Lighting - making the environment more spooky (atmospheric)

So I've just played Silent Hills: PT and I'm in love, I really want to make a horror theme with my environment, so now I am playing with fog and lights.

I have changed the lighting and have had a few ideas that I wanted to do the environment - I wanted to make a spooky environment to achieve this I am thinking of having a human hung up by a rope/cloth with blood dripping down from his head (replacing the chandelier from the 2nd room).

The lighting will change in the 2nd room, Candles will be lit on the tables on the sides of the room.

A little more progress on my environment

I am quite ahead of myself now and have put down some of the major points of the hallway, still needs alot more polishing but hey I can see where this is going now.

I am still playing a bit with the lighting, need to fix some some of the light maps, finished off the hallway for now and will begin working more on it later but for n and going to start working on the main room.

I will begin working on the outside after, I am planning on having rain, trees and some sort of fog effect.

Visualizing the blockout

So this is just some quick planning, tying to put props into the room to start visualise what is actually going on, a starting point.
I have not started uving or anything yet, just want to get the right mood and all the props in at the moment.

Here is the block out video

http://youtu.be/CkVB47hedEc

Plan brainstorm for my project

After picking my chosen references I decided to go further and make a top down Birdseye view of my planned environment, would be easier for me in the long run.

Here is my idea of the scene a long corridor leading to a room where a murder has occurred, blood leading to the room will help guide the player down the corridor and into the room as I decided not to put the room straight at the end of the corridor but I intended to make the player turn and go into a room.

Chosen references for project

So after a while of researching the Versailles and french architecture -  I chose these 2 references.

Here is the Grand Trianon hallway which will be connected to E-23: French dining room of the Louis XIV period.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9aj6SwZOg6qNAKjGsuY2VE_yxXnX32tdDEwvKAMfSooiwB94EVlO5KgmaJEVxBxjb5hFub_qoUN6JETeEjIgAo8HsfYDGuZ0aLzEImhmv2bZzL9H44PMd59BrmRF4a7QzWk9xO0f7CKs/s1600/03-1638-1774-French-Narcissa-Niblack-Thorne-Architecture-Miniature-Models-www-designstack-co.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/The_Grand_Trianon_Castle_Interios.JPG

Change of mind.

After a while of talking with some friends I realised that this environment wasn't as challenging as I first anticipated, looking around Google I found some really cool indoor interior scenes, one thing that really caught my eye was the game Assassins Creed 'Unity' The french architecture looked beautiful and I wanted to try replicate that by developing Louis XIV dining hall.

http://static.businessinsider.com/image/542ef2d9ecad04556ce7dae6/image.jpg

Third Year University (A3D Assignment)

Our groups were given a breif.

BRIEF

Brief1– Environment with a historical theme

You will produce a virtual recreation of a building or complex. You will research maps, plans and historical data to obtain as much information about the subject as possible. The goal here is historical accuracy, but you will be striving to make the level/scene playable. Starting with this context you will make the resulting project suitable for game purposes.

(i) Gothic

(ii) Moorish

(iii) First world war

I had found a really cool concept and decided to add gothic elements to it to fit the breif.

Concept:

http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/152695/2044610/rocks_800.jpg

Patrick O'Keefe is the artist of this concept.

Gothic Elements added:

I will be researching more into detail with these gothic elements (blueprints, photos etc) in the blockout phase to make this environment look as realistic as possible.

I decided to make the quick blockout terrain in UE4 then export the height map into World Machine to add more detail and topology.

UE4:

World Machine:

After creating some cool effects in World Machine (explanation on how I did it).

I managed to create this for UE4.

I can now use this as a base and start creating a few different texture for dirt, grass and rock.