I've worked on the meteors a little bit. I'm not completely 100% happy with them yet, I think they're too bright. The smoke is similar to the GDC one, I've adapted it for this environment and used my own textures. I think it's too bright though, I want it to be darker but I'm struggling with the material set up!
I'm definitely not an effects artist; I'm sure you guys could make something much, much better than my meteors, hehe!
Next step is to make a meteor crater mesh for the road to show where meteors have crashed into the ground. Then I want to get some particle effects in the crater to show it smoking. Also, I might make a tree model for this scene to give it a bit of verticality. Still loads more to do!
Looking good, love how this will look when all is said and done.
Being said, your spot on with your assessment of your meteors. I'd darken them and make them look really burnt. Like hard core super oven burnt with lots of damage. Also, if that's a meteor hitting the ground, you'll need to make either FX for it or model a crater. Now, a meteor heading straight at the camera could be something really cool and would get you out of that if your short on time.
Don't space out the meteors so evenly in the image. Most meteors, before they impact, are actually smaller chunks of even larger meteors that break up and fall through the atmosphere in clusters, as such it's more natural to have small clusters of meteors on a similar trajectory than to have such even spacing.
I think this is coming together nicely Pogo.
I don't know the specs you have for this scene or anything BUT, I'd probably model those mountains in the background. Yes it would mean some triangles, but you could be very efficient with it keeping most to where the silhouette is. This would open up for a lot of playing with depth with fog, especially if you model a couple of "layers" or mountains and you could get the whole transition where the sky meets the geometry a lot smoother even with just a very lowres lightmap on those.
I think you could really play around with the silhouette a lot there not requiring a huge texture or anything (even a flat color/gradient would probably look ok, but some details would be preferable I guess. Hard to tell beforehand). Anyway I understand if you wouldn't have time or so for that or if you're saving all tris to the closer details, but IMO it'd be REALLY interesting to see how that'd work out. I'm pretty sure you could achieve a nice result with quite a small effort
Hey, great scene so far. I love the apocalyptic feel it has.
Just a quick note from me - I think the meteor placement isn't there yet. I'd say it need more variation. Meteors don't just fall one by one evenly spaced from each other and they definitely aren't the same size.
Huge meteors would crack into a couple of large meteors and then smaller pieces would fall from them. So there's supposed to be some sort of a composition arranged with them.
And number two, , meteors don't change their direction. The fly through space on a huge speed and even 1 degree turn would get them another star system or something, so I think making them follow the same direction would add to believability. Right now they look more like guided missiles.
I hope you'd find it constructive, since I really like your scene and can't wait to see it turn out great.)
good luck!
I agree that not being able to use terrain is dumb, but regardless I wouldn't sweat it.
Have you ever looked at Epic Citadel, on the iphone? They didn't use the terrain system, and managed fantastic results. I did a technical breakdown of it, here was one of my images.
Just make the path a unique texture that tiles in one direction, with all of the blending "baked in" to the texture. Then make the grass on the sides use a tiling texture that aligns to the sides of the path texture. Simple technique, fantastic results.
I've decided to sort of re-arrange the composition of this scene as Carlos advised. The corn was fairly monotonous on either side, so I'm bringing the farm closer to the camera and have removed half of the corn and pushed the rest further back. I've added more fencing and made a broken fence model, as well as a crater model and particle system.
The lighting has had a little more work too, tried to push the contrast a little more.
This is my vision for the farm on the left of the screen:
The meteors still need some work. I think they're alright as they are, but I want them to have less hard edges. Maybe some bloom might work. Does anybody know how to make the meteors bloom more? They are hooked up to an emissive atm.
I don't think lighting had been re-built in this screenshot, hence the really sharp shadows from the fences.
Next on the agenda is make some more farm assets and do some smaller rock meshes to add to the path! This needs to look more post apocalyptic. Been playing a lot of Fallout which has me inspired!
Edit - Actually, looking at that photo, I've decided I'm going to split that big meteor on the right into smaller rocks. Looks just like a boulder at the moment!
A rock that big falling from the sky is going to leave a really big hole. Also some parts of it would probably still be glowing red hot. I would chuck some fresnel and an emmsive map on that material make those things stand out, and yeah make them smaller. It just seams odd seeing actual meteors laying on the surface like that. Usually you would expect a big hole in the ground.
That's why the explosion in the paint over above makes so much more sense, because it shows the moment of impact, not an awkward cooled rock that barely scratched the surface...
The lighting on the Silo's needs correction. If you take the fence posts for example, they are unlit on the side facing the viewer, as the light is coming from up the road over the mountains. The silos however are lit from both directions, take down the lighting from the viewer's side, don't be afraid to mess about with taking it right down. Keep the highlight on the opposing side to bring out the form though.
