So awesome, this has come a long way Really love the new statues!
The lighting looks much better now, you get a lot more gradients and interesting shapes. If this is something that you are going for, please ignore my comment, but imo it looks a bit contrasty. It could either be a combination of too much of a strong sun light (that doesn't match the sky), or too much contrast in the post processing.
I made two really shitty paintovers with some ideas, hopefully they are useful somehow
Here I tweaked the saturation a bit and did some very minor color correction.
And here's an idea: Less light bounce (looks a bit artificial now) and a stronger contrast between light and shadow (to get more shape from the sun light).
If you are having a hard time getting the values right, I'd recommend turning off auto exposure (set min and max to 1 and bias to 0 on post processing settings). I was looking at my Sampa scene recently and I noticed how crazy my lighting values were because I didn't understand how the auto exposure worked :S
Can't lie guys, lighting has been kicking my ass. Definitely need to focus more on it in the future. Feel free to reiterate any tips that I may not have/ been able to implement. I'm afraid the interior is still a bit too dark and my shadows aren't as sharp as I wanted them. I was hoping to have this done by GDC, but I'm just focusing on the courtyard area atm and that will probably have to do before next week, so any last minute feedback is very welcome! My priority right now is to get vista buildings in order.
and thank you @Minosthat was enormously helpful, even if I wasn't quite able to replicate it! Seriously can't thank everyone enough for the feedback
Holy s***, this is completelly nuts!!! I remember commenting here not long ago and you have turn a good portfolio piece into an amazing gorgeous and sexy environment in such a short period of time!! This is completelly inspirational really good work
@Minos thanks man! I really appreciate all the feedback throughout the project. I thought about releasing a playable build, there are still some things to clean up (I added an a balcony along the back wall and the courtyard is not meant to be viewed from the outside, so I'd have to work on a facade for the building "exterior") and I'd like to prop out the interior space more, since there's not a lot to explore there atm. I'm looking forward to starting something different (and smaller, with concept!) after GDC, and taking a break from this, but it'll be nice to revisit it with fresh eyes. So maybe eventually! Also just picked up your tut, can't wait to dig into it, thanks for all the hard work you put into it!
I don't have a ton of experience with the UE4 set of tools, but one thing I was able to find in the UE4 documentation is the ability to adjust the SSR sharpness via a console command it looks like. This console command probably points to a value within the SSR value set, and can be saved for permanent use. Link to the page: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Resources/Showcases/Reflections/index.html
The section (about halfway down the page) I think will help with the sharpness of the SSR, "Screen space reflections are active by default in Unreal Engine 4, but can be toggled using the console command r.SSR.Quality 3 or r.SSR.Quality 0 depending on the set. Below is the results of the reflection example scene both with (r.SSR set to 1) and without screen space reflections (r.SSR set to 0)." . Also, if you do not currently have a sufficient amount of reflection capture nodes within the scene, it will harm the bounce light and overall ambient feel of the environment. I would get a good set of reflection capture probes spread out throughout your scene (don't hold back, as for a portfolio piece it isn't a bad thing to push the boundaries of current day spec limitations, if anything, expected).
Ambient light is tough, it's what most game lighting artists spend a majority of their time working on. It's a very fine line to walk in terms of visibility for game play, cinematic quality, and realism. Do we add more light? Less light? More artificial light sources? Why lighting/look dev artists are becoming a key role of realistic game development. I think with the AO tweaks, maybe a brighter skybox as well (to promote more bounce light and based on your time of day its a bit dim, where we can see it anyway), and tweaking your water shader and reflections, your scene will be in really really good shape.
Like Thiago said, the progress and content quality has been amazing to watch grow. Awesome work on this env.
Here are some beauty shots! Probably wont have time to retouch much before GDC, but don't let that stop you if you have feedback! I'd like to revisit this scene sometime in the future, but I am excited to have a break from it lol. I *may* try to get a video of it tomorrow.
And again, I cannot thank everyone enough for the help and feedback. I've learned a lot from this project (primarily that lighting is hard ;A; serious props to my lighting artists out there), but as always, there's a ton I'd like to focus on going forward. See yall at GDC
Beautiful work! I've always had issues sculpting wooden objects, I was wondering what your workflow was. Would it be possible for a breakdown?
Cheers!
EDIT: In reference to your first few posts, that is.
Usually I would sculpt all the wood grain, but for this many planks, I just did some edge dings and dents in zbrush. Most of the wood grain textures (albedo, normal, ect) was implemented in substance for consistency sake. I love smart materials in substance, but you have to do a second bake and re-import the new normals to get them to acknowledge any normal info you create outside of your original HP mesh (I'm not sure I actually did that for these pieces since they were so early on in the project) Let me know if you have any other questions!
The outside of the courtyard turned out fantastic, really good job.
As far as quick fixes, I think messing with the lighting in both the interior screenshots would be the best. The interior with the sculptures I think could emphasis a focal point better. Lessening the smoke, increasing the size of the fire on the braziers could let you leak more interesting light against the sculptures and help with giving some interesting contrast inside instead of everything having the same tones.
