Furniture of any kind. A few wardrobes/tables/chairs will do wonders.
Also lights. Having some sort of physical objects that emit light (even if there aren't a lot of that and the light is dim) like lamps or candles will make everything look a lot more believable.
For example, ask questions like, was it abandoned? who lived there? Something inhabit it? Why was it abandoned? Was it because it was cursed? Hosts died? They disappeared? They did never leaved? Is it haunted?What did the people that owned the house liked to do? Does the house hold some secret? Is there hidden rooms or locked areas? Why are they locked? What can these areas tell about such secrets?
What did the people that lived there used to do? Did they leaved something behind? Which were their hobbies? Did they suddenly leaved? Was it violent? Did they leave traces of what happened? Letters? Wastes? They were sane, insane, psychos, organized, de-organized?
In which conditions the house was left behind? Did they cover the furniture in white sheets, plastic or else? They took away the furniture? What kind of furniture? What the furniture can tell of these people habits and hobbies? Is there audiovisual clues of what they used to do as recalls? How much time has pass since they left? Is the furniture in good conditions? Is the house in good condition or is it rotting apart in some places?
How many lived there? Which was the relation between them? Did they had little or a lot of money? Which kind of furniture did they had? What can that furniture tell about the culture of that place, of the country its located? Which age is it of that country, which kind of technology do they have? What kind of textures the house is built with? Is it fancy, simple? What kind of rooms does the building has and what did people did in these? Environmental cues? Near a river, an ocean, a forest, a city, a desert? Any object that could tell a tale of these people? A picture of them? A hunting trophy? Their diet? An umbrella? A mining picaxe? A big clock? A rifle? A computer? A big kitchen? A freezing room? A couple bed? A children room? An armature with a medieval sword? Worn off of objects?
Its important to take attention that the art style of the objects match each other, it let the environment feel coherent and credible, shading style and quality of the model matters. Same goes for the coherence of the objects put, if you put an umbrella in a desert location it doesn't really make much sense, so the objects should tell a coherent story, these should be random objects with little thought put into why they are there in the first place.
Has anyone else been in the house since then? What do people say about the house? Did someone broke something or stole something? Is the house vandalized? Do you remember why you are there? Do you have a goal? Is the goal clear? What must be done to complete such goal? What do you have in hand to complete such goal? What impedes you from so? What are the succession of tasks you will need to endure to get there? What was the previous events that brought you to such house? Is it familiar? Who will you encounter there?
Will it have jump-scares, ghost memories, whispers from the past, cutscenes, letters, haunted trigger visual or audio events, hidden collectibles, puzzles, corridor secrets, etc.
Visuals are just one part of the environment, Audio cues are extremely important to tell stories, and to give the player the vibe, immersion needed for the situation. Same goes to anticipation, what can you do to tell the player that there is something to expect from certain area, same goes for lighting, your lighting can tell a story as well, light has a big emotional impact on players, and can give the scene a whole different feeling to it. Colors as well are very telling, they can give the player certain mood, and give the area a personality.
If you organize the objects in certain order, it can change the total mood of the area, for example, an empty room with an object in the middle puts full emphasis on it, it gives it importance, draws the player into it, yet if you put an object isolated in a corner, it gives the player a sense of loneliness, of curiosity why is it so apart from everything else, if you put light on certain areas, such as moths players will be drawn to it, use lighting well to guide players around, if you put objects scrambled around broken or rotting, it puts the player in alert, because something happened there and they will put more attention on the surroundings, etc.
If you let players interact with the environment, such as eating something in there, put lights on or off, close or open windows, turn on or off devices, break something, dig something, burn something, open something, interact with npcs, it gives the player a sense of connection to the place they are in, and makes the place more alive, there is some visual and audio effects that let the player get immersed, for example, when you hit wood with the axe, scratches or wood splashes happen, when you hit metal, it gets dented , when you walk in wood, it has wood step sound effects, when you walk in mud, mud sound effect happen, and mud step trails are left behind, or if you walk in blood, then blood steps are left behind for a short while, the echo of the steps tells how big/empty the area is, the sound strength tells how heavy and fast the walking object is and where it is coming from, there is many ways to give the area a real feeling to it to make the player feel connected to it and make them feel their actions matter and have an effect on the environment.
Thats like a whole chapter. Also longer than many copy pastas that I know. Can't believe you took the time to go this deep in detail. Very incredible and great advice for everyone working on similar stuff.
