[UDK] Outdoor Environment - first scene

Ryper

Hi Everyone

Here is my first UDK scene that I am working on, it is still very much a WiP, and I'm looking for as much crit as possible while developing this, so rip it to shreds if you have too , i'll use the thread as a development log of sorts

So firstly here is a screen to where I am at currently




As you can see its still pretty bare, the idea here was to just have a rough idea for composition and layout. the skydome is currently epic's and I will be changing soon, the same goes for the water which is just a placeholder.

Things to add:

- Foliage/rocks etc
- Clouds
- A ruined temple of sorts on the back terrain
- A better lighting system

After they are in I will see where I go from there. Im currently working on this so ill post updates as I go.

Cheers

Most recent wip

Wombatinahat

Its pretty dark but from what I can see you need to work on the scale of the water as its much too big at the moment. also some sort of transition from grass to the river bank would be an improvement as the gras is currently just going straight into the river. It may be a good idea to offset the setting sun to one side a little too as that is currently all the eye is drawn to which takes away from the actual environment.

Ryper

Thanks for the reply wombat, I know what you mean about the water being too big, i currently just put it there as a quick placeholder to get an idea. and definately agree about the sun. Here is an update of the scene at the moment as i changed it around a bit before I saw your reply.



Im thinking of putting a bridge that connects the two paths and put the water a little bit lower. Ill have a look at moving the sun to either the let and right as well.

viv

with that kind of embiance, I think you need more silhouette element to complete the lisibility of the picture, and maybe work the contrast gradient by the Z distance, like maybe this one : http://fr.flash-screen.com/free-wallpaper/uploads/200606/imgs/1151052474_1024x768_sunset-beach-wallpaper.jpg
Keep it up !

Matroskin

this kind of lighting may look good as a 2d image or photo, but is not very good for presentation as your 3d work. It just won't show any info that ppl could use to judge your modeling and texturing skill. So if u want it to use in a protflio u might wanna think of a bit brighter scenario. Maybe a late afternoon instead of a late sunset. Try to avoid very dark silhouetes that usually appear when u look at the sunset against the sun.

Also maybe try to have your sun somewhere on the side. It takes too much attention by being a huge bright spot in the middle of the image.

Ryper

ok, so I havn't worked on this scene in a couple of months and have just come back to revisit it, there should be some major updates over the next couple of weeks as that is when my final deadline is for.

I've decided to take the scene in a different direction, instead of having some sort of river it will now be a stone path leading to either ruins of some sort, or a cave, I'm maybe looking at changing the lighting completly from this sunset to night time with light coming from the ruins/cave and torches scattered around the place, also having some low ground fog to give it a creepy eary feel.

Not much has changed tonight as I just moved a few things around to get a better feel for it, i also modelled a quick stone.

as always, any crit is very welcome

Stay tuned

tristamus

Love the rocks, man. GJ! Keep going!

Ryper

Not a major update, done some shuffling with thing and thought it would be cool to take some inspiration from this image



So I modelled some cogs for my scene, I'm not sure if I like the large one in the background though

Serp

I dunno about the rocks. Is it meant to be a stone path? Because I don't think you could really walk on that.

Ryper

@tristamus thanks man

@Serp yeah I know what you mean about the rocks, I've changed them a bit so see what you think now.




Just positioned some more things around the scene for the moment, still unsure where I want to put a cave, thinking on having it on the left now rather than at the end of the path. Removed the old lighting as well as it was annoying me

does anyone know of any good tutorials on lighting night scenes in udk as well? I'm still fairly new to udk so most things will help

Ryper

I've started to light the scene (currently only one light +gi though, more will be added tommorow) to get a better idea for the general vibe, I also finished up with a little cave on the left.

Most textures are still all a wip, especially the cogs.

Im also having some issues with my skybox, I created it following the 3D motive tutorial, but it just goes black when there are any lights. When the "unlit" mode is selected in udk it shows fine. I've tried to fix it by looking at the settings on epics skyboxes and altering mine, but it hasnt seemed to help. anyone have any ideas?



as always, crit is always welcome

fearian

Sup Sean! Looking good! For your skybox I can't remember off the top of my head, but uncheck anything to do with shadows in the properties. I went a bit trial and error trying to find the right settings :S

You should put a dominant directional light in there for some ambient light to show off the scene. Get a height fog actor too and mess with the settings to get some clearer depth.

Also, I would put a light source like a lamp or something or other on the right by the trees and cog to balance out the brightness on the left of the screen.

Cya dude!

Ryper

cheers Ian, the dom light i'm about to do right now , and yeah I was thinking about some sort of lamp/torch on the left, im not sure if i should put a few following the path down, ill have a little play after i get these other things sorted i guess

also the skybox issue was just resolved, had to change my material to unlit and put the texture in the emmisive channel too

Ryper

quick update before I go play some more of the gears 3 beta , sorted my skybox lighting, but I'm not happy with it yet and may change the texture. added in a directional light which needs some tweaks. also added in some distance fog

Hayden Zammit

Making the whole scene a lil bit lighter would be good. I also think you could use your gear assets a bit better. the one on the right I can barely see and the one on the left is mostly obscured. In that concept art the gear in the middle drew my attention right away because of its size. In the concept I get the feeling its it was like a big machine that broke down and gets overgrown.

With yours it just seems like you've got a cave and some other expected terrain stuff like trees and rocks, but then you've got some random gears there.

Maybe also thing about doing some mountains behind those trees or something. Just to give a bit of depth.

hope that helped.

Ryper

@hayden thanks for the crit, i've made the cog on the left a bit bigger, I've also changed the position of where the moon is to try and make them show up a bit better. i've added in some torhes down the left and made the scene as a whole brighter,

I'm looking to change the skydome as well because im not happy with it at the moment, and the cogs still need to have there textures finished

graylen

This is nice! Are the rocks on the ground suppose to be a path? there seems to be loads of them... and maybe its just me but it looks like it would be painful to travel on them.

Ryper

@graylen thanks dude, and yeah its meant to be a path, im not sure what to do about it though, there was originally less and it seemed a bit "weird" so I've added more and it still seems a bit strange/uncomfortable to walk on, so atm im just trying to play about with it to see what fits best.

I might acctually take them all out apart from the ones close to the cave to see how it looks

graylen

I would say either take them away or go all the way and make a Roman path something like this wasn't comfortable but is what they had. Right now its just somewhere in between.

Ryper

ive taken away most of the rocks on the path now, i think it looks much better for it.

Ryper

added some rocks to the far background behind the far trees, changed the skybox as I thought it had too many stars previously, and added some bloom to the lights. also changed the mountains in the background slightly so the light bounced off them better

curzed

Good atmosphere and mood this would make an epic playthrough.