This scene needs some love mate, the layout of the level looks good but everything looks grayed out, you need some color variation and some light/composition impact on the scene to pop out, here is some concept from google, look how nice they are cuz the have colors and good light
heyy thanks for your advise noo it is pretty much all from my head tbh ! Are there any techniques i can use to achieve the right light/composition for the scene ?
The objects on their own look nice, but I'd say there's a bit too much visual noise going on compositionally when they're all put together in the same scene. My eyes are finding it hard to focus on the objects themselves because all of the textures in the scene seem just a bit too busy.
Of course, making the lighting a bit more dynamic in it's appearance will help alot. Another thing that I noticed is there are basically 0 shadows in your scene which isn't helping. Good lighting and shadows will help ground the scene and bring it all together.
If you're going the baked lighting path make sure your models have proper unique UVs for it in a second UV channel if the regular UVs tile or overlap. You wouldn't really have to worry about that if it's all dynamic, but then again fully dynamic = 0 global illumination. You can have the best of both world's by baking the lighting for soft shadows and global illumination, and having a couple of dynamic lights for areas where you'd like some crisper shadow detail.
Props for making the Robby the Robot model. Yay forbidden planet!
Keep it up!
[EDIT] I forgot to mention, the ceiling could use a bit more love as well. Right now it's a flat texture which is fine for low low poly stuff, but I'd say break it up a bit if you can. Maybe you can inset a few of those shapes or have the support beams be actual geometry, especially since the walls and floors have more detail modeled out in comparison.
Really good advise btw thanks i have gone down the baked lighting method for the lighting but i may change the lighting to dynamic like you mentioned. There is allot of pre baked lighting on the models and there are just some static lights in the scene at the moment.
I'm not sure why the resolution is low i have light maps already created and they follow the rules you mentioned. Will dynamic Lights help give more crisp shadows rather than static or can i just change the settings?
Yes i can agree with you on the ceiling it is wy to flat and does need more geo!
Make sure you mess around with your static model's lightmap resolution under properties in the static mesh editor, usually its set to a pretty low resolution by default. You don't really have to bump it up to a crazy resolution for shadow maps, it depends on the object and how crisp you want the shadows. Usually I start around 128, and then bump it up from there if needed depending on the object's size. I find I'll end up with either strange baked shadows or artifacts if I bump it up too much, hence the usage of dynamic shadows for when you want shadows a bit harder than soft prebaked ones. https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/Types/StaticMeshes/LightmapUnwrapping/index.html for more info and where to find the property.
You should be able to have both static/baked shadows mixed in with dynamic shadows for the best results. You can basically control the distance on which shadows fade over from static to dynamic while still keeping Global Illumination as well.
I'd say experiment with the lightmap resolution settings on your models first, and then start fiddling around with the settings of your lights to see if you can mix in both. I usually reserve dynamic shadows for more dramatic areas, especially since having too many will start to cause a significant drop in FPS. You'll notice the shadows seem to work best when the dynamic shadow has a small circle of influence, the larger the radius of your dynamic lights the more spread out it will be, and thus the lower the quality without bumping up the amount of cascades. (which can also affect fps and start to produce more noticeable shadow acne on polygons at certain angles to the light source)
I find it's best to experiment with your lights and different shadow settings in order to come up with the best compromise, one that looks great with the least amount of shadow artifacts, and one that doesn't take up too much memory. Also fiddling around with your post-processing settings helps a bit in tying things together. I usually find myself bumping up the post-processing to the point where it's a bit overkill, and then cutting it back down in half the amount to let the artwork "breathe."
Replies
http://www.this-is-cool.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/david-levy-concept-artist/david-levy-prometheus-concept-art.jpg
http://cdn.whatanart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/mech-hangar-sci-fi-environment-concept-1.jpg
http://cdn.whatanart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/mech-hangar-sci-fi-environment-concept-2.jpg
Do you have a concept for the scene ? Show us if u have
Of course, making the lighting a bit more dynamic in it's appearance will help alot. Another thing that I noticed is there are basically 0 shadows in your scene which isn't helping. Good lighting and shadows will help ground the scene and bring it all together.
If you're going the baked lighting path make sure your models have proper unique UVs for it in a second UV channel if the regular UVs tile or overlap. You wouldn't really have to worry about that if it's all dynamic, but then again fully dynamic = 0 global illumination. You can have the best of both world's by baking the lighting for soft shadows and global illumination, and having a couple of dynamic lights for areas where you'd like some crisper shadow detail.
Props for making the Robby the Robot model. Yay forbidden planet!
Keep it up!
[EDIT] I forgot to mention, the ceiling could use a bit more love as well. Right now it's a flat texture which is fine for low low poly stuff, but I'd say break it up a bit if you can. Maybe you can inset a few of those shapes or have the support beams be actual geometry, especially since the walls and floors have more detail modeled out in comparison.
Really good advise btw thanks i have gone down the baked lighting method for the lighting but i may change the lighting to dynamic like you mentioned. There is allot of pre baked lighting on the models and there are just some static lights in the scene at the moment.
I'm not sure why the resolution is low i have light maps already created and they follow the rules you mentioned. Will dynamic Lights help give more crisp shadows rather than static or can i just change the settings?
Yes i can agree with you on the ceiling it is wy to flat and does need more geo!
Haha got to love Forbidden planet!
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/Types/StaticMeshes/LightmapUnwrapping/index.html for more info and where to find the property.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/Types/StaticMeshes/LightmapUnwrapping/index.html has some more information on lightmaps themselves. Technically it's for Unreal Engine 4 but I'm pretty sure it's exactly the same in the UDK.
You should be able to have both static/baked shadows mixed in with dynamic shadows for the best results. You can basically control the distance on which shadows fade over from static to dynamic while still keeping Global Illumination as well.
I'd say experiment with the lightmap resolution settings on your models first, and then start fiddling around with the settings of your lights to see if you can mix in both. I usually reserve dynamic shadows for more dramatic areas, especially since having too many will start to cause a significant drop in FPS. You'll notice the shadows seem to work best when the dynamic shadow has a small circle of influence, the larger the radius of your dynamic lights the more spread out it will be, and thus the lower the quality without bumping up the amount of cascades. (which can also affect fps and start to produce more noticeable shadow acne on polygons at certain angles to the light source)
I find it's best to experiment with your lights and different shadow settings in order to come up with the best compromise, one that looks great with the least amount of shadow artifacts, and one that doesn't take up too much memory. Also fiddling around with your post-processing settings helps a bit in tying things together. I usually find myself bumping up the post-processing to the point where it's a bit overkill, and then cutting it back down in half the amount to let the artwork "breathe."
Hope that helps a bit,
Best of luck!