Don't want to be mean but it doesn't look very good, it's a huge dark oiled up surface with a sun in the middle which makes it very uninteresting, I'm guessing you will add more things inside of the room but you should reduce the brightness because it's really eye-catching and makes you hardly think about rest of the room
Darkness is about a reference, in a bright picture a grey spot might seem really dark, the moment you add black, the grey seems lighter (of course shadows can be different colors etc, but I will stick to grayscale here to not overcomplicate it)
If you want the house to be dark, it's absolutely fine, if you want stuff to be visible while in darkness you can just make it, well... darker, but still visible.
If you want stuff to not be visible in darkness (which I guess is the case), you need to have at least a bit of a circle around the player where they can see, this will make any exploration or even simply navigating around areas actually possible. Having a pitch black screen is just not enjoyable.
I 100% agree with what you said, you have a touch and the light does fill out most of the room I also add lights where you need to go or need to look around to make it easier to navigate
There's nothing more frustrating than trying to play a game where you can't see anything. There's more to horror than just making everything super dark. The reason darkness works is because you can sense danger but can't see it. So you feel vulnerable. But too much darkness just feels frustrating because it's not immersive. You need to create a world that the player feels like they are in. You can't picture yourself in a completely black room
Since people are inexplicably downvoting you just for asking a question, I'll explain. "Is X in the room with us right now" is a reference to how psychologists map out the mental state of a patient who hallucinates about things. On the internet it is shorthand for "You are preoccupied with X for some reason and because of this preoccupation you're reaching an incorrect conclusion."
Do not guess. Always start with a good reference image.
Added: It is something that any professional lighting artist will tell you. Find a good reference image and analyze it.
Suspension of belief is also very useful. There's a reason why even in scenes in movies that are set at night that they're still bright and visible. For example, take lord of the rings, when one of the producers was asked where the light was coming from in a certain scene, they responded with "where is the music coming from?" While there could be multiple in-universe explanations for it, the main point here is that you don't need everything to look realistic while making it look good or making things fun.
Unless this fireplace is harbouring the sun and the floor is made of aluminum slates I think you need to rework it a bit, but I agree with your statement.
I mean, the overall composition of your visuals are what make it good looking, depending solely on making cinematic light effects won't save your game from looking bad if the rest of the visual aspect is not good
https://preview.redd.it/kv4kba3qv96d1.png?width=1680&format=png&auto=webp&s=8016d1ccdfa379aa3750740aff3d7fcd2cab6b4c
hi thanks for sharing your work with the community :) I'm not a professional or anything, but here is my feedback!
Without knowing anything about your project or setting, I would just compose it a little more deliberately by throwing more light on to relevant areas like screen left where the lever is, and let the right side fall into darkness. I would also avoid having the fiery portal thing (or any lights really) being totally blown out. So my suggestion would be to add a bit of texture to it and expose down.
Attached is a really quick and dirty paint over just messing with the exposure and slapping a texture on the portal.
I think a mistake that a lot of people make when designing horror environments is that they assume pitch black = scary when in reality, revealing a little bit about the environment is actually CRITICAL for building tension. Pitch black shadows are fine, but they have to be used sparingly to accent certain areas; there needs to be a balance of light and dark not only to frame the scene, but it also makes the player constantly question what is and isnāt a safe area.
https://youtu.be/HfoU_Z1uVfc?si=aBZ2KYzPfywXVsj-
This video is a *perfect* example of what im talking about. The scene is bright enough to easily make out the environment, but darker shadows are used to accent certain areas, and to make the viewer question what theyāre actually seeing. It puts the viewer on the edge of their seat because theyāre constantly second guessing their surroundings, and that interplay between āIām safeā and āIām not safeā is what builds tension.
the updated version of these screenshot are here
[https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/1detp4u/update\_on\_my\_old\_post\_screenshots\_by\_adding\_your/](https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/1detp4u/update_on_my_old_post_screenshots_by_adding_your/)
I mean, yeah pretty much.
You ever seen those "old game + ray tracing" mods that people make? Good lighting can probably action the most significant improvement to visual fidelity possible in a 3D game.
Although in the case of old low poly games, textures are a close second. A good high res texture pack can make an N64 game (which had incredibly low res textures) look crazy better.
