Environment - Temple Courtyard
polycounter lvl 11
Most recent:
Hey PC -
First off- shout out to r4ptur3! He gave me some great tips on setting up my cherry blossom petal shader, and for inspiring me to do this with his BRAWL entry.
Been posting this up in WAYWO for a while but I figured it was about time to start a thread - especially since I'm looking for some focused feedback now.
I've been posting up on FB and some friends have been giving me feedback, and I just feel like I'm still missing the mark. Lighting and atmosphere are a pain in the butt.
This is still wip, and i have a small list of props that I still want to add in:
Rocks (my own, not the ones I jacked from UDK)
Hanging lanterns
Some more bushes/foliage
Grass (my own, not UDK)
Bamboo planters
A large, elaborate doorway seal
Broom, bucket, rope, cobwebs.
As well as texture tweaks, ground material tweaks.
At this point I'm focusing on nailing down the atmosphere and post process FX, sky and lighting. Here's where I was yesterday-
And after getting a bunch of crits, I made some adjustments and got this, but I'm not sure if I'm feeling it yet -
Please feel free to leave comments and feedback, and I'll have updates tomorrow evening after taking in your critiques.
ADAM
Hey PC -
First off- shout out to r4ptur3! He gave me some great tips on setting up my cherry blossom petal shader, and for inspiring me to do this with his BRAWL entry.
Been posting this up in WAYWO for a while but I figured it was about time to start a thread - especially since I'm looking for some focused feedback now.
I've been posting up on FB and some friends have been giving me feedback, and I just feel like I'm still missing the mark. Lighting and atmosphere are a pain in the butt.
This is still wip, and i have a small list of props that I still want to add in:
Rocks (my own, not the ones I jacked from UDK)
Hanging lanterns
Some more bushes/foliage
Grass (my own, not UDK)
Bamboo planters
A large, elaborate doorway seal
Broom, bucket, rope, cobwebs.
As well as texture tweaks, ground material tweaks.
At this point I'm focusing on nailing down the atmosphere and post process FX, sky and lighting. Here's where I was yesterday-
And after getting a bunch of crits, I made some adjustments and got this, but I'm not sure if I'm feeling it yet -
Please feel free to leave comments and feedback, and I'll have updates tomorrow evening after taking in your critiques.
ADAM
Replies
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmacs_photos/5545200863/
I also kinda wish that the stone-tiles would be smaller and not take as much space as they do. The grass straws are too big to have a realistic look, it looks more jungle than japanese-styled temple. They also need to blend better with the color of the grass-texture on the ground, maybe use a gradient on the textures making sure the straws are getting about the same color at the bottom?
Either way, you got something really nice here.
I did some googleing and maybe these images can help you with lighting.
Anyways good luck, your project looks great and i can't wait to see more!
I'd also suggest turning off the depth of field and maybe use a custom skydome if possible.
Keep up the good work.
@ChrisRadsby you're exactly right about the lack of a focal point - fortunately the scene is pretty versatile and there are some good areas for taking shots with much better composition. I'll see what I can come up with after I nail down the lighting.
I also couldn't agree more about the grass - it's UDK grass and I intend on making my own grass in the future before I call it done, and it will def. be much thinner blades.
@Marq - I'm gonna take your advice and play more iwth brightening it up. It's gonna be a slow process since I think I'll have to do a lot of it with hand placed lighting. I turn up my main directional any further and it just blows the scene out so I'l have to fake some more bounced lighting and hand place some areas that I want blown out more
@choco - i'll do that for sure, first I gotta reexport all mygeo with correctly made 2nd uv channels for lightmaps - right now I ve got some overlap on most pieces so it looks like balls when i build all the lighting
A little update - all i could get done before work tdoay
Rebaked the normal maps for the bricks so they aren't bubbly anymore and made a bette spec map for them - reduced that saturation on the blossoms and some other general material tweaking. Also messed with post process, tweaked a lot of light colors and started faking a bunch of bounced light.
