Hi, I'm new here. Feedback and CC would be much appreciated!

Chhab88

Hey Everyone, Glad to be here amongst the Polycount 3d community. To cut the story short and get into the nitty-gritty details... I'm basically working on a 3d environment in unreal engine to revamp my portfolio. The idea/theme of this environment was to create a Cold War-era bunker with some really moody tones and ambient lighting. At this point, I've hit a wall with lighting and bettering my composition, so I'd really appreciate a fresh set of eyes on this scene. I'm struggling to get some bounce light and lighting variation in the scene. Every time I open up and look at my scene, everything seems flat.  Anyway, if you have any tips or tricks to share on enhancing my scene for lighting, models, anything really... If you have an opinion, please feel free to share it, I'd really appreciate your input! Looking forward to hearing from y'all!  Thanks in advance.

Lewis_kennedy

your lightmaps may be too low, looking at the floor we should see some more shadows under the desk, chair and that big mobile unit thing, also the wires, but there's pretty much nothing there, can you post some screenshots in detail lighting mode and show the positions of your lights? cause it feels too bright in general as well honestly, I'd expect a few more areas to be darker.

Chhab88

Hey Lewis, firstly thank you for replying to my post! I agree about the shadows. The crazy thing is that this was the result after I baked the lighting. I've set my Lightmap resolution of the floor piece from 128 to 256 and set it to bake again. I could also lower the intensity of some of the brightest white lights in the scene to get some organic-looking shadows or just make the scene darker like your last comment mentioned. I'm sharing three iterations of the detailed lighting pass which you requested, one plain high-res screenshot, one with lighting UI shown and one that I've horribly labelled using the snipping tool to give you a better idea in terms of layout. I hope you can forgive my tardiness. Ha-ha!

Lewis_kennedy

that's odd, the shadow issue might be related to the other assets then? looking at the detail lighting I can see that it's recognizing some shadows, the chair's projecting shadows, but only from the seat portion, not the base of the chair, it might be that the light is just passing through uncapped meshes, so you could try setting the assets or materials to two sided to see if that makes a difference in the render.

the attenuation radius for the lights might be a bit big, some of these lights would be fairly weak, so reducing their sizes might help. also maybe get rid of the green rect light and just use emissive for static lighting instead, have you changed the source length on the light tube as well to match it's length? if it's single sided you could probably place the light inside of it or at least a bit closer.

Chhab88

Hey Lewis, sorry for the late response. I found the problem though. You were right about the high attenuation radius curve. Lowered the level of the point light coming from the top and the shadows got much darker. I lowered them for every other light in the scene as well. Let me know what you think! I'll work on those light tubes because I anyways have to remodel them. That's when I'll make sure that the source length of the area light matches up with the length of the mesh. Thanks a ton, wouldn't have been able to figure this out without your input!

pixelpatron

Feels a little cramped and the cords running across the ground don't make much sense, I'd cable em to the wall with metal rings or something...The grate in the center of the room feels weird, as well as tile? It'd probably be a slab of concrete. The grout color/thickness is bothersome as well. Not really feeling the "bunker" vibe to be honest. I think you need a reinforced door as well as better wall ceiling treatment to really sell it. 

Chhab88

Hi @pixelpatron , Thanks for taking the time to provide such an in-depth critique and provide some great references! I really appreciate it.

This scene intends to give off a cramped and claustrophobic aura/feel to the viewer. Lots of asset/level density and tight corners. The tiled floor gave off a better feel in terms of composition to me. This bunker is essentially like a makeshift one, a room used for something else that has been repurposed to become this communication surveillance bunker. I can look into changing it if it doesn't sit well with viewers. I can also look into scaling down the grates or removing them completely, was just testing different decals that I made for the scene. I'm not too fixed on it myself.

As for the wires, the big blue thing on the left is a huge electric power panel, it's being used to surge and give power to the tape drive, transmitter etc. Some of the wires go behind the desk to a power plug as well. If it's too distracting, I can definitely look into hanging a bunch from the walls with metal pins. No biggie!

I can definitely look into remodelling the ceiling into a dome shape to make it look more like a bunker as you mentioned above. I followed concepts and several other people's artworks since they did similar projects and didn't have that round dome shape. 
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kVmr0

Lastly, the reinforced door is a neat idea! Already planned on it and have a rough blocked-out model in the scene. Need to unwrap and texture it.
I genuinely appreciate the help! You've given me a lot to think about.
 Thanks again Pixelpatron.

Lewis_kennedy

I don't think the wires necessarily need stuck to a wall, but it would make more sense to have them go vertically across the floor in a bunch and then straight to what they're connected to, have it covered with electrical tape or a rubber cable protector, could even just have them all pinned behind one of the bed legs, he's right  it wouldn't make much sense to have them strewn across the ground like that.

oh, by the way, since you're new to Polycount, here's a tip, Quote people or @ them so they get notified if you're responding.

Chhab88

@Lewis_kennedy Thanks for the tip on the cables and tagging people! I'll definitely look into changing the layout of the wires into a more practical one, haha! didn't know it was a feature.