My first post UDK scene old alley

rockguy

Hello everyone , this is my very first post in Polycount , being checking the site for a while now and finally decide to man up and start posting myself, so here is, this a practice scene in UDK I have been working on , right now I'm doing graffiti so I can add them to walls later,all critics, comments and advice are welcome.

I will like to mention Two issues I been having with the scene.

Number one is the lower brick wall of the building in the left ,the shadow and lighting doesn't work right , I tried reloading the mesh, resetting the lights , override light mass , the basic stuff, but no results.

Number two has to do with the alphas, one part looks brighter than the other one, as you can see in the fire escape, tried everything.

Thanks for your time.

cholden

Might be worth posting wires

I notice a lot of smoothing errors around the scene. Mainly on the red brick pieces (center above window arch, horizontal line below window, roundness of the vertical columns)

There also a noticeable difference in the UV scaling between the bricks of the wall and the columns.

Scene itself is sterile and dry. Grudge decals, puddles, etc.

rockguy

Thanks a lot for the feedback man, I will go fix the building asap and post the wires, after that I will work on the decals I don't want my scene to look sterile.

riddlaz

Rockguy,

Scene has potential, I see that you have a good variation of material types. Such as metals, concrete, brick, rubber, etc..

At the same time, there some things that stand out that could be improved.

- Main thing for me is the composition, having the alley closed looks like your playing it safe. Having it open is more difficult but at the same time more interesting, it creates wonder and makes us want to know what is in the background...

See this example:

Example Image

Example Image 02

- From that same example you see more interesting lighting, lower angle, longer shadows, and brighter specular.

- Wooden crates have smoothing group that makes them look round.

- Several things are almost perfectly aligned such as buildings, most boxes, crates, and trash bins. Grid alignment contributes to the 'cg' look.

- Left side is saturated, while the right side of the picture looks more monochromatic. I would suggest looking for a balance.

Best of luck with the project .

rockguy

Wow thanks man , having the alley open is gonna be tough , but again is true I was playing safe, once I done working on the grunge decals , I will re arrange the scene.

thanks for the feed back man ,I really need it.

Talbot

Nice work man! And welcome to Polycount! Always good to see new people taking the plunge into posting their work for critique... and trust me this thread is already 100000x better than my first one.

Anyway I agree with riddlaz about the color shift. Try to balance that out but at the same time make it more interesting. Something you could play around with is strategically placing higher values and or levels of saturation to draw the eye towards the subject of the scene. Try to tell a story with your work. I would suggest taking time to just open up ms word and just brainstorm some things about this alley. For example:

What are these buildings used for?

What year is it?

Does crime take place in this alley?

Who was the last person here and what were they doing?

Has an alien been killed hear? Or maybe a detective?

Once you figure out your story you will have a clearer idea of what your goal is for the scene and it will be easier for you to make the place interesting. Also you will probably have more fun with it and won't be worried about "taking the safe route". You will just want to make a kick ass scene that represents your story.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

rockguy

Thank for your time man , I gonna post some work in progress pics , regarding grunge decal and re positioning of the scene based on the feedback I got above.

I never thought of giving some sort of visual story like back ground but it does make it clearer the direction of the project as you said before.

thanks.

rockguy

Here is a very quick wip of the scene so far, still experimenting and looking at tutorials I added a grunge to the buildings with a world position material , one of cholden critics was that the scene was sterile and that stuff like grunge and puddles would help, and riddlaz mentioned that the opening the alley would make it more interesting, I agree , there is still ton stuff to fix and add on the list. I will keep posting as long I made changes.

rockguy

Now that I realise that shot of the scene wasnt in the best angle , but I did change the layout so the alley is now open.