Looks very good overall, and all I can offer is petty stuff like maybe adding some rocks or a bulging brick next to the grass to slightly try break off the feel that it is coming out of a flat plan. (if you look at the reference images above the natural ground is never flat so that can help add some more interest)
right now the lighting is looking kinda undefined, its hard to tell what time of day it is. in those photo images above, they look so appealing because of the super defined areas of light and shadow, the highlights are poppin and there are really nice shifts in value across the image which make it interesting. I like the colors you have going on but moving the light source so it was hitting some of the buiildings/walls head on might make for some more interesting composition, right now almost all the walls are in the same level of shadow and its killing the depth.
nice work man, its really coming together
Your stone floor/walkway looks too clean, unless if the monks living here are like super cleaning machines. Decals like PixelMasher said, that will help break it up nicely and add some dirt to it. A nice detail you could possibly add is some blossoms on the floor, you could probably do that with a decal. I also agree that the stone tiles look large.
Pretty much what ChrisRadsby said too, your scene needs a backdrop. Some terrain mountains in the background, you can use some nice DOF to blur them a little. Maybe even some flags or banners on top of your structures.
Keep it up meng!
I am curious about the trees: Speedtree or have you modelled them?
It ´s looking very good so far, keep it up!
Here were some of my ideas in paintover form;
Texture changes;
I made the sky texture a lot brighter.
I made the grass ground texture brighter & more saturated, it should be closer to that of the grass blades, and less contrasty.
I made the stones on the ground darker.
The bark is another texture that could have less contrast, be brighter, and could use a little more 'life' and saturation to it's texture.
What about desaturating the structures wood? it feels quite universally 'new' with its current saturation, and with all the saturated vegetation some older, desaturated wood may be a nice contrast.
Lighting changes:
Is your lighting somewhat orange? I made it a little more blue.
I also added blue fog for some much-needed atmospheric depth. more stuff in the far-background would help even more.
Composition:
This has been said a lot but I'll re-state it. You really need a focus...perhaps the tree itself, or the well. Finding your focus in the courtyard and building up the structures around it would help a lot. The other thing that would help is having more of a background. Restructuring the courtyard so you can get a view with mountains in the background or something would go a long way into establishing the shot and giving it a lot of depth. Establishing foreground, middle-ground, background...it goes a long way into building something pleasing to the eye. Our brains accept it easier, it becomes more believable, etc.
neat example; http://www.flickr.com/photos/kylestrickland/4586010520/
Hope this helps man.
Carlos that paintover is really helpful - I've taken most of your advice there. I've made some tweaks, added some more shrubbery and stuff too. Bout to go out for the night and I still have a lot more to add to the scene but I think we're getting closer now.
Damn.. I feel like playing Ninja Gaiden now..
Well positioning works nicely for composition but needs some more love...what if was maybe a shrine or gong or something instead? or at least had more details..crank and what not?
more small details....shoes outside the door? Swords in a rack? Some kinds of ropes or tools?
maybe consider a texture for the ends of the beams? bothers me, I dunno.
more petals on the ground...decals? what about some type of water surface with petals on the surface? a puddle or small pond?
still yearning for some kind of background mountain...would help add so much depth.
Think about how to tell a story. with blood. YES.
Cheers!
Carlos - I didn't implement much of your suggestions YET but I will surely be exporing a way to show more story in here to bring it to life. Hopefully without blood LOL! Def. gonna fix up the ends of the beams though.
ScottPetty - I retried my roof tiles but couldn't get it to look quite right, so I reverted for now but I'd liketo explore some more color variations soon.
For now, i just did more lighting - more bounced light and emitted light from the lanterns. VEry subtle. Also added some parralax maps to the bricks, made my own grass, and added in a lerp to the wood textures to break 'em up so they aren't all so clean everywhere. More to come soon! The changesa ren't drastic so I don't really know if this warrants an update or not but I felt like bumping the thread too
About the lanterns. I have them lit up because I'm being a noob and I like the vibrance it adds to the scene. I know it's daytime and it doesn't make sense lol! I'll do a before/after version with them turned on/off and it just feels dead with them unlit.
Also very curious how you went about modeling and unstrapping the roof.
Do you mind sharing your workflow?
I'm thinking some sweet mountains in the background.
Amazing work man.
Thirded