Environment WIP. Critiques Welcomed!

blackkeys25

Hey everyone. Decided to try a concept I found a while ago in one of the noob challenges. I was told that my material definitions are not the greatest and this environment seemed to have a lot of different things to practice on.

I was hoping someone would help me with a few problems I have with the concept. First I am having trouble doing the see through plastic for the strips on the cool room. And secondly I can't tell if thats yellow glass or a yellow light coming from outside.

I am really wanting to get to the point where I might be employable so ANY critiques would be very welcome. And don't go easy on me

Here is the concept:



And here is my attempt so far:

blackkeys25

Thought I would add I am using UE4.

blackkeys25

Well, I have done a bit more and tried to fine tune some of the lighting. I realized it's pretty impossible to do the lighting exactly the same but I am getting better at it. Still hoping to get some critiques as well, good or bad. I am finding it hard to get the glass in UE4 right as well.

KazeoHin

I just thought I would let you know that I think this looks REALLY well done. keep at it and show me more!

blackkeys25

Thanks man, Should have it done pretty soon. I just have to do a few more models and dirty it up a bit.

blackkeys25

Didn't have the time I wanted over the last couple of days, but got a few things done and changed the lighting a bit. Really hoping for some critiques before I finish so that I do this properly. I want this to be a Portfolio piece so it has to be spot on.

Joltya

I agree with Kazeo; this looks really nice so far! The only thing that I see right now that's bugging me is that the floor isn't glossy enough. Also (and this is probably just personal preference) I hate that lense flare you have in the middle. It's incredibly distracting to me.

I wish I could help you out with that plastic area you were talking about but I don't have much experience with that myself, but hopefully someone else can chime in.

mhofever

Your lighting is good but needs some tweaking. Add a Skylight but keep the intensity below 0.5 and give it a subtle blue hue, it will add some ambient lighting to your black areas. A room with this lighting shouldn't have 100% black shadowed areas.

I'm very impressed with how close to the concept you've kept it at.

blackkeys25

Thanks heaps for the feedback!! I've been waiting for a while. I think I got a little carried away when I saw I could do the lens flare, will definitely take it out. I have been experimenting with the floor and I think your right. It's hard to go off the concept and I can't find much ref images with floors like this, but it does seem a little rough. I will see what I can do.

blackkeys25

Oh and thanks mhofever, I think I have found the lighting to be the most difficult. It's really fun but difficult. Lighting a night scene is very different in UE4 then it was in UDK. I will try the skylight as well.

mhofever

blackkeys25 wrote: »

Oh and thanks mhofever, I think I have found the lighting to be the most difficult. It's really fun but difficult. Lighting a night scene is very different in UE4 then it was in UDK. I will try the skylight as well.

Some people might advised against it since it's still being worked on by Epic but have a look into dynamic lighting and dynamic global illumination, the latest UE4 has improvements on dynamic lighting and it's features do vastly improve the scene without having to click the Build button again and again.

Biomag

From what I see I think your materials aren't reflective enough compared to the concept. Especailly the metal in the kitchen (is it aluminium in the concecpt?), the floor and tables.

Also the light in the kitchen is brighter in the concept. Think of fluroescent tubes for hygenic places. I might as well tone down the blueish light and go back to your first lighting set up for the right wall. With the increased light from the kitchen & the yellow lamp you should get closer to the concept.

I would bevel the table edges a little bit more for the top side of it in this scene.

Last thing I would add some brownish/greenish color into the diffuse of the plastic curtain.


Overall its a good scene, but you will also need the props to add some more life to it

blackkeys25

Thanks heaps Biomag, It's really difficult to get the metals to reflect like real life on such a large and mostly flat surface. I have tried aluminium witch is pretty much what it is now but I think I have to experiment a bit more. I have it set up like fluorescent lights but I think I will bump it up a bit.

I will try a bevel but I was thinking that it would have to be pretty small, I baked one in but it doesn't show up because of the lack of light. I wish the lighting would match the concept but I think some of it because it is drawn can never match physically what would happen in real life.

I have to redo the curtain I think. I tried for that brownish tinge but it came up a little bit weird.

Well heaps to do.. Thanks again.

blackkeys25

Will try the dynamic lighting tom hofever, I watched the new kite demo UE4 put out and it was fully dynamic GI, pretty amazing stuff. Although they did use the new titan card to play it..

Biomag

Might be you lose some of the metallic look in the kitchen because of using just 1 big light? Based on the reflections on the metal of the concept I would guess there are 2-3 neon lamps. I could be completely wrong though.

I hope it helps.

beefaroni

For reflections, you can increase the amount with the UE4 reflection capture sphere.

For lighting, use IES Light Profiles if you aren't already! They really help with lighting a scene properly.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/IESLightProfiles/index.html
http://www.usa.lighting.philips.com/connect/tools_literature/photometric_data_1.wpd
http://www.lithonia.com/photometrics.aspx