UE4 Tatooine Environment (WIP)

Nano Pixel

Update

More images, along with a video can be seen on my artstation - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NxwObb








Original Post
"Hi everyone, 

Im currently working on a new scene to develop my scene building and lighting skills, as well as just having some fun doing more modelling and texturing.

Trying to make as much as i can, but keeping the time frame as small as possible. So in the scene so far the ground uses Quixel materials, the models are created by myself, as well as materials for the models using Substance Designer and Painter.

Still lots to do with the current models, taking the building pieces into zbrush to rough them up a bit. And develop the materials further for the wall, doors and droid.

Any feedback on where to go with this, and any approaches to lighting, particle effects, cloth simulations, etc moving forward will be appreciated.

Thanks

Orbit

If I can give a small piece of feedback in terms of atmosphere, what detracts from it (to me) at the moment is the sky/skybox. Since Tatooine is a desert, and the presence of nimbus clouds (the cloud type in your shots) denotes rain which is counter to the environment. 

Maybe some thinner cloud cover or just a clear sky with the signature twin suns would help establish a more 'Tattooine' feel.

Nano Pixel

Hi thanks for the feedback, the clouds definitely need some work, and reduction, at this stage was just messing around with the volumetric clouds in Unreal.

Heres a little update on the scene. Im now focusing on making a small range of assets to fill the scene, to see if i can make it look varied without having a massive amount of assets to make, as im trying to keep the time frame for this project on the shorter side.

Nano Pixel

Here's the final renders for this scene. I have a good mix of assets in there to give it some variety across the scene, but not too much that its completely unique in every area., and would have taken too long to create compared with what i wanted out of this scene.

The clouds dont fully fit the scene as seen from the films, but i liked the look of them in here. I will do some renders with less cloud cover too, and show the 2 suns in the scene. The particle effects for the sand blowing dont look too good from above, but the camera shots with it moving are all at ground level so it works from that angle. Need to look into particles further to work out how to get the sand to look dense but still transparent from the ground level, and cover the ground enough from aerial shots. 

Built this scene to be a game level, clearly inspired by Battlefront 2.

I will post a video and a breakdown over the weekend.

Any feedback will be great ready for going into my next project, and for when i revisit this scene to add an interior.

teodar23

Looks great but the shadows seem too dark, in fact the whole scene could be brightened a bit. The sun seems to be quite low so maybe add a bit of color to it.
About the clouds, you could try to tint them a bit. The bottom part would be lit by the ground so if its a desert setting the tint would be sepia-ish. The sun facing color should also be tinted as i said above.

Nano Pixel

Thanks for all the feedback, its been very useful, even if some of the changes I made were quite subtle in the end.

I have a video of the final piece, and a some other images and a asset overview can be seen on my portfolio.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NxwObb