Alright, time for an update.
So, I’ve been implementing lots of suggestions and they’ve all really helped shape up my scene/ level. Particularly the camber on the roads. It really made even the boring roads into something visually appealing, especially with the water running down them in realtime. I’ve tried to manually unify the lighting. Less outliers in terms of color saturation levels and it makes it feel a little more coherent. This is still an ongoing process though and will be for the remainder of the project I imagine. I’m still working on the hard shadows in places where they don’t fit. Lighting in UE4 can still be a little tricky to work with but I’m learning. Now I’m sure you’re probably noticing the lack of cables and that’s because I had a map error and had to copy and paste the whole scene to a blank map, thus killing the cable’s connections. I’ve decided to leave them out for now as I also found out that cables were causing my standalone version to crash when packaged so it looks like those will be left out til the very end and even then just for still shots.
Now for the screens:
And here’s a little bonus video: Europolis Megacity Walkthrough - HEAVY WORK IN PROGRESS - YouTube
Now here are some suggestions for myself just to give ya’ll an idea of what I’m working towards. The biggest problem I see with my scene is the lighting problems. I don’t color or whatever but in certain places you can see shadows being cast strangely and some objects receiving light in a strange manner. Additionally, some object’s normals are all screwed up so I’ve already started to go back and rebuild the normals for objects that need it. Third problem is something I’ve seen but you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at it is that a lot of posters and flyers aren’t showing up on walls and windows unless there’s direct lighting on them. I’m guessing this is a UE4 issue with decals but I’ve started to remedy it by switching some decals to flat meshes with regular ole materials applied to them. Then there are some screenshots where you can tell there’s not a whole lot going on. That’s more a product of it being a full level and not a scene set up for glamour shots. I’m still going to work on making the boring areas more interesting though.
Next up will be adding more signs. The blank white ones are only like that because I haven’t created any new materials for them. Also I’m going to continue adding verticality to the scene to make it more line with the original concept. I’m thinking Kowloon style urban hopelessness and badassery. Also bear in mind that there’s still a third of the city that needs to be done. I’m thinking adding an ocean view that peers out into oil drenched seas with a really ominous looking coastline. That sounds cool, we’ll see how it turns out. Additionally, I’m thinking of adding another ethnic corner, maybe French, to spice things up. After all, this is a very cosmopolitan city.
Anyway, let me know what you think and I’d love even more feedback, cheers!