Discovery Scene (UE4)

Chase

Wanting to improve in my world building and lighting so grabbed some assets off the UE4 marketplace along with some megascans and went to town. Using dynamic lighting. Here's where I'm at currently. I want to get away from the painterly look. Any advice on that or any other feedback would be great!

Pirax

Loving the colours palette coming out from this, great use of the fog to provide a deep forest feel also. I would actually say the painterly look is coming partly from the vibrancy, so if you did wanna knock the saturation down a touch in your post process it may help?
Perhaps lighting is a bit uniform and doesn't become dark enough in less visibile areas but its hard to say just from this image. Very pleasing overall so far, look forward to where it goes!

Chase

Thanks Pirax!! Exponential Height Fog really does add a whole layer of depth. This has been one learning experience after another. I found the painterly look was most definitely the lighting and some of the over saturation. I decided to start a new with the main light source and that instantly gave it a more realistic feel, albeit overblown.



Then I brought back in my original lights, did some terrain adjustment to add more elevation.


Add some post processing and here's the progress so far.


Much happier about where this is going now. Still need to work on some landscape sculpting and touch up the sky in some way. Thinking about adding in either a tipped over wagon with fruit, baskets and stuff everywhere. Or maybe a jeep down the ways doing some exploring like at the entrance of a cool rock formation or cave? Just some ideas to add some more story.

Alex_J

one thing about realistic forest is that there is usually as many dead/fallen trees as there are living. Very few places in the world where you just have a bunch of straight perfect trees neatly in formation like this. 

You can also improve composition by using some sort of pattern (like voronoi) to clump trees together. This way you get natural pockets where more light is coming in, versus shadowy areas with more trees. Makes more interesting to look at and adds sense of realism. 

Also consider the undergrowth's response to areas with more light versus more shadow. Put your taller grasses where there is more sun and you'll have a sense of more realism. 

Probably just my opinion, but I don't like the bloom. That belongs in Steven Spielberg WW2 movies to give a notion of purity to the era, but I think it ruins the natural world. I say focus on the colors and composition. Shouldn't need much screen effects at all to make the forest really come to life. 

lastly, about telling a story, you don't need human stuff to do so. The story is in the geology/ecology. Everything is where it is because of a reason. If you start your terrain from a real world heightmap, then the story is already told for you. You only need to fill in the details. 

The quick and easy simplification you can make for video game art is ask one question, "where does the water go?" 

Chase

Thanks for the feedback Alex! Will look into varying the vegetation and trees.

Still wanted to do some paint overs to see what the scene could look like

Chase

Landed on this paint over design today. Tomorrow I'll include a few more of the drones and a dropship they came out of as well.

Chase

Alien stuff is just photobashed in right now. Will look into further designs of the ship. Think I might have some cable like tentacles coming out of the drones. Could look cool as they fly around.

Chase

Update:

Chase

High poly of the drone about done I think. Will add in some panel lines and stuff in Substance. Gonna work on the ship next.

Pirax

Whoah, this changed a bit since i last saw it lol. Drone mesh is really cool, I'd watch how intense you go with the distance fog though as currently its blowing out the image. 
Maybe some context as to what the drone has been deployed and scans for would help the story of your scene go that bit further  

Chase

It has indeed! Originally, I had put a hiking bag against the tree and that was what it was scanning. Maybe a few things along those lines to indicate there is human life around and things are about to get real lol.

Chase

Chase

Another update

Chase

Think I'm going to call this one finished. Thank you for checking it out along the way!

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1ndZxX