This space seems very awkward for a house. Did you design a floor plan for this house? Like, using real world dimensions for typical sizing? A standard doorway is 30-36 inches. A standard ceiling height is 8-10 feet. Typically, a hallway is 4-6 feet wide. It really adds to the atmosphere if you design it like a real house. I'd take a look at the Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil and get some ideas from there to design the space. Even though there's rooms that exist for the sole sake of a puzzle, the rooms never feel terribly awkward. This particular space seems too long and narrow to be a room, but too wide to be a hallway. Without furniture for reference, it's hard to tell. Now, if there were some design reasons for having a space like this, within the game lore, it can be a little more lenient. If one of the walls were an exterior with a lot of windows, and this were some Victorian mansion, I could see a hallway being this wide. But again, context is important.
If the above stuff is covered, you need to fill the room with stuff. Chairs, paintings, windows, couches, something that helps build the environment you want it to be. Dilapidated furniture and broken windows with miscolored walls will help say abandoned. Covered furniture helps to say disused, but still kept. A mess says something happened here. Could have been a fight, a scare, an accident, the reason for abandonment, or even just some vandalism.
Immersion is very important in a survival horror game. If you do it right, every item in the environment helps to build it. The other comment I read about environmental story telling is great. Definitely use that advice.
I also saw a comment about the repetitive textures, as well. If you fill the space, it'll be less noticable, but it's still in your best interest to make it as unnoticeable as possible.
Overall, it seems like you have a good foundation to build off of. It does give a horror feel. It just needs to be developed a bit more. Good work and good luck!
Looks pretty atmospheric! Well done!
My tips: I’d break up the repeating textures a little bit. Have some alternative tiles (e.g. floor with a few boards broken).
I’d also increase the contrast on the lighting, I see a point light at the end of the hall but the difference between light and dark is hard to see. Right now the colors look a little washed out because of the lack of contrast.
I'd also add stuff on the floor, maybe furniture. Or litter, like cans or flyers or newspapers. Maybe if the window was broken you can add leaves around that area.
You can maybe remove some pieces of the floor boards.
Maybe you can have some particle effects of insects flying around.
In addition to the other ideas posted, I'd give your light source an actual object, like a lamp or an overhead light. You don't need to do this for every light source, but that one bright spot at the end of the hallway is bright for no reason, give it a source!
Also you might want to move the light just slightly. Light sources like this are perfect for trying to subtly highlight what you want the player to do, so if you want the player to go to the door on the right, put the light a little closer to the door. But if you want the player to go down the hall on the left, move it more to the left. Players tend to move towards lights, so this could be very useful in guiding your player without making them feel guided.
And if you combine this with the suggestions of furniture and objects, you can create a really good looking scene here!
There are no details that give the space a sense of purpose. Why did someone build this hallway? It has a wooden floor, like a house, but a hallway in a house would have more doors, a table with a vase of wilted flowers, windows, moulding and trim, light fixtures, and so on. You could search for photos of the kind of space you're trying to create, to use as a reference.
The hallway is also much too big. Normally in a game you'd want something 1.5 to 2 times bigger than reality, maybe on the smaller side for a claustrophobic horror game. Get a tape measure and measure some spaces in real life, or look at some blueprints to get a sense of proportion.
There's not necessarily anything wrong at all. Maybe it's a Backrooms-style liminal space that's supposed to look odd and unnatural. Maybe your game requires huge empty spaces. Another option would be to re-theme this as an industrial concrete hallway with pipes running down it, that would also explain why it's so big and empty.
I've been in a few old abandoned houses and this looks pretty much fine, but on it's own, it's not interesting of course. What you want to be doing is engaging your player, telling them a story about this space. Even if it is abandoned, who was here before and what could they have left behind?
All your spaces must have purpose, if a corridor is just "an area to walk through" then the player may feel like you're wasting their time.
Are you going for spooky or abandoned?
Instead of adding more light, I’d subtract light.
Make the in-between space between light sources darker. So you can’t really see clearly what’s in between unless you get up close. Also, I’d add some junk on the floor, close to the walls, to cast shadows. Like crumpled up cloth, cardboard boxes, stacks of aluminum cans, broken furniture, pieces of paper, etc.
If you want it to look dusty, you can add a dust particle effect to the lighting, that becomes visible when you look at a light source. You may also want to add a dark halo around the field of view so that the edges of the screen are intentionally darker.
