Desert Scene WIP

duxun

hi guys working on a new scene . thought i give shot at creating and outdoor scene for my portfolio... everything is still in WIP stage however i managed to fix my lighting to cast shadows now im having 2 problems before i continue populating this scene with grass, trees , objects ect ect..

1. i have 2 lights in the scene one skylight .7 brightness sky blue color and a dominant directional light with a brightness of 2.5 with a yellow sun color pointing at my scene to simulate the sun.. so my problem is if you notice that my terrain is casting shadows but there is also a dark lines running accross the terrain there and i need to fix that.. i tried redoing the diffuse texture and making sure there is no line seams and tried to remove the normal map and if that is causing those lines to show up.. but to no avail..

2. i am getting shadows now but when i bake my shadows using lightmass i get a different result..

Thanks in advance...


Without Lightmass



Baked Lighting

Snight

Don't use a skylight when you bake with lightmass. It will totally kill all the ambient light in your level and reduces the contrast of shadow areas which ends up washing everything out.

Moosey_G

Snight wrote: »

Don't use a skylight when you bake with lightmass. It will totally kill all the ambient light in your level and reduces the contrast of shadow areas which ends up washing everything out.

Yeah, at first glance it looked like snow, get some yellows up in there.

SimonT

It's so bright, first i thought it is an antarctic scene. I would add more small stones to get the proportions right.

2 really good desert examples:

http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1185&highlight=vessel

http://gameartisans.org/contests/uc/1/view_entries/finals_gameartisans_3d_333.html

duxun

@SimonT: yeah thanks for those reference images... im working on stones and foilage now will post soon..


@Snight: gotcha ill try that and post results when i get a chance..

duxun

heres an update.. removed the skylight... started adding more rocks and grass still wip though...

Snader

I think your sand is too randomly assorted in mountains. It might also be a good idea (if possible) to get some sort of second, larger scale map to get rid of the tiling.

What's the place though, the scene? What's it's story?

EMC3D

Go to town on the sand terrain texture. Use the LERP / ADD / PANNER / ROTATOR nodes in the shader network to break the tiling up and get more detail on. Also, your sky doesn't really reflect the lighting, you need some depth of field in there aswell to blur the sky and background out a little.

Can't wait to see more renders!

duxun

working as intended...

1. added DOF
2.changed the terrain texture..
3.placed more rocks in the scene..

still have to change that tall grass i made to something more appealing. working on getting more objects into the scene and populating it....crits are welcome...cheers..

EMC3D

It's coming on nicely now, the DOF is nice but a bit too intense, fade it down a little bit.

Terrains looking better, use the rotator / panner to break up the tiling, there's a whole section on the UDN documentation website on how to make terrain textures not look repeatable, have a look and it'll boost ya scene big time.

duxun

yeah thanks i found some useful info there i will get back with more progress.. need to sleep...

Rock Bottom

just a question and a small request what is that thing out there that looks like a guy ore something with a red helmet on it i have no idea what it is can we get a close up? please

duxun

hey guys, back with more progress..

1. i changed the terrain to look desert like still wip though..
2.was not able to finish up the new foilage im making..
3.added a new rock which is not textured yet....

overall im liking were this is taking me enjoying dong so..

just a question though the house shadows are like floating so is that because of the angle of the dominant directional light?? if it is i cant really rotate it much ... for some reason when i rotate it more than 35 degrees the whole scene turns dark..

@Rock Bottom : can you paint over my image and circle what you are talking about?? i have no idea lol..

here is the progress ... cheers..

roosterMAP

not lovin the bloom the skydome is giving to your terrain.

duxun

update...

1.toned down the DOF and Bloom..
2. learned how to use my meshes in terrain editing mode to add grass/rocks ect...
3. the grass i made sucks and i will change it till i get it right...

other than that everything is still WIP... will post an update in few days...

Cheers...

Oniram

im thinking there may not be that much of abundance of clouds in a desert. and also with the skybox if you are going for a cloudy look, try having some differences in size. as clouds are further away they are bigger just because they seem to cluster on top of one another as they are further away. closer they should be spaced out and smaller.

