[WIP] Italian Town Alley - lighting feedback

i_like_turtles

Hi
I'm ready to call the lighting pass "done", but would be great to hear some feedback first. Materials and set dressing are WIP, but other comments beside lighting are also welcome.
Render in UE4 with dynamic lights and fake GI with spot and point lamps.

Thanks!

teodar23

the fake GI is evident.. try to add some AO to counter that light bleed, but not too much, maybe 0.5 and high radius.

i cant tell but i lean towards thinking that the shadows are rtx. if thats so did you fiddle with the penumbra factor (i forgot what its called) on the light actor? it looks a bit unrealistic imo.

maybe look into screen space gi instead of the current method...

looks good overall!

i_like_turtles

teodar23 said:

the fake GI is evident.. try to add some AO to counter that light bleed, but not too much, maybe 0.5 and high radius.

i cant tell but i lean towards thinking that the shadows are rtx. if thats so did you fiddle with the penumbra factor (i forgot what its called) on the light actor? it looks a bit unrealistic imo.

maybe look into screen space gi instead of the current method...

looks good overall!

I have 0.5 AO with low radius. When I increase it I lose a lot of detail on that left wooden door. But maybe after I finish the material I naturally get the contrast I need to increase the AO radius. Where are you seeing light bleeding?
Shadows are not rtx. What looks fake in your opinion? I'm not particularly satisfied with the tree shadow on the wall. The leaves are not very defined cause I couldn't find the best cascade shadow distances yet. When it looks good I get light bleed in the distance
I'll take a look at SSGI but I think it works better with lightmass and it's still beta.

Thank you!

teodar23

i see some "light bleeding" on the stairs in the middle, actually, not real light bleed, is the lack of localized shadows or contact shadows from neighboring surfaces.

the gi looks fake because in real life light bounces off so much in such a closed space that it creates a sort of soft light almost ambient, but with clear directionality. i don't know if im making myself clear enough...

for the tree, try using capsule shadows or whatever is called, its an option on the mesh.

I agree, lightmass is the better option in this situation.

i_like_turtles

teodar23 said:

i see some "light bleeding" on the stairs in the middle, actually, not real light bleed, is the lack of localized shadows or contact shadows from neighboring surfaces.

the gi looks fake because in real life light bounces off so much in such a closed space that it creates a sort of soft light almost ambient, but with clear directionality. i don't know if im making myself clear enough...

for the tree, try using capsule shadows or whatever is called, its an option on the mesh.

I agree, lightmass is the better option in this situation.

I understand what you mean. In my reference image is clear that the warm sunlight is bouncing a lot. Hard to reproduce that with spot and point lights... but what if my skylight casts warm light instead of blue sky color (to simulate this overall bounce light) and I use DFAO with blue tint to simulate the actual ambient light? Does this make sense?
About the tree, I'm talking about the leaves in particular, so capsule shadows might not help much. I wanted the individual flowers more defined in the shadows instead of those shadow blobs. Thanks again!

teodar23

i_like_turtles said:

but what if my skylight casts warm light instead of blue sky color (to simulate this overall bounce light) and I use DFAO with blue tint to simulate the actual ambient light?

that is interesting, haven't tried it myself but i will with the next chance...

about the leaves, they seem too clustered and cluttered so maybe that's why the shadows look like that - maybe try to break them up a bit.

i_like_turtles

I'll take a look. Thanks for the help