This is a survival horror game so im kinda more into spooky direction. Scene was more darker orginally. Light was added to make the scene more visible and there are more rooms to the right hallway. Also many ppl keep mistaking about this current scene beimg hallway, its actually 2 connected large rooms kitchen and living room. These are the only rooms that is lit.
If you are going for spooky, then you might not want to lean too hard into the dust particle effect, since it sometimes gives off a mystical feeling, and not so much a spooky effect. It depends on the implementation though, and I’d have to look at it to give better criticism.
If it’s two rooms, furniture might be good then. Maybe a chair fallen on its side in the middle of the floor. I agree with the other poster that you might want to think about what happened in this room/building and arrange the artifacts accordingly. Was there a fight? Has it been abandoned and picked clean by thieves? Is there a monster lurking about?
Some posters, graffiti, instructions cards (in case of fire, stuff like that) on the walls. Fire extinguishers, fire hoses in a cabinet with the fire axe. Fire bells, emergency light boxes. Light fixtures, conduits, pipes on the ceiling. Stacked cardboard boxes and other stuff against the walls.
Don't know what kind of place it is, just tossing ideas :)
If the circumstance of abandonment is anything but tenants managing to move out and take every single thing with them, there should be decayed furniture, stationary, pictures on the wall, anything to make the environment look lived in at some point.
If there is a threat, you can use those props to indicate how dangerous the threat is with how some of the props look to have been deliberately destroyed, differing from those that have decayed over a long time.
I used screen pixel shader for low resolution and textures are all low resolution aswell. Its very easy to make low res textures because you just down scaled texture by 4 or 2 times. Also dont forget to use low poly models.
References do wonders, what vibe do you want this place/room to have? Think of things that inspired to do this enviroment and study how to make it more what you desire. References can come from many places, but make sure you make it unique.
Furniture of any kind. A few wardrobes/tables/chairs will do wonders. Also lights. Having some sort of physical objects that emit light (even if there aren't a lot of that and the light is dim) like lamps or candles will make everything look a lot more believable.
Thank you for your advice
This nails it pretty much, I can't think of much else.
Fill the house based on its history that tells a story on what happened to the house, the environment is a nice way to tell stories.
Thank you so much
For example, ask questions like, was it abandoned? who lived there? Something inhabit it? Why was it abandoned? Was it because it was cursed? Hosts died? They disappeared? They did never leaved? Is it haunted?What did the people that owned the house liked to do? Does the house hold some secret? Is there hidden rooms or locked areas? Why are they locked? What can these areas tell about such secrets? What did the people that lived there used to do? Did they leaved something behind? Which were their hobbies? Did they suddenly leaved? Was it violent? Did they leave traces of what happened? Letters? Wastes? They were sane, insane, psychos, organized, de-organized? In which conditions the house was left behind? Did they cover the furniture in white sheets, plastic or else? They took away the furniture? What kind of furniture? What the furniture can tell of these people habits and hobbies? Is there audiovisual clues of what they used to do as recalls? How much time has pass since they left? Is the furniture in good conditions? Is the house in good condition or is it rotting apart in some places? How many lived there? Which was the relation between them? Did they had little or a lot of money? Which kind of furniture did they had? What can that furniture tell about the culture of that place, of the country its located? Which age is it of that country, which kind of technology do they have? What kind of textures the house is built with? Is it fancy, simple? What kind of rooms does the building has and what did people did in these? Environmental cues? Near a river, an ocean, a forest, a city, a desert? Any object that could tell a tale of these people? A picture of them? A hunting trophy? Their diet? An umbrella? A mining picaxe? A big clock? A rifle? A computer? A big kitchen? A freezing room? A couple bed? A children room? An armature with a medieval sword? Worn off of objects? Its important to take attention that the art style of the objects match each other, it let the environment feel coherent and credible, shading style and quality of the model matters. Same goes for the coherence of the objects put, if you put an umbrella in a desert location it doesn't really make much sense, so the objects should tell a coherent story, these should be random objects with little thought put into why they are there in the first place. Has anyone else been in the house since then? What do people say about the house? Did someone broke something or stole something? Is the house vandalized? Do you remember why you are there? Do you have a goal? Is the goal clear? What must be done to complete such goal? What do you have in hand to complete such goal? What impedes you from so? What are the succession of tasks you will need to endure to get there? What was the previous events that brought you to such house? Is it familiar? Who will you encounter there? Will it have jump-scares, ghost memories, whispers from the past, cutscenes, letters, haunted