I would even consider increasing the highlight on the opposing side of the fence posts to bring them out more, they currently fade into the fields.
You have correctly identified the need to work on the meteors. Yeh they are very hard edged, the smoke trail would also depend on whether it was a rock or ice meteor/comet. The metal content when combusting etc, worth some research I would say, little details like that make all the difference. I put a couple of examples down, if you wanted Hollywood style dramatic effect then check out the oil rig plume with black smoke mixed with fireball, note how they blend seamlessly together, the smoke masks any hard edges as it fades out. The second picture follows a diagonal composition of a fireball which could itself be used as a meteor example. The vertical fireball looks to me what something as intimidating as a meteor should, it looks like a super heated fireball, full of potential energy.
More importantly... LIGHT THE SKY!!! The meteors are intense heat and light, just like a minute firework will, a large scale meteor will illuminate the clouds. This will also blend them further into the scene, you could also have some emerging out of the clouds, at the moment they are hanging around the middle of the sky, below the clouds, above the ground all at the same height more or less.
I am not to keen on the rocks in the mid ground, it take away from the realism of the event, everything in the scene would be dust if that were the case. Maybe you should decide whether you want an impact scene, or the impending disaster emotion, from the looks of it you appear to be aiminf for the tension of the impact rather than the collision itself. Maybe roll with that idea.
I've been keeping an eye on this one and it is coming on in leaps and bounds mate, so keep at it and you will have a class piece at the end.
Ok, brilliant advice guys. I've decided to remove the craters and have the main idea behind the scene the idea of the impact being imminent, rather than happening. So no meteors have crashed yet!
I've really messed with the particles to make them look more interesting. I think it looks more like oil/petrol burning smoke, but I'm happy with it at the moment. Still a bit more work to do on them, they don't look perfect yet.
I'm having a lot of issues with the gradient on the opacity on the meteors. I want the meteor flame model to slowly fade out with a gradient opacity mask, but Unreal is making the fade out very sharp. I've tried masking, soft masking everything; but it won't let me. If anybody knows what I'm doing wrong I'd be more than willing to know how to fix it.
Oh, also, the rim lighting on the Silo was messed up! I had set it to emissive so the diffuse was acting as the emissive map, so it was fully lit. I've changed it now. I've also added the barn.
scene makes way more sense now. It actually doesn't remind me of a meteor shower now but rather the fabled Yellowstone eruption. This almost looks like a pyroclastic flow that's about read to obliterate the entire landscape and those are just falling bits of super heated rock spearheading the entire thing.
Nice thing is you don't have to explain it one way or the other it looks cool. I would suggest using some more blue light and making the entire thing a bit brighter. Remember you can use blue to FAKE darkness you don't have to actually hide your entire scene so no one can see it.
Diver was onto a good point that the meteors should all be bearing the same angle. If you wanted to break up their directions, then simply break up the meteors, smaller pieces coming off will create a diversity in their sizes, I would also consider making a couple alot bigger, like armageddon size, worth messin about with, make several examples and see what may be effective.
That is a massive step in the right direction with the smoke and flames, im no UDK man but if you can create the meteor similar to the sunset that would be ace i.e. a brilliant yellow/white centre gradient to a lighter/gradually dark(but not alot) orange. You can already see they are like lightsaber luminescent right now, it is also to round at the tip, maybe some more particles coming off the area around the tip of the meteor could break the form up a little.
Bottom left you have some mad floor inception style coming off the ground.
The lighting on the silos is a massive improvement. However, bring some of those shadows back into the scene which go down the road. Maybe bring out the glare of the sun behind the mountain, at the moment the light looks like it is coming behind the mountain, just below, but then the god rays are coming down through the clouds. I may be wrong on that, but there seems something funny about the postion of the rays.
Made a quick paint over, more shadows and lighting, done badly but you get the gist....
As you can see messing about with shadows really sets the feel of the impending doom, you can imagine them creeping along the ground before impact. I should have corrected it, but all the meteors should go the same direction, once you notice that they should then it is one of those things which can't be unseen and detracts from the main theme of the image.
I also added fragments breaking off, this gives it a sense of the speed it is moving at, such unstable velocities snapping shards off. It may be worth keeping it to 3 meteors and experimenting with placements and varying sizes/depths. They are to uniform in size so far. A couple in the distance and maybe one up close would be better.
Increase the lighting values on the silos, they will reflect alot of light, falloff from the barn (more so with anything near a meteor).
The fence will really be brought out with some highlights, I don't know the capabilities of UDK but if you can do something like create a light and exclude it from illuminating everything else except the fence then maybe you can receive those highlights.
If you want to be really anal, get some highlights on the corn, leaves will take on some of that glow.
