@sacboi Coincidentally I was going to put a sign and arch/entrance on the wall where the carriage is right now. Lemme play around with it and see if a sign would fit that spot. I'm a little worried the sign might clutter up the scene a bit much, but we'll see!
Ah, yep see what you mean I'll leave you to it, although worth bearing in mind during that time packed cluttered streets were typical in most villages or metro areas.
Been pushing this guy lately. Spent some time in blueprints getting the moon into the skybox. Spent some time sculpting and texturing a dope creepy tree. Added the metal grate on the brick wall behind the tree. Played with lighting even more. Added some decorations to some roofs in the distance. Fixed a lot of texturing, including some background buildings. Currently working on getting the water material right. I want it a bit bubbly and gross, but also to blend well. I might just adjust the cobblestone texture and add some mud between the stones, and vertex paint that stuff. I'm thinking, instead of the barrels, having a bench, but then again... I dunno how I feel about a bench here. Will have to sit on the idea for a bit. I'd removed the desaturation of the overall scene, let me know if you all prefer it this colourful, or if it looked better before?
For the tree, I sculpted the gnarly form you see. All the bark work and striping is done with height maps in Substance painter.
I really think everything looks nice to be honest and after following up it does start to come together. Compositionally I'd just add some elements to point towards the "center of interest" in the image. Adding some lights to help see how nice the models are would be great and also you could use light to guide the eyes toward the center of interest I guess. Maybe balancing the darkness from inside the tunnel against the sky would help to draw the attention there. Anyway, those are just some thoughts All in all, I think the models are really good and I can't wait to see what it looks like in the end
@Aemilion Thanks! I'm going to be seeing about giving the rat guy a lantern to draw the eye into the tunnel.
Took some advice and made the tunnel wider, to help the scale of the scene. Desaturated the wagon which made it fit in a whole lot more. Worked on a few ad-hock parts. Still to do; some draping foliage, barrels (lol yeah I decided to go with those), fog cards. After that, I think I'll be onto the polishing stage.
Added some ground fog as well as the barrels. Fixed the issue of the moon having stars in it. There is an alpha issue though, giving the non-crescent area of the moon a hairline glow. I've increased the roughness of the bricks, but I think I'll get in there and vertex paint some stuff as well. I need to add some more fog cards around the enviro, such as in front of some buildings. I think I might need to manually add cloud cards, instead of relying on UE4 sky clouds to be in a good place at a good time for my final screenshot (will have more control as well). I think I need to ramp up the atmospheric fog as well. Will be adding some foliage, ground clutter, and maybe some more mesh work for the tunnel.
I'm going to spend a little time revisiting some texturing in the scene to get stuff right where I want it. Here is some more texture work on the lamp.
Here's how I get some cool looking painted edges: Paint on large shapes with the default hard brush. Then, add a warp with a noise layer (passthrough), and then add a blur (passthrough) with a grunge mask.
Started vertex painting the street. Adjusted some textures. Added some background buildings, I think I might make their material darker so it sort of just ads to the silhouette.. Kind of pondering whether the left side of the image is working or not. A tree seems a bit weird and it's not helping me frame the image as much as I was hoping. I'll have a think about it, see if I come up with something else, although it is cool and gnarled, so I'm hesitant to take it out. I need to create a neat roof for the building to the right, it's pretty lame atm. Also need to think up something to fix that super straight line whether the wall meets the pillar on the building to the left. Going to create some books and papers for street garbage this weekend, maybe I can finish this weekend? Who knowwwwwwwws.
Note to self: Angle fence pillar to the left of the bell tower to the left a little.
I was having some issue with not liking the scene. A friend mentioned to flip the image horizontally, and it would show what was bothering me. When I did it, I noticed there were too many focal points along the ground (tree, wagon, tunnel, rat/lamp, barrel). When I took out the tree, it helped the image comp so much. I might do a vignette in Photoshop later, to make the left side of the screen darker, to help frame a bit.
