[UE4] Forest development - Suggest, Help, Critique

AXEL

Latest update:



Hi all,
This is my forest development in UE4 thread.
I want to make a good looking forest environment with gas station, my main inspiration is this: http://polycount.com/discussion/156641/abandoned-gas-station-ue4/p1
If I can achieve something similar to this I will be very pleased
Right now I'm researching and slowly developing well forest environment.
Please If you have any helpful information (tutorials, techniques, articles, interviews, suggestions, critique, etc.) don't hesitate to post here . I will appreciate that very much
A month ago I basically had no idea how to make trees or foliage.
Here is a rough block out of the level (assets not made by me)



And here are some assets I've made so far


Thanks for taking a look!

AXEL

Can some one please point me to a good article about foliage, especially about the importance of making leafs using planes with transparent textures applied ?

Benvox2

Here is a great one by @Adelphia using 3ds Max, Speed Tree and UE4. If you don't have access to all of these programs most of it can be done in others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYHWaA7wpkQ 

I think your trees and grass look quite good, maybe just some colour variation to break that solid green. Dead/faded leaves and blades etc.
The Fern looking things look a bit strange, do you have reference for these? The almost look upside down.

Keep going at it!

Nathan3D

@Benvox2 thanks I would definitely add colour variation as well as size variation.  With the trees I would make the leaves on the branches slightly bigger although it might not be 'realistic' it will let you see them better and will be 'believable' which I think works better most of the time. Also did you change your normals on the branches? 

Your grass looks pretty dense as well not sure if youv just put loads in for the image

Montreseur

Always remember to look at reference constantly! Ask yourself "Am I creating what I am seeing, or what I "think" I am seeing?" Developing an eye for reading reference is going to be something you carry with you your entire endeavor into art. Seeing the details and variations as a constant note in your reference helps you create it in your art!

AXEL

@all thank you very much
@Benvox2 One of the aims for project is to do everything manually so no Speed Tree And yeah fern looks weird it was a quick test to see what I can make with just plane and texture basically
@Adelphia  Cool video thanks! Very cool husky

Adelphia said:

 Also did you change your normals on the branches? 
Your grass looks pretty dense as well not sure if youv just put loads in for the image

What do you mean by changing normals on branches exactly ?
Grass density:

 Is this too much ?
@Montreseur
Yeah I now have loads of cool foliage and tree references however I'm lacking technique references from artists btw this is my thesis so I need loads of them and there seems to be lack of books about foliage/vegetation for video games

About color variation
I did this (adding variation to color based on position)


But I got weird results
One side looks fine

But other side
Seems to have less or no effect

Material is double sided and 2sided shading is used here.
Why is this happening and how to fix this ?

Cremuss

I think it's because the other side is mainly using the subsurface color slot and I'm not sure you applied the same object position based setup on it.
Nice improvements otherwise. I'm not fan of the big triangular shaped plants though. It seems they are bent the wrong way (going up instead of being pulled down near the tips)

AXEL

@Cremuss
You where right SS was using wrong input and now it's fixed , thanks
Is it now shading correctly ?
Back/front/side = sun loaction

AXEL

Something weird happened here!
It duplicated my previous responses and I dont know how to delete these

AXEL

Something weird happened here!

AXEL

Something weird happened here!

Nathan3D

With your normals on your trees take a look at Normal Thief you basically create a dome around your tree and it projects the normals from the dome to the tree so that they all point outwards and will give you a nice looking tree(only on the foliage parts though not the trunk)
I would say maybe a bit too dense if your having a lot of this in a game it would start to hurt weither your culling it or not. If you could get a good ground material under it then you should be able to lower the density. 
Colour variation. You should have more colour variation within the baked texture sheet your using before adding location based variation(witch looks good btw). 
And yea those ferns should bend up then bend down towards the end
 

AXEL

@Adelphia I somehow missed this response. Thank you very much for it. Agree with every thing you said
I have now shifted my focus a bit to lighting and have run into problem with shadows

All lighting is dynamic (no light bakes anywhere)
Where and how can I control shadow distance in BLACK square shadow dissapears
Where can I control shadow quality range (yellow box good quality -> turns in to red bad quality)

stickehbunz

Hey Axel, I really love your trees, I'm trying to do something similar but can't manage to texture the tree bark that well. Could you share your tree diffuse and UV layout please? Also, out of curiosity, why don't you make a different version of your grass material where you edit the diffuse (e.g. slightly yellower grass) and introduce that into the terrain?

Tetranome

Hi Axel. 
You'll want something more like this for your ferns:

@stickehbunz
This is one approach for the bark: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/51/d9/c2/51d9c273f3b33d33824419b4a1320694.jpg
You can get some really nice heightmaps and normal maps from just a reference image. I use nDo, but I think Crazybump (free) does the same job.

stickehbunz

@Tetranome
Thanks a lot for the tutorial. I use njob because its free, Crazybump costs money ($99) just for personal use.

AXEL

stickehbunz said:

 Could you share your tree diffuse and UV layout please? Also, out of curiosity, why don't you make a different version of your grass material where you edit the diffuse (e.g. slightly yellower grass) and introduce that into the terrain?

