[haven't thought of a name] 3D Environment Art

UndeadCrewman

I've been working on this for a little while in unreal engine 5 then moved to 5.2. I'm trying to create a winning junior environment or at mid level, though i don't know everything which is why I wish to ask all of you lovely folks.

What do you think, where can i do better, what should i add.

I'm using baked lighting, at the moment, I can't afford Lumen lighting with this environment. Everything but the Logs, rocks and the foliage was created by hand

Vertrucio

When and where is this set? Are you working from a concept? What references are you using?

UndeadCrewman

Vertrucio said:

When and where is this set? Are you working from a concept? What references are you using?

I wasn't really working with a reference. There are a few images i tried to stick to but i did not want to copy and paste. mainly focused on my imagination and feeling how the scene should look. Do you think i should use a reference to get a sense of layout and design?

Vertrucio

It looks a bit odd because there's not much architecture I know of that has that style of wooden building on top of that style of stone column. The stone itself is a grey stone which is out of place from the primarily brown stone. For most of civilization people used the stone that was available near where they built. The only time you'd see different colored stone was when some rich person or royalty would pay to have special stone transported in from long distances.

 Likewise the wooden architecture seems to be more like old west, with way too modern doors and windows. They also seem cut and assembled in ways that are too modern. For example your railings are perfectly square.

pxgeek

It looks pretty interesting. But i agree, the mish-mash of different time periods and styles is a little weird. Unless that was something you intentionally wanted..it could be a fun idea for you to explore, but as it is right now it can read as a mistake. I like the idea of the multiple levels as a playable game environment though.

To build out your environment further, you could think about adding some human scale props to help ground the environment for the player, and it would also hint at whatever storytelling/narrative elements you had in mind. Stuff like crates, barrels, lamps/lighting, signs, tables, stalls, logging equipment etc.

You might also want to experiment with color in your scene. All the wood and the rocks are the same color and value which makes the scene look really dull and flat, even though there are some interesting shapes there.

Carliflower

Hey there! I'll second (or maybe third?) what everyone else has said. I definitely think looking at some references for the time period and location you are looking to emulate will help, as well as playing around with your lighting and color composition since the brown on brown is making everything blend together, when really the buildings should be popping out from the background. It's been touched on a little in other posts, but here's a rundown of what's currently standing out the most to me:

• So first off, I would recommend reading up on texel density. You mention in your initial post that the logs, foliage, and rocks were not created by you. Honestly, even without you saying that, it shows. The texture quality on those assets is much, much higher than everything else. Part of that may be your lighting washing out the detail on your wood texture, but right now it just looks blurry and lower resolution. (Maybe some more contrast in the grain would help as well? It looks like a flat color. Although, again, that may be the lighting washing it out.)
  
• In addition to the last point, the wood also has an almost painterly, stylized feel to it, while the logs, rocks, and plants are much more realistic. You should pick one art style for a cohesive look.

• As others have said the architecture is kind of all over the place. It mostly gives the impression of an Old West town, but then you have these stone pillars that look like Roman/Tuscan columns (orange box) while also having this Medieval looking stone/wood combo (light blue box) at the base of your building and then have this strange texture on those wooden(?) pillars (red boxes) on top of that. I've never seen a wood pattern like that before, and it almost reminds me of Moroccan tiles. So you have 3, maybe 4, different architectures/time periods at play here. As pxgeek said, it could be interesting, but right now it just seems messy and unintentional.
• I'm not sure what is going on with the black space in the light blue box. Is this suppose to be water that isn't reading correctly? A pit into the void? A rendering error? Right now it looks like your assets are floating in space.
• Be careful about how and where you place your assets. In a game someone might not notice something like what is in the purple box while running around. In a still image (especially when it is front and center), though, mistakes like this are all you can see. Wooden beams embedded into solid stone like this would be impossible in reality.

• Similar to the last point, be careful when using wood textures to always be aware of the grain. The wood grain on the plank in the green box is clearly going the wrong direction, made all the more noticeable because all of the grain around it is going the correct way.
  
• I agree again with pxgeek about adding some smaller assets to the scene - barrels, tools, tables, lanterns, garbage/random trash. Also, adding some damage to your wood will help as well. This looks like an old, Western town. Those wood beams should look hand-carved, right now they are surgical in how perfectly cut they are. All of this will help your scene feel more alive. It should be able to tell a story on its own, no characters or dialogue necessary - that's what makes good environment art. Another benefit of those smaller details is it can help break up the repetition of reusing modular pieces like in the yellow and blue boxes. In those cases, some dirt decals or extra damage would go a long way in helping those spots feel more natural.
• Now for the assets currently in place, I think they could use a bit of work. Right now, a lot of your assets don't really make sense in how the parts combine together. As you can see in the pink boxes, you have wooden beams that just kind of go through each other and the wheels on your log carts aren't actually attached to anything. All of these break the immersion. It's why reference is so important, it helps to see how complex objects with multiple parts join together. The carts should have more structure on the underside to show the axles are actually joined to the top, and the wheels should be further apart (more on the sides than directly under) so that they could actually turn. Likewise on the wood railing and roof structure the beams should either lie flush against each other (maybe with rope wrapped around holding them together) or one of the beams should have a clear hole that was carved into it to allow the other beam to pass through it.
• Finally, and if I'm wrong about this, please someone correct me, but it looks like your scene is set in a desert/canyon region. I'm pretty sure the plants you have used wouldn't grow in that kind of environment. I would expect to see more shrubs and cacti instead.

Hope all of this was helpful. Keep at it! I look forward to seeing how this progresses.

UndeadCrewman

pxgeek said:

It looks pretty interesting. But i agree, the mish-mash of different time periods and styles is a little weird. Unless that was something you intentionally wanted..it could be a fun idea for you to explore, but as it is right now it can read as a mistake. I like the idea of the multiple levels as a playable game environment though.

To build out your environment further, you could think about adding some human scale props to help ground the environment for the player, and it would also hint at whatever storytelling/narrative elements you had in mind. Stuff like crates, barrels, lamps/lighting, signs, tables, stalls, logging equipment etc.

You might also want to experiment with color in your scene. All the wood and the rocks are the same color and value which makes the scene look really dull and flat, even though there are some interesting shapes there.

Thanks for this! I wanted to add things of interest like shops, a wood cutting place like in skyrim and a log transferring pulley system but i think i ran out of space due to the layout.

should i increase the intensity of the wood grain and make copies of the same materials for variation?

I can control pretty much up to 4 different materials within a single mesh, so maybe they*re too subtle?

pxgeek

should i increase the intensity of the wood grain and make copies of the same materials for variation?

Sure! Multiple wood variations would probably add a lot. But dialing in the intensity sounds like something you can do during a polish phase.

Carliflower made some excellent points regarding the woodwork.

Keep at it!

UndeadCrewman

Hello everyone, thank you for your feedbacks, it has really made my thinking process to be more precise.
I still have the same scene and the same assets and workflow.
I haven't thought of signages or things to make scene seem like you can interact with it because i'm primarily focused on layout
the material workflow is based on a multi material system using imported masks that i created in substance painter per asset so it seems like each asset is going in it's own direction. I want to use the world position normals texturing but i don't understand it as much so i won't use it. i'll include the other project i'm working on below within same project below

UndeadCrewman

Sorry if it seems like i'm project bombing, there's a lot of things i want to do to show i'm capable