[WIP - environment] wild, wild west
polycounter lvl 5
hello you guys 
new environment on the go
old west inspired.
for now its just some buildings, still lacking some usage, dirt etc i guess... wanna leave these details to the final stages. as for now, just trying to get a nice feeling of a "city", not some scattered wooden buildings as i see in most west themed works.
crits are more than welcome, mainly at this early stage of works
more updates to come.
new environment on the go
old west inspired.for now its just some buildings, still lacking some usage, dirt etc i guess... wanna leave these details to the final stages. as for now, just trying to get a nice feeling of a "city", not some scattered wooden buildings as i see in most west themed works.
crits are more than welcome, mainly at this early stage of works
more updates to come.
Replies
Also with the building on the right, there is a bit of weirdness going on with the pillars.
I see first that there may be reversed normals on the top piece of wood going through them. Also, most likely whenever the building was constructed, the board that is underneath connecting the pillars wouldn't be sunk into the them, but just nailed right onto the side of them.
Good start, keep going and lastly I would suggest you blockout the rest of the scene first to get a better feel of what you are wanting to go for.
thanks for the reply chris
yes, the rail piece do have inverted normals. mostly my laziness when uv'ing on max. will fix it tomorrow tho.
as regards the board you mentioned, i used this pic as a guide:
the boards go through there though... will make a nailed version of it tomorrow, and post here for comparisons sake.
thought about going for a night theme...western nights feel a LOT more moody than days. "unforgiven" comes to mind, the scene where olgan's body is displayed inside a coffin... indeed im thinking of adding some rain to the scene, with some puddles scattered here and there.
to add:
assets (benches, haystacks - cubes and cylinders, wires with lamps hanging, wagon, wagon wheels, rocks, assorted plants, and background mountains)
post process effects (dof, bloom)
weather effects (rain)
buildings.
thats it for now. every suggestion is welcome
scratch the "wires with lamps hanging" idea. doesnt give a nice illumination, and feels awkward.
there you have the scene as of today.
added: sheriff building, wheat sacks, "thing where you knot your horse at", lamps, alpha planes with sand/plants, tweaked ligthing.
stuff yet to be done:
foliage
rocks
mountain background
rain planes (tried it already but didnt get a satisfactory result yet)
ground variation with horse iron marks
buildings such as bank, bar, hotel.
last but not least, posting a couple tex sheets:
not the best sheets around, but figured since they would be used for modular pieces. any problems were fixed with alpha masks, AO and detail normal maps.
crits welcome, fire at will
http://philipk.net/tutorials/materials/materials.html
Im guessing this is in udk, if so you def should use a terrain actor and build up some dirt around the edges of your mesh where they hit the floor. you want to ground your buildings make it seem like they have been there a while.
also by adding the terrain you can get rid of the sharp horizon by adding some small hills and a few shrubs.
this is gonna be more like arizona or utah ^
this would be a lil more like california
also i feel like your spec for your shingles are way to high. they're wood right?
lastly its in need of some ao, in udk ( content browser - change search to types - select post-process chain - open the UTPostprocces_console)
any changes here will affect every environment you do, so if you do another environment and need to change ao its there)
Other then those its coming along very nicely. Ill subscribe and check your updates. Keep Going!
what kind of lights do you have in here?
kind of long time without an update :S had an accident here at home, was getting ready to sleep, right before i did it, i passed away. hit the wahbasin hard with my face, and went straight away to the hospital, had to stay there 48 hours under observation. luckily i didnt break any bone, and got away with a few scars an hemathomas in my face, around my eyes, in my nose bridge and my forehead.
so, got back to my scene as of yesterday, and started updating it. there you go what i got so far:
new additions:
plants, shrubs, cacti and rocks as fillers: still studying a good distribution of these props around the scene so that it feels alive.
straw/hay packs (thinking of adding haystacks too, similar to those seen in assassins creed)
fireplace in the leftmost building
tweaking in the sheriff building
some "wanted/reward" decals around
tiny lighting tweak.
as for the question on what lights im using, im using a single dominant directional light. mostly like the standard "night" scene in udk, but with a few tweaks in color/intensity.
as for the terrain, im keeping the flat one for now, as im trying to concentrate more in the single assets. when im done with them, ill start a nice terrain actor to make it feel more natural
Your skybox is quite dark and has bright moon which suggests strong contrasted lighting consisiting of dark lue skylight and white-ish directional light.
Right now it looks like the scene belong to cloudy afternoon setting while the skybox belong to the night setting.
Also what could be cool is to extend your ground/terrain cauz seing it's edge is kinda pitty (especially on the 2nd shot there ground is cut right after the houses).
You also need something on the horizon. First thing would distance fog with smoe sort of mountains (to break the straight line of the ground). Sky itself can't have just the same stars and clouds touch the horizon cauz it looks like we are observing the sky like ancients did - standing on the flat disk and seing the sky sphere around us
Oh man, sounds pretty bad! Glad you're feeling better now though.