The clouds have been given a dull orange glow, think war scene in one of the WW's with artillery fire in the evening distance bouncing off the clouds. The ground will also receive a small amount of light, though be wary that this may look like extra sunlight illumination.
Lastly, I added a bit of bright bloom around the sunset to really bring it out... oh and added a shadow behind the silo on the back and on the ground. Keep it up mate
Thanks Bon, great paintover. Still got to tweak the rim lighting on the silos to reflect the brightness of the meteors.
I've now made the meteor completely from particle effects; no more dodgy alpha masks! Mainly been working on the meteors, done some minor tweaks here and there in other parts. I'm going to hold off for a while on updates, want to post a huge update with loads of assets in a week's time or so.
The particle system has been a huge timesink, I need to move on to other aspects now before I have no time left! Got 3 weeks left til hand in!
My next step is to add some more props to make it look more lived in, and I still need to texture the corn and the barn!
Would just like to thank everyone for the great feedback, it has improved my work and understanding tenfold. I've taken on board as much advice and as many tips as possible.
Oh, also, for some reason my particle system is creating some crazy light shaft effects. That's why the flame on the meteor furthest to the right looks really big; it's just a huge lightshaft!
PogoP, not sure if this has been recommended yet, but can you get some light from the flaming meteors to cast upwards on the cloud later? Only on the ones that are still up higher in the atmosphere, of course.
I think that would help sell the giant flaming meteor, although I'm not sure if that's realistic, it's not exactly a realistic scene.
Damn that's what I am talking about with the meteor's, they really catch the eye now with the range of colours/levels. Aye, you notice the need for highlights, that will really make the picture pop out. Silo's will receive them heavily, the fence will to some degree, as would the barn.
Always good to see someone progress, np for the help, I hope you post more regularly than in a weeks time though!
Couple of usual nagging things I would like to see still ...
Get some shadows from the fence on the road, the road is bland and will act as a great canvas for the shadows. Play with the light/dark! Shadow from the silo as a result of the meteor to, that being a long one on the ground and a darker behind. Mess with the levels of the picture!
Make the foreground meteor bigger, maybe X2 or X1 1/2, the mid ground meteor is the same size more or less, you need to convey the distance less subtly. Maybe even lower the foreground meteor to make its' trajectory to be slightly behind the silo?
The flowers are a nice touch, have a bash at making them more random, they appear to come in pairs, and similar sizes.
I have also noticed your work on the clouds, that was a good call and creates a better range of colours in an otherwise before bland area. Change the barn from blue though, not sure if it is adding to the pallete.
You are pretty much there, simply a case of lighting now, this scene relies on it heavily and will utilise it well if done correctly. There is the potential for a good use of chiaroscuro, make use of this oppourtunity.
Not really sure how to go about getting really crisp lighting on the ground. I'm currently using a huge static mesh for the terrain, with a lightmap value of 4. Any idea how to make it crisper? Cheers guys!
Ah, handy. I did know about lightmap resolution but didn't realise about auto UV generation and assigning lightmap res in the Static Mesh window. To make the terrain have sharper lighting on the ground, I had to up the lightmap resolution to 4096 because it's such a huge mesh. As a result, lightmap baking takes about 25 minutes! It's like I'm using Source all over again ;D
Going to work on the barn this week, I've got a basic wood texture down on it at the moment, with a vertex colour paint peeling effect. Still needs a lot of tweaking though. Will post shots up when I'm back from a film shoot this weekend.
Not to toot my own horn but my paintover had some explicit ideas that more than anything were trying to help you focus people's attention in a good way. Maybe it's just me but I really just want to see a meteor crashing into the ground and wrecking shit up. You've got the motion and anticipation going, but I still don't feel like there is a really good focus.
You have a focus, it's just not a good enough one. It's one thing to focus someone's eye to something on purpose (the meteors), but you should be trying to focus them on something badass, impressive, or heavily anticipatory. You should be trying to elicit some emotional response (that "oh shit" moment, for example).
A meteor that has just hit the ground and is sending shit flying all over could achieve this. A meteor inches away from the silo, with the silo lit from it's glow and very obviously about to be blasted to bits could also help with this. Both would be even better, because the eye would go from one to another, and every time the player's focus shifted they'd be finding some other new, interesting thing to look at.
My paintover had other interesting, subtler details as well. The dropped walkie-talkie, the footsteps. These could be anything really, but they were hinting at a story and giving the viewer yet another point to focus on that gave the composition interest.
I'm not saying you should follow my ideas to the T, not at all. But I do hope you take a moment and think about where you are leading the viewer's eye, and why. Even if they don't realize or understand why, this will leave your viewers 'feeling' that your piece was much more impressive to them, guaranteed.
