Roadside Fantasy INN - UE4

gibson543

Hey everyone, it's great to be back posting a new thread. I recently started teaching game modding at a local tech camp, and it was the first time I actually met other people (in person) that also had a passion for game art. And so, I was inspired to start working on my portfolio again in preparation for applying for summer internships next year!

My goal with this project is to create a sort of forest path environment with another path peeling off to a tavern/Inn. I've always loved creating fantasy environments, and I've never had practice with PBR or foliage, so I figured this would be a great environment to introduce myself to all of those things.

Here's where I'm at so far. I finally decided to ditch using baked lighting and am now using dynamic lighting with an LPV to get my global illumination. I'm still really new to lighting, though, and I have to improve my current setup a lot I feel.





As of right now, the todo list is to create windows for the building, create another tree/a completely new tree (this one was basically a test), change the construction of the building, and actually start building the final composition, as of right now this is basically just to see if the stuff I'm making works and looks good

Of course, this todo list is apt to change depending on what you guys recommend. Any and all comments are welcome, thanks for taking a look.

(BTW, I have two moniters, and one of them is showing my scene as REALLY, REALLY green, so if that's the case, then I I guess I'm just going to have to re calibrate my main moniter.)

foreverlost

When you do make your finalized tree(s), be sure to reference real trees because I think the needles are way too big for these evergreens, and the overall tree shape should be taller with a longer trunk.

Also, what were you considering to make this a fantasy environment?

gibson543

Ok so finally updated my textures and changed some post processing to get the scene more or less to what it looks like on the monitor I was working on.NOW it's really ready or posting.

gibson543

Alright some more progress being made. Injected a bit more saturation back into the scene, and now I've actually started building the final layout. Basically right now I just want to create those tree variations, windows, as well as a small pen on the side of the building for travelers to put their horses.

noosence

This is cool, reminds me of Tor's medieval city. Are you using tiling textures, and vertex painting for the wood and plaster of the buildings? Also I would maybe try to match the color of the grass texture with the color of the grass clumps, the transition feels a bit too harsh for me.

Anngelica

Hey I really like this! The textures on the hut look great - I think maybe the lighting is a little too harsh? It feels like the plaster/brick texture is being kinda washed out and you're losing some of that detail and contrast, even in the trees. Just my opinion - looks great!

gibson543

@foreverlost - hey man thanks for the comment, the trees definitely weren't supposed to be evergreens, but I think I've addressed that confusion with these new trees.

@noosence - thats great to hear man tor's city was a big inspiration for me . Yeah I'm using tileables with vertex blending for the plaster, brick and wooden plank textures. But for the wooden beams themselves those are unique assets. I also darkened the grass texture a bit and filled in some holes, hopefully this is better.

@anngelica - Definetely see what you're saying, hope this is better!



basically just added in the new trees, changed up the bark texture to get some non-greens in there.

gsokol

That looks a lot better. Looked like the bounce was just too strong. One thing that you could do to improve the space is get some undulation on that terrain. It feels so flat right now. Maybe sink in the path or raise up the areas around the path a little bit. Helps guide the eye a little better and just creates a little bit more interest.

gibson543

Added some variation to the terrain and the path, definitely a step up, thanks gsokol! Also added some windows finally. Now I'm going to add a sign, and one of those posts with directions on it.





Also, I'm constantly fiddling with fog/post while I'm working on this, I think it's my weakest area and I'm not really sure where to go with it. I think this looks decent enough to show right now though.

gibson543

So I was struggling to think of what to do in order to continue to improve on this scene. I really couldn't think of much and was even considering shelfing the project and moving on to something else. However, I decided against that and started looking at similar scenes done by other artists on polycount. All of the really good scenes, from what I gathered, looked natural because their terrain was varied and organic looking. Even with my prior edits, I think mine was still just too flat. So I decided to add a lot of height variation to my terrain, and I think it really helped the scene a lot. It makes the scene look more organic and interesting, something that it was lacking a lot previously. It's still not done, gotta expand my foliage and terrain since some parts are still not covered properly.

gsokol

Yes!! much better. I agree, your initial attempt to get some more elevation was still not enough. Glad to see you were able to catch that as well.

