[Need Critiques] Night time mysterious graveyard

3DKlassen

If everyone could please give me some critiques on this. This was a scene i built back in college and now I'm deciding to take it further and polish it up.
I do need so me help all over the place, so any tips tricks and hints would be great appreciated!
I'll start with a few older photos and then coming to most recent..

Current. I'm thinking maybe some moonlight coming through the tree gaps would look nice if its shining through the fog. Not 100% sure how to do that yet though

Thanks for all help, suggestions, tricks, anything you can help get me to the next step

ThisisVictoriaZ

Hi, it seems like in some areas where the shadows are completely black your foliage is not reacting to the lighting and is standing out so I would take a look at that. Also there are just way too many areas where the lighting is completely black, I thing some moonlight coming in through the trees would defiantly be helpful but I would increase the overall brightness of the scene so the shadows don't go completely to black. Having some very dark shadows looks nice however too much erases a lot of the details in the scene and doesn't look as good.

3DKlassen

@ThisisVictoriaZ That's some great feedback! Thank you very much, I'll be working on this tonight after dinner

ThisisVictoriaZ

@3DKlassen cant wait to see how it turns out! Good luck!

JamesBrisnehan

Your grass is looking a bit too planar, especially for the high camera angle you've chosen. I think separating the grass blades out more on the texture map would help, and also modeling the clumps in a way that looks better for the camera. 
By the way, can we see your reference for what you want this scene to look like? I'm having some trouble understanding some things going on in the environment like the pristine/new-looking bricks and the little fires. I like the little fires, but I don't understand them. Are they torches or braziers? Maybe camp-fires? Is there a gas leak? Is there a pyromaniac zombie on the loose? I just can't tell. Anyway, seeing the reference you are working from would help us know what you're going for.

Also, at the end of your post you mentioned not knowing how to do fog and light rays. These tutorials might help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd7-rTzfmCo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsN0LBgrj14

Totozoos

Upon what's already been said, you could polish your models a little more to help tell the story. For example, your bricks are too clean and even, eventhough the wall they are part of, its shape is like it was old and ruined but the bricks say otherwise. The same for the ones on the ground which look really clean and bright. You might as well take a look and the unlit version of the scene and check your values as well as your color pallet, balancing both values and color throughout the scene will help you make it look more consistent.

3DKlassen

JamesBrisnehan said:

Your grass is looking a bit too planar, especially for the high camera angle you've chosen. I think separating the grass blades out more on the texture map would help, and also modeling the clumps in a way that looks better for the camera. 
By the way, can we see your reference for what you want this scene to look like? I'm having some trouble understanding some things going on in the environment like the pristine/new-looking bricks and the little fires. I like the little fires, but I don't understand them. Are they torches or braziers? Maybe camp-fires? Is there a gas leak? Is there a pyromaniac zombie on the loose? I just can't tell. Anyway, seeing the reference you are working from would help us know what you're going for.

Also, at the end of your post you mentioned not knowing how to do fog and light rays. These tutorials might help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd7-rTzfmCo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsN0LBgrj14

I just wanted a very old graveyard, I thought about doing this after I visited my grandparents in TN and they have a small old graveyard right behind their house that has graves from hundreds of years ago and none from recent years, Its very run down and aged, overgrown around the boarders. But seeing as I'm going for video games I wanted to add fire pits, smoke, fog, etc to the scene. I'm definitely wanting the god rays (from moonlight) which I'm adding now.

I need to put all my reference on a single sheet. I normally just open all the images on my 2nd and 3rd monitors

I cant believe I hadn't seen those 2 videos before, THANK YOU so much! That guy from the 2nd one in polygon academy is so good and well spoken! I really like the way he teaches, I'm going to watch every single video from him

3DKlassen

Totozoos said:

Upon what's already been said, you could polish your models a little more to help tell the story. For example, your bricks are too clean and even, eventhough the wall they are part of, its shape is like it was old and ruined but the bricks say otherwise. The same for the ones on the ground which look really clean and bright. You might as well take a look and the unlit version of the scene and check your values as well as your color pallet, balancing both values and color throughout the scene will help you make it look more consistent.

Thank you,
Yeah I was thinking that last night too, I'll make some more brick textures and same for the tombstones as well. everything too repeated

LumoBlaze

Hey there! Adding onto what's already been said, it might benefit you to change up the tree textures a bit. From the angle in the second image they're very shiny, and almost look untextured due to the shiny birch like texture they have right now. I would say increase the roughness, and maybe give the texture a second pass. A normal map to add a little bit of noise would go a long way to making it feel like a full up tree.

I can't wait to see this graveyard when its done!