Looking for Feedback: Gothic Ritual Environment (Unity, Bakery, Real-Time)

JShock

Hi everyone 👋

I’ve been working on a small real-time environment inspired by a gothic/occult cave setting, and I’d love some external feedback.

This was created as a realistic style piece, with a focus on mood, lighting, and storytelling rather than scale.

Tools / Details:
• Unity (real-time)
• Bakery GPU Lightmapper
• Custom models + textures
• Emissive ritual circle, candle-lit interior

I’m particularly looking for feedback on:
• Lighting balance (readability vs mood)
• Material definition (stone, floor, pillars)
• Composition/camera angles

• Anything that feels “off” or could be pushed further

Thanks in advance — all critiques welcome 🙏 

Noren

Works great for me. The yellowish glow makes for a nice focus / separation of foreground and background. 
The materials could maye be a bit more different regarding their glossiness, but that might be due to the lightmapping (are you using something for extra reflections, like a cubemap?). But even so, it's working fine.

Things that work less:  The painted circle looks independent of the surface structure it supposedly is painted on. Also, the pedestal seems to be placed on top of the paint, rather than the paint being applied on or around an existing structure.
The smaller spread out particles over the circle might work in the actual, animated scene, but don't look very interesting in the stills. 
Composition-wise, everything is centered on the bowl, so e.g. the second image isn't outright bad, but not as good as the rest, also with the bright areas a the left and right edge.

Fabi_G

Hi! I think it looks cool

Points I think could be improved further:

• I agree with Noren that materials all read very matte and some variation in reflectivity would be nice. 
• Boxes look too repeated in my opinion and their construction is a bit cartoony/ simple. Could create a set of variants, constructed slightly differently using the same texture. Construction detail such as a removable lid, handles, rope to tie them shut would add further believability and options to add variance. Same as damaged variants. Could then even add some dirt gradient in the shader, to convey that the place is damp and affecting the boxes
• There are lots of candles, but they seem to have little effect on the environment. Like masses/ puddles and streaks of wax, where old candles went out of shape.
• the rock material is looks too uniform in color and noise, so I would look into adding some variance to those aspects.
• The scene could use a layer of dirt, moss/ overgrowth and/or cobwebs to tie things together and convey this is a gloomy place. They don't need to contribute to GI/ cast shadow. With a similar technique could place even add some fog above the floor, use UV-panning and flowmap to make it move.
• Lighting from the candles and the magic are both a warm color, making the render appear a bit monochromatic. Perhaps you can add some contrast here, by making the magic a different, cooler color. Or some other light-source, breakthrough from the outside.

Keep it up

JShock

Thank you very much, guys. I will check these out and apply them to my project. I'm hoping to post updates in the coming days if you feel like seeing the progression

JShock

@Fabi_G @Noren
Hey there, feedback applied to the scene, which included:
- Adjustment to materials, introducing more roughness values.
- Embedded ritual circle better into the ground
- Paint no longer goes under the ritual bowl stand
- Disabled VFX for ritual
- Created an extra crate for variety 
- Improved transition of the candles with the floor and added more non-lit candles (+ some wonkiness)
- Added Cobwebs
- Adjusted lights
- Attempt to make the ritual a cooler colour to make the warmer environment pop (Still not sure about this)

JShock

A couple of Moonlit shots, think I'm leaning towards the colder ritual as well.