UDK - Beksinski Towers
Heres a new project I'm working on, I'm recreating a piece of artwork by Zdzisław Beksiński.
Heres what I have so far:
And heres the original artwork:
C&C welcome!
Heres what I have so far:
And heres the original artwork:
C&C welcome!
Replies
I'd say push the contrast of the bodies more, in the original artwork they have more of a skeletal look/deeper shadows between the bones.
Your sky has much more definition in the coulds than the artwork, yours looks more lika a normal sky and not as misty/foggy/hellfire. Push the ambient lighting more towards red, and your fog is white, make it more orange/yellow.
You also swapped the buildings in the bg to cliffs, I guess thats a descision you made, but hen you loose out on those small lights in the background, which are pretty cool.
just a few opinions : ))
beksiński is a great choice, his paintings have such a strong atmosphere.
i hope you're gonna add buildings instead of rocks since those tiny lights in the fog create focal points that aren't present on your scene. and without them there's nothing to encourage eyes to look at foggy background.
the scale seems kinda off. the original area feels much bigger, with buildings being placed further away than your rocks are.
also, i'd change the fog color to brownish like on original.
I also want to get the look of the arms to be closer to the painting but its proving difficult...
At the begginig i want to say that you've made great work already. Undeniably above my own skills.
Color of the bodies should be closer to color of actual towers what will make it look like integral part of structure (like it is on painting). Problem of low contrast can be handled by rim lighting shader (actually arms in first tower are lighted in way like rim lighting works). Bodies should be more grotesque - thinner and longer arms, bigger heads and bony hands(like they were mummified and stay in those towers for ages). Try to pack them more densily. In center tower hand are covering surface of the tower in that way it's hard to see wood.
Also, as said before, Lighting, fog (maybe a couple fog sheets also) and sky can be improved a lot. Shadows are too sharp in your adaptation. Some custom post processing would be a good idea. Some kind of strange depth of field effect would be good for it(look how the towers on backgound looks like).
Buildings fit there better than mountains. They give feeling that those bodies came from them and those towers actualy are in some kind of square.
Spider webs on painting are darker, thicker and stuck together.
And not forget about antennas. They make it look even more sick and out of place
Keep it up. I want to see how it will look like when you finish it
not sure about the TV antennas, might give it a try but thats the one bit that i dont think works in the original painting.
I was also planning on adding some gravestones to the floor, similar to some of his other work.
And i totaly agreed with PogoP, it has the mood
You've done a great job capturing the mood, well done!
You're really on the right track here, but there are a few points that others have pointed out you should be mindful of. Also try to make sure you tie the colors together correctly, the sky seems a bit detached from the rest now.
Great stuff and a great piece of work to create an environment on.
I darkened the arms and made them high contrast, added buildings in background and tweaked skybox, effects and lighting, along with various other tweaks.
A lot closer to the painting now, not sure how much further i'm going to go with it...
This x 9,000.
bodies look way better now, they're really creepy.
can you post some screens from different angles?
Throwing some ideas:
Tint of scene still isn't warm enough. In painting it's very hard to find greys. In your scene grey is dominating (simple color grading should do the trick)
About buildings. There aren't monolitical enough. On painting they have ridicolous number of levels. Also the lights can be smaller and with less bloom.
About high triscout. Manualy created LODs can solve this issue. Fog is so dense that nobody will notice that most of them all gone or baked onto decal plane.
And i have one small idea. This scene is just asking to use lightmass
I'll load up some asset breakdowns soon.
for the record, the arms are using quite a heavy rim lit material already and then lighting uses lightmass.
It looks great, don't let the vert count hold you back, you're miles away from being vert limited in a scene like that. Just go crazy and make the best thing you can!
Would making LOD's benefit you in any way for this scene? Obviously in a real game it would but for a portfolio piece its probably a waste of time.
If you're really worried make the assets more modular and instance them in UDK rather than the single unique piece you have.
Anway, looks great
And here is a new version I've just finished that has a FOV closer to the original painting (I finally got round to learning how to use matinee, boy was that NOT a fun experience!):
Not sure which I prefer, the original has more depth and maybe better overall composition, but the new one is growing on me....
Also, you really should try to get the edges on the arms to pop a little bit more, they blend into the wood a bit too much.
I also notice that the orirginal paintings' ground has a softer feel to it: try doing a white fresnel effect on it, but don't use the normalmap to calculate the fresnel, just use the mesh normals. I find this often helps add a nice touch to a soft, sloping landscape.
Also perhaps try toning down the normals on the ground a bit? It's the only bit that still looks a bit "video-gamey", save for the bloom on the windows (it's not as blurred and wide in the painting).
Damn, just the fact i'm thinking of all this feedbacks makes me realise I really want to try one of his paintings as well! Keep it up man! Imo this is the best env scene i've seen here for months, the past year even maybe
I'm going to give this one a break for a while, got some tutorials i need to finish and need to get a portfolio website up. Yeah i've deliberately kept the antenna out as its the only thing i don't like form the original painting. It dates the whole things and it should be more other worldly and timeless IMO...
I was just about to ask about that. Interesting opinion. You know, I didn't even notice until I went back to the original painting.
Other than that, its perfect.