I've added a roof to the building to the right, as well as tiles, and given them a fun silhouette. Vertex painted some walls with old plaster, added some windows and played with the buildings in the background. To help the barrels and crates sit in the environment, I used UE4 material node Hue Shift, and pushed them into the blue spectrum. I've thrown some paper and book garbage onto the street for some clutter, but they're untextured at the moment.
Messing around with the lighting atm. First one looks a bit more cartoony, second one looks more ominous. Let me know what you guys think. I'll be replacing the lights in the carriage lanterns with some flames, but those two glaring lights kind of look evil and cool.
I think It looks great man, I don't know why but I prefer the lighting in the first picture the second one feels more cartoonish imo. Those light are attracting too much attention, at least I can't take my eyes off of them I have no idea why. It also looks like that bridge leads to nowhere. Maybe if you did something like this: It's just an idea but I think that there are too many background buildings.Perhaps adding something like the grey "structure" with broken windows, and moving the bell towers and the moon a bit to the right would make it look better. I think It would also be cool if you used moon for lighting, maybe it would create some interesting shadows. But idk, at the end of the day I know nothing about environment art. Anyways good luck .
@Babsam Thanks! Yeah, the second image has colours in their lights pushed a lot further, giving that cartoony vibe. I think I'll try doing a mix of the two. I'm going to push some of the background buildings further away to see if i can get them a bit less attention seeking. You're right about those windows, lemme see what I can do. I don't think I'll add that building extension on the left though. I see what you mean about the bridge leading to nowhere. I guess the original thought was there was a garden on top of that area, but that got scrapped, so now there is just kind of a fence on the top of the entrance to the sewers.... Hm. Lemme think on this.
Kept playing with more fog today. Did a lighting pass on the carriage. Added rim lighting for the buildings. Created some very basic books for garbage/clutter, as well as put in some stones. I've gotta work on getting rid of that solid edge on the pillar on the left. I've also gotta try and figure some better edges for some of the pillars and arch.
Very cool dude, its improving a lot I think. Maybe it could look more interesting if the buildings on the background wouldnt look like they are aligned on the same plane I think once the rat boi is complete, it will really tie everything together
Btw is that an undeground parking for the carriage?
@valentin_baguirov Yeah once ol' ratty in there is done, he wont stick out like a sore thumb. The underground is for carriage parking, though its a bit pricey at $28 for a full day of parking. That's why you don't really want to carriage downtown anymore.
Some friends gave me some guidance in certain areas. The lamp needed to be brighter, as when you look at images of lamps at night, they really glowed. I changed the lamp lights to use inverse square, upped their volumetric effectiveness (for the glow), and made the glass of the lantern more emissive. I also used to have it lit by another light, because I didn't like the shadows this lighting had caused, but now I switched it back so those point lights cause shadows on the lantern itself.
I've added a gradient to the emissive and colour of the windows.
I've added a Depth Fade node into the fog material so it didn't cut off right at where it met objects, instead it fades slowly. I need to adjust it somehow, because now you can't see the fancy cobblestone material I made for the street.
I've turned on Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, though I may turn this up a bit. That's really fixed where that pillar meets the brick wall on the left.
I've been trying to add a fancy shader to give my brick walls a dark to bright gradient, and I've aaaaalmost gotten it working, but honestly math can go away for the rest of the night. I'll try and figure it out tomorrow and update you all.
Was pointed out I didn't really have shadows in my scene... oops. Trying to make it more dynamic. Also moved the rim light to catch the side of the cement on the background buildings as well. Lighting still needs work I think.
Got some stupid light baking issue... I don't even think I have static lights in my scene. Anybody ever see this sort of baking issue before?
Issue was caused by SSAO. I slightly moved a few meshes which fixed the majority of my problems. The other problems you just can't see
Worked on lighting a bit more today. Added some gradient decals to the walls. Stopped fog from casting shadows. Slightly lit the tunnel. Redid the numbers on the clock tower.
I think I basically just have to wait for Torchy to finish the rat for the final image! I've gotta add some grunge to the wall art on the right. Maybe add a few more fog cards?
