Beach House (ArchViz) WIP

angelofdeath1000

Hi

I finally decided it was time to post some of my progress on this project.

Everything here is current work in progress, nothing is final.

This is a architectural visualisation project, meaning that this is NOT being created as a game ready environment, so I'm not too concerned about polycounts of models (the only models that are baked are the floors and walls), however I am optimizing my models to get the best look.

The project itself is a Modern Beach House.

I'll keep this thread updated with progress as I get more rooms pushed through.
I welcome all critique, feedback and suggestions, I'll being adding these to my list for the second pass.

And I ask that you please ignore the outside...It's kind of placeholder level.

That's enough rambling, time for some art.

WadeWT

The lighting all looks quite nice, you've certainly got the archvis thing going for you, but I think you're being let down a lot by the modelling. Everything looks very blocky and square and the rooms feel very open and empty. I think the bathroom in particular could use a lot more material variation also.

Iyosin

This isn't too much of a critique for you, but I ran across this a few days ago while doing some research into UE4 ArchViz stuff for myself and it may help you a bit.

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?28163-ArchViz-Lighting

Koola has a example of his work that you can download from the marketplace. The basics is that he modifies the BaseLightmass.ini file and uses bounce cards for lighting instead of directly lighting the scene. You can see several examples of his work in that thread. You'll have to read through the thread to get all of the information, and there are a few more like it on the UE4 forums if you want to browse further. It might help with the light setup. Your current models, textures and lighting look like its being setup for a game, not ArchViz, admittedly it may be a camera issue, not the assets. It should also be noted that he isn't using dense geometry, he admits several times that he doesn't like modeling and UVs so he keeps it simple. His scenes are made by the lighting and the post processing work he does.

There is a breakdown of what each pass does to the scene here:

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?28163-ArchViz-Lighting&p=151960&viewfull=1#post151960

Edit: Just noticed that you posted in that thread, plugging yours, as well. I'll leave the information in case anyone else wants it.

angelofdeath1000

Thanks for the feedback so far.

@ WadeWT: I will be adding more props to the rooms at a later date, as well as rugs on the floors (once I get my head around the texture for them). The sofas and the bed to look a bit blocky and not very organic, first time I've made anything like them, they are on the list of improvements for the second pass.

@lyosin: As you saw I'm aware of koola's work, his work inspired me to go in the ArchViz direction, and I've taken a look at his scene on the marketplace, my lighting is set-up similar to his.

As for camera issue, these images are just screenshots taken in UE4, and lighting is built on preview (I didn't even think about that when I took them), also I'm not using a modified BaseLightmas.ini (my computer didn't like it), I'm still tweaking lighting and post process as I go.

As for still looking game ready, it may be the shaders, I'm still getting me head around PBR, but I'm aware my work doesn't look anywhere like koola's work...yet.

angelofdeath1000

So I took a brake from modelling to work on the Archviz look a bit more, I've redone the LUT and tweaked some shaders.

Here is the new look (you might notice I've done some work on the outside area)


I also decided to work on the water shader, which is of one I made in UDK re-setup in UE4 (it's not 100% identical). The shader isn't final yet, I need to change the look of it more and work on the animation of it (it is there, you just can't see it in a image)

pixelpatron

Ceilings seem very low considering the architecture and style of home/new construction. When I think beach house, I think of the movie Sleeping with the Enemy. You should watch, and revisit this.

Deathstick

I think your furniture's proportions could use a little tweaking as well. Currently the furniture appears a bit too elongated or stretched out horizontally. The bed seams massive compared to the doors, and the doors themselves seem a touch too wide/not enough height.

Then again, I might be getting this feeling of the furniture being too wide/elongated due to how low the ceilings are in relation to it. It also could be that you're using a pretty wide FOV on your camera, something seems off however.

I'm not sure if you're currently working off of a set scale or eyeballing it, but a typical american door is 6'8" tall standard for example. I'd recommend looking up some actual furniture dimensions if you haven't already, alot of furniture catalogs typically include the overall width/height/depth which you can use to help get the proportions feeling right.

A typical floor to ceiling size is 8' tall, but really that usually only feels right for medium to small rooms or corridors. The more open or "wide" the space is, the taller the ceiling can be to avoid it from feeling too stretched out. That low a ceiling in such a large space can also contribute to the feeling of claustrophobia.

Basically your bed room, for example, will feel a lot better spatially if you increase your current ceiling height to about 150% it's current height or more. It is 3D afterall, so might as well go grand with the heights rather than restricting yourself to everything being low.

angelofdeath1000

Thanks for the feedback

I'll address both comments at once, as there both relate to the same issues.

I had a look at some of the images of the beach house from Sleeping with the Enemy, and my ceiling looks about the same sort of height.

My doors are slightly taller than 6'8" (they measure at 248 UE4 units>2.4 meters>7'10")

As for the furniture I used furniture dimensions, but when they looked too small for the room, I made the furniture slightly bigger.

It may well be camera issues, as I haven't done anything with camera settings yet, I just walk around taking screenshots with the default FOV which is 90 (I believe). The scene is set-up using the UE4 First Person template project with the player height at 1.8 meters.

I would rather not raise the ceiling height again, if I can avoid it, it's currently in it's third hight change, and the last one was done mid project, It would be even more of a challenge to change it now.

I'm going to play around with the camera settings and FOV, and I'll post the results up here.

Thanks

angelofdeath1000

So I was playing around with the FOV, and I now have a static camera setup, so all these images are taken from the same spot.

FOV 90

FOV 75

FOV 55

fab-camp

to me the proportions still feel strange here.
maybe its just the room beeing that empty, an all these horizontal straight lines....

somehow these views make me feel uncomfortable. though I cant tell exactly why, I know thats something bad for an arch-viz!

angelofdeath1000

Update:

So after much deciding I've decided to take the Beach House project back to the drawing board.

This doesn't mean I won't be doing anymore work on it, instead I'm going to be doing some small projects (single rooms) in order to get a better idea of building for ArchViz.

This will allow me to experiment around more with lighting, FOV, Proportions etc, but in a more controlled area (so it doesn't take ages to build lighting).

Thanks for all the feedback on this project, I will be putting it to good use in the days to come.

Thanks
Dan

fab-camp

ok, good look