and rework pretty much everything at this stage. One of my biggest issues I had was getting the mood lighting of the scene. I see now mines more blue where the original scene is more grey. I also struggled with the way that the scene is littered with mess.

I started today by working on a pillar for the scene which I can use modularly.



I'm also considering whether to carry this on in UDK or try my hand at CryEngine. Any thoughts on whether this would be a good transition for a scene such as this?

Anyway be great to get some crits and feedback for it as I really love the scene in the movie and want to do it some justice in my folio.

Thanks for looking.

Kroma!

One of my biggest issues I had was getting the mood lighting of the scene. I see now mines more blue where the original scene is more grey. I also struggled with the way that the scene is littered with mess.

Yeah I agree with what you have said here. The lighting in your scene looks a bit flat and lacks the shadow depth from the film. I think it should be darker overall and the intensity of the beam should be increased. Maybe a post process volume over the whole area might help you get the blue/grey look right, as well as making it look dusty and old. Also with the scraps of paper and rubble, once you start filling the scene up more it should look better.

I can't really comment on the UDK to Cry Engine but hopefully someone else can chip in.

Looking forward to the progress of this scene as it's one of my favourite films

mospheric

A few things that jump to mind:

The lighting needs a lot of work. I usually like to start with the main light source (light coming in from the outside) and get that looking right. In the scene, that one light source should be creating a lot of bounced lighting as seen from your screenshots. UDK has controls to affect everything from bounced lighting intensity to falloff. Yours is also lacking the shadows to create depth. By controlling the direct and bounced falloff, you should be able to bring the shadows out from the edges of the environment.

After getting the direct light source as close as possible, you can start adding in softer area lights to fake a bit of bounce in parts. Check out Jon Crier's blog entry about lighting. It's definitely useful if you want to get a basic grasp on lighting on a scene.

Another thing your scene is lacking is atmospheric perspective. Use the fog system in UDK to create depth between the foreground and background. Even affecting the color of the fog will help to sell the dark, gloomy caves where the tomb in located.

Personal advice is to find one thing in your scene that needs improvement and research the hell out of it. Bring that area up to something you are happy with and move to another thing that needs improvement. It's easy to get overwhelmed, but keep working in manageable chunks, and you'll make improvements in no time.

Hope this helps and keep it up!

HomeGrownHeroz

Thank you both for the reply. You both made some great points about lighting and shadows which I will certainly put better focus on. I'll make sure to tweak the lighting and post updates soon. Cheers again