Realistic maps?

[Grimbleton]

@Chariots;454493

I’ll just go through the screenshot, this isn’t meant as a criticism of the scene, rather the process behind how to make nature scenes more realistic.

• Cabin seems to have lots of sharp edges. Wood doesn’t work like that most of the time unless it is brand new. You need to have bevels and more imperfections on the model itself.
• Sky looks pinkish, but lighting seems uniform white. You need to match the sky and lighting color, this can take a lot of tweaking sometimes. Make sure to look at some reference photos like this.
• Terrain seems too flat. Snow is usually very lumpy because of wind and terrain features. Right now trees look like they are almost floating there.
• Even though the snow seems to not go beyond the base of the cabin, there are no other foliage besides trees on your scene. So it creates a disconnect in the mind, is this a really heavy snow that is supposed to be 2-3 meters thick? or is it supposed to be something like this?
• Normal and roughness maps are very important, especially in snow scenes, they need to be spot on. The terrain seems to have stronger normals than what you’d expect from a fresh powder snow. It has lots of low frequency detail like lumps but still seems very flat.
• I don’t know why but shadow settings seems a bit off. It is as if you are using a point light as the shadows are low detailed and seem to go in different directions.
• Scene composition on screenshots is what makes or brakes a screenshot (much like real life photography). I don’t have any specific advice to give on this other than studying scene composition and photography videos on youtube.

Overall, you need to work with reference photos of real life and meticulously go through your scene again and again. I’d suggest trying to work on something like a portfolio screenshot first to get the sense of your own workflow and the amount of detail you are happy with, and then try to transfer those things into a game.

Okay, thanks! Also, what exactly do normal maps do?