I won't be following your ideas at all Carlos, thank you very much.
Just kidding, you've got some good ideas in there man. Really appreciate your comments. I will definitely look at sorting composition out a bit more, I agree with what you're saying.
I still have a lot of props left to make to make it look more 'lived in', I'm just blocking in the big details at the minute.
cman2k does have a point, however without trying to disagree with cman, I would modify his idea slightly. A meteor crashing into the ground is a predictable outcome, you could however blend the crashing and the anticipation to get the best of both worlds, make the foreground meteor crash through the silo from behind aiming for the point in front of the camera.
Cman did a great paintover, particularly with the explosion, maybe he could provide another paintover of this. The silo breaking into pieces shattering over the farm setting it alight, shrapnel coming towards the camera, grain spilling into the air. sounds like a laugh to do, specially with particles. Never feel pressured to perform ideas given to you, always trust your own opinion and do what you think is best, you have done really well so far, keep it coming.
I would put a truck cab kind of thing, I guess in the uk we would call it a pickup in the foreground, maybe on the right hand side with the door open like someone has abandoned it quickly to get into the farm for something, the fuel has run out, then you could couple that idea with cmans, foot prints going off X direction. All about telling a tale with a picture.
Ok, not had a great deal of time to work on this but I've worked on it a little, mainly just tweaking, adding more props and textures etc. I still need to 'tell a story' more, which I'm hoping to achieve when I've modelled some more props.
I think I'm going to have a stab at modelling some sort of tractor. It'll be my first real attempt at high poly modeling though so it'll probably look cack!
Just thought I'd show another little update of what I've been working on. I've tweaked the barn textures as they were a little noisy, and made the barn a little more visually interesting. The lighting isn't built for some reason in this screenshot.
I've also been working on my first real high poly, subdivision modelling piece. I've dabbled with Subd, but I've never attempted a complicated model such as this one before. It's coming along; still got a lot to do though. Hand-in in 10 days, eeek!
Barn texture looks much better. I think your comet things need something, I know you probably arnt concentrating on them, but maybe add some sort of motion blur.
Hi Pogo, been a few days away myself, though I am glad to see your still working hard on this.
I'll start by telling you what I am keen on and what I would modify.
This picture has alot of elements I like....
The atmospheric lighting is looking great, your so close to perfecting it. The lighting of the sky and fireballs are just about right, the composition needs alot of work, your latest post's composition is an improvement. The barn looks better with the white wood work, one of the windows closet to the camera looks like it is floating (the one next tot he tyres). The woodpanels look a little funny, like the normal map is to strong or something? May be a good idea to open the barn doors as it looks quite flat. Not sure the light over the barn door should be shining up, but I have no idea what barn lights should do, it just may look better with downward lighting.
The flare behind the silo covering over the edge really brings the piece out combined with the bleeding of the light like a halo around it. Nice stuff. Im leaning towards the barn view more than the road, to much negative space with the road. Though it just needs a good composition with with the meteors. Doesn't look correct. It looks like it is exploding rather than a fireball from the sky. Everything to the right of the above picture looks fantastic with the landscape, keep that how it is. Motion blur would be a good idea to implement, as long as it is subtle and can be used on the smoke trail to blend it a little. Keep it up as always.
Nice!, your cruising right along on this. I agree the lighting needs a bit more work. You need to pay close attention to your value ramp. If you want/need a more detailed explanation just ask, I'll be watching this.
Very good progress though I am very fond of this project.
I like the composition that has the barn in the shot. I am sure you have been working on more props... maybe some electric lines with the posts... you need some back lighting on some of your silhouettes to make them stand out and not read just like a black area. Like your fence. It's getting to the pretty epic point tho. Good job!
This looks great compared to the last screen I saw. Loving the FX on the meteors. They aren't perfect but I don't know enough about UDK's FX to know what to tell you to tweak.
I agree with glottis8. The composition with the barn on the left is by far better than your other shot. Bon has a lot of great suggestions too. I like the idea of having the barn light shine down, just add a cone to the light to make it logical. Your darks are super dark here, I would suggest using a light or brighting the texture on the fence so it stands out a little more. UDK does have the ability to light link kind of like Maya if you use it. I'm sure Max has something similar, I just don't know what it's called. Looking forward to your tractor being added in the scene!
Looking back at the last screenshot I posted, that lighting is seriously messed up. I must have adjusted something in the editor and lost the baked lighting, arrgh!
Been working on the tractor some more, but I've been stricken down with a terrible illness (the common cold) and I'm really struggling to stay conscious!
Here's another WIP of the tractor though. I'm purposely going to miss some details out so I can get this in-game by this weekend, fingers crossed. Really enjoying subdivision modelling, it's really fun.
