WIP Alley Way UDK Environment

Kenn3dy

Hey guys after a few fixes and added couple more props i think i need some feed back on the latest work in progress. My biggest weakness would be on lighting i am not too sure about the lighting for the environment please critique and comment thank you!



Hi guys, since it is almost to the point of completion, just a few more tweak here and there. I thought it would be wise to post an update, to get more critique and feedback. Thanks!



Hi guys, first off I hope everybody had a excellent New Year!! This is my second post here, after my first post on the Cigarette I've learned tons!! Hopefully I can learned a lot more with this post! This is a portfolio piece that I am currently working on in the UDK, please feel free to comment and critique (I know I need it!).

Thanks in advance

nathanbarrett

This is awesome. Was every component modelled and textures separately?

JamesClarke

Nice work! I think reducing the radius of the lights or the brightness along with some very opaque fog could had a lot of mood to the scene.

Kratilim

Nice. Though some textures tile a slight bit too obvious like the brick wall in the upper left buildings. You could add some randomness with cleaver material setup. Also the floor looks weird. I'm guessing you're still working on that? You could check the vertex painting tutorial on 3dmotive, some nice tricks to break up texture tiling and add detail.

Hope it helps!

KartoonHead

The lamps are the weak point here; they're all identical (in model, hue, AND brightness), it just doesn't seem plausible (all brand new bulbs?). They're also placed on seperate buildings (think seperate owners, seperate contractors, different styles of lamp) and opposite one-another. Surely it makes more sense to alternate them along the alleyway? One on the left, then one on the right, then one on the left and so on. Illuminate more with fewer lights. I'm not saying they're the weakest asset or whatnot, but they're definitely where my eye is drawn to, and you need to make that focal point very strong in order for your scene to be believable. Might also help to have a little power cable coming out of the light and going into the wall, add to the realism.

Other than the lights though, I think your assets are pretty solid and coming along nicely. Keep it up!

Kenn3dy

nathanbarrett wrote: »

This is awesome. Was every component modelled and textures separately?

Everything is modeled and texture seperately other then the wall and the ground pieces, they are all modular pieces.

Mark Dygert

Looking pretty good! It would be nice to see some break down shots and construction shots when you get a chance.

gsokol

This is a good start. I dig the start you have with your lighting, and I like the composition of the image too.

Lighting could be tweaked a little, as KartoonHead said, building lamps are of similar hue and brightness...some variation here would sell the scene a lot more. Did you start out with the default night lighting in UDK? Either way, the blue directional hitting the buildings is a nice touch. Are you using the self illumination of the HOTEL sign for lightmass? I can't tell for sure, but it would be nice to see that pink light bounce off the buildings a little bit.

I think you could play with post process settings a little bit more. I think a distance fog and some slight depth of field could be nice, especially if you are setting it up specifically for this one shot.

I think your up front details could use a little work..they are pretty rough. The normal map on the signs/images is very obviously tiled and way overpowered. Same with the concrete barrier in the front on the right..and the garbage cans as well. Just too noisy for my tastes. Also, I would love to see more variation on the images. I know you can get away with repeating them sometimes, but with them so prevalent in the shot..you can afford to mix things up a bit here.

I like where you are going with the ground. It definitely looks wet and worn, like an alleyway should. Maybe I'm being too nitpicky here, but its pretty easy to see that it tiles.

Overall though, this is a pretty nice looking scene. I look foward to seeing what you end up with.

Kenn3dy

gsokol wrote: »

This is a good start. I dig the start you have with your lighting, and I like the composition of the image too.

Lighting could be tweaked a little, as KartoonHead said, building lamps are of similar hue and brightness...some variation here would sell the scene a lot more. Did you start out with the default night lighting in UDK? Either way, the blue directional hitting the buildings is a nice touch. Are you using the self illumination of the HOTEL sign for lightmass? I can't tell for sure, but it would be nice to see that pink light bounce off the buildings a little bit.

I think you could play with post process settings a little bit more. I think a distance fog and some slight depth of field could be nice, especially if you are setting it up specifically for this one shot.

I think your up front details could use a little work..they are pretty rough. The normal map on the signs/images is very obviously tiled and way overpowered. Same with the concrete barrier in the front on the right..and the garbage cans as well. Just too noisy for my tastes. Also, I would love to see more variation on the images. I know you can get away with repeating them sometimes, but with them so prevalent in the shot..you can afford to mix things up a bit here.

