The BRAWL² Tournament Challenge has been announced!
It starts May 12, and ends Sept 12. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
It starts May 12, and ends Sept 12. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
1900's Western Fields
polycounter lvl 11
So for the past couple of months I've been working on a UE5 environment mainly educating myself on different methods for specific results. basically I have everything done as far as main props and house, just mainly importing in UE5, clouds, mountains and sorts.
So here is a sample of my mountain modular terrain, created in World Creator:
Main Props:
Lastly the house:
Replies
Though it would be nice to avoid geometric repetition in the clapboard damage:
Would a 40's house really have rain gutter covers? Seems like a modern thing.
Also the end boards on the roof sides should have the grain running parallel, not vertical.
Nitpicks though. Loving this.
I know this because I live near Boston, and our house was built with fake plastic shutters that do nothing lol. So we ripped those down.
As far as your sky I suggest you find reference that shows the entirety of the lighting in the scene and not just the sky. Because even based from the image above you can see that you will need your ground to be exposed to pretty much black to capture these sky colors. Here are a few ideas:
You can find some good potential lighting options here:
https://imaginemore.art/?library=Cinematic+Art&more=a5bd3bee65c3a22c2f72abedd2e872be&type=inspiration
Separately I would highly suggest you lock in your cameras before doing any more work. Your lighting is going to heavily depend on your composition. And so will the amount of work and detail you need to put in your props.
Let me know if you'd like a paintover when you have those ready.
Best of luck!
Now you need to nail down the composition for your shots to know exactly what you are showing and how.
Terence Mallick's "Days of Heaven" come to mind for refence and Edward Zwicks "Legend of the Fall".
Here is a whole bunch of searches you can use to find some solid compositional starting points
https://imaginemore.art/?library=Cinematic+Art&more=15b19520bc27a64dab774878b4c726ab&type=inspiration
https://imaginemore.art/?library=Cinematic+Art&more=5661da62f7cc26c79a12d215bc40653c&type=inspiration
https://imaginemore.art/?library=Cinematic+Art&more=f0ffc9cf18331e0f0d9ba18f049489b4&type=inspiration
Once you nail the compositions we can proceed with the details and polish
Keep it up!
I noticed you’re using a very wide aspect ratio for your shots. While that can be fun to explore, I’d advise against relying on it too heavily—especially for portfolio pieces. Most games are presented in a 16:9 (1.77) or 2:1 (2) aspect ratio, and art directors reviewing your work will want to see your ability to compose within that standard. It also ensures that viewers who don’t have ultra-wide monitors won’t miss out on the details you've worked hard to showcase.
That being said if you are curious in the history of super wide aspect ratio I would highly recommend checking out How The West Was Won (1962)
As it is a fantastic master class in building wide compositions. You will see that more often than not they would either defer 2-3 focal points per image or just empty side spaces. Either way extremely educational for any artist and I'm a huge fan.
For the mountains the easiest way it to make them brighter in the material.
But I'd wait a bit until the rest of the assets come together to start working on balancing it.
That being said your shadows look quite dark in general so I wonder if you just need to crank up the ambient light (skylight) in unreal.
Good luck!
Something I would advise at this stage is not to go in with all the details. Like I see the house half fininshed, not all foliage is there, etc...
Do a pretty detailed blockout of the WHOLE THING that is simple and clean. Not much noise, no vertex painting, etc... You can add all that later. First you need to make sure that all your objects are present. Here is an example of an internal blockout we would do at Promethean. It's mostly simple shapes and very simple tiled textures. But it allows you to clearly nail the mood and the lighting:
Start with one shot. The best one. In your case you'll need the terrain textures and foliage of course. But do a simple version of it, that covers the whole thing! And than you can work on adding the detail in waves across the whole thing. It's easy to confuse being productive with being impactful and most of the impact in environment art comes from broad strokes! Lay them down, you are going to do great
Best of luck.
Great job. Some very serious progress from beginning to end 🤍 Give yourself props. This became much more cohesive over the last few iterations 💪
Hopefully the next one doesn't have to take a year.
And if you want feedback on the final result for the future please feel to let me know.