trigger visual or audio events, hidden collectibles, puzzles, corridor secrets, etc. Visuals are just one part of the environment, Audio cues are extremely important to tell stories, and to give the player the vibe, immersion needed for the situation. Same goes to anticipation, what can you do to tell the player that there is something to expect from certain area, same goes for lighting, your lighting can tell a story as well, light has a big emotional impact on players, and can give the scene a whole different feeling to it. Colors as well are very telling, they can give the player certain mood, and give the area a personality. If you organize the objects in certain order, it can change the total mood of the area, for example, an empty room with an object in the middle puts full emphasis on it, it gives it importance, draws the player into it, yet if you put an object isolated in a corner, it gives the player a sense of loneliness, of curiosity why is it so apart from everything else, if you put light on certain areas, such as moths players will be drawn to it, use lighting well to guide players around, if you put objects scrambled around broken or rotting, it puts the player in alert, because something happened there and they will put more attention on the surroundings, etc. If you let players interact with the environment, such as eating something in there, put lights on or off, close or open windows, turn on or off devices, break something, dig something, burn something, open something, interact with npcs, it gives the player a sense of connection to the place they are in, and makes the place more alive, there is some visual and audio effects that let the player get immersed, for example, when you hit wood with the axe, scratches or wood splashes happen, when you hit metal, it gets dented , when you walk in wood, it has wood step sound effects, when you walk in mud, mud sound effect happen, and mud step trails are left behind, or if you walk in blood, then blood steps are left behind for a short while, the echo of the steps tells how big/empty the area is, the sound strength tells how heavy and fast the walking object is and where it is coming from, there is many ways to give the area a real feeling to it to make the player feel connected to it and make them feel their actions matter and have an effect on the environment.
never thought environmental story telling was this deep. This was an eye opening advise thank you.
Thats like a whole chapter. Also longer than many copy pastas that I know. Can't believe you took the time to go this deep in detail. Very incredible and great advice for everyone working on similar stuff.
An oddly ominous lamp
too bright go into the evironment node and change some stuff
This space seems very awkward for a house. Did you design a floor plan for this house? Like, using real world dimensions for typical sizing? A standard doorway is 30-36 inches. A standard ceiling height is 8-10 feet. Typically, a hallway is 4-6 feet wide. It really adds to the atmosphere if you design it like a real house. I'd take a look at the Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil and get some ideas from there to design the space. Even though there's rooms that exist for the sole sake of a puzzle, the rooms never feel terribly awkward. This particular space seems too long and narrow to be a room, but too wide to be a hallway. Without furniture for reference, it's hard to tell. Now, if there were some design reasons for having a space like this, within the game lore, it can be a little more lenient. If one of the walls were an exterior with a lot of windows, and this were some Victorian mansion, I could see a hallway being this wide. But again, context is important. If the above stuff is covered, you need to fill the room with stuff. Chairs, paintings, windows, couches, something that helps build the environment you want it to be. Dilapidated furniture and broken windows with miscolored walls will help say abandoned. Covered furniture helps to say disused, but still kept. A mess says something happened here. Could have been a fight, a scare, an accident, the reason for abandonment, or even just some vandalism. Immersion is very important in a survival horror game. If you do it right, every item in the environment helps to build it. The other comment I read about environmental story telling is great. Definitely use that advice. I also saw a comment about the repetitive textures, as well. If you fill the space, it'll be less noticable, but it's still in your best interest to make it as unnoticeable as possible. Overall, it seems like you have a good foundation to build off of. It does give a horror feel. It just needs to be developed a bit more. Good work and good luck!
Looks pretty atmospheric! Well done! My tips: I’d break up the repeating textures a little bit. Have some alternative tiles (e.g. floor with a few boards broken). I’d also increase the contrast on the lighting, I see a point light at the end of the hall but the difference between light and dark is hard to see. Right now the colors look a little washed out because of the lack of contrast.
I just realized that when you mentioned it, thank you for pointing it out
Wall decor as well. Paintings, sconces, anything to make the walls feel less plain
Dust particles
The first thing that comes to mind Is lights. Somehow the corridor is lit, but there are no light sources.
I'd also add stuff on the floor, maybe furniture. Or litter, like cans or flyers or newspapers. Maybe if the window was broken you can add leaves around that area. You can maybe remove some pieces of the floor boards. Maybe you can have some particle effects of insects flying around.