SouthpawSid

coming along nicely sam. keep at it! quick question for ya: how do you get your grass alphas to appear so far off in the distance? I gave having LOD issues with getting my stuff to render that far out.

duxun

are you using foilage factory or are you using deco layers ?

an aggressive napkin

Maybe you could vary the foliage just a tab it. It all looks repetitive, and to really spark interest, Things need to look as different as possible (with the exception of going overboard obviously) Just get maybe 1 or 2 more different plants in there. Maybe a low brush, that isn't so reedy, because those type of weeds need alot of water to grow, and in a desert it doesn't look natural
Maybe even a cactus if you are feeling adventurous :P

duxun

yeah i was looking at desert reference today and i definitely need more types of grass/weeds.. also im changing the sky texture soon...

cheers...

SouthpawSid

duxun wrote: »

are you using foilage factory or are you using deco layers ?

what are you using?

duxun

@SouthpawSid: im using deco layers... i just plugged in my grass static mesh in the terrain and just started painting away... heres a link to the tutorial i used

http://hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3decolayers.htm deco layers

and

http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/UT3_Foliage_Factory.html foliage factory

both are useful!!

cheers and happy painting!!!

ok back to work !!!!!

SouthpawSid

cheers man thanks!

NiklasT

1. Background environment, you need something to block in the scene. At the moment there is nothing at the horizon and it make the whole scene look out of place.

2. Have a look at the shadow the building is casting, it is very sharp and it is very long aswell, almost as if it's sunset, but your skydome says it's about noon? Maybe add a Dominant Directional Light (or just Directional Light) that is pointed from the spot where the sun is located in the skydome and tweak the brightness to your liking (and of course color, you should have somewhat blue color, very very discreet thou).
You can ofcourse have two Directional Lights (avoid two Dominant lights thou) where one is giving that blue color and the other is giving the yellow sand color. Also make the blue light to not bounce as much as the yellow one.

Hope you understood something xD

duxun

update....

1. change my lighting to reflect the time of day.
2.blocked out the scene/horizon..
3. still need to find a better sky texture..
4. making new assests and texturing that house..

will post again once i develope this scene more.. crits welcome..

cheers..

wi_2

Starting to look very cool!
I think some more focus on the house will do this picture good.
If I didn't know there was one it would have been lost to me I think.

But overall I really like it.. great job so far!

crazyfingers

Really comin' along.

Biggest weakness right now i'd say is the foliage, not the lack of diversity, just the hard edges on it. You might consider switching it to translucent rather than opaque. Other than that some decals would go a long way to break up your terrain, especiallly near the rocks. One of the most crucial elements of an environment is having beleivable transitions from the ground to your assets, just a few decals that show a transition from rockiness to sand duplicated all over the place would do the trick..

SimonT

great progress man! looks a lot better!

duxun

Update...

1.changed the material to translucent on that grass and it looks better..
2. changed post process effects.. not tooo happy with it but it may look better..
3.working on that house...
4.added cactus's...
5. the sky texture is coming...


@crazyfingers: good eye.. i changed the material to translucent and the grass looks better .. working on those decals..

crits welcome..

Cheers...

duxun

sorry that link was broken but i fixed it now...

making changes to that grass density they look like their in a row...

cheers..

SimonT

What the image needs is a foreround i think. Currently there is nothing in front of the camera..

duxun

progress..

still need to texture a few more things im going to put into the buildings and fix the sky texture..

however i need overall crits on my scene..

Cheers..

duxun

will post another update in a day or two..

Froyok

Very, very nice render.
The only thing that I don't like is the ground under the grass. There is no texture/graphic transition under them.


And on this screen :

duxun wrote: »

Update...

1.changed the material to translucent on that grass and it looks better..
2. changed post process effects.. not tooo happy with it but it may look better..
3.working on that house...
4.added cactus's...
5. the sky texture is coming...


@crazyfingers: good eye.. i changed the material to translucent and the grass looks better .. working on those decals..

crits welcome..

Cheers...

We see that your grass is not posed in a natural way, we see lines.
But like the last picture we can not see the same angle, I do not know if you've corrected that.

duxun

@froyok: the ground under the grass i used 2 tileable textures a rocky and a dirt texture... do you still feel its still not a very good transition from the grass and the ground?

your right the grass still looks like its growing in rows... ill fix that...thanks for the crits... i need all the help i can get ...

Froyok

For the grass, maybe try a very little blend from down to the top. Because, here, the transition between grass and ground is too sharp, I do not think it's very natural. Or try to integrate a third texture on the ground and lay by the foot of the grass some touches.

duxun

ok im on it !!

duxun

update..

sorry been busy looking for a job lately and i try to put in as much time as i can..

