(WIP) Lost and Found - Environment

tomturner

Hey Polycount!

Here's one of the projects I've been working on! I'm gonna try to keep this updated regularly!
Its based off the concept 'Lost and Found', by Daniel Percy
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4bLVG1

Unfortunately I already started this project mid way through January, but there's still a lot of work to be done so I'd love to get some feedback/critique  
This is my progress so far 

Struggling to nail the lighting with this one so any advice is really appreciated I've recently tried to replicate the lighting transition from cold to warm from the left hand side of the image to the right hand side, which has been an improvement from where I was at a couple of days ago!

I also created the overhead cabinet today, although it's very difficult to see in UE4 due to the lighting.


Next Steps
- add dust particles and more lighting alterations
- improve the floor material, making it lighter for more visibility and adding decals/vertex paint

Thanks guys, looking forward to sharing some progress!

teodar23

Hey,
Good start but i suggest toning down that AO or even removing it completely. If youre baking the lighting theres no need for ssao.
Also, the wall material looks very random and maybe too contrasted. The worn wall edge doesnt seem to belong there...

icegodofhungary

It may be helpful to look up some photo references of the materials you're trying to create. In the concept it seems like the walls are supposed to have peeling wall paper on them. But in your version, it appears to be noise or generic grunge. Reference of worn wood would also help with he cabinets. Think about where the most wear would occur, ie the door and bottom. There probably wouldn't be worn edges up near the ceiling, as people don't interact with them that high up.

If you build up a library of material and object references, you can keep them and use them for other projects too. It's good to have such a library on hand as a env artist.

tomturner

teodar23 said:

Hey,
Good start but i suggest toning down that AO or even removing it completely. If youre baking the lighting theres no need for ssao.
Also, the wall material looks very random and maybe too contrasted. The worn wall edge doesnt seem to belong there...

Thanks Teodar, Looks more natural now that it's been removed!

icegodofhungary said:

It may be helpful to look up some photo references of the materials you're trying to create. In the concept it seems like the walls are supposed to have peeling wall paper on them. But in your version, it appears to be noise or generic grunge. Reference of worn wood would also help with he cabinets. Think about where the most wear would occur, ie the door and bottom. There probably wouldn't be worn edges up near the ceiling, as people don't interact with them that high up.

If you build up a library of material and object references, you can keep them and use them for other projects too. It's good to have such a library on hand as a env artist.

I've changed the walls, and stripped it back to being a blend between wallpaper and a wall base, wiith some low poly pieces of loose wallpaper too.

 Some decals have been added to the floor but that will be what I will be working on mostly next, as well as adding decals to the walls where appropriate. 

This is the new lighting setup. Somewhat deviating from the concept but I think it's an improvement. Nailing something down that I'm happy with has been the most challenging part so far.

I keep spending time changing the lighting thinking it's going to be a massive improvement but then when I compare before/after I'm not so sure

Thanks for the critiques so far!

teodar23

The glass on the table and the window frame look unlit and the fog is a bit too much. Also, the light that comes through the left window and hits the left wall doesnt have shadow for the full window frame, its just a rectangle of light instead of multiple smaller rectangles

tomturner

Another day of trying to fix the lighting! Deleted all the old lighting and started from scratch. I also changed the brightness of most of the textures to fit the new lighting. Think I'm getting a lot closer! I think I'll get on with finishing the rest of the assets now whilst making some lighting adjustments along the way. Also a lot of decals that need to be added. 

I'm struggling to get the frames of the windows to cast shadows. I've tried 2 sided materials and 2 sided lighting, also tried detaching the back faces and placing them behind the windows, but none of those has worked. Any advice is appreciated!

tomturner

i've made a few changes since the last post!

- changed the lighting again

- added some wallpaper as geometry. Let me know if this looks bad as I'm undecided so far haha

- Added more decals/water damage

-added a few more assets.

- added dust particles

Next Steps

- add more decals

-make cobwebs for the corners 

- cracks in the windows/ glass shards on the floor

I also need to texture the reverse side of that rolled down wallpaper!

The Scene so Far

Any feeback/criticism is welcome  

VValkyr

You have inconsistent light angles 

In addition it feels too bright and bleached, kinda colorless. Definitely floor needs to be darker, feels like your fake light is giving too much highlight to the ground. Try to put exposure on few points of interests, and build up a more natural lighting in this scenario. 

Don't add fake lights that are so obvious and apparent. Try to give them a little warmer color so they aren't just play white

tomturner

VValkyr said:

You have inconsistent light angles 

In addition it feels too bright and bleached, kinda colorless. Definitely floor needs to be darker, feels like your fake light is giving too much highlight to the ground. Try to put exposure on few points of interests, and build up a more natural lighting in this scenario. 

Don't add fake lights that are so obvious and apparent. Try to give them a little warmer color so they aren't just play white

Thanks for those points I've made some changes, hopefully you think it's looking a bit more natural and nicer overall! In regards to the fake light on the left hand side; I've made it so it doesn't cast shadows so there's no cut off line, but more of a gradient now so it fades away. I'ts only in there to follow the reference, although it is a bit confusing. The shadows for all of the windows are all caused by the same directional light.

I made a knife and fork, with both being baked down to a plane for the scene. I placed these with the used plate and will scatter one or two more around the scene

I started altering the texture for the windows to add smashed windows, but these aren't done yet. I've added glass shards in some parts of the level near where the glass has smashed.

Also darkened the window frames.

The table is wet because I plan to have quite a bit of water damage on the ceiling and down the walls and have some dripping water.

The HDRI is much more visible now aswell

I've darkened the floor and made the scene overall a little bit darker. 

The Scene so Far

Thank you for all the critique so far! Much appreciated  

tomturner

I made some curtains and moved the painting to the other wall. I also started on some water damage and vertex painted the floor so it has wet areas. I'm going to sculpt some water damage marks/lumps on the ceiling, vertex paint that wet, and add water droplets leaking from the ceiling. Here're some reference images of the ceiling damage.

I also added a lighter, just because I'll be gradually adding some survival props for set dressing

The Scene so Far

Critique welcome  

teodar23

Its getting there, keep pushing

tomturner

I've done some sculpts on the ceiling to try and replicate some water damage. These have been baked down to a flat low poly in the scene.

Added some vertex paint to make it look wet/soggy. Next steps for this will be to add cracks and add leaking water.

I've also put some more detail into the texture for the curtains, as one of my composition shots is quite close to them! I used one of the fabric textures in Substance Painter as a base to work from on this.

tomturner

Modelled a Duffel bag in Marvelous Designer and textured it in Painter

Additionally I had feedback recommending the scene to be brighter, so did this via exposure conpensation

tomturner

Spent the day cleaning up lightmaps and some further work on the lighting to create some contrast areas to avoid the scene being too washed out. I think it's more pleasing to look at now in certain areas, such as near the curtains and duffel bag, whilst still maintaining the overall brightness of the scene. Added some damage decals after that.

Critiques appreciated

Sora123

there seems to be allot of dust inside the building maybi you can use that to bounch light back with the use of particel dust so the inside is more lit. With that said there aint much "dust" details on for example the tables. I'm btw not a environemt artist but hope that helps.

teodar23

I think you should add a wall just behind the camera and that will produce some fill light for the cabinet and other dark areas