SCIFI Hallway Full UDK Environment!

jk_virginia

Hey Everyone,

This is an environment I have been working on for about 4 weeks now
and I finally decided to submit it to get some feedback from all of you.
sorry if its too far along but any feedback helps this scene can always be
improved!

Thanks for your time.

Korrax

Hey man, this looks awesome I think. I would say that the spec seems really dull, it needs more contrast or better material to make the metal look better. Also I think the lighting should be more dramatic.

Other than that, the models look very nice.. great work dude.

BradleyWascher

I really am digging this piece. Texture work is really working well for me with large, medium and small shapes. An I like the mood of your lighting overall but Im not liking the blue neon lights everywhere, something is just off putting about it, its almost to saturated but right now isn't affecting the environment lighting at all which i think might be part of the issue.

As with every environment the devil is in the detail, some more medium and small sized props in the scene will really make this space come to life. But once again nice start and I hope to see more.

jk_virginia

does the spec look dull in the individual prop sheets or the udk final render. or both haha? and what neon lights do you think i should get rid of I will also try desaturating them to see if that helps because they hogging all the color. I cant wait to have this scene full of props for the final render. more posts definately coming soon

IanTSR

Hey Jake.

I like the details in the textures -- they work very well with the brightly lit scene.

However, your scene is losing some points with all the monocrhomatic glowy bits.

The scene is lit very white/yellow -- yet all the visible light sources are extremely vibrant turquoise



Unless you plan on changing the lighting in the scene -- kill the big glowy lights, and make them white or slightly yellow.


If the bright yellowish light at the end of the hallway is coming from off-screen, which would be cool, you should try and sell it with shadows. Currently it looks to just be hovering above the door to the right a bit.

You have some cool shadows from the pillar next to the boxes in the background/center... but I'd expect those shadows to be sharper with such a bright light.



Pump up your normals on the ground texture, it looks extremely flat, even adding in some geo to that center strip would help a lot.


Currently the shadows across the board seem very soft, sharper ones will add some cool constrasting details, especially in the ceiling pipes!




Your specs all seem flat, adding some higher contrast and interesting edge highlights will help sell the shapes you have and accent the normals you baked down. Avoid making rivets look shinier than the panels they are attached to.



Also, possibility of a reflection mask? I think it would very much so help sell the metallic nature of everything. It doesn't have to be strong, but it will also help break up some of the repitition.


Having a few edges of specular that are almost pure white will help things look very metallic, that way you don't have to pump your lights up so bright to compensate, which reduces your color range, making things look flat and bland.




Considered doing a nice tight AO on the scene? UDK's AO is pretty good, and with enough geometry detail could help make the shapes pop, especially the floor with some added geometry details, even if it's just following the normals you have, making metal plates pop up up a tiny bit.

-- Though a flat floor is more realistic, and reasonable, the scene has to look cool across the board, your walls are suffering a bit from the same issue, while the ceiling and door in the back look great.


Let's also see a closer-up shot of the door, it looks like you put a lot of work into it, but it's tiny on your beauty shot. Think of 3 or 4 slightly different angles -- doing this will also allow your normals/spec/reflections to show more! A single shot doesn't allow for a lot of the real interesting materials to show.


I also almost expect some kind of fog, or smoke/dust particles to be present. This place looks well used, old even. With the wires popping out of the wall, a bit more of that kind of story-oriented detail will certainly make the scene more convincing, especially if you do multiple beauty shots that showcase those details in your modular set.






All in all, I really do like the color pallette, composition, and the scale. The scene reads well and makes sense, it just needs some relatively easy/fast tweaks to get it to pop and encourage the "wow!" factor.

Lonewolf

also try different light setup

this is too exposed

but really cool work

jk_virginia

thanks Ian for all the feedback This will help me a lot in the next few weeks to figure out the next steps to making this scene have that "wow" factor I plan to have a paint-over of the fixes I plan to make by tonight. It seems like lighting and spec are the main issues I also plan on fixing the floor.

I think I will also get some other views of the door because that is supposed to stand out.



so this is a paintover I just did i changed the lighting to a more turquoise lighting and added some more interesting factors to the scene. Is this the wow factor? By adding the steam in the corner and adding some more smaller shapes to break up the flat areas should fix it?

Alberto Rdrgz

repeating what has been said:

Lighting needs work, The work itself.... TITS!

IanTSR

Perhaps something like this?








Oh... and I must add... smaller rivets! They're far too large.

WetWired

I always lean towards dark and moody myself, so it would come down more to opinion. But I'd light it a lot darker in the foreground myself that would draw your eye inwards towards your warmer light in the background. I'd also make all those little blue lights have an emmisive material on them so they subtlety illuminate the surfaces around them and pick up the normals on your bolts and screws etc.

The blue in those lights too for me is too much, I'd have a white spot in the center of them bleeding out to that blue.

