[WIP] UE4 Environment Crits needed

nuclearjelly

So I'm a junior artist at Dreamgate studios in Canberra, Australia, and I realized I'll soon face the prospect of having to find a new job without anything major in the area i'd like to work (most of my work stuff has been 2D mobile stuff) to put in my portfolio, so I'll be posting any and all of the stuff I make on here.

I'd very much appreciate any critiques or recommendations anyone would like to give

BagelHero

Put "Crits plz" or equivalent in the title man, more people will drop in.

Looking good so far, those trees and rocks are turning out great. Keep it up!

Meloncov

Your foliage will look better/less plasticky if you use the Subsurface shading model (you can hook the came color into subsurface as base).

AbKI

Awesome rocks.

I think the best thing you can do is look at some ref, foliage is pretty tricky to get right. On the trees it looks like the leaves are coming out of the trunk, but you're missing the smaller branches.

With foliage you have to think of the negative space as well as where the leaves are, at the moment your grass and leaves look pretty clumped together. Great start though!

nuclearjelly

Thanks so much for the crits guys!

@AbKI Hey thanks! Those rocks took a while, and a few iterations. Hoping to cover them with a bit of moss with vertex colour blending a bit later. I'm yet to do a proper texture pass on the trees (it's very placeholder) but i'm coming around to thinking I should defs do another pass on the placement of those leaves and grass, hoping to get the placement sorted on the weekend after I have some other types of vegetation and ground textures Reference Ho!

@Meloncov Thanks! I've been spending most of the last few nights after work researching/tweaking my shaders for the grass. It's a bit of work, but pretty worth. Not gonna call this version of the grass done yet, though.

Chimi Jimi

hey keep up the work ill just give my quick two cents on the env hope they help

Material definition needs alot of work your roots and rocks have same specular

The leaves on your trees look much more like balls on that have been placed on the end of the twigs also more colour variation would be nicer in the leaves just to bring it alive

Same for the grass is it all just one texture maybe have several different versions to mix it up abit

Add a dirt textur or grass texture to the ground asap

Get some form of focal point into the scene at the moment the eye isnt lead around the env more just left to wander as its all at the same values and heights

All the rocks are rather smooth would some not be more rigid and hard edged?

Just a few ideas i noticed when looking at the scene you can just greybox to give a sense of the scene i hope it helps in some way

nuclearjelly

@Chimi Jimi

Hey thanks man, no that helps tonnes!

Some further update images:





I'm yet to do any real pass on the placement of the leaves, branches on the trees, or a proper texture pass, hoping to get it done some time this week, textures/materials need tonnes of work still. Might play around with the lighting a bit after I make the center bit.

Lotsa work yet to do

nuclearjelly

Little vid of the grass I've been making for this environment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6uRMVAvE4A

nuclearjelly

Kinda did a 180 on my environment. Pretty happy with the vegetation, trees are still kinda icky. Added in castley kinda stuff, gonna work on making them less pristine after work, some vine/root/moss textures could help.




I've got a bunch of banners and tent stuff I'm gonna add in tonight as well, not so sure how they'll go with the environment, might have to play with the colours a bit:



Any crits would be greatly appreciated!