Hey! Thanks will share 
As you can see UV is as simple as it can be, looks like I have moved diffuse texture cant find it atm I'll post it once I find it

I will do that but right now I'm trying to get lighting in order as bad lighting made me change diffuse (when diffuse was ok but lighting made it look bad) so after that I'll get back to trees
@Tetranome Yes, thanks for the reference finally have a good clean fern ref
But yeah still trying to figure out lighting I enabled the distance field shadows, baked, result is the same ...

Tetranome

Command Line Values to Tweak:

r.Shadow.FadeResolution - controls how big the light has to be on the screen before it *starts* to fade out.
- Default Value: 64
- Can lower this value to keep shadows from fading out at further distances

r.Shadow.MinResolution - controls how big the light has to be on the screen before it *finishes* fading out, at which point it no longer has cost.
- Default Value: 32
- Lower values seem to increase shadow visibility.

r.Shadow.TexelsPerPixel - Causes a higher resolution to be assigned and then it should fade out less aggressively
- Default Value: 1.27324
- Can increase this value to improve shadow rendering visibility & quality

r.Shadow.RadiusThreshold
- Default Value: 0.03
- A lower value of 0.02 or 0.01 greatly increases shadow visibility at far camera distances (seems to have the most impact of all the console commands).

(Taken from https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?6622-Shadows-disappear-with-increased-camera-distance)
Mess with some of these commands

Update:
Oh, this seems to be a thing now? I would try this before messing with console overrides.
https://forums.unrealengine.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=93023&d=1463115508

AXEL

@Tetranome Thank you! I did play with these settings however didnt notice any difference.
However the problem is now solved

AXEL

Can anyone please suggest a good vertex paint ue4 tutorial ?
I'm trying to add moss over objects using vertex paint

AXEL

Is this moss texture looking good and how can I make this better ?

Nathan3D

Not bad maybe I bit bright of a green with that brick texture. Maybe Desaturate a little. Also Moss only really grows where there is dampness/water and sun so you might not get so much at the top there

Ra6ga5ka

I think the Brightness and Saturation of the Moss is to high. Also use the brick-hight to create some kind of AO on the blending area.
On final add some 3D Assets to the mossparts that it dont look that flat. Or try to use displacement on mossparts to push them out a bit.

AXEL

@Adelphia and @Ra6ga5ka Thanks for the advice !
I have now changed moss/brick to this:


What do you guys think ? What to change ? How to make better ? Any suggestions about inside wall materials ?
Also finally changed that fern

And here is a shot of how scene looks atm.

Nathan3D

That looks better than the Moss, maybe some more of that over grown stuff would be good. 
Nice grass and flower textures  

AXEL

@Adelphia Thanks!  That overgrown stuff will be all over the building

Nathan3D

Cool cool, could you show your texture flats for your grass and your pine trees? 

AXEL

Hey, it's been a while, but here are the finished screenshots of the environment, hope you like it.












Video will be coming soon.
After a while I will be adding more (hopefully cool) stuff to this environment ..

Nathan3D

Looking good.
Something that stands out to me is the chopped down trees it would never be a clean cut like that it would have chips round the edges and bark stripped away a little. 

AXEL

Thanks!
Agree about the chopped trees. I underestimated the time it takes for all the little details ...

Luxap

Hiya @AXEL, been following this for a while now and I can see that you are a bit stuck, or overwhelmed by the project, it is looking great so far, but a lot of stuff is missing the little details like you said in the previous comment.

I would suggest you try to improve the waters edge, I have attached an image below to help you a bit.



You can see that the water is not transitioning as hard as your water puddles are doing at the moment. The way I see your water puddles working is when you have actual damaged concrete underneath. Then it could create a puddle in the left behind. But I do think that making the concrete seem more wet as a whole piece (exect under the roof of the station itself and other dry places) Could help tie the piece a bit together.

If you can show me a picture of the textures/materials of the water I could maybe help a bit more.

I would also love to see the grass growing on other parts of the station as well. Another Image shown below with what I exactly mean



It would be nice to have them coming through cracks of the concrete as well.

Also, going back to your initial idea of making something like this awesome piece by @kimmokaunela seen here: http://polycount.com/discussion/156641/abandoned-gas-station-ue4/p1

Then I suggest you study it, see what types of plants he uses, how he creates variation, how detailed his props are in the scene itself and so forth.

There is a lot of time and dedication that needs to be put in this piece if you want it to work.

But you can do it!

Sorry for the wall of text, but I hope this helps and I really love to see you grow on the scene, and don't be afraid to ask stuff, I'll gladly help!

Keep it up!

AXEL

@Luxap WOW thanks! For putting time and effort to help me. I will do sort of version 2.0 for this environment and this time I will put most attention on details, things you pointed out will help for sure

AXEL

And here is the fly thru video 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLTi9XK-p5U

AXEL

I'm back to update this
Here is an updated shot.

 

AXEL

I'm back again


Crits and comments welcomed

Jack M.

The biggest issue I'm noticing at the moment is there's a lot of improper scaling in your scene. Between the resolution and scale of the pavement, size and height of the barriers, and the height of the light poles, things are looking kind of all over the place.

Get some real world measurements for the barriers, doorways, sign posts, and your poles. Then build around those real world measurements to get your scale on point.

AXEL

Back at it adding new props etc