I did like how your house was lit in the previous images a little better. There was a really nice, soft light hitting it with some nice bounce lighting. I think that the trees casting those shadows on the front are killing it now. Perhaps the shadows from the trees are too dark in general. Also, just the placement of the shadow makes it bad. You have that dirt path that guides the eye straight up to the front door, but when you get to the front door there is a whole lot of contrast and its hard to even make out the door. At the very least I would try to keep that front door out of shadow.

EpicBeardMan

Hey, great-looking scene so far.Gsokol was right when he said that shadows are too dark. If you already didn't, put some GI (Global Illumination) in the scene and it will brighten up those darker parts.
If that doesn't cut it, play with the sun position to get better shadow look in the scene. Search for that ultimate shadow-play.

Cheers!

Goeddy

hey, i think your trees need some vertex normal love.
theres a couple of scripts for that out there, depending on the software you are using.

heres what im talking about http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/VertexNormal#Modo

also you could try using a transluscent material for the leaves, theres a preset dedicated to foliage in UE4

gibson543

Ok so I definetely agree with you guys and plan on changing up the lighting, however, I've been trying to edit my normals in speedtree and it just seems to be impossible. Whenever I export from speedtree to UE4 (im using the ue4 subscription version so I can't export to max and edit the normals there), the normals that I set up in speedtree just don't transfer over to ue4, and I'm losing my shit over here trying to figure out why. And on top of that, whenever I close the file I'm working on in speedtree, and re-open it, the normals are just inverted for no reason. So yeah, any insight on this issue would be great, I'm insanely frustrated from this issue.

Goeddy

mhm that sucks, i haven't used speed tree yet so no idea.
although i had problems with importing vertex normals into UE4 aswell even with regular FBX imports. it didnt detect changes in the file or something so after reimport, it never updated my vertexnormals, importing a new file worked though. but i gues your issue probably lies somewhere in the speedtrees.

gibson543

Ok so the speedtree issue stemmed from the fact that my leaf meshes were imported into speedtree as FBX files and not OBJ files, strange, but, it's no longer an issue, I now have custom normals on my trees. The new issue is that at this point, I'm pretty sure my trees are easily the weakest part of the scene. I'm gonna give the trees another go, and probably even change the species of tree as well (gonna try pines).

So yeah, other than that, extended the foliage a little bit, changed the angle of the sun, and increased the intensity of my skylight slightly to brighten up the shadows a little bit. Thanks for lookin

gibson543

Okay got a new update, changed the trees into pines. I must admit, took quite a long time to get the pine needles to a not trash looking state. But I'm pretty pleased with em right now. I have two variations right now. Basically a full tree and a tree that has a lot of dead branches and a lot less needles. This scene is getting there. I'm trying to be finished with this before the 28th, as that's move in day for my first day of college .

I think right now I need to focus on more of the surroundings of the focus because really there is nothing going on besides some world machine mountain props I threw at the end of the terrain. Really need to ground the scene.

gibson543

Hey there, new update, probably calling this one complete now, (pending any crits I feel I should act on) and I'm really happy with how the environment turned out. Added some world machine terrain and grounded it into the unreal terrain I was already working with. Added a bit of post as well, basically just some DOF, sun rays and lens flares. Thanks so much to everyone that commented on the scene, I think it's made a massive transition since when I started it and it definitely wouldn't have gotten to this point without you guys!

Goeddy

mhm i think the trees are still the weakest part, but i think a bit of polish could bring this to the next level without changing any assets.
first i would add some more variation to the tree size, they all look the same size now, maby increase the scaling variation to something up to 40 percent.
also they look too uniformly placed, try building some variations in density, have some open planes and some denser groups of trees growing next to each other.

for the background i would go with a major increase in tree density.
right now this looks like a house with some random trees in the middle of nothing.
it probably would look way better if you try to make this look like a lighter spot where trees have been cut down to build the house. and all that surrounded by a real dense forest.
if performance gets too bad maby leave the tops of the mountains barren as they are, but there should be more trees in the valleys atleast.

you already did a lot of work, so don't slow down on the final sprint.