I like where you are going with the ground. It definitely looks wet and worn, like an alleyway should. Maybe I'm being too nitpicky here, but its pretty easy to see that it tiles.

Overall though, this is a pretty nice looking scene. I look foward to seeing what you end up with.

Hey thanks for the advice, I will change up the lights for sure, as for wall and floor texture I am having a hard time with those not to repeat any suggestions?

System

Try lerping the floor with a black and white cloudy mask. use a tex coord to scale variations and a tint to add a little color variation. you can try messing with a lerp in the normals as well to vary the intensity.

could def use some lighting love, perhaps try messing with the tonemapper in world post settings to get some lighter colors.

looks good.

Kenn3dy

Hi guys here is a little update on the progress, the lights are temp place holder gonna change them up soon mess around with the fog and the neon sign light so it bleeds more outward, still having issue with creating the wet look to the ground without tiling, any suggestion that I can try?

cptSwing

It's very nice looking already!

Couple of thoughts: I think you're overdoing the posters, it seems to be a rarely visited alley, why are there so many posters hanging on the walls here where no passerby would see them? If you're going to stick with the number of posters, maybe go for a layered effect of tons of old posters stuck on top each other, peeling off etc.
If you're not afraid of integrating some alley cliches, put some graffitti on the walls and strategically place a couple of beer bottles ;-)
Oh, and in my opinion the wooden things (erm, the english name escapes me) could be more beat up. These things wander around the country for many years usually.

Personally, i think these sort of scenes could always go with a 'story' of sorts.. maybe sit down and think for a couple of minutes on what could be going on in this alley on a day to day basis.. is it a street gang's chillout spot? hobos sleep here? heroin addicts? Maybe something is going on in one of the appartments, or a silhouette is jumping from rooftop to rooftop (adding humans can drastically change the focus/point of interest though)? then add/change stuff accordingly. That's just a suggestion though. Very nice work!

Kenn3dy

cptSwing wrote: »

It's very nice looking already!

Couple of thoughts: I think you're overdoing the posters, it seems to be a rarely visited alley, why are there so many posters hanging on the walls here where no passerby would see them? If you're going to stick with the number of posters, maybe go for a layered effect of tons of old posters stuck on top each other, peeling off etc.
If you're not afraid of integrating some alley cliches, put some graffitti on the walls and strategically place a couple of beer bottles ;-)
Oh, and in my opinion the wooden things (erm, the english name escapes me) could be more beat up. These things wander around the country for many years usually.

Personally, i think these sort of scenes could always go with a 'story' of sorts.. maybe sit down and think for a couple of minutes on what could be going on in this alley on a day to day basis.. is it a street gang's chillout spot? hobos sleep here? heroin addicts? Maybe something is going on in one of the appartments, or a silhouette is jumping from rooftop to rooftop (adding humans can drastically change the focus/point of interest though)? then add/change stuff accordingly. That's just a suggestion though. Very nice work!

Hey cptSwing those posters are place holder at the moment they will be change up for sure I never thought about having a story for this alley way I think I will start thinking of some kind of story :P

Kenn3dy

Hey guys, here is another quick update with the scene change up the fire escape on the left hand side to more detailed version, going to work on the spec and texture tonight. Worked on the reflection on the ground. Comments and critique are welcome Not sure if my poly count on the fire escape too hi or low.

chrisradsby

The fire escape looks too clean and nice for that type of neighboorhood-alley. I like it though, it pops a lot. The tricount is alright, can always be LODed in a proper game environment.

Artist_in_a_box

That's looks real nice. But at the risk of sounding dumb, why did you go so close to completion and then not texture the bin? Its all I can look at now lol.

Kenn3dy

Hey guys thanks for the feed back I think the fire escape is a bit too clean too haha :P

Kenn3dy

Here is another little update on the progress. Finished the texturing on the fire escape.

Kenn3dy

Added some more details to the flood lights on the right hand side, I am having problems to make the lights look natural when its lite, any suggestions that I can fix this problem ?

Ken Benson

I think parts of the light covered in rust should also light up. Not to the full value of the non-rusted, obviously.
I also like to see a little bit of bloom. It adds the feel of light being emitted, instead of just a back lit wall.

Kenn3dy

Hi guys, since it is almost to the point of completion, just a few more tweak here and there. I thought it would be wise to post an update, to get more critique and feedback. Thanks!

