Urban Alleyway Scene (UT3)
polycounter lvl 11
Hey there, I've been meaning to join these forums for a long while just haven't really gotten around to it. I've looked around a bit and you guys seem to know your stuff pretty well so hopefully I can get some good critique on my stuff.
Right now I'm working on a scene for UT3 that's just a back alleyway thing. It's all based off of (not going for a direct remake) an area back home in Wisconsin.
I thumbnailed em 'cause they're kinda big and I'm not sure about any special [shot] tags or anything on this forum yet (this is my first post afterall...)
Anyhow, that's all in UT3 right now, there's some really bad shadows going on because of some stuff that isn't UV'd yet, but overall it's starting to come together in my opinion. Sorry about the homing at the top of the images too by the way, I haven't put in a skybox yet
Any and all crits/comments are appreciated.
Right now I'm working on a scene for UT3 that's just a back alleyway thing. It's all based off of (not going for a direct remake) an area back home in Wisconsin.
I thumbnailed em 'cause they're kinda big and I'm not sure about any special [shot] tags or anything on this forum yet (this is my first post afterall...)
Anyhow, that's all in UT3 right now, there's some really bad shadows going on because of some stuff that isn't UV'd yet, but overall it's starting to come together in my opinion. Sorry about the homing at the top of the images too by the way, I haven't put in a skybox yet
Any and all crits/comments are appreciated.
Replies
Got some wires too?
I mainly fixed my UVs on pretty much everything so that it's a lot more efficient now so that the shadows fall on them better and I'll be ready for texturing soon.
I'm planning on having this stuff textured by Monday (one week from now) so lets hope I get there. There's still a ton of stuff I wanna add model wise yet, like a lot of power lines and some stray cinder blocks/boards along with piles of junk to break up the floor. The big building on the left isn't nearly done at all model wise.
that's just lit in UT3 with the AO passes applied to the models. I really need to texture this pronto. I've been sick though so... ugh.
good to see you roughing in some lighting while you work too, so many people leave it to the very end and it either looks bad/muddy or they have to go back and level all their textures so it lights nicely. the way you are doing it gives a much bettter indication of the textures in context while you work.
only other thing for now, for future threads maybe make a more unique name, there are like 3 urban alley threads on the 1st page, hard to keep track of which is which haha.
@Target_Renegade: Yea, I'm going to be going for a day scene. It's harder to show off stuff in a night scene
@PixelMasher: Yea, as this is my first thread/post I noticed that too after posting my thread haha. I'll make more interesting names for my future threads. My thread is the one with the thread tags haha.
I'm considering making a few different brick tiling textures, than multiplying a dirt layer over it all in UT3 to try to make my texel density somewhat bearable without making OMFG huge textures for it.
The lighting needs work, the shadows are too strong, they need to be washed out more with bounce lighting. The light looks a little yellow but lighting a grey box scene is not going to get you final lighting. But I think you need to turn up the blue/white and turn up the bounce lighting (or fake it as best as possible).
Just something to consider mind.
Coming along nicely though, and I'm liking the detail you've started to put in with the various overhead wires, satellite dishes and vents. This sort of stuff usually really sells the scene in the end I feel.
Will keep an eye on any progress you make now, ha. Good luck man.
Base texture on the big building on the left, redid the main building there, textured a bunch of little decorative things.
My stairs are a little off, the real thing has 13 steps, mine has 8 (plus the top piece for the top platform). I also stretched it out a bit 'cause I didn't like how steep the original ones were. It looked strange to me in 3D so I pushed it out this way. This also allows me to do two sets of four stairs so I don't have to texture them all and such. Modularity FTW!
The stairs texture could use a little love. Make the transitions between the metals a little more apparent - right now it just looks like a base texture (maybe thats all you've gotten so far though)
I dont really like that big weird gutter coming out of the building that runs across half the scene... jsut ditch it totallyl IMO
Killed that gutter, made a sky, changed around a few background buildings (stuff on the right that you'll never see was bothering me haha) and I changed the ground a bit, can't really tell yet, but soon :P
I'm currently adding more shape to the ground piece then onto texturing it.
I still have to do decals, a few particle effects, texture that cute little grill haha, and finish up my blue building's texture and the big building on the left's texture. There's some spots that still need lovin.
Oh yea, and normal maps haha.
Made the sky darker/less saturated. Made a quick ground texture.
@AshleyTayles 72K tris.
my only tip would be maybe add a few more tri to corners of walls and pipes and things so they arnt so boxy. (whats that hug pole coming like 45 degrees out of the left wall?)
Oh and it might just be me but are the bricks alittle to big? could just be the camera.
Good man! i like it! i will be keeping an eye on this one!
The bricks on the left are a bit large, but the windows that were in the photosource matched up to the size of my windows so I just went with it, they're a bit large but I don't have enough time to go back and fix it now
I'm planning on adding some more detail to the edges of the buildings yet, similar to what I did to the cinderblock shed in the corner.
E: Project deadline got pushed back 8 hours. Hurray
I have about seven hours left thanks to the deadline being pushed back a bit. I'm going to redo the ground texture because of how low res it is, going to add in some decals and particle effects, and play with a post process volume.
In this update I added normal/spec maps. Well... the specs were generated in Ut3... so yea... but... yar.
