Game Art week seven

This week I have begun the new project of the Sentry gun, which I started collecting research material to trigger ideas and add to mood boards. I began researching war diesel punk, insect machines, angel statues, 1940's film cameras. I had too many ideas and couldn't narrow them down to something I was confident I would enjoy developing.

Beginning the sentry gun project, I really wanted to stay away form the typical futuristic, machine sentry gun style. I first played around with a few ideas such as statues, insects and then looked at diesel punk, which lead me to look at The Machines de L'ite, an Amusement park in france where they make giant hydraulic puppets of wood and steel. http://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/

http://fandulous.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/machines-de-lile-on-ile-de-nantes.html

Sentry gun Mood board

After deciding on my ideas for my sentry gun theme, I began putting together a mood board of images categorised in the base, gun barrel, gun case and materials. I decided I would make the sentry gun mounted inside a sculpted case made form wood and steel. I them began producing silhouettes of the sentry gun case, which I decided to develop the fish case idea as it allows for better iteration in size and shapes. I also liked the idea of using the fins of the fish as shields. After developing my fish case silhouettes, I began developing my sentry gun base and the barrel which would be mounted inside the case. This week I aim to have done 90% of my visual designs done for my sentry gun, so that I can create the high and low poly models, then further develop paint overs and iterations from the models.

Sentry gun Silhouettes

Sentry gun silhouette values

These are the value iterations of the base, horizontal yaw and barrel, which would be fixed to the fish case. The fish case would serve as the gun pitch as it would be covering what would be the gun. I decided to go with an idea which included a control box on the side with lights and cables. This would be visible and attached to the outside of the fish case. Its purpose would be to change settings of the automatic turret, such as speed and accuracy. It also features cooling vents, hydraulics which would lift the turret up and down, if I had time to animate it.

Game Art week six

During this week I had a review of my progress so far. I discussed how the film room group project was going, which there were no real concerns towards the project, everything is running smoothly and we are working well as a team. I also discussed how I'm finding the year so far, At the beginning I was terrified about starting my second year, that it was going to difficult as I knew nothing about the unreal engine and my overall knowledge of 3D work wasn't the level it should be at now. However, in reflection to the six weeks I've been in my second year, I feel a lot more confident now, I've been learning and developing my skills all-round during the film room project. I have come across lots of problems during the project that all have been solves and have improved my knowledge. Now towards the end of the film room project, I feel confident for future projects and in my quality of work.

As I have assets that I have created for the film room project and many previous assets from last year, I need to make a sketchfab account to upload my 3D models, so that tutors can view my work separately from the groups and so I can display my portfolio.

I also discussed career choices, which I am still unsure about. When I was beginning with course in year one I wanted to aim to be an environmental artist, however after two years I feel that when I complete this course,I would apply to anything I could and aim to work my way up to an environmental artist as my end goal.

Life drawing

Film room project Evaluation

One of my personal choices for a film room would be the Gryffindor common room, The main elements that made this room stand out to me, The grand stone structures contrasting against its antique interiors. It has contracts of natural lighting from the windows and a big roaring fire place as the focal point to the room, casting warm orange lighting over the whole room. The room has lots of image source material, clearly showing the whole room, even high shots, clearly showing the layout of the room.

My second personal choice would be one of the circular rooms from Alien. I am unsure what the room is called, However it has a strong focal point to the room with a centre of seating and round table. I was drawn to this as I loved the plastic geometric sci-fi interior. It is a fairly small room with few assets leaving time to focus on the main elements of the room.

My final choice would be the main entrance from Crimson peak, it is quite a large room, however there a few main large features such as the stair case and piano. I was drawn to this room because of the old architecture and lighting, as it has a large beam coming from a hole in the roof, creating spot lighting in the centre of the room, which produces a haunting atmosphere. During the film snow falls through the hole, which would make  an interesting animation to add to the scene.

After debating different film room scenes, we chose the bar room from Kingsman secret service, personally I thought that this was a good choice among many other good ideas we looked at. Independently, I chose this as I liked the traditional, cosy and worn look that English pubs have. It has a strong focal point to the room, as it has a large wooden bar. The room has a main focus of natural lighting from two large windows at the back of the room, creating gods rays beaming into the room, which would illuminate dust particles. The room also has curtains to distract from the outside world. The film has two bar fight scenes set in this room, with clear shots of the whole room, making it easy to collect image source material. The majority of the assets in the room are made from wood materials, creating a dark atmosphere. It has a variety of different textures and repeated assets to fill the scene. All of the assets depicted in the scene are from real life, making it easy to replicate materials rather than from a fantasy scene.   

