[UE4] Captains Cabin scene - Looking for critiques

Murozond

Hi all 
This is a scene I've been working on recently. It's mainly based on  this great concept by Alexander Ahilov. 
I am currently trying to improve the scene. One big change I think could make the overall picture better is to add a dust layer to the floor and walls? I am also unsure about the lighting on whether it makes sense and is good or not? Hence I'd love to get some critiques.

Ashervisalis

Hey, I think you could up your polycount, and your curtains need a lot of work. The tables also all look too small.

Carabiner

Most of the wood materials look a little off -- are you using reference for those? Can you post some of your references here?

Crazy_pixel

I agree with the wood, your complete scene has one wooden colour value and the saturation and contrast is more or less the same.
Try to work and experiment with different values to build your scene and create a better feeling of depth.
Looking forward to see updates

Raph

I agree with the other posts here so far too. I also think the lighting could use some work. I know its supposed to look like its coming from the windows, but at the moment the windows seem too dark for the amount of light coming through.

Murozond

@Raph @Crazy_pixel @Carabiner @Ashervisalis

Thank you all for your feedback. I'm happy to take each suggestion for improvement into consideration.
Here's a minor update I did. I took the time to learn the basic skills of Marvelous Designer to create some better looking curtains in there. I also added bevels to some of the assets. Those mainly include but are not limited to the window frames and wood beams which support the wall. They are not yet updated in the scene render as I first need to check the UVs and update the textures.

Here are some next steps I'm considering to take:

- lower the amount of grunge as well as make the glass color lighter so that the lightning will make more sense
- play around with different shades of brown for the wood texture of various assets
- update assets with a beveled version (where it makes sense)
- play around with the scale of the tables. I'm thinking of increasing the length as well as width but not the height.
- redo some texturing work on the curtains and increase the thinkness of the cord/rope
- implement a dust layer material function for the floor

Murozond

Here's another update. I noticed that the planks material was not set to two sided, thus a lot of light basically shone through the walls. Hence I set the material to two sided but also added some light blocker objects around the scene to avoid small leaks where light shines through. As I'm having issues to get the material function to work, there's still no dust on the ground. I edited my texture sets to get more variety with the brown color. Some meshes received beveled edges to give a softer look. I think the bottles are too glossy right now so I'll rework that. Please let me know what you think

Murozond

Next update. Managed to get the dust layers to work. Because it was not  strongly visible, I decided to add some decals such as hay and dirt under the boxes or on the floor and on the sides. The size of the tables has been increased. As always, open to any type of feedback. 

timmy6151

Hey, It's great to see your improvement from the feedback. If it was my project the things I'd try and work on are the wood tiling has no seperation in the planking, It's just one long texture, the tiling scale also seems too large especially on the floor. if you have any sculpting skills I'd make a unique sculpt and texture of the table and chair  to make them more interesting and maybe add a lit candle on the table or something as a focal point.

Murozond

Thank you for your feedback and suggestion on possible changes. I have added a candle with a candle holder. However because it's a day setting, I decided to not make the candle lit. For the floor, I increased the tiling, added the nails back in as well as added a random offset in the Y-direction so the planks do not perfectly align. Would the same changes to get planks on the wall make sense as well or do they look fine the way they are. The table as well as the chair do have sculpted textures. When I started the project, I aimed at having an overall texeldensity of 5.12px/cm. Thus, I think the texture resolution is not good enough for close up shots, unless I increas the texel density for the two mentioned assets I guess...