Mine shaft, or something..

Spoon

Latest screengrabs:









// Back to being chronological

I was just playing around in ZBrush, trying to set up sexy hotkeys and UI, and ended up having made a rockwall. So now I intend to make it into a small environment.

Like the "Scifi hallway", this will be a "rock hallway, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't expect much feedback yet, as I am so early in, but if someone wants to give some, I would love to hear it. I have never done stylized stuff before. (which this is supposed to become an attempt at)

Spoon

Today's update. Most textures are still just blocking, but I consider the cave wall and the wooden beams to be pretty much where I want them.
Im thinking about adding some tents or something to that big room.
And of course a mine cart!

Does anyone know why my terrain is getting lit in this weird manner? It seems to completely ignore what is going on in the scene. Any ideas on this?

Spoon

I think it's getting worse and worse, thinking about scrapping it. Perhaps one of you can offer some advice on how to move it in a better direction?
Maybe the answer is... fungae! (?)

Xazas

Don't scrap it, I think it looks quite nice.

The problem is the lighting. Everything looks so washed out and lacks contrast. In the top screenshot I don't get the feeling that the light is emmitted by the small lamps at the ceiling.

oxblood

no way is this getting worse, just like xazas said, its the lighting that needs tweaking but your definitely going in the right direction. Especially with those last two shots. I like it keep going man

Mr Significant

I think you need more contrast in your scene. And working on colors. Like cave walls should be dark, I dont know why they are so bright.

Next thing is terrain: u need some small rocks as geometry on it. And something more that dry sandish floor. Also very bright.

Also please provide higher resolution images, We cant say shit now Maybe then we can make some overpaints and color balances.

Anyway subbed.

jestersheepy

Cave walls darker, wood lighter, a more interesting colour than white for the lamps, reduce the fog a tad and get some lightmaps on that shiz for some proper lighting/shadows.
Don't scrap it, still much could be learn't from this one.
Good luck!

Spoon

Like my own fungus advice (a little lonely in here ) so added some quick proxy fungi. Will make a proper one later, and mayb even a hero one, that is the source being mined for its valuable... juices?

EDIT: Oh, didn't seethe replies! Thanks a bunch guys!
Thanks for the specifics. Will take a look at each point before next post Really appreciate you guys taking time to post here

Mr Significant

Much better. You can make rails slighlty brigher, to fake reflections. See if this looks better.

I dont know if this most bright point on entrance is good. Dont know what to do with it. But it catchs too much attention.

Spoon

Thanks for coming back, Significant. I really appreciate it
Yeah, I intent to make the top of the rails more polished or brighter, and the sides more rusty looking, to see if that works. You are definitely right on this one. As for the bright entrance, it is simpply because the terrain ends. It is fixed now. Thanks for pointing it out

chrisradsby

Quickie before work:

axxic3

The darkened entrance looks like a good move, maybe put some variation in the ground that's close to camera. That murky glow is definitely helping.

Spoon

Thanks, Chris! Yeah, I would like it to be more like that. Just need to figure out how to disable that "eye adjusting"/gamma correction thing UE4 is doing

Thanks, axxic. I will look into that

Spoon

o any of you have tips on how to achieve more contrast? Seems the lightmass is jumping all over the place with bounces, lihgting everything up. The scene almost looks better unbaked.

SomethingFishy

I'd say to get a bit more contrast try dimming your main lighting or perhaps fiddling with the color being emitted (maybe to a cooler orange) Then adding a low, dim light of a contrasting color. Something like a light blue-violet around the fungus. I haven't been in unreal in awhile but if I remember correctly in world properties there is a setting to adjust how many times light rays will bounce off geometry before dying. That could also do the trick to keep your lights bright but not light up as much of the scene.

Also I love the set up of your scene! The layout is really appealing to the eye.

Spoon

Thanks, SomethingFishy! Very kind words!
The lightbounce thing helps give more contrast, but it makes the overall lihgting much less sexy, obviously.
How else can I achieve it, the contrast?
Here, for example, the light bounces up to the ceiling, whereas I like it much better unbaked, where the cave is just black with the roots as silhouettes.

I tried playing with some terrain blending for variation. Right now it is just a solid 3 vector to test it out, as I was hoping to create some moss, or whatever, but I dont quite think it works.
The weakest point is by far the overall lighting, in my opinion.
If anyone have any idea about how to add that more contrasty light, I would really appreciate it

Other than that, I might want to try some glowy stuff (particles?) around the mushrooms, and a "hero mush" that is being farmed near the mine cart, is the idea.

EDIT: For some reason the image isnt enlargable. Im using Photobucket, and it is uploaded big res there. Anyone know how to solve this?

Progress so far:

jestersheepy

Much better, I would say turn down that bloom though and put something below them tracks (gravel/turned mud), you still might want to reduce the light bounces in world properties under lightmass and turn down the diffuse boost a bit.
Putting in some other colours would take this a lot further too, perhaps only have 2 or 3 laterns to control focal and complimentary smaller lights (Mushroom ambient glow or a skylight?)

Have fun, you can still push this a lot further

Spoon

Thanks a lot, Jester, I really appreciate you taking time to feedback
I have wanted since the beginning to put something under those tracks, but I wasnt quite aware what was fitting. What is turned mud?

Good idea with the lanterns! I think I will try to play with their intensity instead of removing them, though. Great idea!

Again, thanks a lot for taking time to do this.

Stirls

I'm really glad you didn't give up. Really coming along nicely now.

