Adding more, modelling more, having doubts

This week I have been modelling and unwrapping more meshes, considering expansion plans as I seem to be proceeding too fast.

Here is my progress:

Currently, I have tweaked the lighting and the brick texture I produced for the wall, in order to make it match the concept better. I also made a wallpaper texture for use on the left wall by tiling an image, I will go into that on my next post.

In terms of expansion, I have a couple of options: 

• Add kitchen area to back
• Add a toilet/bathroom down the left corridor
• Sleeping area on the right
• exterior corridor for flythrough

I also found this promotional image:

As you can see, a very colourful image,  that will make a nice addition to the environment. I was considering having a corridor or room that lead to this scene in the project.

That's all for now. I'll continue working, though I an growing concerned that my project may be too small.

Blockouts, bricks and scintillating skyboxes

In this update I tried my hand at texturing the wall in ZBrush.
But first, here;s my blockout:

As you can see, a lot more meshes have been added in this update, including the TV set, square table and window planks. Also, the Moroccan lantern in the center of the room.

I have also been working on the skybox this weekend; since the game is set in Chicago, I've drummed up some moodboards of Chicago buildings.

And then set to work on blocking out the skybox. I also added the translucent window frame with an emissive glow as a placeholder, but essentially the view will capture the Boston skyline, an adjacent building and some low-poly buildings in the back, including Sears Tower.

The room will be lit by the moonlight cast over the city, and I look forward to continuing this skybox to really fill the world beyond the apartment.

Now, the texture for the bricks. It was created entirely in ZBrush.

I began by appending a rectangle and sculpting/polypainting it into the shape of a brick:

I repeated the process, making seven variations.

I then arranged them over a 10x10 grid to form a tileable texture, and painted over the 2.5D merged layer to render normal maps and other materials.

Success, right? Unfortunately, I learned the ZBrush normal matcap is particularly strong, and therefore any slight difference in the brick surface would ruin the shading. I will have to take another look at a later date, keeping these lessons to heart:

• Bricks are still too organic, less to no initial sculpting required
• Texture applied to level BSP looks poor, mostly due to the sharp edges.
• Brick colour too bright and differing, consider toning down colour palette or even photosourcing

Now I know what I need to do, that concludes this update, I will redo the brick texture later on and add more blockouts.

Thanks for reading!

Blockout, texturing and the magic of floorboards

In this latest update I have been working on adding more blockouts and have also produced my first texture for the piece, which I will outline below.

This is the apartment blockout as of today. I've worked my way around the bigger meshes and now concentrating on blocking out the smaller ones. The workflow I use is to unwrap and lightmap each mesh before I import it into UDK; this way, I can save time later and get a clearer idea on how the scene's lighting is progressing using the Lighting Only viewport in UDK.

Floorboards Breakdown

The texture I created today was for the room's floorboards using Photoshop, photosourcing and nDo. I began by finding a good reference image:

And then, I began to create it in Photoshop. My workflow was as follows:

• Import photosource image. I used two for the wooden planks themselves, and one for the nails.
• Isolate wooden planks, and then use the Clone Stamp tool to lengthen the planks to the width of the texture and them repair the seams. Also used Clone Stamp to remove artifacts that cause repetition, such as the dark fibers below.

• Repeat process for other planks.
• Once the full planks are created, I can then move them left and right without resizing them, meaning that I can create breaks in the planks that will still tile correctly by duplicating planks.

• Using a photograph of a nail, I can then set this to Hard Light and overlay the breaks in the planks
• Desaturate the planks and reduce contrast/brightness to match the photo reference better.

Once I had completed the texture, I initially created the normal map by adjusting the contrast on the diffuse to remove extra grain detail and then using nDo to generate a strong map: However, when I previewed my texture in Marmoset I learned that the normal map was off, making the woodgrain seem very rough.

The reference image I used showed that new floorboards were often varnished with creosote, taking out the roughness of the original grain. I made a new normal map using only the base forms of the wood planks, with a slight hint of the wood grain: I did this by setting the second normal map to Overlay and reducing opacity to an acceptable level. 

The wood also felt too clean and bright, so I added a bit of dirt and staining and darkened/sharpened the image in Photoshop.

And Voila! A much happier and more realistic texture.

This has been a lengthy update, so I'll leave it at that. I have the feeling that I am going to need to expand this concept, so I'm currently devising plans for another room from the adjoining corridor to be modelled.

Bye for now :)

Blockout and paintover update

Today I did a paintover of the assets needed and started blocking in some key features in the UDK level. 

In the paintover I defined key assets in the scene that would need to be modelled first, ones that would be pivotal to the lighting and presentation of the piece.

And here's my preliminary blockout. The lighting's not there yet, but a start, and I added the base meshes from the scene I made, starting with big architectural ones first and working down to the finer details later on.

Tomorrow: more blockouts and lighting tweaks. The quicker I finish this stage, the quicker I can dive into texturing and bring the scene to life. I'll keep posting.

FYP Redux

So, after a meeting with my supervisor and other University lecturers I learned that the proper way to do an environment is to dispense with emulating in-game content and instead perform my own research into the matter to gain a better understanding of the source material. To that effect, I am dispensing with the courthouse environment and I am instead going to create a smaller, more polished environment based on the Chicago apartments in Hitman Absolution. 

I will use UDK as per my supervisor's instruction, and aim to finish the project by March. I am going to conduct a lot more R & D before I dive in this time, with the subject matter researched far more thouroughly. This blog will essentially be a development diary of my progress, and I look forward to creating this beast!

But first, Research. I must look at both apartment architecture and the Hippie/Beatnik movement to get a better grasp of the subject matter. I will update with a paintover later.

Final Year Project: Courthouse

For my final year project at University, I am going to create another environment for Hitman Absolution, this time trying to emulate the Hope courthouse foyer.

The environment is a western courthouse foyer, lit by bright sunlight. It features a lot of wooden fixtures, a Hero asset of the statue in the center, and a large domed window in the top for light to shine down. The environment is mostly made up of wooden panels and fixtures, allowing it to be quite modular. Also, no skybox!


 The key mistakes I made last time were:

• Too conservative with tri limits
• Lack of detail
• Did not play the game to look at in-game art, as a result my art was different in quality to in-game material
• lack of set-dressing and planning
• Lighting was different to the concept, concept was a lot brighter
• Did not make moodboards or conduct prior research

To remedy this, I've drawn up plans and have taken a couple of in-game screenshots of the environment I wish to create for reference purposes. I will begin with basic Max blockouts and then textures, and from there I will create the environment in either CryEngine or UDK.

CryEngine: No lightmaps, closer to the engine Hitman Absolution uses.
UDK: More prior knowledge, easier to use shader system.

Here's some in-game screenshots of the environment I took when exploring it last night:

Hopefully will start working on it soon, planning everything out first and doing research before I dive in.

Assets to do first:

Wall panels

Stair banisters

Domed roof

Door frame

Window frame

Leather couches

Flags

Wall lamps

Busts

Plant pots

Portraits

Textures:

Marble floor

Wallpaper w/floral trim

Hopefully when my tutors approve I can get started. I look forward to it :)