[WIP] The Castle of Chaumont
polycounter lvl 4
Hey guys! I'm trying to push forward my polishing skills with this medieval castle. I'd like your input on lighting, mood and the castle's models and textures if you don't mind. I'd also love it if you could also point me towards any odd feeling regarding incoherence in storytelling, design and those theoretical matters. I'm stretching this project on the long term and don't really have a deadline, until I really start hitting diminishing returns. I'm a big fan of using historical landmarks as inspiration and this castle is heavily drawn from the Château de Chaumont in France!
Everything is made in UE4, using 3dsMax for modeling, and the Adobe Substance 3D suite for texturing (designer and painter). Terrain shader and textures are from Brushify. Characters and outdoor props are from the UE4 Marketplace and the castle is fully made by myself!
See you soon for some updates, and feel free to let me know of your opinions
Above is the current state of the scene. I'm planning on making many different shots from many locations as well as having a few different lighting scenarios. Under is a progress GIF of the piece from blockout to the current result.
and here are some of the refs I've been mostly using
Everything is made in UE4, using 3dsMax for modeling, and the Adobe Substance 3D suite for texturing (designer and painter). Terrain shader and textures are from Brushify. Characters and outdoor props are from the UE4 Marketplace and the castle is fully made by myself!
See you soon for some updates, and feel free to let me know of your opinions
Above is the current state of the scene. I'm planning on making many different shots from many locations as well as having a few different lighting scenarios. Under is a progress GIF of the piece from blockout to the current result.
and here are some of the refs I've been mostly using
Replies
Keep up the good work!!!
Visually, where would you like your render to be , at what level I mean? Softer/smoothed style or raw realistic like if it were a photograph?
what i would do is take a look at different dephts (foreground, midground, background) and add some interest to it.
I think the back and midground could need some bigger trees for example, so there is something indicating the distance as well.
i would also try to add trees to the mountains, so the silhouette gets broken up a bit
another thing i noticed is the path into the castle, would be cool to have some trails in there, like some mud trails.
but in general it looks cool already! great start!
@Phoenix995 So glad you like it! I'm definitely excited about working on the depth aspect of this scene as you pointed it. I had a bit of a dilemma with trees because they're often cut down around those castles to have a good view of the surrondings from the towers. But, based on your idea, I'm gonna try and see if I can get somewhere with ornamental trees like the ones from this image, as well as adding poles, flags and banners for a more interesting depth and less flat lighting. If that still doesn't work, trees it is! and trees on the mountains and mud trails are such a good idea! Thank you again
I moved the horse head framing a bit to the left and added trails on the road with the intention to lead the eye towards the castle. I also removed the foreground blur that looked a bit confusing. Some tweaks were also done to the lighting. More fog to add distance between the main character and the castle. I also decided to go with a tournament preparation scene storytelling. The player arrives the day or a while before the tournament and things are still being setup, guests are arriving etc.
Next, I'm planning on trying to add more detail breakup on the castle to make it feel more realistic and believable.
Here's a little update of my progress so far
This time I worked on adding more small details in the castle in order to make it feel a bit more believable in terms of scale and proportions.
I also changed the lighting (again) for a sky with a bit more detail and contrast while trying not to deviate the attention from the castle. The overall scene feels slightly high contrast and underexposed to my taste so I'll probably work on this next. Let me know what you think, I'd love any feedback!
last update vs now :
Cheers!
Hey hey! I finally went back and made some progress on my little Castle!
I did some adjustments and detailing on the different meshes and am trying to get 3 nice shots to illustrate how it can look in different lighting settings and mesh dispositions. Those are the two first shots and my main refs. I'm going for a celebration/tournament vibe and I'm on my way to add more interesting banners and flags. After getting some great feedback from fellow artists, I'm on my way to widen the aspect ratios of the shots and work more on the ligthing, fog and colors to get closer to a painting feeling. Any feedback regarding composition, lighting, mesh and texture quality and storytelling is welcome :)
Little update on a new night shot and various adjustments to the previous ones! Any feedback welcome :)
I love your day and midday renders in terms of lighting, they look awesome and atmospheric. Only complain is the night render that one feels flat. I made some adjustment in photoshop and made everything more darker and the light more lighter also been using the light as a way to guide the eye so the brightest part in the scene is where the eye should be. Hope that help with the night shots. Also what you could do is when light passes on the scene in this case the moon break it up as if the clouds are in the way that also helps set the mood.
Thanks a lot Sora, I'll definitely look at making those adjustments on the night shots!
Finished! here's the AS (there are some videos) : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rAamwa
And some shots! If you still have any feedback, please feel free, it would definitely help for my next projects or even updating this one :)