More play with the lights. Added fog that rolls up on the walls, as well as fog around the lantern and carriage. Some friends mentioned there wasn't any story telling, so I've tried putting some in. Rat dude is probably going to be pulling his sack along the ground into the tunnel, there is treasure leading from his sack to the carriage.
Think I might call this sucker done. My man Torchy finished rat dude, will be getting some closer renders to do him justice. I can't really think of anything else that would make this better. Will be doing some final images (wireframes, etc) tomorrow for the post to ArtStation.
Here we are with the final pictures. Thanks so much for everybody's critique and advice, really helped me out on this. And thanks for Phil Mehr and Hudson Partridge for the character stuff!! I've made a mini movie and posted it on ArtStation.
It's Just so sad that the Rat dude is not as visible as he should be. More light should be on him to make him pop out more. Light from the end of the tunnel to show his sillhouette more. Great job on this!
Nice job mate though similarly too wirrexx's comment, I feel that the mauve colored lighting is slightly over-done, kind of washes out all those lovely asset textures in the final.
The final render makes a lot of those textures look a bit flat, but in the breakdown they're really interesting. I would try to bring back more of the natural light and not allow the lighting to overpower it so much.
You could always do a paint over of your own render to try and get it looking more interesting and they seeing how you could make those changes a reality in the scene. Just an idea :P
@wirrexx@sacboi@Jakro Your critiques are always important to me! My boss made a few suggestions and I spent some time last night giving rat dude more light from the lamp, as well as lowering the intensity of the window lights in the top right, which seem to have been drawing his attention. The below image is the update, though the changes were a bit subtle. I'm avoiding any light at the end of the tunnel as the tunnel is meant to be a descent into darkness/sewers. I could bump up a rim light on rat dude though.
Jakro, when you say more of the natural lighting, are you talking more of the moon light? Or do you mean reduce the saturation of all the lights in general?
@Ashervisalis Exactly, a reduced saturation on the lighting may bring back some of the natural scene colours from the textures, it's being washed out right now imo.
I feel like
This lighting and comp feels more on the right track to me. I think the fog muddies things after this. Here you can clearly see colours and textures. Especially the wall on the left is much less washed out than the most recent version. I also really like the addition of the tree as it creates depth by having a foreground.
Thanks for the draw overs guys! I totally see where all your points are coming from. I think I'm going to keep my lighting and comp, for a few reasons;
- I feel the saturated mauve lights really tie the scene together. The saturation also pushes the stylization, giving it a dreamy, cartoonish feel.
- My intention with the character's lighting is to push a feeling of mystery and creepiness. Having him shrouded in fog and standing between the light and the shadows gave me the desired feeling of "slowly backing away into the unknown" that I was striving for. I didn't really want to make rat dude stand out and showcase his silhouette by using a back light or anything.
I'm going to call it done still, but thanks so much for the critiques, I appreciate them!
Replies
Those light are attracting too much attention, at least I can't take my eyes off of them I have no idea why. It also looks like that bridge leads to nowhere.
Maybe if you did something like this:
It's just an idea but I think that there are too many background buildings.Perhaps adding something like the grey "structure" with broken windows, and moving the bell towers and the moon a bit to the right would make it look better. I think It would also be cool if you used moon for lighting, maybe it would create some interesting shadows.
But idk, at the end of the day I know nothing about environment art.
Anyways good luck
Btw is that an undeground parking for the carriage?
The final render makes a lot of those textures look a bit flat, but in the breakdown they're really interesting. I would try to bring back more of the natural light and not allow the lighting to overpower it so much.
You could always do a paint over of your own render to try and get it looking more interesting and they seeing how you could make those changes a reality in the scene. Just an idea :P
This lighting and comp feels more on the right track to me. I think the fog muddies things after this. Here you can clearly see colours and textures. Especially the wall on the left is much less washed out than the most recent version. I also really like the addition of the tree as it creates depth by having a foreground.