It’s interesting how just a small addition can make something so much better.
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I’d appreciate feedback!
I spent 3 days on this room; mainly because I had to think
what would be interesting to put inside and how to make it aesthetically pleasing.
(this is my 4th creation after scrapping 3 failed ones)
That’s a great mindset to have! I think the main cause of the vibe is the lack of materials and lighting. Those things alone will give it a much better atmosphere. You also may want to turn up your graphics quality so anti-aliasing is on, that way the images will show the thinner parts more clearly. I would also suggest changing the font of the surfaceguis to bold to make them readable.
Well, for start, try just copying the default lighting settings from a new place file and go from there. As for materials, they’re fairly straightforward and you should be able to have at least some idea of what to do.
Here are a few suggestions for materials:
-Concrete for the walls.
-Neon for the green stripes (or SmoothPlastic if you don’t want the glow).
-Concrete for the floor.
-Metal for the machines. You could accentuate some of the details by giving them a diamond plate texture.
That’s just kind of a base idea, and feel free to tinker with everything and change it up.
Also, a quick sidenote, don’t overuse the DiamondPlate, no matter how tempting.
Looks better already! For the lighting, try out these settings: (I came up with these based off of a similar game):
Here’s a quick explanation for everything:
-Ambient: The shadow color. If there was no brightness and just a hollow black box and no light source, this would be the default color.
-Brightness: The brightness of the sun, which shouldn’t be too relevant for an underground room. But if you feel like it’s too bright, you may want to consider lowering this to prevent light bleed.
-ColorShift_Bottom and ColorShift_Top: I’m going to be totally honest, I’ve never used these and I have no idea what they do.
-GlobalShadows: This enables/disables shadows altogether. It should be on for obvious reasons.
-OutdoorAmbient: The general color of the atmosphere. If you feel like it’s too light/dark, this is what you change for the most part.
-Outlines: These add an outline to all of the game’s parts. Some people like 'em, some people hate 'em. I think your project might benefit from these because they will accentuate the detail on the floor and machines.
IMO the 2010-vibe comes from the monotone colors and the flat edges of everything. I would try the following:
Use a different color and material for the floor so the entire building doesn’t blend together (something dark seems like it would work well)
Try rounding off the corners of some of the equipment
Instead of using flat pipes, try twisting them a bit. This plugin may come in handy
The bright white of the chambers looks ugly against the bright grey wall. Try to add some contrast between them
The flat lighting makes the monotone colors even worse, even with Chipio’s tweaks, so consider making the indoor ambient slightly darker and compensating with point lights
Try to avoid thin, blocky parts
You can use this bomb I made as inspiration:
Aside from the core dynamo and wires, the build itself is pretty simple. It looks up to par with modern builds though because it uses proper color contrast and avoids flat parts with little variation.
I know it isn’t as creative as what the other dudes have been suggesting, but there is nothing shameful about building things off of pictures as well as adding your own improv to it. Sometimes you best improve that way.