I'm gonna go have a lie down in a dark room right now.
Keep this up your doing good work. Don't get sidetracked at this point with too many props. You might want to consider photoshopping a few of the props into the scene and seeing how they look and how much they add to it before committing to making them.
Regardless I'm sure the tractor will be a nice edition.
Go get em tiger.
EDIT:
OH, and you might want to consider putting some more time and love into that fireball. Have a look at this reference. The white bit is so hot that its flaring and there are also some other colors mixed in there. You could probably spend quite a bit of time with the fire. Its a big part of the scene and says a lot.
Another thing you might want to consider is changing up the size of the two metors a bit. The odds of them being the exact same size seams slim to me, and also why are there two of them? Is it one that broke in half? If that's the case then there would be smaller bits falling as well.
Also you the one in the distance would be much bigger than the one in the foreground but having them the so close to the same size on screen sort of destroys the sense of the depth.
Wooowwww! That environmental lighting is so rocking it!!
Tractor looks really fine, except I'm dubious about the amount of polys used to get that screen right. Why don't you just use a bump map for that? Even a good diffuse would cut down all those unnecessary lines.
Add a very weak skylight, those pure blacks are a touch too dark. I'm not saying to make it a birght scene, but just a slightest touch of light would help make the scene more believable, it's just too dark right now.
House is over saturated, too red. I like the contrast of color but like the dark it's just too much.
The black rings around the silos are also very distracting, you could lighten them a bit so their form isn't borken up so abruptly.
Overall i really like this scene especially that super cool horizon line . Keep it up!
The image has great atmosphere, it needs some smaller fireballs in the background to help make the whole thing not look so staged.
The biggest problem with the image is the Barn. Its the secondary focal point and the image reads like a line straight across. The barn needs to look as badass as the fireballs. Right now It looks pretty fugly. Its normal map makes no sense and doesn't read as wood at all. It needs a real wood texture that reads as paint, not the wierd vertex paint thing your doing now.
absolutely loving the atmosphere lighting that you have going so far, and a nice improvement on the composition of the scene in comparison to what you had before. Keep it up!
When I'm next in UDK, I will change some things around based on your comments guys, thanks!
Been working on the Tractor over the past couple of days, the baking process is now complete. Cleaned up the normals/AO, and I just need to texture it now. This is more first proper bake from subdivision, so there might be some issues. I was surprisingly inexperienced at complex modelling like this!
As someone else said, the black lines on the silo is VERY distracting, why dont go for something more subtle like this:
The normals on the barn looks very strong to, wobbly, try to tone it down... Nice scene though!
I think you guys are looking at a screenshot someone else re-posted. The one before it has normals on the wood turned down, though the lighting is unbuilt.
Replies
I'm definitely not an effects artist; I'm sure you guys could make something much, much better than my meteors, hehe!
Next step is to make a meteor crater mesh for the road to show where meteors have crashed into the ground. Then I want to get some particle effects in the crater to show it smoking. Also, I might make a tree model for this scene to give it a bit of verticality. Still loads more to do!
Being said, your spot on with your assessment of your meteors. I'd darken them and make them look really burnt. Like hard core super oven burnt with lots of damage. Also, if that's a meteor hitting the ground, you'll need to make either FX for it or model a crater. Now, a meteor heading straight at the camera could be something really cool and would get you out of that if your short on time.
I don't know the specs you have for this scene or anything BUT, I'd probably model those mountains in the background. Yes it would mean some triangles, but you could be very efficient with it keeping most to where the silhouette is. This would open up for a lot of playing with depth with fog, especially if you model a couple of "layers" or mountains and you could get the whole transition where the sky meets the geometry a lot smoother even with just a very lowres lightmap on those.
I think you could really play around with the silhouette a lot there not requiring a huge texture or anything (even a flat color/gradient would probably look ok, but some details would be preferable I guess. Hard to tell beforehand). Anyway I understand if you wouldn't have time or so for that or if you're saving all tris to the closer details, but IMO it'd be REALLY interesting to see how that'd work out. I'm pretty sure you could achieve a nice result with quite a small effort
Just a quick note from me - I think the meteor placement isn't there yet. I'd say it need more variation. Meteors don't just fall one by one evenly spaced from each other and they definitely aren't the same size.
Huge meteors would crack into a couple of large meteors and then smaller pieces would fall from them. So there's supposed to be some sort of a composition arranged with them.
And number two, , meteors don't change their direction. The fly through space on a huge speed and even 1 degree turn would get them another star system or something, so I think making them follow the same direction would add to believability. Right now they look more like guided missiles.
I hope you'd find it constructive, since I really like your scene and can't wait to see it turn out great.)
good luck!
