[UE4] Street Scene - looking for critiques

Soily26

Hey guys! 

I've been working on a street scene inside UE4 for the past couple of weeks and I was hoping I could get some feedback. 

I feel the scene needs something to elevate it but I'm not sure what. I'm going to change the UE4 guy in the windows to bookcases, I just put them there as placeholders for now, but beyond that I'm not sure where to take it next.

So I'd love to get some input about what you guys think

Cay

Hey, that's an interesting scene!
There's just a few scale/proportions issues that need to be addressed right now. It would be really hard to tell the size of a person if you didn't have any of these characters standing in there, some elements contradict eachother.
If these are store fronts... most likely they should be bigger in comparison to player height.
The lamps are off as well. The top portion that holds the actual lamp is too big in comparison to the rest and I think overall the street lamp is too big in comparison to both the player and the buildings.
See if you can find some references with people in them so you can get a sense for the scale.

I'd also like to see a picture of your scene in unlit / basecolor only. It may very well be that some of your albedo textures are too dark.

Keep going!

Soily26

Thanks for the feedback! Here's an unlit screenshot.

Going to spend this week evaluating the scale of everything so I'll be sure to post updates

shadacer

Looks promising - I look forward to seeing the finished thing! One thing to mind out as well as the scale issues is the logistics of the scene - where is that cobbled road going? What's with the buildings on the right? I'd make the tunnel bigger w/ a continuation of the street beyond, and add another path to the other side of the road  to have it mirror the first street. Plus, with a distant street back there you can have a good focal point in the composition.

scrawld

Granted the lighting is WIP but currently it's very overpowering, and very blue! I'd bring that way down. You've got a nice palette of colours in your textures, but it's all reduced to brown under the lights. If you're going for a stylised moon-lit night I imagine it would only need to be subtle tint.

Add more variety too; to the windows you could add wooden shutters ,curtains, some interiors dark and others with lights on. For the floor you could add manhole covers, drains, general weathering, dirt and grime. The floor looks very flat as well, but old cobbled streets are usually very uneven surfaces. You could break up the straight line of the curb by cutting into and add some varied angles. You can also model individual stone blocks and set them into its surface to break up its shape. Same goes for the road and pathment too. 

Don't be afraid to search and have a look at other people's work to see what they've done. Especially when you're in your position where you've got a good start, but you're not sure where to take it next. I can find it useful to circle out one or two examples other peoples work and use them as a sort of quality gauge. If I feel like something's missing or I don't know what to work on next, I go back to those images and ask myself, what have I overlooked? Why does their scene work when my doesn't? It can be a useful way to give yourself a critical eye and keep pushing your work forward.

Here are a couple of scenes I think could work well for you:
http://polycount.com/discussion/160868/ue4-japanese-inspired-street
http://polycount.com/discussion/151794/ue4-venice-street

Hope that's helpful  

Soily26

Toned the blue down a little bit, widened the archway and added a bit more street through it (placeholder for now)
Still trying to get the right scale for the street lights but I feel the look a little less intimating now.
Going to sculpt some floor tiles to give it a bit more variation and a beat up look.

Thanks again for the feedback, it's really helping me see this project from a different perspective.

Soily26

Did some more lighting work this week and replaced the cobblestones, still needs a bit of tweaking. Going to start work on the pavement when I'm done.

Soily26

Update from this weekends work


Going to work on the windows this week. Struggling to get the lighting right but going to keep tweaking it as I go. 

McGreed

I think you need to put in a human scaled character in the scene and adjust the scale of the elements in the scene, because the scene is very confusing with the scaling at the moment. For example, the lamppost and sign next to it seem way too big, and the middle building feels smaller/lower then the build to the left.

Having the human scale figure to match against would help I think.

pixelpatron

Ya those lamp posts look cartoony at the scale they are at, Your scale of the bulb area is as big as half a doorway? As well as being two stories tall? 

Your scale should be closer to this: