[UE4] LIGHTING STUDY - MEDIEVAL TOWN

MeshMuti

I've wanted to do this ligthing study / re-light of this asset pack since it's free month on the Marketplace and finally got round to it.

The idea was a night scene with an eerie and ominous feel.

Some thoughts looking back at it now:

It's maybe a litte bright, but I hate having black dead space on the screen, but there is some room for tweeking.

The hanged man siloutte is maybe a bit much, but it's a piece for fun.

The composition of the shots are a bit stale.

All credit to the awesome assets go to Denys Rutkovskyi and Megascans I only made some minor tweeks to materials and textures here and there.

Any and all critique always welcome, thanks for stopping by.

Ashervisalis

I feel like if you turned the fog colour value more towards black it might sell the night feel a bit more.

MeshMuti

@Ashervisalis

I played around with the settings to darken the image. Setting the fog colour darker almost had the same effect as turning to fog density lower and reducing the overall effect of the fog. I ended up lowering the Indirect Lighting intensity in the Post Process Volume. It doesn't seem like there is too much black clipping while making the scene darker and more punchy.

Ashervisalis

Nice!

Eric Chadwick

Nice change! Reminds me of some game work I did awhile back, experimenting with fog colors. I set black distance fog stronger at zero camera distance, fading to zero strength at a few meters out. Then I used height fog for the blue fog. This was a custom engine, but might work in UE.

frmdbl

@MeshMuti

Yeah, I tried to make a black fog after reading a book that's set in a city that's covered in a black sooty fog, but that just didn't seem to work in the UE4.

In terms of the shots I'd suggest using a narrower FOV and/or you could work on the shot composition a little.

Suonkhel

I like darker version more. If I were picky I would say there are some empty spaces which look a little bit odd in comparison to other places; on a far right side, nearby buldings, and on a roads ride side at the bottom of an image.

 But I don't know if this is a default scene that comes with this pack or you have built it yourself. Not much of a lighting critique though, sorry.

MeshMuti

@frmdbl @Suonkhel , Yeah, I need to tighten the composition and decide on what to focus. I re-arranged the base scene slightly and added some set dressing, so I need to consistently fill the scene for areas in shot, once I know what is in shot. I got a bit giddy with the FOV.

@Eric Chadwick

That is a really cool idea to add close-in fog again to create a bit more atmosphere without washing out the entire scene. UE4 has a secondary fog within the Exponential Height Fog, but it is very limited and doesn't really work. Once I have time I'll try a Distance fog Post-processing Material and try tweeking the fade-in and fade-out on that to sit somewhere between the camera and main line of buildings.

@Ashervisalis Thanks!

Thanks for all the comments guys, have a good one.

Eric Chadwick

The DOF and bokeh are distracting, superfluous. Makes it look like a train set.

For lighting variation and interest, it'd be nice to show more influence from the moon. And some variation in lighting colors, maybe a campfire here and there with orangey spill. 

When lighting a game level, it's helpful to use it both as a narrative device (tell a story, give the environment some backstories) and to guide the player to points of interest. What is the player supposed to do next in this level? Lighting hue/intensity/focus can guide movement.

xaled

Not that either lighting mode is wrong nor it needs correction, just personal opinion. My personal reference would be something between the first state and the edited (dark) state. not too dark to lose detail but also not (relatively) flat and bright
just made +10 Shadows in the Shadows/Highlights adjustment on the "dark" picture in Photoshop.
 

mihail.lupu

More light on the areas were you want the user to follow the path. So more light on the main road for this composition I should say. Also a little bit of extra color lights / textures (maybe roofs or some walls) as accents will do better for the image. Maybe is not a very good of camera angle (i don't know you entire scene) but maybe you could find a better camera angle to have a better image composition.