UE4 - Mayan Temple Environment
polycounter lvl 11
Experimenting with UE4 and trying to get the lighting right on this temple. Having a hard time trying to fix the lighting in editor so I created a paintover on the right side and wanted some critiques on it. All critique welcome and the more the better! The pic on the bottom is a unlit version of my environment with a histogram.
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Here's my 2 cents if you are interested:
-Focal points: I think your outdoor shots have stronger lighting and composition than your interior shots, so I will focus on interior, but some of these things apply to exterior as well. You interior shots lack in lighting and focal point. Specifically your last two shots featuring the entrance w/ candles. I think there is too much ambient light, try diminishing the bounced light and create a stronger focal point on the entrance (also buff floor reflectance). I've shopped some of your screenshots to show what I mean:
Candles: The candles are a bit scattered/overused and stand out because of it. If you haven't read this, it's a good read about visual clumping in composition (http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2015/07/10-thingscrumping.html). Using your candles more sparingly (scale them down, and place them in smaller groups) will help the composition. They also feel overall just a bit too big relative to a human. In this example (http://i.imgur.com/HkDxjbA.png) the candles are visually clumped together and more interesting, less visually noisy. + more dramatic shadows because the light source is from a point instead of spread out.
I like your first shot, perhaps you could frame up the volcano in the doorway? could be more interesting that way. Also, more contrast in your reflectance values on the floor materials (overgrowth, assuming there would be frequent rainfall? water on the ground?) oppurtunity for reflection on the ground. A minor thing is that your ivy asset is really bright for some reason, (on the left side) sticks out. Maybe a lighting bug.
If i had to cut out one screenshot it would be this one (http://i60.tinypic.com/2jb8ryd.jpg) I don't think that foliage asset holds up that close and it's not a strong compositionally/not interesting lighting.
I'm seeing some seams and areas where you could benefit from small set dressing of rocks and leaves and stuff. Blend in those edges between assets and stairs, etc. Overall push the shadow play and really try to draw a focal point with lighting. (it's tempting to just light everything up to show off the work, but it ends up looking washed out/uninteresting).
Hopefully this helps,
I really like the greenish mist\fog thing you've got going on. Did you do anything specific to achieve that? It looks much better than when I try the same
In the first picture, there appears to be a seam in your floor texture in front of the closest statue.
The second, I think your highlights are too extreme on the stone column and could be dialed down a bit to where the middle block is lit more like the bottom (or top). Currently, the middle stone and overlaid foliage look identically specular, more so than they should be, thus both white. The adjacent blocks, however, retain better material differentiation and aren't egregiously bloomed.
Lastly, my marking over the floor in the bottom picture is in regard to your stone floor texture as a whole. You've broken up the overall surface with a consistent layer of dirt and grime (think overlaying a Photoshop clouds render on your specular map, for example), but there isn't any variation on a per-stone level. Every stone is the same stone. Literally. The only difference is what's on top (the dirt). I think going through your textures and slightly tweaking the diffuse and specular values with selection masks of random stones - or exaggerating this if you've done it already - would really benefit your scene and help it look more natural.
That's some great architecture!
Anyway, I appreciate the quick update and, again, great job.