Woodling Camp - Low poly UDK environment

Aleia

Hey guys!

A little more than a year ago I started working on an environment for the demo of a romantic action adventure game called Dove and Crow. Sadly the demo was never completed due to the team splitting up, and then I kind of left the environment behind as well. But some weeks ago I decided to finish it and I'm now feeling like there's not much more I can do. But before I brand it completely finished I'd like to run it through here to see what kind of feedback you have for me!

So, quick description of the environment... it's set in a romantic and peaceful forest, where a tribe of little friendly and playful creatures called woodlings have their camp by an old windmill. In the intended game the main characters Dove and Crow flee from their rivaling families (think Romeo and Juliet) and briefly reside in the windmill before deciding what to do next.

Oh, and I have not made the characters or woodlings in this environment. They were made by the ever-so-talented Joakim Stigsson who was the lead character artist working on the game!

And, again, any feedback you have for me is more than welcome!

Aleia

And here's two more screenshots!
All of them are screenshots taken in UDK.

BARDLER

The one thing that jumps out at me is the lighting. Some of the objects are not casting shadows onto the ground making them look funky. I think if you tweak the lighting a tad, and fix the shadow issue it will be a cool piece.

Jessica Dinh

Hi Aleia, I think this is pretty cute :], I especially like the little huts! NIce colors/mood. I agree with BARDLER about the lighting. Another thing I think would be good to work on is grouping more stuff around the bases of the trees. Arrange some grass clumps/flowers/rocks/pebbles around there to make the trees feel more a part of the enviro rather than plopped in.

chrisradsby

Hej d

Aleia

Thanks guys for the great feedback!

I think the reason it seems like some things don't cast shadows is because the settings I've set make the shadows really blurry. So what do you think, maybe I should make them a bit sharper?

Although the yellow/orangey lighting is intentional, to get a warm summer/autumny feeling, I get what you mean, I may have gone a bit overboard :P. I'll see what I can do to bring it back a knotch or two!

Thanks again!

chrisradsby

The major difference is that post-processing should act as support for the rest of the environment (ie support for textures/lighting), not the main thing that makes the environment get its' initial feel.



Trees, ground should have texture and colors like this, to give the initial autumn feel. Post-processing should just enhance it.

And maybe to give a more magical touch you might want to add it all together and maybe something like this:



Remember, reference is king.

Aleia

Yeah I get what you mean there Chris. Great reference photos . It's easy to forget to look at references once you're deep in the environment workflow sometimes, I think. Thanks for waking me up!

Aleia

I've updated it a bit now! I don't have a lot of post processing on, it's actually the lighting that makes everything look so yellow. At least now it looks more neutral on my screen, how's it looking for you?

As I mentioned earlier, I know what you're talking about with the shadows, although I don't really see it as much of a problem myself. The reason some things seem to not cast any shadows is due to the blurryness of the shadows as well as the low lightmap resolutions. I don't really feel that I can up the resolutions any more though, because I don't want it to impact the performance. It's supposed to be for a low-poly game after all.