The 2nd to last screenshot would really benefit from another light casting against the inside of the pillars to get them a few shades lighter; the full black contrasts too much with the rest of the screenshot. Also remember Photoshop is your friend for post-processing(Just don't tell anyone ).
But really, that's it, fantastic progress and all around great scene. Good luck at GDC.
@hmm_rock This turned out great! Is there any way you can show your Ivy material and wires for the mesh? I'm creating some right now and would really like to see how you went about making yours? Thanks
@RianShelton So this was my second attempt at doing the vines (you can look at earlier posts for what was wrong the first time) I'm still not %100 satisfied with these. I think I could have been smarter about the shapes I used and used fewer meshes. It would have probably been better if all the meshes had the same amount of tapering at the top, not narrow or wide like I have now. Also, I made the mistake of placing these all by hand in engine which took way too long. Live and learn.
Something I never quite understood, how are you achieving such complex patterns on your flooring (the interior shot with the 2 statues especially)? Would love to see a bit of a breakdown for that!
Something I never quite understood, how are you achieving such complex patterns on your flooring (the interior shot with the 2 statues especially)? Would love to see a bit of a breakdown for that!
Keep it up!
Crosspost from 10K in case it interests anyone else
This
may interest you. The first floor (exterior) is just geometry cut into
the pattern I want and unwrapped accordingly to fit like tiles. The
second two planes you see here are actual substance materials with the
patterns baked in, however I used the first technique as well to cut up
larger patterns of solid marble https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oWXrO
Btw how long should my lighting build be taking on production, because it's kinda terrible ;A;
I don't think there is an answer to that, other than that it takes however long it takes. The sample Reflection scene on my laptop takes over an hour to build at production, but only about 6 minutes on my desktop. With your scene, I would expect building to take quite a while on any computer.
You've done a fantastic job! The complexity and details in every single inch of the scene are breathtaking. If you released a playable build, I'd be tripping over myself to get at it!
Re: foliage, think of it this way: you're either placing it by hand in UE4, or placing it by hand in your 3D editor. I would have gone the UE4 route as well, as I think it's easier to work organically and let it grow (terrible puns intended) as you see fit while the scene comes together. I personally find having to go back into my 3D editor for something like that can be a bit of an unwanted interruption.
Back from GDC (which was awesome as always!) I got some wonderful
feedback to keep in mind in the future and I made some minor adjustments
to a couple of the shots, but for the most part calling this done. Critique still welcome however! I can always use it
I
whipped up a fly through too! For organizational sake, I'm going to keep
it all the final shots together on this page.
OMFG AWESOME Scene! Saw an article of ur enviro @ work today. Would be lying if i said many (myself included) were not inspired & jelly of ur mad skillz! XD
I'm not one to judge but judge i shall...ur dragon feels weird/off to me...namely the head and wings. The snout make it look mammalian (try raising the tip and repositioning the nostrils), possibly add an eyeball(?), and the lines on the wings should converge. This is just my personal taste...since it was quite a focal point, i thought it worth suggesting... Other than that, lurve the composition, the designs, the layout, blah blah. Keep up the great work & looking forward to playing a AAA game of urs someday!
whoa Meggie!! you rock!! (badumts)... sorry I could not help it! Your Dragon Age inspired environment inspired us all!! That was a very interesting read -a bit short for those who read the whole polycount thread-, If I recall correctly you modeled the curtains in Zbrush right? did you used 3ds max cloth modifier as well for those? I'm thinking on giving a try to marvelous designer, it looks like an amazing tool for clothes and fabric stuff :O
If I recall correctly you modeled the curtains in Zbrush right? did you used 3ds max cloth modifier as well for those? I'm thinking on giving a try to marvelous designer, it looks like an amazing tool for clothes and fabric stuff :O
Haha thanks n4uj. I did model them in ZBrush. My feed back from
reviews has been mixed, I think it was a good start, but I definitely
need to do some cloth studies to really get it right Certain parts of
the cloth are meant to deform (or were, it got shelved as I ran out of
time and as I discovered how temperamental cloth physX and setting up
it's colliders in 3ds max can be) so they were simple geo deformed in
max using different modifiers (4x4x4, taper, noise, etc). I may try to
iron it out, but ultimately if I do, I want to redo the drapes entirely.
I haven't used marvelous designer but it looks awesome!
Replies
The lighting looks much better now, you get a lot more gradients and interesting shapes. If this is something that you are going for, please ignore my comment, but imo it looks a bit contrasty. It could either be a combination of too much of a strong sun light (that doesn't match the sky), or too much contrast in the post processing.
I made two really shitty paintovers with some ideas, hopefully they are useful somehow
Here I tweaked the saturation a bit and did some very minor color correction.
And here's an idea: Less light bounce (looks a bit artificial now) and a stronger contrast between light and shadow (to get more shape from the sun light).