Crits welcome..

Cheers...

SouthpawSid

Looking so much better mang! Compositionally some sort of foreground in your camera shots would be nice! Right now there is only mid ground and background. Maybe schooch a little closer to get that epic cactus lumbering into the foreground. Also don't be afraid to take multiple shots and show us up close how cool those buildings back there are.

duxun

@SouthpawSid: yeah im having trouble with the foreground .. however i thought i was close enough for the cactus in the foreground but ill get on that np... also the left side on the foreground is were in going to work on more feels empty to me now that you mentioned it.... im going to fix that grass to ground problem lol .... arghh!! oh yeah and im going to add multiple shots once im done with it XD...

further crits welcome!!!

Cheers..

c0ldhands

Reminds me of Borderlands for some reason, maybe its the super blue skyes and the rocks. All I can say is that there is a bit of empty space in front of the camera that isnt covered by much grass now and seems a bit boring...so I think i would move the camera closer, because its also hard to see what the buildings are right now. I would also skip one house probably the one in the middle to give the shot some more composition.

SouthpawSid

cheers man, looking forward to it!

duxun

update.

just need to texture that sign and fix a few things and im calling this one done ..

crits welcome..

Cheers...

duxun

Final Update..

1.added a transitional texture from the ground to the grass...
2.re-did the wood planks for the sign on the right..

im feeling like this is my final beauty shoot... along with another for that house..please feel free to crit my final renders before i post this on my website..

Cheers

SimonT

Nice. But i think that the light shouldn't come from behind. I mean, even if you make make a photo against light - it's really hard to get a good picture! In your picture all the details of the building aren't visible very well. I think at least one side of the building should be lightened.

Maybe this can be a nice color/light inspiration for you (diablo3):

duxun

@SimonT: thanks for the crit and your right...ill change my lighting direction from the right side of the image light the houses and the terrain better ... that diablo reference image is great ill look up more... im also changing that get out paint on the sign there doesn't look right!! and im adding walking trail on the ground from the foreground to the two houses..

Cheers...

roosterMAP

you have some tiling issues on your house model. I'd suggest using vertex blending to break up the texture a bit.

http://www.3dmotive.com/product-udk-mesh-paint

Froyok

("Bottom" not "bottoma" )

Justin Meisse

I haven't had a chance to test in UDK myself but try this:
(if using max) throw an edit normal modifier on the grass, select all the normals and drag them upwards then do this (clipped from UDK news).
"Custom Normals with FBX

* FBX importer now supports custom vertex normals
* This is useful for 'combing' vertex normals on foliage, or when you need smooth lighting continuity between multiple meshes
* To use this, first export normals (and/or tangents) using the FBX exporter in your modeling program
* Next, enable the new 'Explicit Normals' option while importing the FBX file into UE3"


I'm pretty sure you shouldn't collapse the edit normal modifier, I'll do some tests when I finish putting my home computer together.

duxun

@roosterMAP: yeah i re arranged the tileable texture and the tiles now work better..

@Froyok: were exactly did you mean were it feels copy and pasted ?? the boxes at the houses or the background rocks ??? i removed most of those boxes and have re arranged/rotated the rocks in the background a bit so they don't look like copies...

@Justin_Meisse: i blended the color of the ground with the bottom of the grass ... however i wasn't too sure what you wanted me to do...


i will post an update once im done with the other suggestions...

Cheers..

SgtNasty

Hi there,

Looking from the beginning of this thread to now, you have made a ton of progress in the right direction. My 2 cents:

The background rocks have been sort of weak from the beginning. You have made a lot of changes, and they do look better now, but they could still be better. You should be using those background rocks to frame your buildings. They should essentially be either pointing directly at the buildings, or leading the eye towards them. Right now, they are the same shape, colour, and are lit just like the buildings, and so the buildings are blending in. If you squint, the only thing separating the rocks from the buildings is the atmospheric perspective, which seems to go from 0 to 60 right behind the buildings.

The other thing about the rocks is that they are freakin' huge. When I read desert scene, and then saw those mountain-ish rocks, there was a disconnect for me. That is totally subjective, but it was my first reaction.

I agree with SimonT about the lighting.

Good work, can't wait to see it finished.