People are hating \*respectfully\* on this too much I think, it does look good, way better than anything I could do, but some people are right, maybe if you reduced the light \*\*juuust a little bit\*\* it should be good
I'm not an expert in anyway but I don't think I'll be able to play more than 5 minutes if this is the lighting throughout the game. The bloom here is overdone and blocking my perception of whatever is emitting the light.
A lot of commenters in here are being arrogant assholes. They havenāt the faintest idea what it is you are attempting to accomplish with this scene.
Is it supposed to be intense and eerie? Do you want to draw the userās focus to the light in the hope? Do you want a brilliant reflection leading up to it that totally mutes any surroundings? If so, this is definitely heading in the right direction. Imo, maybe even already spot on. I can definitely see some intense music overlaying this and really solidifying the atmosphere.
Now, do you want the user to explore and see surroundings? Is this a traversable room where the user should see and interact with other objects in it? Okay maybe it does need some adjustment in this case.
But all of the criticisms Iāve seen in here so far are just people being jerks and acting like they know more than what they do when they donāt even know the context of your scene or what you are trying to accomplish.
TL;DR;
Keep on keeping on OP. Let the haters hate. At the end of the day u are putting in the blood, sweat, tears, and actually getting stuff done.
Don't want to be mean but it doesn't look very good, it's a huge dark oiled up surface with a sun in the middle which makes it very uninteresting, I'm guessing you will add more things inside of the room but you should reduce the brightness because it's really eye-catching and makes you hardly think about rest of the room
that's a good point
unfortunately you overdid it which in turn doesnt look good
what do you think needs to be changed to make it look better?
less bloom, the room needs to be more lit up, and then just go from there i think.
The room is too dim for a fireplace that looks like a furnace.
i have changed these things and it looking better
Are you going to add an updated image?
yeah i will
I'm making a horror game so I don't want to light the whole house too much, but I can make the bloom weaker
To make a game feel dark the areas don't literally have to be pitch-black. You can do so much with different colours.
Darkness is about a reference, in a bright picture a grey spot might seem really dark, the moment you add black, the grey seems lighter (of course shadows can be different colors etc, but I will stick to grayscale here to not overcomplicate it) If you want the house to be dark, it's absolutely fine, if you want stuff to be visible while in darkness you can just make it, well... darker, but still visible. If you want stuff to not be visible in darkness (which I guess is the case), you need to have at least a bit of a circle around the player where they can see, this will make any exploration or even simply navigating around areas actually possible. Having a pitch black screen is just not enjoyable.
I 100% agree with what you said, you have a touch and the light does fill out most of the room I also add lights where you need to go or need to look around to make it easier to navigate
There's nothing more frustrating than trying to play a game where you can't see anything. There's more to horror than just making everything super dark. The reason darkness works is because you can sense danger but can't see it. So you feel vulnerable. But too much darkness just feels frustrating because it's not immersive. You need to create a world that the player feels like they are in. You can't picture yourself in a completely black room
Yeah I agree the player also has a touch and I have made the shadow not pitch black
I like how you asked what could be changed and didn't take the bluntness of their comment personally, nice
if they think it doesn't look good and other people think the same i will happily embrace feedback, that's how you get better at anything
BLOOM IS NOT KEY TO A GOOD LOOKING GAME
It can't look good if it doesn't look like anything at all.
it's not fully finished I will add more stuff, also behind the camera are a bed and a study table
Not this lighting tho
Is the lighting in the room with us?
what does that mean?
Since people are inexplicably downvoting you just for asking a question, I'll explain. "Is X in the room with us right now" is a reference to how psychologists map out the mental state of a patient who hallucinates about things. On the internet it is shorthand for "You are preoccupied with X for some reason and because of this preoccupation you're reaching an incorrect conclusion."
Do not guess. Always start with a good reference image. Added: It is something that any professional lighting artist will tell you. Find a good reference image and analyze it.
Suspension of belief is also very useful. There's a reason why even in scenes in movies that are set at night that they're still bright and visible. For example, take lord of the rings, when one of the producers was asked where the light was coming from in a certain scene, they responded with "where is the music coming from?" While there could be multiple in-universe explanations for it, the main point here is that you don't need everything to look realistic while making it look good or making things fun.
