Abandoned temple: UE4 Environment art critique and thoughts

VValkyr

Hi. I am vvalkyr, and I wanted to start by stating that its my very post here, so sorry if I do some stuff wrong. I come here looking for some feedback and critique on my latest work "abandoned temple" that I worked really hard on. Difference to my other stuff is that this time I made most important assets myself (building, doors, terrain pieces, landscape material, some smaller pieces etc). I am having a motivational and self esteem problems, so maybe this post here can help me a bit ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ For this scene I used quixel megascans materials and few props (because of course), aswell as environment set asset pack (not great at creating vegetation). What is different about my usual levels are two things: Performance and playability. On my not-so-high-end rig I managed to get around 80-100 fps, and the entire pathway could be served as a game level if put collisions and such.

Some short from the side on the building




Thanks for checking out, am a bit nervous if I might be honest, considering people here usually know one or two about the work. As someone with low self esteem, I hope I won't fail this time! 
Cheers

teodar23

Hey man,
Looks really good but unfortunately i dont know what is megascans and other peoples assets and what is done by you.
However, i see some issues and if you want i'll let you guess what those issues are. Only thing i will say is that i counted 4 issues in all the pictures.
Good luck!

VValkyr

teodar23 said:

Hey man,
Looks really good but unfortunately i dont know what is megascans and other peoples assets and what is done by you.
However, i see some issues and if you want i'll let you guess what those issues are. Only thing i will say is that i counted 4 issues in all the pictures.
Good luck!

Oh yes, I would appriciate it greatly. 
Also my assets include: terrain and path model pieces, temple itself together with doors, little stone lamps, and some other thing I can't recall now. I tried to make the assets that are most important by myself. Well, if it counts also did and modified a height based landscape material.
Foliage, and some rocks are from asset packs as I haven't really figured out the workflow to make good looking trees


Screenshot of the assets I worked on

And "quixel megascans" is a library of photoscanned materials/textures that helped me greatly. IDK if using them in my assets is wrong however, so would love to hear about that one too

About the issues: Certainly one of them are doors that for some reason glitched out in the process of light baking, and I don't know whys that.
Other thing might be the odd looking window. 
Too dark foliage ambient occulusion.
And the last one: roof tiles.

Those are the ones I think might be problems. Cheers mate

teodar23

About megascans and other assets, i don't think its wrong to use them, i think that they should be used to complement a scene, or to add something that would otherwise take too long to do and is not the focus of the scene. I agree with how you used it for vegetation but if you really want to impress someone (not saying that you are or that you have to), might be a good idea to do almost everything yourself. That would be more impressive i think. Also, a lot of "environment artists" overuse megascans these days and i don't think that's ok. If you are a level designer or a game designer and want to show off some game mechanics, or if you are a lighting artist and want to practice some lighting, sure, go nuts! But as an environment artist, keep it to a minimum.

Rant off

About those issues, yes the roof tiles are stretching and looking wavy in a wrong way, the end of the tiles has texture stretching, the wood rail at the upper floor has bad uvs and the lightmaps are very low res i think (looking at the light on the wall next to the windows) and definitely could be improved.
Keep at it!

VValkyr

teodar23 said:

About megascans and other assets, i don't think its wrong to use them, i think that they should be used to complement a scene, or to add something that would otherwise take too long to do and is not the focus of the scene. I agree with how you used it for vegetation but if you really want to impress someone (not saying that you are or that you have to), might be a good idea to do almost everything yourself. That would be more impressive i think. Also, a lot of "environment artists" overuse megascans these days and i don't think that's ok. If you are a level designer or a game designer and want to show off some game mechanics, or if you are a lighting artist and want to practice some lighting, sure, go nuts! But as an environment artist, keep it to a minimum.

Rant off

Hah, thanks. Well, I wanted to keep focus on world building and level design rather than trying to make vegetation that I have no good workflow for. However I did try to make assets that are the focus points (the most important parts of the level) by myself. I am also trying not to overdo it with megascans, and add a little bits of my own work into it.

yes the roof tiles are stretching and looking wavy in a wrong way

Yeah, I could have done a better job on the UV. I am still struggling with unwrapping sadly hahah

the end of the tiles has texture stretching

Oh, I didn't even notice that, thanks

the wood rail at the upper floor has bad uvs

Could you maybe elaborate and give tips on how I could improve it?

and the lightmaps are very low res i think

Weird, lightmaps for this model was 256 I suppose, thought its enough for a model of this size

Thanks mate, and cheers

teodar23

So you did a lightmap of 256 for the whole house? Thats too low.
About the rail, just add a proper uv all around, idk what you use as a 3d tool so i cant go into specifics...

VValkyr

teodar23 said:

So you did a lightmap of 256 for the whole house? Thats too low.
About the rail, just add a proper uv all around, idk what you use as a 3d tool so i cant go into specifics...

Ohh, hmm, what should be the best lightmap resolution for this big mesh? I can't really estimate well enough (also it tanks render times hahah)

I use blender, and I just used smart UV project. I guess I should just redo the rail in total considering how blocky and simple it looks like. Essentially an extruded mesh. How can I make such simple meshes appear more complex (not such sharp edges) etc, without making it too complex

teodar23

Use some bevel or whatever is called in blender, maybe rounded edges, dunno.
As for the LM resolution, try increasing it steady until you have something that catches shadows from the leaves. I would bet a 1k res lightmap or even 2k since this is a portfolio piece...

VValkyr

teodar23 said:

Use some bevel or whatever is called in blender, maybe rounded edges, dunno.
As for the LM resolution, try increasing it steady until you have something that catches shadows from the leaves. I would bet a 1k res lightmap or even 2k since this is a portfolio piece...

Alright, thanks quite a lot for feedback. I usually don't get it, cause most of the people I show my work to don't really care for it, so I appriciate every bit of help

JamesBrisnehan

You can always check your light-map densities using the light-map density view mode. Remember, green is good.  https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/UI/LevelEditor/Viewports/ViewModes/index.html#lightmapdensity