[WIP] Underwater Temple Environment/ Keyframe
polycounter lvl 6
Hey everyone! 
For the past few days, I have been working on an environment for my portfolio, it is inspired by the work of
For the past few days, I have been working on an environment for my portfolio, it is inspired by the work of
Nastya Ermakova (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Lykzw) and G-host Lee (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mqlAd) and also I wanted to give my Octophant a home https://polycount.com/discussion/207747/sea-guardian-wip#latest
That being said I have been working on an environment inspired by the ruins of the talented artists I mentioned before, but every time I get into work I'm having some trouble on deciding the composition of the scene. In the beginning, I thought of making the Octophant a big statue at a focal point, but now I'm not sure If I should just make it a creature and play around with that. This is my WIP so far and I would love to have your feedback and your opinions on the matter. (I'm actually thinking now of making just 2 different shots, keep the one underwater and replace the Octophant of the "ruins" scene with something else)
https://polycount.com/discussion/207747/sea-guardian-wip#latest That being said I have been working on an environment inspired by the ruins of the talented artists I mentioned before, but every time I get into work I'm having some trouble on deciding the composition of the scene. In the beginning, I thought of making the Octophant a big statue at a focal point, but now I'm not sure If I should just make it a creature and play around with that. This is my WIP so far and I would love to have your feedback and your opinions on the matter. (I'm actually thinking now of making just 2 different shots, keep the one underwater and replace the Octophant of the "ruins" scene with something else)
Replies
(RED) The light source is great although the shadow looks pretty dark. The shadow is almost black which is not natural. The light tends to bounce around the environment. I will suggest you to either increase the strength of " Indirect" under your light source(directional) or brightness of skylight. Just a LITTLE BIT.
(PURPLE) Your rocks' shape looks great overall. The only issue I see is the texture. I think it is pretty noisy. What I mean by that is there is too much visual information to look at. You want to relax your viewer's eye and guide them to the focal point which is your octopus statue. I think it will be helpful if you reduce the amount of the "white dots" on the texture.
I attached the screenshot below to show the comparison between your scene and Nastya's scene. I find it's helpful to compare the artworks by desaturation with no color.
Take this feedback as a grain of salt since I'm not a professional artist lol
Good luck and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work!
I think I will decrease a little bit the noise on the textures but I'm trying to get that realistic look, I will experiment a little bit and see what comes out of it
Wireframe
BaseColor
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/JlE3Jv
The main issue for me is the water reflection. If you cant use raytracing or even a planar reflection due to performance issues then i suggest you keep the amount of water to a minimum. Or find a way to hide the fact that it doesnt quite reflect the environment, like in the right side of the image.
The grass is a bit too uniform in color so maybe add some variation there.
Fog is a bit too much and it kinda washes out some details but thats kind of personal preference i guess.