Plan
Wk7 ā 21/10/19
Planned Tasks:
This week I plan to further develop on my rock assets for my diorama as these are quite possibly going to be the biggest struggle for me during this project, if i manage to achieve the outcome I am aiming for I will work on further assets depending on which I would like to begin finishing up the final touches to using my blockouts/tests as reference.
During this week I spent the majority of my time modeling rocks by solid shattering geometry and picking the best looking outcomes then reducing the polycount. After this I spent the remaining time testing texture ideas to see which best fit these assets. I didn’t manage to get a lot done during this week as it has been a mentally straining time for me and have been pre occupied with other things however I am happy with the outcome of my rocks.
Once I was happy with my rock assets, I moved onto my track for my diorama. This was probably one of the easiest assets as I had already blocked this out rather well and only had to make a small amount of adjustments.
Due to losing my files for certain assets I had to upload them to sketchfab to take screenshots of the products, as you can see from the images below, the first image being the example of the wireframe which is extremely low poly however as it is simply a support for the tracks to be held between each platform, this doesn’t necessarily matter as the texturing is the main thing that will stand out. I textured this asset within Substance painter using the same material as the slats above on my tracks which actually merge rather well within the diorama itself.
Plan for next week:
Next week I plan to further develop on the assets for my scene including:
- Pickaxe
- Texturing ideas
- Minecart development
- Helmet/Lighting for diorama
HALF TERM
As this pickaxe was actually a relatively simple asset to begin with, my blockout was technically good enough to be used as a final piece (LOL) so I unwrapped it and textured it to see how it would look, leaving me with an outcome I was actually quite happy with giving off the damaged rusted style I aimed to achieve while keeping poly count extremely low.
For my minecart I used one of my blockouts as reference aswell as my sketches to produce a higher poly version of the simplified version created in the ideas stage of the project. The outcome wasn’t quite what I wanted however I was in a rush and settled for this.
In my opinion the textures could have been far darker however other than that I think it is quite spot on for the rusted style I was trying to replicate from reference material.
I decided to scrap the idea of using a helmet to light my scene and instead produced an oil lantern, this is definitely my favourite asset out of my whole scene as the geometry is extremely clean and I spent a lot of time achieving the rusted/damaged feel to the asset through the use of textures. However I am not entirely happy with the flame of the lantern itself, but this can be easily fixed in Unreal Engine using a particle system or animation.
Below is the final asset displayed in sketchfab where you can view the wireframe of the asset, which has extremely clean geometry and is also minimized for performance within Unreal Engine.
Wk8 ā 04/11/19
Plan for this week:
This week I plan to begin fully modelling and optimizing the tests for my wall assets including final texturing, If i manage to succeed with this (Doubtfully) I will move onto the platforms for my diorama which will eventually hold the tracks for my cavern and minecart.
The walls in my diorama were definitely THE MOST stressful and tedious asset of my scene taking up a ridiculous amount of time, I used the same solid shatter as before but on a cube then deleted un-necessary polys however this took me a very very long time to get right and although it is finished it’s not even anywhere near what I wanted them to look like. I will never model a cave again. Ever. š
Using substance painter I was able to replicate a relatively realistic rocky material which I used to texture my wall asset, which doesn’t necessarily look great in substance however that’s because the asset itself is an extremely large scale meaning the textures had to be rather small scale to actually look decent within unreal engine which I will show further below.
Using the same solid shatter with various attempts I managed to achieve a platform sort of rock which I will place either side of my walls to support the tracks for my diorama. I also used the same texture as my wall asset with some minor alterations to give some slight variation to the assets.
I didn’t get much done this week due to the wall taking up a huge amount of my time which caused me to be extremely stressed and demotivated me to actually continue working on this project.
Plan for next week:
Next week I plan to be fully finished as the deadline is extremely close, I wasn’t fully aware or even slightly prepared for this so will aim to build my scene within Unreal to see where I’m at asset wise.
Wk9 ā 11/11/19
As you can see in the video below, I have fully built my scene using the assets currently developed and I am relatively happy with the outcome. I played around with various lighting styles and found that adding lights to my lanterns with a temperature setting aswell as a flickering function material added to give the effect of a flame. On top of this I also created an animated flame which isn’t entirely visible however has given me increased knowledge within this software.
There are some issues with my lighting however this doesn’t necessarily bother me as I spent a very very long time producing the best type of ambience to follow the gloomy effect I was aiming to produce and personally feel I achieved this rather well.
I also had an idea which allowed me to minimize the amount of time required to build my scene by stacking up 3 types of rock models to give the effect that the mineshaft behind the tracks have collapsed which personally I don’t think looks rather good however I did manage to save myself some time to work further on my lighting and positioning my assets correctly to the best of my ability with the time remaining.
James' 2nd Year - Level 3 