[WIP] Clock Tower Apartment (UE4)
greentooth
Good day everyone!
About a year ago I decided that I wasn't happy with my career and needed to make a change. I had dabbled in 3D modeling a little bit here and there and really loved it, but never had any time to actually learn or get any better at it. So, I did one of the crazier things a human can do and left the career I had been in for way too god damn long to go into debt and focus entirely on learning 3D art. Because happiness. And stuff. Around mid-January of this year, I started feeling comfortable enough with my overall progress and skill level that I wanted to start focusing more directly on video game art. Up to that point I was just modeling/texturing with no specific restrictions in mind. By late February I felt pretty comfortable with the basics of game art and wanted to create a project that would challenge me and help me improve and understand the whole pipeline, which at the time I was having a difficult time piecing together. This is the the outcome of that project.
Being that I am still new to this and obviously lack many of the skills needed to produce something respectable enough to be noticed by anyone who is anyone, I call upon ye patrons of Polycount to critique, rip apart and completely hurt my feelings in all the harshest of ways in an effort to improve not only my scene, but my overall understanding of things. I want to be the best, and I want my own 80's montage every time I walk down a street. I feel like I have been looking at my scene for so long, it's starting to look like just a bunch of blobs. So you see, I need some fresh eyeballs.
I know my lighting isn't very good, I'm still working on how to improve it. So if anyone has any tips, I will high-five you forever. Also, I plan on adding a few more things (mostly some minor props for the floor so it doesn't look so boring/clean/barren). And as much time and effort as I have put into this whole thing, I'm sure it looks like complete shit to someone who has been doing this for longer than a year. So, rip away!
Also, thanks in advance for your help/advice!
Replies
When I'm lighting, the first thing I do is look for my main source of light. Exteriors get a Sun, Interiors get one main light. Pay attention to intensity, colour and angle (if relevant) as those three elements go a long way to establish the mood of your scene.
Make sure you have lightmap UVs and bake your scene with some level of GI. Once you've done that, and you feel like you're getting somewhere, then start adding secondary and tertiary lights.
Until you've pinned things down to some extent, don't bake at a high quality level. Early on, you'll want to be doing quite a bit of significant lighting changes, so baking at production quality is just going to waste you a lot of time.