The next main change was to switch the material of the ceiling. I think in previous posts I'd expressed my discomfort with how bright it was, it really didn't fit the theme, so I looked for some materials that might fix this, and I found this wood plank material on Quixel Bridge which worked really nicely to help tie the scene together. The place feels a lot grungier and darker now, though the plank ceiling looks a bit too refined for this space, so I will eventually replace this material with a wood viynl which will be grungier and have some tears and rips to help maintain that aesthetic.
The last major update has been the lighting. I wasn't happy with how flat it was before, so I've introduced a bit of contrast and allowed the directional light to cast some more shadow. I'm struggling a lot with lighting in UE5, getting Lumen to work nicely is very different from what I'm used too. Not entirely sold on this lighting set up either, but just fun to keep experimenting and trying things. Will probably iterate on this more as I go.
And to wrap up, here are a couple of assets I forgot to post, a couple of new books and a couple of chairs. The scene has had a bunch of different assets added, but pretty much all of them are so roughly texture I'd be embarrassed to show them this close up.