  

First we created an asset list, categorising them into main structural and small assets, we also determined our triangle limit and texture sizes for each asset. We then created a white box of the room in UE4 to scale the size of the room and assets, using our screen shot of the film room as a guide. Once the white box was finished, we exported it to 3ds max to use it as a guide to start modelling. Within the first and second week of the project I had finished modelling all my assets, during this time I had problems with the see through mode, however I solved this by changing object properties from by layer to by object. Once I had modelled my assets, I created a copy of each asset and made a high poly version. I did this so that I could bake a normal map of the high poly version onto the low poly model, which would capture the details of the high poly but at a lower cost.

white box.

Bar stool asset creation.

Main door asset creation

windows asset creation.

Wine glass asset creation.

Before texturing we imported our models to the white box in UE4, to test our assets in scene and eliminate any problems before moving on. Our models were in cm and UE4 is in Inches, also a few assets extended through the floor, this was solved by re-scaling in 3dsmax. 

After modelling all my assets I began unwrapping and texturing. I had learnt more about unwrapping such as relaxing and rescaling to the same size, which I applied to my process and found I could work faster, which I now finished unwrapping my low poly assets. As I made low poly and high poly versions, I baked the normal maps using tutorials and asking for help. I then started texturing diffuse maps from photos of surfaces. Most of my assets were wood, which I used a tillable texture and edited by adding a highpass layer to smooth out the lines, a colour layer to match the wood from the scene, then added decals. while texturing I shared progress with group members, to replicate the same colour and brightness of textures for the scene, this is import as we didn't want the room to look mismatched . I did this process for all textures apart from the wine glass which only needed a plain diffuse colour, as this would mostly be edited in UE4. I also realised that my assets need to be multi-sub materials, as each asset has different surface properties, such as the windows are wood and glass.

Bar stool UV and texturing.

Main door UV and texturing.

Wine glass UV and texturing

Windows UV and texturing.

Next I exported all my assets with textures to UE4 to work on material PBR. I created an asset folder with the models and a material folder along with folders for each separate asset material, including diffuse maps and normal maps. As I imported my assets with multi-sub materials, I began editing each separate material with different surface properties, for example I edited the window material to have wood and glass properties, Which I use the diffuse map as a base colour. When first editing the materials, I had problems with them looking too shinny where they shouldn't, also roughness and normal maps being too intense, which I then looked into tutorials and the unreal website for guidance on PBR. For the wine glass I used a translucent material, with the diffuse as a base colour, opacity, metalness, reflectivity and refraction, I used the same glass properties for all my assets with glass surfaces. For the windows, barstool and main door I use similar materials for the wood, with multiple roughness textures, no metalness, normal maps of the high poly models, that are blended with other normal maps describing the wood surface. I saved I content and copied it to the group project folder to open in the main level.

Bar stool cushion material.

Bar stool wood material

Main door glass material.

Main door material.

Windows glass material.

Windows material.

Wine glass material.

Film room scene week five progress.

reflecting on my film room group project I can see that most members worked well as a team, we kept in frequent contact, posted updates of work progress and scheduled meet ups outside of lesson time via our Facebook group. However I felt some members of the group did not keep up with work schedules and put in an equal amount of effort of the whole group, which was made aware to our tutors. Our time management of the project worked to the deadline, we created asset lists, with texture and triangle limits, also established time limits for asset creation. Our asset creation and engine workflow progressed well, for instance we distributed our white box and assets through the group for ensure consistent scale of assets that accompany each other in the scene. We aimed to have essential work finished by week four of the project, allowing the last two weeks for final engine work. Material creation captured the traditional look of the scene and PBR enhanced our assets to look how we wanted them. During the project we stumbled across some problems with all stages of the work progress, but were solved quickly by the group.
After finishing the initial submission and reflecting on my project performance, I know what improvements could be applied. I would used time management more efficiently, so that I could complete task quicker to leave extra time for inevitable road blocks. Also so I could have more time to develop my assets in engine to make them look at their best.

