[UE4] Remember Me Alleyway

shadacer

Hey all,
Latest:



I've started a new project, got a job so only working sporadically on this when I can. It's my first attempt at both complex architecture and sci-fi, so I'm learning a lot!

I took this concept from Remember Me as reference, and it kind of evolved from there;



And here's my current progress. I went and expanded the scene to factor in some research on the shopping alleys of Paris.






The biggest issue for me is the foliage, as I'm struggling to find a good lighting solution for them. Been tweaking this as I go, but feedback would be great.

P.s. Thanks to the community for their support, you helped me land my first industry job

Lucas Annunziata

Congratties on your first industry job!

Already this is looking great.

A few things I noticed that may improve this:
I think having one of the facades further down the alley be red as it is in the concept will help break up that side a bit.
The skylight windows are really repeaty with all those lines. Try cutting 3/4ths of them. It will look less busy and also clean up the noisy choppy light on the ground.
The tables and chairs are placeholder? Maybe add some props on the tables.
Get a scifi trashcan in there somewheres!
And some stubbed out cigarette butts on the ground. I have a feeling people would smoke here.

Keep up the awesome work!

DWalker

Your scene is really over-lit, washing out most of the vibrant colors and causing many of the details to become lost in the glare.

shadacer

Thanks for the critique guys, I'll look into darkening the scene and giving it more variation

shadacer

Hey guys,

Did some more updates to the scene, still a lot of silly errors and problems to fix and stuff to redo.


I spaced out some of the floor tiles and trims to look better, turned down the lights in the scene and introduced some blue ambience. I also made the plants germaniums instead of hibiscus like the concept, but my workflow for that is still way off (foliage is not my strong suit, but I feel i'm improving my workflow about it.) I also added the red facade at the end of the alley, it's not fleshed out yet but I'm thinking of ideas! The stuff Lucas mentioned in his crit will also make it in at some point, as soon as I finished the primary stuff and sorted out the facades.



For the skylights themselves, I broke a few of them and also changed the design of the wrought iron frame to add interest. I also added some dirt and grime to the window planes.

Right now the foliage and the ambient light are the biggest problems, is there a way to affect ambient properties in UE4?

Any critique would be appreciated, and I'll also be open to any suggestions for storefront displays.

Cay

did you try turning off eye adaptation? could be the reason for your super bright and washed out scene

shadacer

No, but I will look into it Thanks

shadacer

Remember me?

I've come out of hibernation to inject some more updates into this thread. With all of the distractions of Christmas and work, I haven't found the time to update. But here it is!



Took Cay's advice and turned off eye adaption, made my scene dark so had to readjust the lighting, but at least it doesn't look like the colours are washed out now.

I made a couple of more things to put in the scene, which was cheeky of me considering I hadn't done the blockout stuff yet. But, i managed to discover some cool new ways to do baroque hard surface



Here's a clock I did, based on one seen in Gallerie Verdeau.



Here's a globe light I made today, getting wrought iron right worked out better than the previous lamps, so may have to tweak those retroactively.



And lastly, I made a memory machine, to add a bit more of the game's story elements to the scene and because I love metallic stuff in UE4.

I'm still a ways off, nothing in the storefronts etcetera, and there's a lot that needs fixing, but any help along the way will be appreciated.

shadacer

Quick update!

I've done some more blockout props, fixed a couple of lightmap/material issues and textured the tables and the menu board. I'm looking into ways to blockade some of the store fronts and scale down the workload here, but it's finally starting to get somewhere after all this stagnation:




As always, critique about anything is always welcome. Hit me!

shadacer

Her's my latest;

I've added some more elements to it, wanting to wrap it up soon as it's burning me out, having been at it for a year. I added the blinds etc. so I can get away with not detailing shop interiors :P
Gonna wrap it up soon, but if there'a anything I need to push it, feel free to point it out!

Obscura

Looking really nice so far. I would play with the lighting and post process settings, because it doesn't have enough brightness/contrast/color at the moment. Other than this, it looks like it turns out nicely.

Beno09

Like Obscura said, play with post process settings, especially with colors.

shadacer

Hey all,


So I added some post process, played around with the saturation and contrast to make the scene less matte.

Here's some more shots;





I feel it's a bit too contrasty now, but it does make the scene feel bolder.

Ged

the contrast is really nice, just doesnt have that nice bounced lighting feel of the concept so maybe theres a little too much contrast.

Obscura

One thing that doesn't really make sense to me, is that I would imagine almost midday daytime from the shadow direction, but you really don't have enough light brightness compared to that. You would need brighter light, and brighter shadows then. But you have shadow darkness like at early morning or early evening. I'm confused. I would try to make it closer to the reference.

