Mini-Environment - Cave thingy.
polycounter lvl 9
Hey, I'm working on putting a little environment together. I'm trying to keep it simple, but I want to make sure it looks professional.
I'm still working with getting the lighting to play nice.
Will add waterfall/foliage from the waterwheel
[edit] hrm...terrain disappeared from this shot. will re-bake. Also planning to add reflection to the water's surface.
I'm planning to add some foliage growing from the rock-face of the cave, and I'm tempted to add either a boat or another, smaller tree with a lantern in the foreground. I don't want to add to much more in the way of assets though. Lets not make it cluttered.
Suggestions?
I'm still working with getting the lighting to play nice.
Will add waterfall/foliage from the waterwheel
[edit] hrm...terrain disappeared from this shot. will re-bake. Also planning to add reflection to the water's surface.
I'm planning to add some foliage growing from the rock-face of the cave, and I'm tempted to add either a boat or another, smaller tree with a lantern in the foreground. I don't want to add to much more in the way of assets though. Lets not make it cluttered.
Suggestions?
Replies
Lookin' kick arse for so early in the quarter dude, keep it up!
keep it up! : D
Thanks, I will break the rocks apart to make the idea of a hole at the top more apparent.
I'm also going to darken the wood of the docks, I think that should help them not pop too much. I don't want to make them out of stone, as I think it would be better to break up the material, but I agree that they need to settle a little more.
More shots are on the way, as soon as I grab the latest files from my external. ...I hope they're in tact, lol.
For the composition of the stone section I would recommend adding some larger foliage to the left side of that image. I also feel that the water below the docks is so void of life or detail that it detracts from the environment as a whole. Some more detail down there would give you more screenshots as well.
Just my 2 cents
I say look at your environment overall, and figure out your priority objects in terms of hero props, etc. You need to organize the architecture as well as the natural rock formations so that they provide a sense of depth and scale. Right now its hard to tell what size things are.
I provided a quick paintover, to give you ideas to how you're organizing your objects, I like the architecture in the concept and you should implement that. You have tons of rock on the left side and have plenty of room to build there without distracting the players eye from the composition. Perhaps a smaller cave that has a stream where the water comes down the mill, or a channeling set of pipes or architecture thats built in. Mind you if I have more time I would have painted some foliage to give you more ideas but I think you can handle that.
What the rocks need the most is a wet look, high specularity and possibly some very light reflections to make the area look really wet, since it is surrounded by water. You also need to bump the contrast of your lighting so you get that sense of depth and atmospheric perspective.
I think you could also use some more foliage, swampy wet foliage maybe some tropical and added color. Just to add an accent to the environment. Especially on the bottom left side.
Overall, it's looking good but I really like the ideas you had with your concept and you're making decisions that are dragging you away from it. Fight the urge and take Asa's critiques or comments and actually "implement" them. You have to stray from your personal level of satisfaction of the piece and push it so that ALL players can recognize what is going on, and be amazed by it.
Anyhow, good luck and keep pushing the piece. You're definitely getting there man.
I think the scene actually lacking composition and focus. I dont know where to look, all areas seem equal more or less.
Blue and brownish lighting look random. I know, the blue meant to be reflected from water, but the way these 2 colors are distributed, it looks not consistent to me. Both r quite saturated so they look like artificial colored lights to me.
U could keep lighting colors more uniform, but put some accent on the water mill area instead of that volume light beam. The beam could be actually coming from behind to "cast" light on the buildings.
EDIT: ah, havent see kaburan's paintover before submitting the post :P
This works good as well
I think I'm going to (need to) call this done. It could go further, but the composition is closed in enough, and I'm happy with where it's at. It's time to move on.
-I reworked the water and built a new shader that utilizes UDK's anisotropic filtering. I couldn't be happier with the way it looks in realtime.
-Populated the cave with various new foliage.
-Fixed and toned-down godrays
-Added roots to the great tree
-Adjusted lighting and contrast of textures
-finally added waterfalls, and diverter (now everyone can stop wondering why there's a waterwheel over the entryway) As well as particle effects, (screenshots don't do the realtime justice).
-added alternators/generators to house the waterwheel. (they're tough to spot, but I think they're an important minor detail to stop the wheel from floating.)
-various other stuff.
Anyway, Here it is:
would be so much more awesome with a cubemap for the reflection.
still looks amazing.
Quick paintover if you want to give it a look. Took out all the blue lantern lighting, just seemed out of place. Also added yellow to the flora emanating from the light source just to expand the pallet a touch, you could add a yellow point light light to the scene and have it effect only a lighting channel that your foliage is set to absorb. Also lit up your water, figured you could shift your lighting to be eminating from blue water below rather than scattered about throughout the scene with the lanterns, touches of blue rim lighting here and there on the underside of stuff. Also felt like you could have a bit more stonework on the left side so i extended that out. Take from it what you want Nate, scene's looking better and better.
All in all I'm pretty stunned, I'll subscribe to this for sure, don't wanna miss where it' going.
I think you mistook me for the ever impressive Kaburan, good sir
Colors/lighting is all a bit too greenish for me. Maybe give those hanging lamps an orange tone? Also some fog/mist on the ground above the water would be a nice touch to give the scene a more forgotten and forsaken feeling.
I like the texture of the rocks in the background but I think they could use some more interesting shapes. Right now they look too flat and boring compared to the shapes of the tree and the ruin.
Maybe it's just me but the scaling of the water wheel seems a bit off. Since it's in the middle of the scene and maybe is supposed to be a focal point, I think I would make it bigger so it draws more attention.
Just some random thoughts...really like what you have so far