Have you ever looked at Epic Citadel, on the iphone? They didn't use the terrain system, and managed fantastic results. I did a technical breakdown of it, here was one of my images.
Just make the path a unique texture that tiles in one direction, with all of the blending "baked in" to the texture. Then make the grass on the sides use a tiling texture that aligns to the sides of the path texture. Simple technique, fantastic results.
Just think of it like Thirding. For the ground.
Yes, this, definitely.
I was gonna comment on the fact that the meteors looked too small and too uniform...but cman2k's paintover hits the nail on the head.
The lighting has had a little more work too, tried to push the contrast a little more.
This is my vision for the farm on the left of the screen:
The meteors still need some work. I think they're alright as they are, but I want them to have less hard edges. Maybe some bloom might work. Does anybody know how to make the meteors bloom more? They are hooked up to an emissive atm.
I don't think lighting had been re-built in this screenshot, hence the really sharp shadows from the fences.
Next on the agenda is make some more farm assets and do some smaller rock meshes to add to the path! This needs to look more post apocalyptic. Been playing a lot of Fallout which has me inspired!
Edit - Actually, looking at that photo, I've decided I'm going to split that big meteor on the right into smaller rocks. Looks just like a boulder at the moment!
That's why the explosion in the paint over above makes so much more sense, because it shows the moment of impact, not an awkward cooled rock that barely scratched the surface...
I would even consider increasing the highlight on the opposing side of the fence posts to bring them out more, they currently fade into the fields.
You have correctly identified the need to work on the meteors. Yeh they are very hard edged, the smoke trail would also depend on whether it was a rock or ice meteor/comet. The metal content when combusting etc, worth some research I would say, little details like that make all the difference. I put a couple of examples down, if you wanted Hollywood style dramatic effect then check out the oil rig plume with black smoke mixed with fireball, note how they blend seamlessly together, the smoke masks any hard edges as it fades out. The second picture follows a diagonal composition of a fireball which could itself be used as a meteor example. The vertical fireball looks to me what something as intimidating as a meteor should, it looks like a super heated fireball, full of potential energy.
More importantly... LIGHT THE SKY!!! The meteors are intense heat and light, just like a minute firework will, a large scale meteor will illuminate the clouds. This will also blend them further into the scene, you could also have some emerging out of the clouds, at the moment they are hanging around the middle of the sky, below the clouds, above the ground all at the same height more or less.
I am not to keen on the rocks in the mid ground, it take away from the realism of the event, everything in the scene would be dust if that were the case. Maybe you should decide whether you want an impact scene, or the impending disaster emotion, from the looks of it you appear to be aiminf for the tension of the impact rather than the collision itself. Maybe roll with that idea.
I've been keeping an eye on this one and it is coming on in leaps and bounds mate, so keep at it and you will have a class piece at the end.
I've really messed with the particles to make them look more interesting. I think it looks more like oil/petrol burning smoke, but I'm happy with it at the moment. Still a bit more work to do on them, they don't look perfect yet.
I'm having a lot of issues with the gradient on the opacity on the meteors. I want the meteor flame model to slowly fade out with a gradient opacity mask, but Unreal is making the fade out very sharp. I've tried masking, soft masking everything; but it won't let me. If anybody knows what I'm doing wrong I'd be more than willing to know how to fix it.
Oh, also, the rim lighting on the Silo was messed up! I had set it to emissive so the diffuse was acting as the emissive map, so it was fully lit. I've changed it now. I've also added the barn.
Nice thing is you don't have to explain it one way or the other it looks cool. I would suggest using some more blue light and making the entire thing a bit brighter. Remember you can use blue to FAKE darkness you don't have to actually hide your entire scene so no one can see it.
That is a massive step in the right direction with the smoke and flames, im no UDK man but if you can create the meteor similar to the sunset that would be ace i.e. a brilliant yellow/white centre gradient to a lighter/gradually dark(but not alot) orange. You can already see they are like lightsaber luminescent right now, it is also to round at the tip, maybe some more particles coming off the area around the tip of the meteor could break the form up a little.
Bottom left you have some mad floor inception style coming off the ground.
The lighting on the silos is a massive improvement. However, bring some of those shadows back into the scene which go down the road. Maybe bring out the glare of the sun behind the mountain, at the moment the light looks like it is coming behind the mountain, just below, but then the god rays are coming down through the clouds. I may be wrong on that, but there seems something funny about the postion of the rays.
As you can see messing about with shadows really sets the feel of the impending doom, you can imagine them creeping along the ground before impact. I should have corrected it, but all the meteors should go the same direction, once you notice that they should then it is one of those things which can't be unseen and detracts from the main theme of the image.