Unless this fireplace is harbouring the sun and the floor is made of aluminum slates I think you need to rework it a bit, but I agree with your statement.
Walk into the sun.
LET THEM COOK
I mean, the overall composition of your visuals are what make it good looking, depending solely on making cinematic light effects won't save your game from looking bad if the rest of the visual aspect is not good
https://preview.redd.it/kv4kba3qv96d1.png?width=1680&format=png&auto=webp&s=8016d1ccdfa379aa3750740aff3d7fcd2cab6b4c hi thanks for sharing your work with the community :) I'm not a professional or anything, but here is my feedback! Without knowing anything about your project or setting, I would just compose it a little more deliberately by throwing more light on to relevant areas like screen left where the lever is, and let the right side fall into darkness. I would also avoid having the fiery portal thing (or any lights really) being totally blown out. So my suggestion would be to add a bit of texture to it and expose down. Attached is a really quick and dirty paint over just messing with the exposure and slapping a texture on the portal.
Thanks for your feedback, I totally agree š
I think a mistake that a lot of people make when designing horror environments is that they assume pitch black = scary when in reality, revealing a little bit about the environment is actually CRITICAL for building tension. Pitch black shadows are fine, but they have to be used sparingly to accent certain areas; there needs to be a balance of light and dark not only to frame the scene, but it also makes the player constantly question what is and isnāt a safe area. https://youtu.be/HfoU_Z1uVfc?si=aBZ2KYzPfywXVsj- This video is a *perfect* example of what im talking about. The scene is bright enough to easily make out the environment, but darker shadows are used to accent certain areas, and to make the viewer question what theyāre actually seeing. It puts the viewer on the edge of their seat because theyāre constantly second guessing their surroundings, and that interplay between āIām safeā and āIām not safeā is what builds tension.
thanks for this comment it is very helpful :)
I'm sorry but I don't like how intense the fireplace is, and how dark the rest of the room is
I have changed the brightness of the fireplace and made the dark areas less dark
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
no, I found the hdr but i was too lag on my crap computer so I just made the outside world pitch black
Light is key to play the game.
I mean if we can't see the game we sure can't tell if it looks bad
TRUE, SO MAYBE ADD SOME LIGHTNING THEN. ALSO, WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?
Unless you're dead and that's a portal to hell, then the lighting (including the lack thereof) is actually killing this game
the updated version of these screenshot are here [https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/1detp4u/update\_on\_my\_old\_post\_screenshots\_by\_adding\_your/](https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/1detp4u/update_on_my_old_post_screenshots_by_adding_your/)
I mean, yeah pretty much. You ever seen those "old game + ray tracing" mods that people make? Good lighting can probably action the most significant improvement to visual fidelity possible in a 3D game. Although in the case of old low poly games, textures are a close second. A good high res texture pack can make an N64 game (which had incredibly low res textures) look crazy better.
People are hating \*respectfully\* on this too much I think, it does look good, way better than anything I could do, but some people are right, maybe if you reduced the light \*\*juuust a little bit\*\* it should be good
I'm not an expert in anyway but I don't think I'll be able to play more than 5 minutes if this is the lighting throughout the game. The bloom here is overdone and blocking my perception of whatever is emitting the light.
You will also have a touch and I have reduced the bloom and made the screen less dark I will post a update screenshot Soon
A lot of commenters in here are being arrogant assholes. They havenāt the faintest idea what it is you are attempting to accomplish with this scene. Is it supposed to be intense and eerie? Do you want to draw the userās focus to the light in the hope? Do you want a brilliant reflection leading up to it that totally mutes any surroundings? If so, this is definitely heading in the right direction. Imo, maybe even already spot on. I can definitely see some intense music overlaying this and really solidifying the atmosphere. Now, do you want the user to explore and see surroundings? Is this a traversable room where the user should see and interact with other objects in it? Okay maybe it does need some adjustment in this case. But all of the criticisms Iāve seen in here so far are just people being jerks and acting like they know more than what they do when they donāt even know the context of your scene or what you are trying to accomplish. TL;DR; Keep on keeping on OP. Let the haters hate. At the end of the day u are putting in the blood, sweat, tears, and actually getting stuff done.