[UT3] DM-Autumn Fog (beta)

I actually kinda prefer the concepts lighting setup, there's a little more contrast and things popping out than in the in-game stuff. The screenshots seem a little washed out in comparison, which seems to be the idea, but I think something closer to the concept would work better. The god rays from the canopy could be really nice.

Or just more contrast in the current setup. Either way, it looks cool, if I had UT3 I'd give it a whirl.

I agree with Eratic on the lighting contrast. But I do like the look of the map overall

Hey, welcome to Mapcore!

This is a really solid first effort, especially with you creating the content yourself. I don't have time right now to give the map a proper runthrough but a few things come to mind from the screens, so hopefully that's still useful.

Your concept is a great piece with really nice color and lighting. The variety in color between the ground textures and the rock really makes things pop out.

In the level, I don't think the ground textures and grass have the same vibrance that you depicted in the concept. You might be able to bring that out more in the texture, and/or try some full-scene effects with a post-processing volume over the level to nudge just a little more color out of it. In the last shot there's a good shot of what I assume is a dead leaves texture that I think could benefit from a little more color variety in the red and yellow range instead of just orange across the board (though, if that's not dead leaves, that feedback might not apply ).

I agree with Erratic that the lighting shown in the concept is stronger than the actual level, especially if you can pull off the god rays casting into the scene. I might be seeing this wrong, but it looks right now like you're relying more on a skylight and point lights throughout the level rather than a directional light. I'd rely much more on a directional light with point lights only for accents or fake bounces where needed, and try reducing the skylight to a dark color with a brightness around .1 or so.

The lanterns are a nice touch, but in shot 3 especially I think they're a little overdone. If you are able to use a directional light, I think you could pull a lot of these out and use them in more situations like the entrance to the cave in shot 4 or in some of the lower-lying areas like shown in the back of shot 5. Also, something I've mentioned in a couple other UT3 map feedback posts is lighting fixtures like this - it's common and easy to just place a single point light, but this often results in too bright and too large a light for what's actually there - try using a smaller-radius bright light that only lights the immediate area, then using a larger-radius light at lower brightness to simulate the softer bounce you'd want to see around it. the same applies to that red glowy plant, which looks cool, but would probably improve with more subtle light casting from it.

Something else that should help the lighting across the board is lightmapping on your meshes. It looks (and sounds, from your description) that both the rocks and the ground are mesh, so I'm assuming right now they're vertex lit (and forgive me if I'm telling you something you already know). I'm assuming right now that the textures are all using tiled UVs, so you'll have to create a second UV channel to use as lightmap UVs. You can try this out in the editor by opening your static mesh(es) in the static mesh viewer and generating unique UVs for the mesh and setting a default lightmap resolution (the larger the mesh, the higher you'll have to go, but I wouldn't start higher than 1024). The UVs it generates will probably be sloppy but it'll at least let you see the light and shadow detail you'll gain. To enable lightmaps on a mesh, either uncheck the "Override Static Lightmap Resolution" box, or enter a resolution in the "Overriden lightmap resolution" box (128, 256, 512, etc.)

Your grass meshes hanging over the edge look really nice, but also have some poor lighting. These might benefit from one of two things: disabling shadow casting or being switched over to dynamic lighting. Easiest way to do the latter is just turning them into dynamic actors by right clicking and converting to movers. If you make them dynamic actors and keep shadow casting on, you might actually get some cool looking dynamic shadows (but you have to set the meshes under them to accept dynamic shadows and uncheck the "force lightmap" box), but this could also hinder performance, so unless it looks really good, plan on disabling shadows either way.

A couple final shot-specific critiques, where #1 is the first one after the concept:

#2:

The blending where the rock meets the terrain helps, but I dunno if that's the right texture to blend to right there. Something that might give you better transitions at these edges would be more piles of rocks and scattered grass like you have behind that area. The more you can do to hide these kinds of seams the better it'll look.

#3:

This has a really cool shape to it, but it looks a little weird where the path on the left so suddenly drops into a rock ledge. I think that space could be filled with a few larger rocks that break up the view of the path a little bit and help cover the transitional seam... alternatively just covering a little more of the curve as it comes down might do the trick... maybe some of that grass/straw overhang mesh, too? Worth a look, however you go at it I'm also not sure the green tone inside the cave is the best color choice... more of a teal or light blue might match the rest of the scene a little better.

Overall, like I said at first, this is a great start for a first shot in UT3, I think you'll be able to do a lot with it. Mad props for starting off with custom content, too!

Looks very nice - not sure if it has too much noise/detail going around for fast paced gameplay but then again, UT3 is always about having alot of details in the levels.

I still think the red light of those small plants is too strong...

Looks cool but I dislike that red light, maybe if it was more yellowi/orange or maybe not too strong it will look better

I agree with what people are saying about the red light but this map is looking really solid. Love the style and am looking foward to checking it out once its done.

Please don't tone down the colors, it's looking really unique at the momment and that's a good thing

wow - great update. Looks very nice! good work.

You finally got the lighting right at last. Looks great now - good job.

Quote from dux

You finally got the lighting right at last. Looks great now - good job.

Yeah, this. Good stuff.

Had a quick play though and looks really nice. Love the direction you went for it’s different to the average unreal map and flows very well too. One think I noticed is when you press F to fake death which is sort of pointless in unreal anyway, but getting back to the point you always fall though the terrain and die. I have had issues like this in the past myself. Not that it takes anyway from the map at all but just though I would let you know.

Great work! Going to play more of it tonight.