So I'm not sure what kind of authority I'm supposed to have here.
Your authority comes from your eyes. One does not have to be a painter to appreciate paintings. Most of us here aren't artists. I just happen to love to imitate arts, and honestly, all the scenes I have copied from Devil May Cry, Deus Ex, Jojo, and others, make me wonder why they were so magical. Why can't I reproduce the same kind of art? In particular, Deus Ex is like a museum. Every scene is just so heavenly, but I digress.
Firstly, the lighting is too bright. It washes out and desaturates the colors and removes a lot of detail.
Yes, I thought that was the case too. I tried to imitate the brightness and the angle of the light from the same scene first chapter of Eternum. I did try to lower the brightness, but that wasn't it. The brightness is about the same, to my eyes at least, but you just mentioned a keyword, saturation. That might just be what the scene needs.
We had a pool scene in Eternum recently and he strategically placed the characters under an umbrella, probably for just this reason.
I don't remember such a scene. Was that in chapter 3 or 4? I'll go take a look.
I am aware that the scene is in direct sunlight and probably realistically lit, but it's not always about realism.
I feel like the shadows aren't sharp and dark enough, which is probably also realistic, but not aesthetic. It also makes her face in the second picture look rather weird and a bit unattractive, even if the model clearly isn't.
There is nothing realistic about the scene. Trust me. It was lit with a directional light, which is not a good approach for an open area. You should do that with an HDRI instead, but I'm trying to re-create the scene from the first chapter. You are right about the shadows, but that is actually what I'm trying to solve. It doesn't look realistic. The magic of Caribdis is that he is able to make the lighting in HS2 somewhat realistic. It's really hard to do. That's what I'm trying to learn.
The rest of the model looks mostly fine apart from anti-gravity hair, but that's a thing a lot of artists get wrong, sometimes deliberately so and sometimes because the model doesn't cooperate.
I have no control over the hair. It's just one big mesh, so it always stays the same.
But see, thank you, really, for all your inputs. I gave up on HS2 long ago exactly because I couldn't make beautiful renders. Eternum changed my mind so I thought I'd give it another try. Eternum stands out from the rest of the HS2 games because of its lighting, (and of course the story and animations and all that). I'm trying to capture that technique. Let's hope I can do better next time.
