The Last of Infamous
polycounter lvl 6
Hey guys! So I was working on a piece for GDC that just so happened to be a piece I am also working on for my university in San Francisco! I just have diffuse textures and completely random lighting but you guys have always given me wonderful critiques and neat tips and tricks to take my work to the next level so I hope to receive some more! Cheers and thanks in advance!
Replies
Lighting feels flat in these shots though 2nd picture seems to be heading in the right direction though it needs work. Moreover the materials seem like they're lacking highlights. Though materials aside, I recommend thinking about your shots at their current camera angle instead of lighting the whole scene universally. Think about points of interests in the scene and how the lighting should reflect that. Flat lighting makes the audience confused at what to look at first.
Picture 2 for example, has an interesting contrast between major light and dark areas. It guides the eye towards the area that is most lit. You might even wanna consider adding extra lights for that specific shot just to further establish this. It might sound like cheating but even movie takes do this!
Unless you want it to be an in-game scene, in which case you should use a game engine to help light things up easier.
I get this feeling that you're using the Maya Sun and Sky, and if you are, you definitely need to tweak the lighting much more to achieve good results.
Hope this can help you improve!
Also, what Swarm22 said, get your normals, roughness onto your textures, right now the models don't feel like they have any material to it. Once you add these plus with the tweaked lighting, your scene will stand out more.
From what I can see from your AO images, your scene is set up nicely but lighting and materials are weak, work on those areas.
Considering The Last of Us have roads similar to this, they always have a lot of roughed up cars and tanks etc just laying around which could leave the audience to imagine how those cracks had happened.
Either way it's definitely progressing so keep going
Conceptually its a fine idea, but it is under explored. Infamous has the DUP and concrete structures that get added onto the buildings on Seattle, which create new and interesting architecture. Last of Us has awesome decayed buildings that are slowly being taken over, broken down, and reclaimed by nature. I would give up on the Infamous stuff to be honest since it will require even more assets to pull off, and go more towards the Last of Us style which you already have a good base here for.
In terms of execution the scene looks rushed, and every asset looks rushed. You also have a problem with lack of consistency in the scale of the assets, which makes some things look distorted. Get a really simple human ref model in your scene and move him around to check scale everywhere. Slow down with what you are making, and maybe focus on getting a couple good foliage assets, and some good moss/grunge blends on your bricks.
Texturing and materials need some love. The ivy, moss, and plant life is not convincing and not integrating well with the buildings. You need to have more plant life on the street that blends smoothly into the architecture. The street, sidewalk, and concrete blocks also do not make much sense with how they are laid out and broken. Find some reference of sink holes, earthquakes, and construction in urban areas to see how a street and sidewalk would fall apart.
Out of all the shots you have this one has the best composition, and the most potential.
I think focusing on this one shot would benefit you a lot. Making that one shot look good is enough work as it is, the whole street block could take months of full time work. Its better to have a smaller focused scene with super high quality assets in it, than a large scale environment with clearly rushes assets. Scoping this project down would be my number one recommendation above all the others.
Hope that is some of the feedback you were looking for.
In regards to the cracks in the road, it was just an idea the teacher came up with, and yet again I blindly followed with no reason as to why the road was cracked. I will try to integrate more elements that help the scene read better overall as well. Thanks again guys I really appreciate both of your wonderful feedbacks. Cheers!