[UE4] RuneStone Shrine Environment (Critique Needed!)

Swaggernaut

Hey this is the first full environment I have created in Unreal Engine 4. Original concept was by Roberto Gatto. Would really like some critique on it



More can be found here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/x6eDR

Bletzkarn

Initial reaction is your lighting is way off. Far too dark and uniform, I can barely see what's going on. 

Your camera is not great either and it does a bad job of showing off the good aspects of the environment.

No skybox? no terrain? This is looking more like a prop and less like a full environment. It looks uncompleted.

Swaggernaut

Bletzkarn said:

Initial reaction is your lighting is way off. Far too dark and uniform, I can barely see what's going on. 

Your camera is not great either and it does a bad job of showing off the good aspects of the environment.

No skybox? no terrain? This is looking more like a prop and less like a full environment. It looks uncompleted.

You raise some good points, Ill come back to it and see what I can do. Any tips on lighting? I find that to be the most daunting task.

Bletzkarn

Your GI is really dark, rather than looking like a moonlit scene it looks more like a mid day shot taken with a very low exposure. I would use a post process volume to increase your GI birghtness, than tone down your directional lighting. Then increase the torch and rune lighting to give it more variation.

Recommend finding a similar real life moonlit shot. Also post processing volume will allow you to adjust the final scene to give a perfect ambient feel.

To be fair there are rare times where the moon will create harsh shadows like this but I've only witnessed it once in my life time. In general it's better to treat the scene as if it's in overcast conditions. Also by lighting up the GI you get the added benefit of illuminating the scene showing off some of that detail you worked so hard on.

Swaggernaut

I see what you mean, thanks for the critique!