This week I had the goal to complete all of my models by now. I nearly acheived this goal, with the exception of one or two models. This was mainly due to the fact I kept getting side tracked by other things needed to be done such as texturing and animation. However, this was not too bad as it was progression regardless.
I started this week by using the Unreal Engine skills we had been taught in tuesdays lesson to make an introduction video to my game tutorial. I started by downlaoding an asset pack of a ‘Dreamscape’ series, free on Unreal marketplace and coincidently very similar to my project name, ‘Realmscape’. I thought these assets would be great to lay out as a scene and title/loading screen. It took a lot of figuring out Unreal engine online, through my teachers and peers, and sometimes just figuring it out on my own.
First, I tried imporing my room into the engine ontop of a mountain I had used as an asset, but after a few moments of tweaking and arranging, I decided I wanted to create the outside building using the assets in the pack, and have it just cut to my room afterwards which would be rendered out in Maya.
Using the assets given, I assembled a scene of a stand alone landscape, a tower and runes floating in the sky. I then did a camera animation of it going into the room, where it will fade to black to reveal my room. I wanted the scene to be ‘loading’ as it zoomed in, to give more of a loading page feel, so I rendered the scene out as the assets were in rendering process. I then edited the clip using a video editor and added the motion graphics of my tutle being swept away as the camera moved in, and a loading bubble.
This will need some work as this is a draft. I also decided this week I will be showcasing my project on a CRT TV at the exhibition, so I will need to keep this in mind for the sizing of the screen.
Next, I decided I needed a texture on the top of my tables to set apart the wood textures from my models as they were blending in too much. I found a rune design that fits in with the look of my room and places this as tops on my tables.
I then edited the shape of my room to be more rounded in places, to fit in with the tower design on my title screen.
I then det out to work on the starting animation for my scene. This consisted of camera animating and making my models bob up and down to simulate selection for the player. I did this using key framing animation in maya.
I then made sure that the animation graphs for the camera were linear in places I wanted them to be, and tweaked some details of the movement in places.
Next, I focused back on my modelling I still needed to do. First, I really needed to improve my chest design, as it didn’t fit my stylised look I was trying to accomplish. I looked online for inspiration, and found a simple design I wished to replicate style choices from, primarily the shape of it.
I created this simple design using a cube and a cylinder, with extrusion tools and bevel. I kept the same lock I had created.
Next I took this to 3D Substance painter where I had a lot of challeneges such as UV errors, and Ngons in which I had to fix along the way. It was hard to get the UVs perfect due to the extrusion lines and depths. After fiddling about with many textures, I managed to create one that was fitting for my scene, and worked out in terms of the UVs.
I then implemented these textures to my chest in my scene.
This was definately more of the style I was hoping for, but needs to be fixed by lighting in the later stages.
I next decided to model my ‘character guide’ that would take the player around the room. I looked online for inspiration, and seeing as I wanted to strengthen my sculpting skills, I typed in clay models to find one I could take ideas from. I found this guy, which immediately made me think of a rock druid spirit.
I especially liked this head design. I started to craft a model similar to this design on maya. I used the sculpt tool to create the exact look I wanted out of a sphere polygon. I then used the sculpt tool also to create legs and arms.
I always wanted to keep my character as a ball like shape that would bob around the room, so I decided to take the head from this design and make that my ‘druid rock spirit’. It would be a rock that is alive and a guide for my game.
I textured this rock in 3D Substance painter, and made it a stylised rock texture, with some whismical marks on it’s forehead. I then added jade gems to the eyes, and a glowing green surface shader, to create an ominous glowing from the eyes.
I then started working on the animation of this rock to follow the cameras movements, and have a constant bobbing motion going as it moves. This was repetitive key framing and editing smooth movements in correlation to the camera timing on the animation graph editor.
I am happy with the amount of progress I have made. By the end of this month I have set myself the task of finishing:
- All animation
- Details on the alchemy table
- Re texturing the walls
- More details to the dress
- Textures to the mushroom roof
- Boolean the windows to the walls
- Texturing details on the staff
- Improving textures on the book
- Improving textures on the bow and arrow
- Modelling lanters
- Creating fire in the lanterns
- Lighting in the room pre-rendering
Then in the month of November will be rendering, troubleshooting and adding motion graphics and after effects to the project.