House size feels small in walkthrough.

paco

I'm doing an arch viz walkthrough type of project in UE4, and I've modeled things to accurate sizes, ie doorways of 2040 x 820mm and ceiling heights of 2700mm. When I place the building in the level though, it feels really small with the default character. I tried different settings for the FOV (from 140 to 40 degrees) and adjusted a few things like the walking speed of the character, camera height etc however it still felt really off. Also this is just displayed on a monitor - no VR.

In the end I've ended up scaling everything by about 1.8 and moved the camera height up - and it feels a lot better. Ie, the doorways don't feel too small and it seems to match what I'd expect.

Has anyone else come across this? Anyone have any good settings they can share?

pixaeiro

I used to have the same feeling when I did architectural visualizations with 3dsmax. Since we couldn't change the dimensions of the models, we removed walls and placed the camera outside the rooms... like shooting a room through an open window or door.

McGreed

I take it you have looked at this guide regarding scaling?
http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/ue4/ue4-guide-to-scale-dimensions.php

I have the same issue, it's really hard to get the proper real life scale and make it look right ingame. Still not 100% satisfied with my view, but I stayed with real life scaling, and called it a day.

paco

Thanks guys. Mcgreed - I have seen that link, and find it interesting that their proportions are also scaled up (door width of 1.4m?).

I'm not sure exactly what the issue is. If I can find the time I'll model the room I'm in and see if the view through my monitor looks correct or not.

McGreed

I think it might help if you have some props in the room to help showing the scale. If it's just walls and entrances, I find your sense of scale is not quite working. Place a couple of sofas and such around for testing, and it might help focusing on the scale.

Mark Dygert

You might want to lower the camera and slow it down. Unreal defaults are mostly set for supersized humans moving at inhuman speeds. If you drop the camera down a few units and slow it down (preferably through blueprint) you'll probably find something more in line with real world proportions.

ZacD

I bet some of this has to do with games altering our perception of what is accurate scale due to almost-universal game design decisions. Games always have wide doors so they are easier to walk through without hitting the sides, and games typically have higher ceilings because they want you to have room to jump (and jump height is typically much higher than what would be realistic).