If you are having a hard time getting the values right, I'd recommend turning off auto exposure (set min and max to 1 and bias to 0 on post processing settings). I was looking at my Sampa scene recently and I noticed how crazy my lighting values were because I didn't understand how the auto exposure worked :S
PSD download: http://www.thiagoklafke.com/misc/temp/tevinter_po.psd
Awesome job with the scene, with every post it looks tons better
and thank you @Minos that was enormously helpful, even if I wasn't quite able to replicate it! Seriously can't thank everyone enough for the feedback
I remember commenting here not long ago and you have turn a good portfolio piece into an amazing gorgeous and sexy environment in such a short period of time!!
This is completelly inspirational
Here are some final beauty shots of things
Was great following the progress on this thread, you definitely leveled up immensely. Top banner quality if you ask me
Any plans to release a playable build at some point? Would love to check this out ingame.
The section (about halfway down the page) I think will help with the sharpness of the SSR, "Screen space reflections are active by default in Unreal Engine 4, but can be toggled using the console command r.SSR.Quality 3 or r.SSR.Quality 0 depending on the set. Below is the results of the reflection example scene both with (r.SSR set to 1) and without screen space reflections (r.SSR set to 0)." . Also, if you do not currently have a sufficient amount of reflection capture nodes within the scene, it will harm the bounce light and overall ambient feel of the environment. I would get a good set of reflection capture probes spread out throughout your scene (don't hold back, as for a portfolio piece it isn't a bad thing to push the boundaries of current day spec limitations, if anything, expected).
Ambient light is tough, it's what most game lighting artists spend a majority of their time working on. It's a very fine line to walk in terms of visibility for game play, cinematic quality, and realism. Do we add more light? Less light? More artificial light sources? Why lighting/look dev artists are becoming a key role of realistic game development. I think with the AO tweaks, maybe a brighter skybox as well (to promote more bounce light and based on your time of day its a bit dim, where we can see it anyway), and tweaking your water shader and reflections, your scene will be in really really good shape.
Like Thiago said, the progress and content quality has been amazing to watch grow. Awesome work on this env.
And again, I cannot thank everyone enough for the help and feedback. I've learned a lot from this project (primarily that lighting is hard ;A; serious props to my lighting artists out there), but as always, there's a ton I'd like to focus on going forward. See yall at GDC
I've always had issues sculpting wooden objects, I was wondering what your workflow was. Would it be possible for a breakdown?
Cheers!
EDIT: In reference to your first few posts, that is.
As far as quick fixes, I think messing with the lighting in both the interior screenshots would be the best. The interior with the sculptures I think could emphasis a focal point better. Lessening the smoke, increasing the size of the fire on the braziers could let you leak more interesting light against the sculptures and help with giving some interesting contrast inside instead of everything having the same tones.
The 2nd to last screenshot would really benefit from another light casting against the inside of the pillars to get them a few shades lighter; the full black contrasts too much with the rest of the screenshot. Also remember Photoshop is your friend for post-processing(Just don't tell anyone
But really, that's it, fantastic progress and all around great scene. Good luck at GDC.
This turned out great! Is there any way you can show your Ivy material and wires for the mesh? I'm creating some right now and would really like to see how you went about making yours? Thanks
Btw how long should my lighting build be taking on production, because it's kinda terrible ;A;
Something I never quite understood, how are you achieving such complex patterns on your flooring (the interior shot with the 2 statues especially)? Would love to see a bit of a breakdown for that!
Keep it up!
This may interest you. The first floor (exterior) is just geometry cut into the pattern I want and unwrapped accordingly to fit like tiles. The second two planes you see here are actual substance materials with the patterns baked in, however I used the first technique as well to cut up larger patterns of solid marble https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oWXrO
You've done a fantastic job! The complexity and details in every single inch of the scene are breathtaking. If you released a playable build, I'd be tripping over myself to get at it!
Re: foliage, think of it this way: you're either placing it by hand in UE4, or placing it by hand in your 3D editor. I would have gone the UE4 route as well, as I think it's easier to work organically and let it grow (terrible puns intended) as you see fit while the scene comes together. I personally find having to go back into my 3D editor for something like that can be a bit of an unwanted interruption.
I whipped up a fly through too! For organizational sake, I'm going to keep it all the final shots together on this page.
Other than that, lurve the composition, the designs, the layout, blah blah. Keep up the great work & looking forward to playing a AAA game of urs someday!
http://80.lv/articles/producing-dragon-age-inspired-environment/
Thanks for the invaluable help and following along, all!
Your Dragon Age inspired environment inspired us all!! That was a very interesting read -a bit short for those who read the whole polycount thread-, If I recall correctly you modeled the curtains in Zbrush right? did you used 3ds max cloth modifier as well for those? I'm thinking on giving a try to marvelous designer, it looks like an amazing tool for clothes and fabric stuff :O
Haha thanks n4uj. I did model them in ZBrush. My feed back from reviews has been mixed, I think it was a good start, but I definitely need to do some cloth studies to really get it right