Alleyway [Finished]

knightfallows

Just finished my current Alleyway environment. It's a mixture of my own props and Quixels library to supplement and help speed up my production so I could focus on what's important. I'm going to be posting production breakdowns on my Artstation blog if you are interested over the coming days after I've taken a break.

Was completed in just under a month with some of that time spent learning Blender. Lighting is fully dynamic but isn't ray traced.

This project is done but I do like to look at my own work and see where I can improve and build upon in the next one so if you've got any feedback feel more than welcome to say.




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

InvaderRoxas

Sweet stuff! The red light in the back is super sweet, and helps break up the more natural lighting that you'd expect from an alley. It gives a sense of urgency/is a bit intimidating--not sure if that's what you were going for but I dig it! I also love the little extra touches you've got, like the arrow drawn on one of the garage doors or the varying levels of water on the floor. The floor texture is one of my favorite parts too. 

I think some things that could push this a bit more also have to do with your lighting: there are some spots where it's too dark to see any detail, mostly in the foreground of your shots. This isn't as much of an issue the father you go down the hall based on the video you've got on your Artstation, but I'd tone down those shadows a bit overall. In the first shot you've got here, the yellow sunlight on the left seems a bit too saturated compared with the other lights (red excluded), and is a bit distracting. I might mess with it a bit just to see if toning it down might help the flow of the scene. You also have a good start to drawing the viewer into the alley and towards that back room, but I feel more could be done to add some leading lines (similarly to the wires/pipes(?) on the ground in the second shot) or play with the perspective of the camera to really make it pop. Nice work! 

knightfallows

Thank you for your feedback, lighting is definitely something I'm needing to improve on. It tends to be something I find after I already have a sense of the scene so I've never spend too much time on it than I should.

GOODGRIEF

Amazing work on these! I think @InvaderRoxas has a good point on the light on the left side. It clashes with the rest of the scenes overall darker tones and is confusing as a viewer, making them wonder is it meant to be the sun rising in a dark alley or a really bright light between buildings?

I also really like the composition of all three shots, the first being my favorite. One piece of improvement for that shot specifically would be something to break up the wall on screen left. It takes up a good majority of the entire composition but feels very samey through it's length. I'd have considered either changing up some of the texturing like adding graffiti, or posters as an idea, or maybe some additional assets handing on the wall like the junction box you have or something similar. 

Nonetheless fantastic job on this project front to back, lots to like here and I look forward to seeing what your next scene is!

knightfallows

Hey thank you for the kind words, the both of you.
I made some minor changes with that prominent sun light by putting a blocker in its way and then putting a lighter fill light in its place because I still wanted that morning orange tint on walls much higher up in the scene.
As for the wall I get where you are coming from, the original hero shot (the 3rd one down) was right against the wall so my original idea was to keep it bear so the shot didn't become cluttered. I'm probably going to keep it the same because I think it provides a less cluttered contrast to the opposite side.



Going forward I think lightings going to be one of my focuses in the next project I do.