Texturing Assets and Stuff

This week the level changed pretty dramatically. After the “Dragons Den” review session we had decided to take their advice and shrink the size of our level so we wouldn't have as much work and we could actually finish in time as this is quite a short project to build a whole interactive level.

The level is now more underground as it has a terrain roof so to speak which gives the level a dramatic feeling and some interesting lighting. I think the level is definitely more interesting and very fun to play now. 

This week I spent most of my time texturing the assets I had made. This was fairly simple and easy but was slightly time consuming which is a pain as we were still kind of behind.
To texture all the assets I decided as this was a realistic project hand painting textures wasn’t the best idea as I can’t paint too realistically. So instead I used cg textures and photo-manipulated the images I downloaded off of the website.
I think this worked pretty well as I think the assets look pretty good with their final textures on.

When texturing the main assets I started with the albedo texture. It mainly consisted of photo-manipulated images to make the bulk of the textures however I added small details like dirt and rust by hand painting it on top. After making the albedo I moved on to the height map so I could make a normal map from it, I changed the albedo to black and white and then changed the levels and hand painted some details so I could get the texture and bumps I wanted on the normal map.

Moving on from those maps I made the final map which is the roughness map, this is fairly easy and just requires some hand painted scratches and damage marks. I generally don’t make a metallness map if it isn’t needed however as there were metallic objects in the assets I made one, it only makes a subtle difference but it’s worth it.

As part of the assets I had made a crane however it wouldn’t fit on a 1024 texture sheet with the other assets so I put it on a 512 and it turned out alright. I went through the same process as I did with the generic assets so it was a fairly quick process. Throughout texturing I was constantly importing assets into UE4 and checking how the textures looked and adjusting them appropriately.

I also textured the market stall I had modelled. As we didn’t have a big texture budget for this project we decided to reuse the same 2 textures for the general containers and as part of other buildings like my market stall and the fishmongers. This meant I only had to textures the add on parts of the market stall so this was the front of the stall, the table, crates, food, and signs. As with the other assets I made the albedo then the normal map and the roughness.

Thankfully I got all the texturing done in this week which was to schedule. This leaves next week to finish stuff off and make sure everything is in engine and to make more assets or textures if needed. 

Nightmare of a Project

Continuing on the Container City project, we're a bit behind but I think we'll make it.
The work for this project seems never ending although we're all keeping at it and trying our best which is really good.

After a "Dragon's Den" session on Thursday the feedback we received was fairly good and helpful, although I predicted what the tutors were going to say: "Your level is too big" and to be honest it was. So following that session we went straight to the labs and made a plan of how we can condense the level but still keep aspects we all wanted. In the end we decided to narrow the level down to the dock area near the waterfront as it's the most interesting part of the map. 

We all have a building or two to make to populate that area of the map, these include shops, restaurants, market stalls, shacks, fishmongers etc. 

I was tasked with making the market stall and at first it was just going to be a general stall with a table and some shelter made out of scraps which I still might do as well, but the new idea is to make it out of a container so it's more in keeping with not only the project but also the other container buildings. 

I started off with a panel coming down from the top but when I showed the others in the group Sarah pointed out that it would probably hinder the stall owner so I scrapped it and made it into a roof. I think I may add signs to the market stall as it's looking a bit stark and unlike a market stall.

I also made some more assets like the crane which I just finished unwrapping. I think I need to make some more as we really need to populate the area and we don't want it to look totally empty.
I did a paintover to show what the final outcome will kind of look like. 

Here are the unwraps for the assets. I'm now about half way through unwrapping the market stall. I'm planning on having all my unwrapping done by tomorrow so I can move onto texturing all the assets and my container building.

I can't say I'm enjoying this project, it's a bit of a nightmare and it doesn't interest me much as there are lots of contraints in the brief which doesn't allow for much of an individual take on the project. However I think when it all comes together in engine the level will look good and worth the work. 

Container City

So this week I'm back at uni and the new project has started. It's another group project and we have four weeks to make a basic level based on shipping containers.

Goals:

·         Produce a small section of a game level that is dramatically and atmospherically lit

·         Produce a level that has a series of exciting visual compositions from the first person point of view as you travel into the level.

·         Produce a level that makes excellent, effective use of a small number of modular components to produce a convincing environment effectively.

·         Include some interactive elements, e.g. doors that open on approach.

Audience:

·         A games publisher looking to fund a PC adventure game with a small new team. Their target market is the kind of players who already enjoy realistic games like Crysis and Uncharted.

You will deliver:

·         At least two key mood boards with clear labelling

·         At least six key concepts with clear labelling

·         A clean, well-organised, final Max scene that contains all of the components used in the game level.

·         Photoshop files for all textures with layers well labelled.

·         A document that lists who built which asset and shows a screen grab of the asset. The document will also list who lead which parts of the work on the final level. Use both name and P number.

·         A clean, well-organised, final Unreal 4 scene

·         15 high resolution screenshots from in Unreal 4 showing that show off the level effectively with well composed attractive images.

·         10 high resolution images that show the model and texture breakdown and clearly label them.

o   These images should show the final surface with wireframe and maps used.

o   They must label polycount and texture sizes.

o   5 images should be breakdowns of the assets and five should be breakdowns of the level.

As its the first week of this project we're currently concepting. To start with we all did lots of research on shipping containers made into buildings and started to think about what are level would be. At first we were gonna set in a bamboo forest where people had used to shipping containers to build shelter and a place to live. But we decided to scrap that idea. Keeping with the dystopian theme we changed our idea to people living inside an old marble quarry that use shipping containers to build houses and shacks.

We were inspired by an image of an old quarry which showed the different levels of the quarry where people could live. This then made us think about marble quarries and the interesting bright white colour of the rocks.

Once we had a final idea of what we wanted to do we started working on some quick block outs and white boxes. This meant it was easy for us to quickly map out the level and see what we wanted to do the level itself. 

This week we have all been doing different tasks for the project, Zhané has been blocking out and created the main terrain for the level and getting it to work in UE4. Whilst Sarah has been creating the containers and basic level map with the buildings and creating a collision mesh that allows the player to properly walk around and play the level.
Marta has been working on the concepts for the buildings that are made from the shipping containers, this includes the basic shacks, a make shift hospital and even market stalls etc. I have been modelling the basic assets that can be repeated around the level such as tires, barrels, crates, debris and things like washing lines and ladders.
This is how far I've gotten with the assets so far: 

Over the weekend we've all been concepting different buildings so we can then make them for the level. I've done a few concepts and paintovers but I still have a lot to finish for tomorrow.