Overall I feel happy with the final product of our film room group, It captures a good representation of our chosen film scene, The materials throughout the scene match the colours, saturation and traditional worn look of the pub. It mirrors the dark cosy atmosphere of the scene with the main lighting focus through the windows at the back of the room, creating strong beams of natural light. The assets populating the room are consistent good quality, which work well with PBR materials and reflect the lighting from assets where needed. On reflection, improvements I would apply would be to, increase contrast of lighting with stronger god rays from the windows, which would illuminate dust particles. Also edit the lighting colour and intensity from the windows. The size of the room feels slightly too big, which did not capture the cosy feel of the pub and the animation of the video render could of looked smoother if the camera speed was slower. However, the overall look of the room captures the film scene well and I feel I developed my knowledge and skills further during this project, which I can apply to future projects.  

We chose to recreate the post-credits bar fight from Kingsman: The Secret Service because it was the most balanced scene we could find in terms of asset distribution, difficulty, lighting and mood. The still is simple, but effective in conveying a mood of subtle tension through camera angles and character body language, but the scene itself is fairly simple. Light coming through the windows in a ‘god ray’ style evokes and evokes a very different mood to what the scene implies, giving the impression of a warm, welcoming British pub.
The still we chose also allowed us to take full advantage of the fact that the pub was home to a fight scene, with the swooping camera and multiple angles used giving us a clear indication of space, as well as a view of all the assets we would need to make, meaning very little would need to be guesswork or left out.
The still also offered opportunities for us to practice creating many different kinds of surfaces and textures, with wallpapers, woods, plaster, glass and upholstery all available as materials we were able to recreate.

As a team we were required to evenly distribute out assets and make a work plan for the coming weeks, something we immediately established as soon as the project began. Our planning began by organising a Facebook group where we would establish meet-up times, progress, updates and general discussion of the project. We knew this would be essential to keep track of everything so this was a very early step.
Another early group organisation tactic was the asset list- we went through the stills we had of the scene, individually picking out assets and putting them into an excel document, where we would decide triangle counts for each asset. While doing this, we also organised assets into a priority list based on size and importance. For example, the benches were going to be higher-poly models, finished and put into engine first before something like place mats. This allowed us to create the ‘feel’ of the room first and make sure that the scale was correct, as well as ensuring that if we stumbled during development the essential, room defining assets would be done in time. During this, we set up a time frame for what needed to be done and by when, aiming for the essentials to be completed by week four, ensuring a two week long polish, and giving ample time to deal with any inevitable road blocks.
During the project, our team would also lend our models to each other in order to keep a consistent scale for assets that sit closely together or work in tandem, such as chairs, benches and tables.

Game Art week Five

This week continuing the Film room project, I had finished texturing my diffuse maps and imported them to unreal engine so I could work on the material PBR. I began adding normal maps, roughness, metalness, and editing them to change the surface properties, I still have a long way to go before they look quite realistic to the film scene, therefore this week I am going focus working in unreal engine on my materials to make them look better. While working on my materials I realised I should have made them multi-sub materials, as most of my assets have different surfaces properties, for example the windows have wood and glass. Therefore I went back to 3ds max to change the materials to multi-sub and set material ID's to the models, I then -re-exported my models with new materials to unreal 4. Now it imported my models with multiple materials on one asset, so I could edit each material with different surface properties.

Also this week we had to present our groups work in class to show our progress. we all met up in the morning to import what we had textured so far. I imported my barstool and wine glass to the film room scene, which I am both happy with and turned out well. I also imported my main door and window assert, which both turned out super shiny and the opacity of the windows looked low quality and 'PS1', so I need to work on them and look for tutorials for guidance. this week I will aim to have finished my materials for the windows and main doors, also model and texture any extra assets in the scene. I also went back to my windows 3ds max file and make both windows separate assets, as previously I had both windows as one asset which made aligning and scaling difficult, therefore I detached the models to separate models.