Spoon

I found out how to eliminate the eye adaptation, which now gives me better control over the lihgting, but also means I had to redo all the lihgting, render settings and fog stuff.
So it's not quite where I want it yet, but I can easier adjust it from now on.
I will get to your lantern advice, Jester

Thanks a lot, Stirls! Means a lot to me

If anyone knows how I can increase the diffuse boost, without affecting the ceiling, I would love to know. Can I somehow cap the distance? I want the lightbake to be more... vibrant near the floor, but keeping the silhouettes in the ceiling.
Ideally it would look somewhere inbetween this update and the last

KyleReeceHall

Wow this really has progressed nicely, great work.

Xazas

It is so cool to see the immense improvements you made compared to your first post. This is very nice to look at!

Edit: Don't use .jpg for your screenshots, the compression artifacts don't do them a favor.

Spoon

Wow, really nice to come back to those comments! Thanks a lot, guys

Thanks, Xazas. I'm trying PNG this time.
Working on the "hero" shroom, which is being mined. still wip.

No idea why the images cant be enlarged. The uploaded file to photobucket is bigger than this. Can anyone enlighten me?

SomethingFishy

Wow great work Spoon! The blue fog is a nice touch.

As it looks now the thing that stand out to me is the mine doesn't look like it's being worked in. The addition of detail assets would help: pick axes, shovels... or maybe for mushrooms a pair of hedge clippers. Hard hats, lunch boxes, apple cores. Stuff that gives the scene the feeling that people are currently working there.

Also in the second photo, it looks like you have a gap in the wood planks running along the dirt, in front of the scaffolding. I was thinking to add some break up from the mushrooms maybe using the railroad ties to make a step path built into the slope might look cool.

a reference to what I had in mind.

beefaroni

Wow, this is coming along great!!

Also, nice paintover @Chrisradsby!!

Uberren

yoooo this looks really cool
Love the way the tracks wind through the screen shots.
I agree, having some of the mushrooms giving off a complementary glow to the lanterns could make it look even better.
Looking forward to more

Spoon

Thanks, SomethingFishy Im glad you say that, shovel and "mining stuff" was the 2 next things on my list, after gravel for the tracks Apple cores etc is a great idea!

Thank you, Beefaroni, really appreciate it

EDIT: Oh, and thanks Uberren Yeah, The idea with both the fog and mushrooms is to compliment the orange, but I have trouble with making them glow in a sexy way. Lumiance just makes them look unbaked. Adding a blue light makes you wonder about the sources of that light. So I am not quite sure how to do it. Also, I dont want them all to glow at an equal amount.

Do you have any ideas or tips on this?

SomethingFishy

You could play around with an emissive map in your mushroom material. Make a texture that's black and white. black where you don't want it to glow and white where you want it to glow. Depending on your UV layout you could even make them glow at different levels by using greys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5q2qjp6KoQ

here's a video that talks about basic emissive use.

Also for using a small light with mushrooms. Did you try turning off Cast Shadows in the the light's properties? That way it's more of a general glow than a light coming from a particular direction or point.

Spoon

Thanks, Fishy, I probably should take a second look at it. I did try the emissive map, which is what I mistakenly called "luminance" in my last post. It just looks unbaked, and not glowy.

But at the momemt this lighting issue is holding me back. I posted it in technical talk as well, but in case someone is looking here, can you help me understand this difference in lihgting?

pinkbubblegum

Just a random stab at it, but does your material have anything in the AO slot? o:

For some reason, having something in the AO map slot causes my materials to get really dark. Might be the case with you as well...?

Spoon

Thanks for the suggestion, Gum My AO is empty, though. I only plug a diffuse straight into the material, and sometimes have a normal as well, along with a 1 vector for spec. Thats all.

In this case, I DO want them to be as dark as the background. Another thing, if I rotate the static mesh, it "pops", so at this and this angle it is dark, and 1 more pixel to the left and it will be light as the others.

Any idea what that could be?

PS: Can I somehow change the title of the thread?

Spoon

So deleted most of the foliage instanced fungi, and made a cluster as static mesh instead.
Also did a proper emissive map for the mushrooms.

This is the status so far.

Fenyce

Holy shit there's some great improvement in here! Well done!
But I'm kinda missing another color.. most of the scene is brown(yellow) or blue. How about a little green or something like that?
Dunno if there's other foliage beside shrooms inside a cave...

aaronmwolford

Looking great! To piggy back off Fenyce it may be nice to add some more foliage or at least create a few color variations of the mushrooms. Right now the entire scene is feeling very blue.

Spoon

Thanks a lot guys, you are right! I will look into it today

Spoon

Turned the fog orange again, made more variation on mushrooms, added particle flies/glimmer at key mushrooms and added some drool to showthe juicyness of the hero mushroom.

As I am moving to another country soon, I think I will wrap this up very soon.
Any final comments and adjustments you think I should include before wrapping it?

aaronmwolford

Much better! Just occurred to me that currently the cross section of your tracks would not work. I am referring to the area where the track splits into 2 different directions. I have attached an image as an example. In addition there is usually a lever that is visible to change the route. Just a thought.

Fenyce

Looks way better now! It feels a lot more filled with live through those color additions.
One thing I have left to critic is that some areas seem pitchblack. In some areas that feels pretty nice because you're getting some silhouettes but in others it feels like to dark shadows, especially on the left hand side of the last image you posted. But that might just be me being a little nit-picking.

Spoon

Aaronwolford
Thanks
You are completely right. The rails are built with splines, so it is a single straight piece of rail that is twisting through the scene.
I don't know how the workflow would normally be in this case. Is it possible to insert a piece in the middle of a spline? Or would I have to chose, when the scene is "final", to export those rails, and do a unique asset that will then match?


Fenyce
Thank you!
Oh, you are right! That looks completely off. I wonder if it is a bake error. Will check it out. Thanks for pointing it out