All of these people have high def tv
- make windows interior dark and allow specular and reflection map to do their work
- your bricks are a tad lumpy in placses, bricks are generally quite square ;-)
- your lighting is bad, try upping the strength of the ambient by at least double and adding a touch more blue, also baking in a bit of AO will help
-work on your specular to acheive more beleivable materials
That's what I turned in yesterday. Then I came home, took those pictures and passed out before being able to post em haha.
The bricks look lumpy because the texture is too low res for crazy bump to want to make the bricks into decent shapes. I commented about that to the teacher and he said it was fine, and that he liked it so I left it *shrug*
All of the objects have AO passes in their diffuse map, I don't know how to get them to make it look like they are AOing eachother though.... (like buildings to ground).
My specular was made in UT3 due to time constraints. My windows I knew needed work, I just wasn't sure how to make them look good so I left them like they are which... meh. Thanks for the tip.
The ambient was at .02 lol. What do you usually set yours around? I'm always afraid of upping it too far 'cause it destroys normal maps
Thanks for all the critiques though I really appreciate it
@imb3nt I have no idea what you're saying haha
I think if you fix up that house on the right it'll really start kickin'. Right now the texture seems really flat and bright, like it's made of paper.
You might want to just try reusing your brick Texture, but change up the UV tiling and adjust the hue a bit for a quick fix. It'll look like it's made out of a different type of brick and still change up the scene a bit.
Probably want to think about taking off your distance blur too. It'll clean up your dishes and wires bunches.
Recently when working on an UE3 piece with someone, we faked the AO between the buildings and the ground with decals set to modulate. Plus typically in those areas dirt builds up as well a little.
ambient light strength is very dependant on engine, and ive been using HDR for so long im a little rusty on standard values, but if i remember correctly, i would normally expect a top light value of 1.5 on a sunny day so maybe 0.5 in the ambient and 1 in the directional.
you have tinted the whole screen green, was this intentional through a postfx or is it from the lighting, remember if you use a fairly saturated ambeint (i would) then you have to balance out the colour with the main directional.
-Shadows are far too black. It's bright outside and you need to reflect this w/ some well placed bounce lights and more ambient light (whether you use a skylight or point lights)
- pixel density is a nightmare - there is a texel density viewmode in UE3, use it. Your ground is mush compared to your bricks.
- bricks are huge!! Grab a UT3 guy and put him all over your scene for scale reference. Also, fix up the areas where bricks go from skinny to fat. It looks less like construction detail and more like your UV's are messed up.
- work on the sky dome - the texture is pretty boring. Grab a nice panorama texture and use polar coords in photoshop to prep it.
- for composition, consider adding a foreground element, as well as some more color, or in particular, one colored element to draw the eye to whats important.
- use of other building materials to break up the monotony (too much brick)
- Buildings are lacking a lot of construction detail. You need to show how things are built and to do this you'll need to add building seams, use more than one surface type for large surfaces, show where floors meet on the building by using trim, trim at the top of the brick building, etc.
- 'ground' your textures that meet the ground. Where your building touches the pavement, etc darken it up a bit to show dirt build up. Extra points for some silhouette changes such as dirt piles (more), weeds, grass, etc growing up along the edges of the building.
- add some subtle post - a little color shift will really help sell the time of day.
- more decal use.
- Lastly, - and this is BIG one, start working in a more modular fashion. Can any of these buildings be used outside of this scene? How about your cables and wires? Are assets on the grid? Are backfaces capped? Just imagine your a factory worker - all you do is build meshes. SOMEONE ELSE puts them together. How flexible are your pieces? How many scenes can be made with them?
It's a great start - keep pushing to the end.
First off, thanks for the all the cirts, I really appreciate it (wish you woulda posted earlier! haha)
As for the modularity of this... the buildings are useless other than for this project. Last month when I took this class I pushed hard for modularity of my objects, I failed and the teacher said to be less modular... and then when I asked how much less he told me to make that wall on the left all one big static. I went with it from there. I brought up the idea of making several smaller buildings that are all modular (or even one building and just being able to rotate it....) but he didn't like that idea so I stuck with this.
My texel density I'll let you decide again... as I was using a few textures that were 2048X2048 and they were left in the LODGroup of just TEXTUREGROUP_World... and apparently that automatically LODs your texture to 1024... so that caused a bunch of awesome low res stuff going on.
Also, I cannot figure out for the life of me how to get a decal with transparency to accept lights. I would have used them more, but I can't figure out how to make them anything other than "unlit"... and that's just ugly to have an unlit dirt smudge on your wall.
this is my very first post... after this one i should be able to post pictures too right?
I figured I'd update this thread again since I'm working on this piece some more.
I'm working on this piece again to try to get it up to demo reel quality so that I can use this as an asset in my reel that I'm putting together.
I was trying to play with the bricks in the building in the corner there with the stairs to try to make them a different color so that it'd be less OMG SAME BRICK EVERYWHERE type thing without having to redo a texture... I think I might have to be a bit more drastic with it though.
I wanna make some more trash deco to toss around... maybe even something as simple as just a sheet of paper or something like that lol.
Anyhow... back to work.
I've been hard at work, I promise. :P
I'm gunna be redoing those bricks now, they finally bother me enough to actually get around to it.
I'm gunna be taking this scene into the UDK soon to take advantage of the better lighting stuff. Yay global illumination and AO! haha.
Some newspaper, bottles, pissstains, and trash would look good in thre too.