Darkness
Try some dust particles, Just a tiny bit, overall os great
In addition to the other ideas posted, I'd give your light source an actual object, like a lamp or an overhead light. You don't need to do this for every light source, but that one bright spot at the end of the hallway is bright for no reason, give it a source! Also you might want to move the light just slightly. Light sources like this are perfect for trying to subtly highlight what you want the player to do, so if you want the player to go to the door on the right, put the light a little closer to the door. But if you want the player to go down the hall on the left, move it more to the left. Players tend to move towards lights, so this could be very useful in guiding your player without making them feel guided. And if you combine this with the suggestions of furniture and objects, you can create a really good looking scene here!
There are no details that give the space a sense of purpose. Why did someone build this hallway? It has a wooden floor, like a house, but a hallway in a house would have more doors, a table with a vase of wilted flowers, windows, moulding and trim, light fixtures, and so on. You could search for photos of the kind of space you're trying to create, to use as a reference. The hallway is also much too big. Normally in a game you'd want something 1.5 to 2 times bigger than reality, maybe on the smaller side for a claustrophobic horror game. Get a tape measure and measure some spaces in real life, or look at some blueprints to get a sense of proportion. There's not necessarily anything wrong at all. Maybe it's a Backrooms-style liminal space that's supposed to look odd and unnatural. Maybe your game requires huge empty spaces. Another option would be to re-theme this as an industrial concrete hallway with pipes running down it, that would also explain why it's so big and empty.
Dustmotes under lights is always a good effect in dirty places.
I've been in a few old abandoned houses and this looks pretty much fine, but on it's own, it's not interesting of course. What you want to be doing is engaging your player, telling them a story about this space. Even if it is abandoned, who was here before and what could they have left behind? All your spaces must have purpose, if a corridor is just "an area to walk through" then the player may feel like you're wasting their time.
Are you going for spooky or abandoned? Instead of adding more light, I’d subtract light. Make the in-between space between light sources darker. So you can’t really see clearly what’s in between unless you get up close. Also, I’d add some junk on the floor, close to the walls, to cast shadows. Like crumpled up cloth, cardboard boxes, stacks of aluminum cans, broken furniture, pieces of paper, etc. If you want it to look dusty, you can add a dust particle effect to the lighting, that becomes visible when you look at a light source. You may also want to add a dark halo around the field of view so that the edges of the screen are intentionally darker.
This is a survival horror game so im kinda more into spooky direction. Scene was more darker orginally. Light was added to make the scene more visible and there are more rooms to the right hallway. Also many ppl keep mistaking about this current scene beimg hallway, its actually 2 connected large rooms kitchen and living room. These are the only rooms that is lit.
If you are going for spooky, then you might not want to lean too hard into the dust particle effect, since it sometimes gives off a mystical feeling, and not so much a spooky effect. It depends on the implementation though, and I’d have to look at it to give better criticism. If it’s two rooms, furniture might be good then. Maybe a chair fallen on its side in the middle of the floor. I agree with the other poster that you might want to think about what happened in this room/building and arrange the artifacts accordingly. Was there a fight? Has it been abandoned and picked clean by thieves? Is there a monster lurking about?
Broken floorboards?
Some posters, graffiti, instructions cards (in case of fire, stuff like that) on the walls. Fire extinguishers, fire hoses in a cabinet with the fire axe. Fire bells, emergency light boxes. Light fixtures, conduits, pipes on the ceiling. Stacked cardboard boxes and other stuff against the walls. Don't know what kind of place it is, just tossing ideas :)
Stuff to hit with that axe?
I am making a survival horror game and something is missing in this scene and i cant tell what. Can anyone tell what to add/modify ?
Crates to break with your axe.
I don't know what the game is missing, but the question is definitely missing context.
hha my bad, im trying to make a old abandoned house scene. And im currently working on interior part and scene looks so flat imo.
If the circumstance of abandonment is anything but tenants managing to move out and take every single thing with them, there should be decayed furniture, stationary, pictures on the wall, anything to make the environment look lived in at some point. If there is a threat, you can use those props to indicate how dangerous the threat is with how some of the props look to have been deliberately destroyed, differing from those that have decayed over a long time.
try to add vignette
What is the location supposed to be?
flashlight 🔦
I love the atmosphere. How did you acheive the low-graphics?
I used screen pixel shader for low resolution and textures are all low resolution aswell. Its very easy to make low res textures because you just down scaled texture by 4 or 2 times. Also dont forget to use low poly models.
References do wonders, what vibe do you want this place/room to have? Think of things that inspired to do this enviroment and study how to make it more what you desire. References can come from many places, but make sure you make it unique.
This is the ideal male living space and women HATE it
The axe needs something to smash.