Jungle scene in UE4
polycounter lvl 7
Dear Polycounters,
Here is a Jungle scene I am currently working on in UE4 and I would like to ask you for some C&C on my progress so far:
The most challenging part for me is the dynamic lighting atm. which is overall a bit to bright I guess? Anyhow, Let me know what you think. Thanks!
Best,
Sebastian
Replies
As you said does feel a just a little bit bright. But the main thing that really stick out for me is how straight all the wood and lines are. Might want to think about how you just make them feel a little less straight and a bit more natural. But most of the textures feel alright and look like they might have some nice detail to them.
The biggest thing that strikes me is that the ecology doesn't seem to make sense -- though if you are working from a reference, please correct me. But it seems like you have undergrowth type fauna growing in full sun, and the kapok trees (I think that's what the big ones are) I might expect to give much more coverage -- a jungle canopy -- and perhaps be helped with some more tree species. It seems like you are halfway between tropical island ecology and tropical rain forest, which isn't the same thing.
Not saying you have to adhere to strictly accurate ecology, but keeping the large ferns to shadowy areas, and perhaps clearing the area around the buildings (maybe use wild grass and vines if it's meant to be overgrown) may make the scene more believable.
About the lighting, I'd expect the air to be extremely humid, and the sun intense, and so I don't think the brightness is necessarily off, but maybe some more thick atmospheric haze could help. Just thoughts, I don't have the experience to say, "do this, not that". Hope it helps.
The line that bothered me the most is the railing of the bridge which competes with and kinda of distracts from the path which would naturally lead into the scene. Having the railing cover less of the path and adding supporting props along the path might help as well.
I also think the overall framing is distracting from some of the more interesting elements. The bicycle is very far to the left. If you divide the current image into thirds one of the right third is fairly uninteresting. possibly because the value of the hut interior seen through the window is more or less the same as the exterior wall (loses depth).
Just for an experiment I cropped it to the bit I found the most engaging.
There are probably other ways to achieve by shifting things around in the scene as well.
You can increase SSAO amount to ~0.9 for much better results, and increase SSAO Fade out Distance as well.
Enable DFAO and LPVs if you haven't.
Somehow the balance between sky color, directional light intensity and skylight intensity is off. Try to:
1. Hide the fog
2. On skylight uncheck Affect World, then check it again.
3. Unhide the fog.
Foliage base colors should lean towards more dark-ish greenery and SSS color should lean more towards yellow-ish greenery. This creates some nice tropical vibe.
Good work so far.
top notch stuff
i think the environment will look much better if you make the foliage a bit darker
Should probably try to tone down that ambient light so you can read the shadow line better. Despite parts of the environment being shadowed, it looks as if it's all lit evenly.
Thanks alot again.