I also added fragments breaking off, this gives it a sense of the speed it is moving at, such unstable velocities snapping shards off. It may be worth keeping it to 3 meteors and experimenting with placements and varying sizes/depths. They are to uniform in size so far. A couple in the distance and maybe one up close would be better.
Increase the lighting values on the silos, they will reflect alot of light, falloff from the barn (more so with anything near a meteor).
The fence will really be brought out with some highlights, I don't know the capabilities of UDK but if you can do something like create a light and exclude it from illuminating everything else except the fence then maybe you can receive those highlights.
If you want to be really anal, get some highlights on the corn, leaves will take on some of that glow.
The clouds have been given a dull orange glow, think war scene in one of the WW's with artillery fire in the evening distance bouncing off the clouds. The ground will also receive a small amount of light, though be wary that this may look like extra sunlight illumination.
Lastly, I added a bit of bright bloom around the sunset to really bring it out... oh and added a shadow behind the silo on the back and on the ground. Keep it up mate
I've now made the meteor completely from particle effects; no more dodgy alpha masks! Mainly been working on the meteors, done some minor tweaks here and there in other parts. I'm going to hold off for a while on updates, want to post a huge update with loads of assets in a week's time or so.
The particle system has been a huge timesink, I need to move on to other aspects now before I have no time left! Got 3 weeks left til hand in!
My next step is to add some more props to make it look more lived in, and I still need to texture the corn and the barn!
Would just like to thank everyone for the great feedback, it has improved my work and understanding tenfold. I've taken on board as much advice and as many tips as possible.
Oh, also, for some reason my particle system is creating some crazy light shaft effects. That's why the flame on the meteor furthest to the right looks really big; it's just a huge lightshaft!
I think that would help sell the giant flaming meteor, although I'm not sure if that's realistic, it's not exactly a realistic scene.
Always good to see someone progress, np for the help, I hope you post more regularly than in a weeks time though!
Couple of usual nagging things I would like to see still
Get some shadows from the fence on the road, the road is bland and will act as a great canvas for the shadows. Play with the light/dark! Shadow from the silo as a result of the meteor to, that being a long one on the ground and a darker behind. Mess with the levels of the picture!
Make the foreground meteor bigger, maybe X2 or X1 1/2, the mid ground meteor is the same size more or less, you need to convey the distance less subtly. Maybe even lower the foreground meteor to make its' trajectory to be slightly behind the silo?
The flowers are a nice touch, have a bash at making them more random, they appear to come in pairs, and similar sizes.
I have also noticed your work on the clouds, that was a good call and creates a better range of colours in an otherwise before bland area. Change the barn from blue though, not sure if it is adding to the pallete.
You are pretty much there, simply a case of lighting now, this scene relies on it heavily and will utilise it well if done correctly. There is the potential for a good use of chiaroscuro, make use of this oppourtunity.
http://jarlanperez.com/blog/udk-light-mapping-tutorial
Going to work on the barn this week, I've got a basic wood texture down on it at the moment, with a vertex colour paint peeling effect. Still needs a lot of tweaking though. Will post shots up when I'm back from a film shoot this weekend.
You have a focus, it's just not a good enough one. It's one thing to focus someone's eye to something on purpose (the meteors), but you should be trying to focus them on something badass, impressive, or heavily anticipatory. You should be trying to elicit some emotional response (that "oh shit" moment, for example).
A meteor that has just hit the ground and is sending shit flying all over could achieve this. A meteor inches away from the silo, with the silo lit from it's glow and very obviously about to be blasted to bits could also help with this. Both would be even better, because the eye would go from one to another, and every time the player's focus shifted they'd be finding some other new, interesting thing to look at.
My paintover had other interesting, subtler details as well. The dropped walkie-talkie, the footsteps. These could be anything really, but they were hinting at a story and giving the viewer yet another point to focus on that gave the composition interest.
I'm not saying you should follow my ideas to the T, not at all. But I do hope you take a moment and think about where you are leading the viewer's eye, and why. Even if they don't realize or understand why, this will leave your viewers 'feeling' that your piece was much more impressive to them, guaranteed.
tldr; L2Composition Noob.
Just kidding, you've got some good ideas in there man. Really appreciate your comments. I will definitely look at sorting composition out a bit more, I agree with what you're saying.
I still have a lot of props left to make to make it look more 'lived in', I'm just blocking in the big details at the minute.
Cman did a great paintover, particularly with the explosion, maybe he could provide another paintover of this. The silo breaking into pieces shattering over the farm setting it alight, shrapnel coming towards the camera, grain spilling into the air. sounds like a laugh to do, specially with particles. Never feel pressured to perform ideas given to you, always trust your own opinion and do what you think is best, you have done really well so far, keep it coming.