DanielR17

Hi Matthew,

Great work. You can also try to change your exposure setting in Unreal Engine.

shadacer

Hey guys
Thanks for the feedback! I got some more feedback from colleagues, and used that to brighten up the overall scene. I tweaked the indirect lighting first and foremost, and toned down the post processing contrast. I also turned off some light fixtures that were stealing attention from the scene unecessarily, and bumped up the smoothness on the bulbs.





What do you think?

Stromberg90

Looking good, Remember Me is a very good looking game.

I think trying to get the colors the match the screenshot more will help.

Also you got a lot of noise in there now, crazy amounts, try messing with the screenspace reflection quality in the post process volume or turning on antialiasing(if it's off).

The shadows on the plants look to dark, maybe try out the foliage shader or a SSS one.
https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Two-Sided_Foliage_Material

Tried some things out in photoshop.
Changed the colors to be more blue/purple, brightened it up a bit.
Tried to remove some of the noise.

shadacer

Hey all,
Thanks for the feedback Stromberg, especially about the newer engine version's SSS. I ported the project over, brightened the scene a bit and finally fixed the foliage It's bee a bugbear of mine all project, so glad Epic have given us a better shader option.

amirabd2130

This really looks nice
well done

Vincent_DEROZIER

Nice job !!

I just don't understand your stone arch in the center, is it stone ? If so the connection with the wall is a little bit weird.

Otherwise it's cool .

Ged

great work, much better than before!

Stromberg90

Looks good, I am wondering how are you saving your images out?
Cause they have a lot of compression artifacts in them.

DanielR17

One little detail: you can do something about the junctures right between your stairs and the marble ground and wall.

Fishypants

Nice!!

shadacer

Thanks for the feedback guys, will make the necessary fixes in a couple of days

shadacer

Hey guys,
So I couldn't let this one go. I started doing little fixes I should have fixed ages ago, such as harsh transitions and tiling errors, and got carried away. I really started to get back into it once I began to tighten everything up.

As such ,I think I'm going to do a little more to this one before I mark it done. I'm inspired!




I tidied up the wall in the last shot, removed some ugly architecture (my mistake was sci-fi for sci-fi's sake, and I should have let the wall breathe) and added another marble arched door to suggest inorganic architecture. I added a small trim column to the areas where stone meets the painted metal windows, which sticks out and looks too videogamey; now, it looks a little more natural.

I fixed the lightmaps on the neo-paris board and the planter foliage, and added some more props to the outdoor tables, such as ashtrays and coffee cups. The next step is dressing the storefronts and finishing up the cafe interior, as well as other small-scale stuff. Also going to add some RM-themed graffiti to the shutters to break them up, as well as a couple more holograms.

Thoughts? Have I gone too far:p?

DanielR17

I like the lighting now!
The only thing that causes a bit of a pain to watch is this roof. Somebody already mentionned it. There are too many metal bars. You can simplify that roof even if it's accurate right now. Oh maybe you already tried to do it?

Other than that, the next details you're planing to add will surely look good.

But, don't you want/need to start somenthing new now ?

Ged

its great work, the post processing/blur or aberration might be a bit overpowering in some places, the only thing that stands out to me are those 2 brown pillars right in the centre of the first image, they look sharp edged/simple, no bevels on the edges? and the texture resolution doesnt look excellent but they are right in the focus of the image composition and they are so saturated they stand out in the rest of the scene too. You could just call it done at this point and present it nicely in your portfolio.

marks

If I were you, I would pay very very careful attention to your color usage. It isn't the same as your reference, and that is part of why it is falling short.

shadacer

Guys I lost everything, I'm going to need to reassemble the alley from scratch. I still have the source files, but will keep you posted.
Edit: I couldn't recover much, so I'll call it done for now whilst I have these shots (had some higher res ones, but lost them unfortunately).Thanks for your support, but I'm going to move on and avoid making that mistake gain:)

DanielR17

Very sorry to read that. You were close. Move on and come back soon

feyemahi

From ages, users have been protecting their handsets with cases and plastic screen guards, which protected their devices from scratches and scuffs. The first thing to do after purchasing a smartphone has always been to get a good case and a screen protector in matte or clear finish. However, these screenguards and cases often left one aspect of the smartphone vulnerable and incidentally that also happens to be the most important aspect of any smartphone. For more visit
..........................................................................................................................................
http://feyeshoppy.com/tempered-glass-screen-protector]Tempered Screen glass protectors

amirabd2130

Oh man! Really really sorry to hear that.

It should be a habit to backup our files regularly, at least every other day and possibly in different media than where the original files are!