Game Art week Four

This week I continued creating texture maps for my models, as I already started the basic diffuse textures last week. I had finished unwrapping and leant how to create a glass material in unreal 4, which I am happy with the result as it looks realistic. Now that I had finished unwrapping all my low poly models, I could start baking the normal maps of the high poly versions. I started with the wine glass and used a tutorial as a guide. I had some problems to begin with as I had never baked normal maps before, however I quickly solved these problems by reviewing the tutorial to make sure I did the correct steps. All the assets were fairly easy to bake the normal maps, however the main door proved more difficult, as there were more details and shapes such as the panels, door handles, door lock and door shutter to have the cage projection fit around. After I had baked the normal maps, I continued texturing the diffuse maps for my models. I started texturing the barstool, which I used a wood tillable texture for the legs and a checked fabric for the cushion. I then added decals to the stool to make it look work and old, to fit within the scene as lots of people would have sat on the stools wearing the fabrics. I then moved onto making the diffuse textures for the main door and windows, I used the same tillable wood texture, but scaled in smaller as these assets are bigger than the barstool. I then added a plain diffuse colour for the windows in both textures, as these would be edited more in unreal 4, also for the main door I added a stain glass. I started adding decals to both textures, such as condensation in the windows and dirt at the bottom of the wood. I aim to finish texturing my diffuse textures this week and create normal map this week, so next week I can import my textured assets to unreal 4 and start editing material pbr.

Game Art week three

Continuing with the film room project, After meeting up on last Friday, we all had imported the models of our assets to the white box scene in Unreal 4. We found that the scaling of our assets were different to the white box, this was because Unreal 4 default units are in inches, whereas 3ds max is defaulted to centimetres. Therefore we had to exported as assets back to 3dsmax and rescale them to fit the white box. We also found that a few of our assets extended below the floor, this was because the boxes from the white box extended below the floor and when I imported the white box to 3ds max, I deleted everything that would distract from modelling including the floor, which meant I didn't realise the box I was using as a guide was to tall. This was also solved the same way by rescaling in 3ds max to fit the white box. After I had fixed all the rescaling, I began to unwrap all my low poly models, this need to be done to be able to texture my models, but also so I could bake normal maps of the high poly versions. I will aim to have unwrapping by this week, so I can start texturing by week four.

Game Art Week two

Continuing with the Film room project, this week I need to aim to have everything modelled and unwrapped, so I can start texturing next week, I have already started collecting textures from last week. This week we will start assigning the rest of the assets such as chairs, tables, bottles etc. On Monday I continued with the main door and wall in 3ds max unwrapping it. We then had our lesson in game production, which I learnt more about shaders and materials in unreal 4 engine. I feel a lot more confident, however I want to do some extra work, learning more about materials, so it will become something I indistinctly know. We then had time to gather in our film room groups and shared what point we are at by the end of last week. We aimed to finish modelling the main structural assets so that we could start on the smaller asset. I had finished modelling my main assets and most of the group had the same, However a couple hadn't started yet and I am worried they are not putting in the same amount of effort as everyone else, although we have aimed to get everything modelled by the end of this week, so I will see how things go with my group. This week I also used the time at the beginning of the week to begin modelling my smaller assets, I finished modelling the barstool of low and high poly versions which I will need to bake the normal maps on.

In life drawing we were taught about measuring in a more technical way, which I already know and do myself as a process to drawing accurately. Visual design we continued with the film room project, which we got into our groups and had feed back on our projects so far. I also used this time to continue modelling my assets  so we could have them all finished for Friday and import to engine.

We met up in our group on Friday, so that we could all import the assets we created to the unreal engine 4. During this we came across some problems with scaling, as the unit measurements for unreal and 3dsmax were different. However we were able to solve it by rescaling the assets to fit the scene.

Game Production Film Room project

In the first week of Game Art the Film Room group project was assigned. We were split into pre organised groups and began brainstorming ideas for our room scene. After lots of different ideas we all agreed to decide on the kingsman bar/ pub in the beginning fight scene as our film room. I am happy with our groups decision, this makes a good choice, as it has lots of variation in assets to make an interesting scene. Such as the bar, which has different taps, bottles etc, a fire place, dart board and a variety in chairs and tables.

The lighting also makes an interesting and challenging task, with a mixture of lighting sources to work with. There is natural light from the windows through net curtains and artificial lights from lamps and bar lights. Also as it is an enclosed room, the net curtains make it easier to build the scene as we wouldn't have to worry about outside environments. As for building the scene in unreal and 3ds max, I think it is an achievable task, there is enough assets, but the room is not cluttered and has replicated assets.

To begin with, we started collecting reference images, then got to work on an asset list with texture sizes and triangle limits. We then assigned the main assets to each person and began white boxing the scene in unreal, so that we could work out the proportions of the room and sizes of assets. Once this was done the scene was exported as fbx and imported into 3ds max, so everyone could use the white box as a guide to model their asset.