I'm on board with Matroskin about the lighting and your background scene. I would also see about finding a way to make the re-use of your models a little less obvious. I'm noticing the repetition on the grunge on your window frames. Maybe it's something you could add with decals or additional props?
hey there you guys, me again
updating a bit based on the tips and advices
wont take longer writing here cos im gonna go sleeping now, 3 am already here... good night everyone, and as always cnc's are welcome!
The background adds a lot to credibility, and the contrast in the lighting makes it nicer too.
Though u still got some shadow artefacts.
For example the shadow from the house on the 1st and 2nd shot doesn't really show up while it should have been a long shadow behind the house.
From what I see the problem is that lightmap resolution on your terrain is too low. Plus I think u r using DominantDirectional light which makes those vector type of lightmaps which dont work well in this case. I'd suggest that u replace your sun by just Directional light - it will produce better quality shadows, but don't forget to rise the res
Maybe add a couple more props or some plants/ weeds on the ground to break up the flat surface?
My concern now is that your textures are all getting lost into one big blob of brown. It's hard to differentiate different sections of the buildings. Maybe up the brightness and contrast of the diffuse a bit and play with the spec some more to help it pop.
Keep up the good work man.
had a bit of a struggle today with lighting... indeed didnt model anything, just stood all day here trying to fix the shadow problems, without changing the initial setting so much, as i think it fit the scene well (tried the directional light, but it gave me much lighter shadows, as opposite to the dominant one) .
a whole day later, i came out with these (nevermind the crappy shot position, its just to show how the shadows came out along with the new lights):
as always, cnc's are more than welcome
One crit at the moment... Get more creative with your props. You have one rock and one tree, at the very least you could copy them around. and add a bit of life and variation to the scene. That may also lead to ideas for new pieces.
tweaked the floor texture, adding some horse steps, variation of texture, foliage, etc; tweaked a bit the terrain actor too.
tonight/tomorrow will be modelling a whell, wooden handrails for the saloon, and some other fillers. cnc's are always welcome
edit: there are some shadow artifacts in the sheriff building because i didnt build the lighting, i just screengrabbed it. when i build with lightmass on, it disappears. so no worries
time for updates.
additions:
boxes/crates (who doesnt like them? its like lens flare, gotta love'em xD)
saddles
well
finishing the saloon (handrails, doors, windows, stairs, etc)
foliage
material tweaking
to be added:
more foliage variation (trees and rocks)
other fillers (chairs, bottles, etc)
one or two more buildings
final post process, as this one is just the AO.
cnc's at will
as for the scale, the scene is a bit stretched indeed... but when i think of resident evil 4' well in the village, it wasnt so small! gonna do some look up anyway, and tomorrow will post a fixed scene as regards proportions.
couple things
- the texture you have for the terrain - im guessing its just one - think about mesh painting some other dirt, maybe one with a normal that looks like foot/wagon/horse traffic.
- whats your environment color at? as well ass the scenes highlights/mid tones/and shadows? you can find these in your world properties. i ask cause it seems like most of the objects in shadow are super dark. so for instance your last screen you posted - seems like a hitching post and a couple crates in the foreground. try and lighten them up using this method, if you add a actual light it wont give the same feeling/effect u are going for.
Very good work though its coming together great. Ill keep a look out on your thread. just been busy here finishing up 2 scenes for graduation =D
good work post soon!
Every image you've posted, even the hi res ones, are really blurry. It's super hard to see any details or anything, especially with your fairly high contrast lighting. I don't know if it's the aliasing, or what the problem is, but I've looked at your images a few times and just have such a hard time seeing it.
This image is sort of a perfect example of what I mean. I can't see the foreground objects at all, they are almost completely black. I can't crit the other elements of the scene though either, because most of them are too far from the camera. If you wanted crits on lighting/rendering/atmosphere, this would be a good shot. But from a modelling/texturing standpoint, it's tough.
ive got actually two textures on the floor, indeed one of them has horsesteps on it. maybe it isnt noticeable, gonna try and make the normal a bit more deep so that they get seen. the wagons are a good idea too, gonna give it a shot.
about the scene color, its not a dark one, something along the lines of pink to keep the afternoon feel.
@ sgtnasty - thanks for the inputs
cnc's are so welcome as always
as promised, there you go the other pics.
will improve the shadows further with AO and a good post process chain.
im on my brother's pc as of now, and i came to check the thread. to my surprise, i realized the screens were superdark... while on my notebook they feel just right. dont know wether my pc is really bright, or his is dark. any input would be of help.
if mine is bright, its a calibration issue, will fix it. let me know how it looks on your pcs, so that i can have an idea
update time. pp chain (bloom, enviro color, desat, ect etc), props, fillers, terrain tweaking (still have to do some minor tweaking), brighter mats, and some more stuff i dont remember. thks a bunch you guys for the tips, they really helped a lot. any crits are more than welcome, as always.