Overgrown Japanese railway station (WIP)

timeyful

Here is an environment diorama im working on, most things have been modelled by me e.g. the train. A few assets as well as textures &decals are from Megascans library. 

I need some advice on how I can make it better as a game environment. Feedback would be really appreciated as I'm still trying to improve this scene. 

Cheers!

teodar23

In short: lighting, damage and aging, story and finaly color correction.
Lighting: since this is a small scene i would bake the lighting since it will look much better. Also, consider using a hdri instead of the bog standard UE sky.
Aging: the wear on the building shows some aging but the modeling doesnt show that. Every edge is very sharp and straight, no sagging, no edge chipping, no cracks...
Color correction: i suggest trying some LUTs and see if you can get something interesting fast. Your scene leans towards that dark and depressing style that one can see in games like HL2, the last of us, etc. But its not dark enough and maybe could use a slight greenish-blue tone. Here you can play with values all day long and at some point you will get something interesting.
Last thing that i would mention, maybe add more props and set dressing in the station area. Its very basic and definetly needs attention.

Edit: find an image (game, movie, real life) and use it as a mood reference. Usually people use refs to model/texture but they forget to get good refs for mood.

Edit edit: forgot about story but thats self explanatory. What is the story of this place?

timeyful

teodar23 said:

In short: lighting, damage and aging, story and finaly color correction.
Lighting: since this is a small scene i would bake the lighting since it will look much better. Also, consider using a hdri instead of the bog standard UE sky.
Aging: the wear on the building shows some aging but the modeling doesnt show that. Every edge is very sharp and straight, no sagging, no edge chipping, no cracks...
Color correction: i suggest trying some LUTs and see if you can get something interesting fast. Your scene leans towards that dark and depressing style that one can see in games like HL2, the last of us, etc. But its not dark enough and maybe could use a slight greenish-blue tone. Here you can play with values all day long and at some point you will get something interesting.
Last thing that i would mention, maybe add more props and set dressing in the station area. Its very basic and definetly needs attention.

Thanks for the feedback!

I’m currently using static lighting and I always use “build lighting”. Is that what you mean by baking the lights? 

timeyful

teodar23 said:

Edit: find an image (game, movie, real life) and use it as a mood reference. Usually people use refs to model/texture but they forget to get good refs for mood.

Edit edit: forgot about story but thats self explanatory. What is the story of this place?

I used a reference image from an art book called "Tokyo Genso".



I wanted to create the same environment as a diorama.  I'm trying to create a darker, or a more Last of us 2 like version of this scene as you also mentioned. That's the look I'm going for. As for the story, its about an abandoned railway station where nature has taken its toll, but at the same time survivors of the post apocalypse use it as a small camping site. 

scottycharly

Good job so far. The material and mood suggest something old, but the lines of your mesh are perfectly straights. Add some chaos. Old things will bend and lean.

timeyful

scottycharly said:

Good job so far. The material and mood suggest something old, but the lines of your mesh are perfectly straights. Add some chaos. Old things will bend and lean.

Thanks for the feedback! I knew my eyes missed out on something. Thankyou!

timeyful

Up!

I've made some changes after the last feedback that I have received. The main thing is I tried to make the environment look more old by adding more damage on the building and the platform. I have also added some new props on the platform. I also decided to play around with a new lighting theme, something that is closer to the concept art (day time).

I have learned new things along the way but I think there is still a lot that needs to be done! I will continue to work more on it.

Please give me feedback!

teodar23

Better but the lighting looks weird especially in the second to last screenshot. Are you using dynamic lighting?
Also, the ivy on the building doesnt have any shadow so its just floating there. Try increasing shadow resolution or adding contact shadows.

timeyful

teodar23 said:

Better but the lighting looks weird especially in the second to last screenshot. Are you using dynamic lighting?
Also, the ivy on the building doesnt have any shadow so its just floating there. Try increasing shadow resolution or adding contact shadows.

I think I am. I have 2 lights that control my scene:



I set them both to be movable lights. (I guess that's what you mean by dynamic lighting?) I'm sorry I'm still a noobie with lighting in unreal.
the Ivy actually does have shadow on the building, but it only appears when the camera gets close to it. But ill check again and try to change the resolution or add contact shadows.  Thanks!

teodar23

Maybe try a test bake and see how it looks. For that you need your meshes to have lightmap uvs and you need to set those lights to static. After that just hit build lighting and you should get an idea of what it could look like. By default the lighting quality is set to preview so dont expect it to be amazing. You can find more info about building lighting in the Unreal lighting academy series.

timeyful

teodar23 said:

Maybe try a test bake and see how it looks. For that you need your meshes to have lightmap uvs and you need to set those lights to static. After that just hit build lighting and you should get an idea of what it could look like. By default the lighting quality is set to preview so dont expect it to be amazing. You can find more info about building lighting in the Unreal lighting academy series.

I think you may be right, i am using dynamic lighting i think lol. Because i remember turning of static lighting in project settings. And i cant bake lights anymore. I guess i have to change it back.