Sanae

Use of fog gives scene depth in latest image! And makes the HOTEL neon seem more seedy. That is a nice touch!

Mark Dygert

The potted plants look a little odd, something with the way they are catching light and casting shadows. Also there seem to be too many of them all over the place, in every corner the same plant, really?

raul

Awesome work! I love the overall composition and tones. Very inspiring.

Kenn3dy

I think the pot plant is a bit much , but not to sure what else I can have on the fire escape, because it looks so empty without it.

Kenn3dy

Hey guys after a few fixes and added couple more props i think i need some feed back on the latest work in progress. My biggest weakness would be on lighting i am not too sure about the lighting for the environment please critique and comment thank you!

Samfisher84

very nice alley! nice mood and nice touch with the shoes

SirCalalot

Wow, this has progressed quite a bit since I last saw it!

With regards to lighting, I think that you are heading in the right direction.

One thing you could try is maybe pushing the background slightly bluer (the fog colour I believe) and making the foreground lights a bit warmer to benefit the contrast of the scene. The wall light on the right in particular is a bit too cool I think.
You could also try increasing the foreground lighting intensity slightly too.

A good trick I find (as I keep going on about here, sorry :P) is to blur your vision and look at your image. A good composition should still read fairly interesting with spots of high and low values, instead of blending into a grey mess.

To be fair, your scene does this fairly well as it is, but increasing the overall exposure could help.

Me, literally increasing the 'Exposure' to +2 in Photoshop:




That may or may not be what you want, but I hope it helps!

leleuxart

Looking nice. There's a big progression from the beginning. I love the blue/pink in the background too!


Also, is there any stereoscopic effects on this? I feel like there is, but I could be making it up. If there is, would you mind telling me how? I've been thinking about adding some to a school assignment I'm working on.

Kenn3dy

leleuxart wrote: »

Looking nice. There's a big progression from the beginning. I love the blue/pink in the background too!


Also, is there any stereoscopic effects on this? I feel like there is, but I could be making it up. If there is, would you mind telling me how? I've been thinking about adding some to a school assignment I'm working on.

I use the default camera in unreal, but I did added some Post Processing effect,Vignette and Noise Grain.

Kenn3dy

SirCalalot wrote: »

Wow, this has progressed quite a bit since I last saw it!

With regards to lighting, I think that you are heading in the right direction.

One thing you could try is maybe pushing the background slightly bluer (the fog colour I believe) and making the foreground lights a bit warmer to benefit the contrast of the scene. The wall light on the right in particular is a bit too cool I think.
You could also try increasing the foreground lighting intensity slightly too.

A good trick I find (as I keep going on about here, sorry :P) is to blur your vision and look at your image. A good composition should still read fairly interesting with spots of high and low values, instead of blending into a grey mess.

To be fair, your scene does this fairly well as it is, but increasing the overall exposure could help.

Me, literally increasing the 'Exposure' to +2 in Photoshop:




That may or may not be what you want, but I hope it helps!

Hey man thanks for the PO, I am going to try play around with the setting in Unreal to try and give the image a little more contrast, thanks!

Xendance

Kenn3dy wrote: »

Hey man thanks for the PO, I am going to try play around with the setting in Unreal to try and give the image a little more contrast, thanks!

Easier way is to use this:
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ColorGrading.html#Color correction

Just import the "blanco" LUT texture into photoshop with some screenshots of your level, slap on different adjustment layers so that they are on top of the LUT and screenshot layers. Then just adjust the images so that you like them. In the end, copy merged LUT layer into a new document, save as and import into UDK, remember proper lod group setting. Then assign it to the world PP settings or to a PP volume.

Kenn3dy

Xendance wrote: »

Easier way is to use this:
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ColorGrading.html#Color correction

Just import the "blanco" LUT texture into photoshop with some screenshots of your level, slap on different adjustment layers so that they are on top of the LUT and screenshot layers. Then just adjust the images so that you like them. In the end, copy merged LUT layer into a new document, save as and import into UDK, remember proper lod group setting. Then assign it to the world PP settings or to a PP volume.

Hey WOW thanks for this awesome tips!! Now i don't have to tweak the world properties's tone to get the result i want thanks a bunch!!

Kenn3dy

so here is the result of some more tweaking let me know what you guys think thanks!