I chose to model the main door and wall of the room, which I began by deleting everything else of the white box apart from the main door/wall. I then gathered on of my reference images and lightened it to abe able to see the details in 3ds max. Which I attached to a plane behind the wall and back face culled. I then created a box the same size of the wall in front of it and moved the white box wall out of the way, so the image plane was behind the new box and I could start modelling. Once I had modelled a basic door and wall under the 1,400 tri limit, I saved it as a low poly version. I continued to create a higher poly version from the low poly one, with details in the panels, so that I cna bake the high poly version onto the low poly with a normal map. Once the hight poly version was done I saved a high poly version, then opened up the low poly to start unwrapping.

Feedback to feedforward

Now that I have progressed onto the second year of Game Art at De Montfort University, I need to reflect back on my first year, so that I can develop as a Game Artist and improve for the future.

To reflect on my first year I need to think of what I thought went well, what didn't go well and how I can improve on these. First of all, I believe my most successful project was the zombie pick-up truck. I felt my visual design and concept work had been the most professional I had achieve from all my projects; I was able to present my final work in a polished layout and create a final piece I was proud of . I was also very happy with the final 3D model of the car, it was a good representation of the concepts and a Toyota pick up truck. I also felt I was quite successful on my building project, I was constantly receiving positive feedback from tutors, which was giving me confidence in my work. I felt like I was achieving the required look of the model overall, in 3D and visuals. I was happy with the final project and didn't encounter any problems during this project. Overall I felt my visual design work went well as I was constantly developing and learning, which helped improve my skills and work.

In my first year a major problem I was constantly having was time management, even though I was able to finish all projects in time and to a good standard I was happy with, there moments when I could of given myself more time to work on something extra to improve it or develop it further. for example I really struggled with rigging in my character project, I gave my character a long skirt and I found that rigging it was difficult. I tried my best and looked at lots of tutorials, but did not get it rigged properly in time for the hand in date, furthermore, if Id given myself more time at the end I could of work out how to rig properly or asked for more help. which leads to my next point, I also felt a lot of aspects in my 3D work did not go so well, such as unwrapping and rigging, these are both something I need to improve to be a better Game Artist. Also a personal note about what didn't go so well on my first year, was making sure I was able to get enough sleep so that I could get up to commute to University. I struggled to sleep a lot last year and need to make sure I change this so that I don't become ill and can be alert for lessons.

Considering my first year, what went well and not so well. I am going to approach my new year in a better way, I am going to make better use of time management to make sure I get the work done with plenty of time. I will also aim to learn more about 3D modelling and engines, I need to be able to get a better grasp of my tools of work, which I will watch tutorials and ask help from tutors.

Game Art Week one

The first week of year two had been a straight continuation from year one, with no introductions or recaps, just straight into the first project and learning new things. I am excited and ready to get started! On Monday I learnt a bit about the unreal engine, such as white boxing, which you use boxes in unreal to map out a level of the environment and then you can use this to scale everything in the scene to the right proportions. In this task I used the scene from Dumbledoors office to practice blocking out boxes in unreal. I am still unsure how to use unreal engine, which I can not use the navigation tool properly and I am unsure how to edit shapes. However I managed to get a rough idea of the scene and add a camera in.

The first project was assigned to use on Monday, the film room group project. We were split into pre organised groups and then got to work coming up with an idea to use. after lots of ideas and discussion, we all agreed on the bar fight scene from the film Kingsman would be a good choice, it has plenty to keep the scene interesting and good lighting, but it not cluttered and achievable. We then created an asset list and started assigning each asset to each person. I have the task of modelling the main doors and walls to begin with, then will assign the rest of the environment of smaller assets.

on the second day we learnt about composition. Composition is aesthetically arranging things in a picture, commonly to a geometric grid. The rule of thirds is the most basic example of a compositional grid, which produces very static images, However classical painters, such as  Henry Carier Bresson use a more complex system called the Armature, which captures movement and drama. I also learnt of  modern Artists which use more sophisticated compositions such as James Paick. Overall the main elements I need to consider when creating composition is Area, by the use of grids, Depth, giving the illusion of space and perspective which draws you in, Line to lead the viewers eye around towards the focal point and finally value/ Silhouette to make the subject readable against the background and the focus of the image. We were also given some tasks to complete to practice composition.

In the last lesson of this week, We had a feedback session to reflect on our previous year as a Game Art student at De Montfort. To consider what went well, what didn't go so well and how can we improve on these aspects to approach the new year in a better way. I will post up a separate blog to go into more depth about my reflection on my previous year.