At the very start of the summer, Hazrat and I wanted to do a project together (we didn't know we were going to be given one). Therefore, we began to think about what we wanted to do and very quickly decided on doing a full-blown Colosseum for our gladiators to roam in... Stands and all. This was no doubt ambitious but we wanted to go for it. We soon realised it'd much better if we didn't design/do a collision for the entire construction. We did some research into the scale of the arches, how tall the were, what the Colosseum looked like from the inside out etc, and made a decent start!
This is where we got to:
 |
| We weren't in the labs, so we sent images online to communicate what we wanted. |
 |
| No Top Floor |
However, we then received an e-mail about what we have to do over the summer and it involved a big project, reading "Mortal Engines" by Philip Reeve, and the texturing competition (Of which we finished before the summer started). Mortal Engines was actually a very interesting book and I rather liked it purely on how obscure the idea is of having whole cities that travel. I'm not that fond of reading because it makes me quite tired, but I ended up reading and recording the main events on a few pages of A4 in the book in just 3 days! (Very unusual of me). I'll probably write a review in the future, but to sum it up, I loved the imagery it portrayed in my head as I was reading it, and it is very good for inspiration. It kept me on edge and wanting to read on to see what happens in the next chapter which is what a good book should do.
Back on the topic though, we had to put the Colosseum project on hold so we could focus on the project given to us.
After reading the list of projects we could have chosen to do, I immediately thought about doing Ancient ruins, F1 Car, Prison floor, and Sewer network. I chose to do ancient ruins because it would force me to confront both the character modelling, and the foliage making. In addition, I'd be able to get through a good amount of assets in order to speed me up and help me get better at 3D in general.
I began with some moodboards for inspiration and to get a feel for what it was I was after:
Here are the concepts for the Ancient ruins:
I had trouble doing all of this because 2D isn't a big strong point of mine as it takes me a long time do get something that looks good to me. I had a very fun time producing this work and it made me much more confident in both drawing, and my ideas. Also, I was practising getting my ideas out of my head and onto the screen in a fast fashion. I used Feng Zhu's tutorials on YouTube to help me just relax and 'go for it'/'just draw' style.
The concepts for the character:
I'd say that in retrospect, I really should have done more concepts as I only produced one actual shot. I needed to have done a layout of the level, the scale, what I'm going to make... Just a lot more planning. Therefore, it didn't turn out how I wanted it do, but it wasn't exactly a complete mess! However, having done this on my own and making these mistakes, I now know that when it comes to other projects/doing my FMP, I need to make sure I know exactly/>90% of what it is I want to do so there isn't any faffing about trying to come up with fast (and probably bad) ideas as I go along - essentially making it up. This effected how work produced dramatically because I wasn't sure want I wanted or how I wanted the rest of it to look like!
Nevertheless, I did manage to get a decent amount done, just not the amount I should or could have done with the time I had.
I got off to a very good start because I actually knew most of the foliage I wanted to make. It only took between 2-3 weeks to make all of the foliage from start to finish and I was very proud of what most of them looked like, although, there were a few I weren't keen on because again, I made them up just to make use of the texture sheets I made:
Mushroom texture sheet:
When I first made the trees in year 1 at DMU, I found it very laborious as you had to go through a lot of effort just to make the branches, then position every single one. However, coming back to doing a similar thing, I thought it was great fun! I am a bit disappointed I didn't make a cycad tree but I'll hopefully make one soon. I am no longer disheartened at the idea of making any foliage because I find it really enjoyable and when the end product looks good, it makes you feel 100x better.
 |
| The first plant I made |
At this time I was thinking about how I wanted to make the door in the concept art. I therefore made the structural assets and worked on some of the landscape/rocks.
The problem with working without a decent amount of planning on how you want the level to look, you end up making things which don't make sense, going off on a tangent which is almost irrelevant, and making it all a bit jumbled.
The vines I made on alpha planes were actually made using an LOD technique from 3D models I made in 'Sculptris'. Therefore, this allowed me to make these vines all under 8 tris per branch.
I also did some research into the 'giant red trees' and thought they would make a good addition to this project:
This covers the majority of the foliage I produced for this project, now onto the other assets:
The different rocks:
These all don't look very nice in 3ds max - in the game engine, they look so much better.
Anyway, off of the boring stuff and onto the character!
Despite having reference for the character I wanted to make, he ended up looking nothing like that because a) I had to abide by the original tri budget of 5000. b) I actually wanted to have a go at modelling my own head. c) I went off on a tangent.
Here's the weapons I made for him:
The character + Alpha for the weapons:
 |
| Smoothed |
 |
| Huge line on neck is due to ambient occulsion map (Didn't take it out) |
I have to admit that he does certainly look like me...
Throughout the process of making these models, I had already started a UDK map and have been importing them to see what they look like in the game engine. This allowed me to put together a little 'test' map to see all of the foliage together and some of the other assets:
Once I was happy with the base meshes, I started to make the actual map.
I knew I wanted some sort of a mountainous terrain, just to give it a location, so I looked for tutorials on how to make one and viola... This came out:
It was hard because I could only use 4 textures (I think) for the terrain paint tool. This was because each texture actually has 3-4: Diffuse, Specular, Normal, Height. So, I made-do and it turned out how it did, but I really wanted to squeeze one more in and add snow to the peaks of the mountains.
I know the setting doesn't make sense at all, I.e., snow-topped mountains, then just a random bunch of trees and rocks in the middle, but it meant that I learnt a variety of techniques for different settings, and not just the one.
From here on in, I just started to piece things together to make some kind of sense of them and this was the outcome that followed - (The total tri count for the assets made was only between 12-15,000):
Points to improve upon + Short summary:
Points to improve upon:
-When attempting something this big, make sure to have done sufficient planning of the layout, models to make, and things to do + Concept the ideas thoroughly so I know what I'm doing when it comes to 3D. Blocking out some level ideas first would have been very helpful.
-Organise what things are likely to take up the most amount of memory, e.g. texture map sizes for terrain + characters, and ask myself "is it worth having it in 512x512 or could it really be 256x256 or even smaller?".
-Make an asset list with rough tri counts to abide by, giving an estimated total tri count; update it as I go along,
-Make the most important things first. Everything is made to have a purpose, so design my ideas around what the purpose of it is.
-Think about interactive elements which could be implemented to make it more interesting.3
-Define some colour palettes to be used so that the textures are coherent.
I loved the project as a whole because it made me a lot faster at all of the processes, from modelling, right down to putting it in the game engine and testing it all. Even though a lot of it was rushed, I learnt a lot of different material techniques, modelling tips, and ways to improve my workflow along the way. I came across some challenges, 1 e.g. how to make a terrain & paint foliage/materials onto it, and learnt how to do so. If I didn't do this project, the first past of 2nd year would have been that little bit more challenging as I wouldn't know how to do certain things, or be too slow at a process and end up losing out for the final product.
All in all, I made sufficient progress in most areas from the 2D Visual design + research, to the 3D side & workflow aspects.
No comments:
Post a Comment