I am not so good when it comes to lighting , shaders,image effects etc(I’m more into scripting). so my game (WIP) never had that good graphic look.Everything looks sharp and unrealistic.Even if i use assets from the store that look amazing on demo scene i’ve never achived that desired look.I was wondering if any of you could kinda give me crash course or could you direct me to something from where i can learn that from.And in overall can i get explanation what makes graphics/game look good and realistic ?
I’m not sure if I’m qualified to answer this but here are a few tips. that I follow.
Use references to model your environments such as a real life pictures or a concept drawing you’ve come up with.This is a basic step that all artists follow, you need a blueprint, and then you build on it. Start designing on paper first and then model it up in a Modelling software like Blender 3D.
Blender 3D is a free modelling software that extremely powerful, you might find it a bit difficult to use at first but you’ll get used to it, www.blender.org/
Heres a youtube tutorial series that I followed when I first started using blender,
, its by Andrew Price and he knows his stuff, you can also check out his website https://www.blenderguru.com/, here you can find some pretty amazing tutorials related to realism.
Use Normal maps on your models, these can give a lot of detail without all those polygons (polygons are tiny shapes that make up a Model, the more polygons there are the higher the computation time will be, meaning you’ll get lower FPS (frames per second), and you don’t want low FPS because it wrecks your playing experience.).Here are a few links that should get you going.
Unity - Manual: Normal map (Bump mapping) Unity Docs
Normal Map Creation in The GIMP - Valve Developer Community Normal map creation in GIMP
GIMP is a image editing software thats free of cost and can be downloaded here, https://www.gimp.org/
Next up use particle systems, these are a great way to add realism to your game, adding something like fog can really change the feel of the game. Here are a few links.
https://unity3d.com/learn/live-training/session/visual-effects-particle-systems
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ParticleSystemHowTo.html
Hope this helps a little!
I’d suggest unless you want to hire an artist, or spend at least 1 year working exclusively on art development every day for at least 4 hours (which isn’t too long) I’d stay away from realistic. Game content that isn’t realistic is multiple times easier to create, can be considered stylized (thomas was alone, monument valley, minecraft, warcraft, darkest dungeon, inside etc) and is a lot easier to get working in engine. All those examples are not realistic, are stylized games and look AMAZING!
Realism is a black hole that takes infinitely more time to create and get working in engine than other styles.
About lighting and shaders - Strongly suggest Unitys training material on these topics. Great information relevant to the engine, and you can branch out on those topics to other sources of information after gaining the basics of what the engine offers.
Wow,this is exactly what i was looking for,thanks for your in detail explanation of everything! Now i have idea on what should i pay attention when trying to make game more beautiful and overall better experiance for players.Thanks again!
It’s late for me now to change the style of my game,writing scripts is almost over so i’ll need to spend weeks and weeks to change scripts…I’ll try to learn more about lighting and shaders because i think that’s big part of knowelage that i’m missing.Anyways thanks for suggestion and i’ll check unity traning material ASAP. 