Looking great though

dannedadon

+1 to IanTSRs paintover. Really added depth to the scene i think

jk_virginia

Wetwired- im thinking that if I use emmisive as light in my scene it will overlight my scene? but it is worth a try

cool I like what you did with the contrast i think that is what my scene was lacking and changing the bigger lights from blue to yellow should work just fine I will definately give it a try i like how it brought out some of the color in my metal so its not just grey thanks for the paintover

keep the feedback coming more screenshots to come

jk_virginia

This is My second shot that I wanted to end with because it shows the spec a lot better than the other screenshot except for the floor for some reason? and the detail of the door I figure if I take the lighting advice and apply it to this shot it will also get that wow factor! what do you all think?

lansay

Hello there. I'm glad you posted that second shot. Gives a whole new perspective to scene. The lighting is great though the contrast could be boosted just a tad bit. Is this place supposed to be still inhabited or abandoned?

Orgoth02

I feel you have way to many bolts everywhere. It is really making the scene very noisy and scattered.

jk_virginia

yeah I like the second shot too I think If I copy the lighting from the paintover ian did it will look creepier and abandoned which will solve both problems at once plus Im trying to figure out something creepy or suspenseful on the floor in the second shot down the hall




Any Ideas for something cool but not over the top?

IanTSR

Why not have it ripped open? Showing some exposed space, stars or some such.... Also, the 2nd angle shows some nasty clipping on the boxes on the left with a detached grate, and the light that is shining through is from a star?

Just a thought. I'd worry about making the walls/floor not so flat first.

jk_virginia

good catch on the clipping on those boxes didnt even notice it I will fix that and the floor and walls are definately my first priority for this week more screenshots on improved versions of that coming soon! but I am really liking that ripped open wall idea that would be sick so you can count on seeing something like that in a bit.

As far as the floor goes I was going to add some geometry to the center orange piece on the floor and making a channel in the floor so you could see underneath it which I think will help any other suggestions ?

The wall probably just adding some geometry to some of the panels might help?

Also their is a reflectivity shader on all my materials but I would like it to be more prominent on the floor any good tutorials on reflectivity shaders or masks in udk?

IanTSR

I think adding geo to the floor where you have normals adding detail would help a lot. It wont really be that much work, and it will make up for the low resolution on those textures, and certainly help break it up a lot. The floors should be pretty easy to keep under 150 or so Tris, and the walls I'd say keep them under 250. A lot of modern games have ~200k tris on camera at once, excluding characters, effects, backgrounds, etc.. So if your entire scene here is around 50-100k, you're golden, as it's a pretty enclosed area. Just don't go overboard.


While you're doing a material pass -- perhaps some vertex blending? That might be an interesting way to add in some cool grunge details, and break up the repeating textures, allowing you to more confidently show multiple wall sections that are the same geo/textures.


If you feel up to showing stuff below the floor, go for it! But make sure you keep the floor looking nice and solid -- I like the very solid feel.

I can't see the reflection at all -- I used the Alpha channel from my specular textures as a mask for reflection, diffuse alpha for any emmisive if the texture has no transparency to bother with.

I have a bunch of stuff bookmarked/saved at home, but nothing at work in regards to UDK material tutorials, but Google is really your friend, just be specific, watch videos and pick and choose things that you're looking to add. Trial and error is a great way to learn UDK's material editor.

ErichWK

Not reflective/Shiny enough.

jk_virginia

yeah I added a reflectivity map but I dont think I bumped it up high enough. I will try and turn that and my spec up.

ErichWK

Have you added a delicious cube map to this scene? You should, if you haven't.

jk_virginia

yeah I used a cubemap to make the reflectivity map it makes everything delicious haha what I dont get is how to make a mask so that it only reflects on certain parts more than others. right now I just have the same reflectivity over everything.

jk_virginia

Oh I actually didnt see your last comment until now Ian I will try the alpha on my spec and see if that works. as far as the tris in the scene go I have a total of 5327 tris with the wall floor ceiling and column and then I just instanced them throughout the scene.

Luckily I can just take the middle piece from my high poly floor and just put that on my low poly so all I have left to figure out is the walls.

I will have the fixed screenshots by the end of this week and hopefully that will fix everything.

and thanks to everyone for the critiques so far you have all been very helpful!

Andrew Mackie

Great work on the scene! I am really liking the modular pieces brought into Marmoset [you have the same workflow as me haha].
Reiterating what has already been said, the lighting could use some work but I think that the materials could be cranked up another notch as well. Try thinking of the metal as wet and then work on the spec. That's what helps me out when I create materials.
I am excited to see the newest renders you have, keep up the great work!

jk_virginia

If I just bring up the brightness on the spec would that work or how do you get that wet look? because I thought about doing that but Im not sure how to achieve that look?