I would put a truck cab kind of thing, I guess in the uk we would call it a pickup in the foreground, maybe on the right hand side with the door open like someone has abandoned it quickly to get into the farm for something, the fuel has run out, then you could couple that idea with cmans, foot prints going off X direction. All about telling a tale with a picture.
I think I'm going to have a stab at modelling some sort of tractor. It'll be my first real attempt at high poly modeling though so it'll probably look cack!
I've also been working on my first real high poly, subdivision modelling piece. I've dabbled with Subd, but I've never attempted a complicated model such as this one before. It's coming along; still got a lot to do though. Hand-in in 10 days, eeek!
It's sorta based on this mini-tractor.
I'll start by telling you what I am keen on and what I would modify.
This picture has alot of elements I like....
The atmospheric lighting is looking great, your so close to perfecting it. The lighting of the sky and fireballs are just about right, the composition needs alot of work, your latest post's composition is an improvement. The barn looks better with the white wood work, one of the windows closet to the camera looks like it is floating (the one next tot he tyres). The woodpanels look a little funny, like the normal map is to strong or something? May be a good idea to open the barn doors as it looks quite flat. Not sure the light over the barn door should be shining up, but I have no idea what barn lights should do, it just may look better with downward lighting.
The flare behind the silo covering over the edge really brings the piece out combined with the bleeding of the light like a halo around it. Nice stuff. Im leaning towards the barn view more than the road, to much negative space with the road. Though it just needs a good composition with with the meteors. Doesn't look correct. It looks like it is exploding rather than a fireball from the sky. Everything to the right of the above picture looks fantastic with the landscape, keep that how it is. Motion blur would be a good idea to implement, as long as it is subtle and can be used on the smoke trail to blend it a little. Keep it up as always.
Very good progress though I am very fond of this project.
I agree with glottis8. The composition with the barn on the left is by far better than your other shot. Bon has a lot of great suggestions too. I like the idea of having the barn light shine down, just add a cone to the light to make it logical. Your darks are super dark here, I would suggest using a light or brighting the texture on the fence so it stands out a little more. UDK does have the ability to light link kind of like Maya if you use it. I'm sure Max has something similar, I just don't know what it's called. Looking forward to your tractor being added in the scene!
Looking back at the last screenshot I posted, that lighting is seriously messed up. I must have adjusted something in the editor and lost the baked lighting, arrgh!
Been working on the tractor some more, but I've been stricken down with a terrible illness (the common cold) and I'm really struggling to stay conscious!
Here's another WIP of the tractor though. I'm purposely going to miss some details out so I can get this in-game by this weekend, fingers crossed. Really enjoying subdivision modelling, it's really fun.
I'm gonna go have a lie down in a dark room right now.
Edit - Photoshop fail! Hopefully fixed now.
Regardless I'm sure the tractor will be a nice edition.
Go get em tiger.
EDIT:
OH, and you might want to consider putting some more time and love into that fireball. Have a look at this reference. The white bit is so hot that its flaring and there are also some other colors mixed in there. You could probably spend quite a bit of time with the fire. Its a big part of the scene and says a lot.
Another thing you might want to consider is changing up the size of the two metors a bit. The odds of them being the exact same size seams slim to me, and also why are there two of them? Is it one that broke in half? If that's the case then there would be smaller bits falling as well.
Also you the one in the distance would be much bigger than the one in the foreground but having them the so close to the same size on screen sort of destroys the sense of the depth.
Tractor looks really fine, except I'm dubious about the amount of polys used to get that screen right. Why don't you just use a bump map for that? Even a good diffuse would cut down all those unnecessary lines.
Add a very weak skylight, those pure blacks are a touch too dark. I'm not saying to make it a birght scene, but just a slightest touch of light would help make the scene more believable, it's just too dark right now.
House is over saturated, too red. I like the contrast of color but like the dark it's just too much.
The black rings around the silos are also very distracting, you could lighten them a bit so their form isn't borken up so abruptly.
Overall i really like this scene especially that super cool horizon line
The biggest problem with the image is the Barn. Its the secondary focal point and the image reads like a line straight across. The barn needs to look as badass as the fireballs. Right now It looks pretty fugly. Its normal map makes no sense and doesn't read as wood at all. It needs a real wood texture that reads as paint, not the wierd vertex paint thing your doing now.
Been working on the Tractor over the past couple of days, the baking process is now complete. Cleaned up the normals/AO, and I just need to texture it now. This is more first proper bake from subdivision, so there might be some issues. I was surprisingly inexperienced at complex modelling like this!
The normals on the barn looks very strong to, wobbly, try to tone it down... Nice scene though!
quite enjoyable to watch it develop
Blocked in a few basic colours earlier tonight, forgot to post this shot up: