This week we started on a multipart project where we create a game asset and take it through every stage - modeling in Maya, creating a proxy object pipeline in UE4, detail work in zBrush, and finally texturing in Substance Painter. This week was focused on creating the proxy object, a crate, and putting it in UE4.
To begin, I established scale in Maya using the UE4 mannequin and brought in a really rough form of the crate into UE4 to use as a proxy object I could then simply update as I worked more on it.
In UE4.
Here's the final model next to the proxy currently in UE4.
This week was about getting a better grasp on values and lighting. Most importantly, we learned how to incorporate them into professionally compiling and displaying our work for portfolio. To practice, we were given three models to use alongside our Lego set from last week for this assignment. Once we brought those models into Maya, we had to light and render them using Arnold.
First I exported my assembled Lego set from UE4 by grouping the pieces and then converting the group to a static mesh. This allowed me to then export the piece from UE4 as an .FBX file to use in Maya. When the models were situated on the infinity wall asset I took from the prototyping pack, I created a simple 3 point lighting system consisting of a skydome, fill light, and spotlight then added more lights as I saw fit. I used the same lighting system for all 4 models and simply moved lights to suit each sculpt while saving time time.
Once every render was exported as an .EXR, I went into Photoshop to layer the Ambient Occlusion and Normal map renders and messed with blend modes until I got a result that I was happy with.
This week it was finally time to assemble our Lego pieces from week 4. To start, I exported all of them out from Maya as .fbx's and brought them into UE4.
Once in, I created materials that reflected the shiny plastic of real life Legos.
All my pieces colorized and ready, I began to build the structure and was happy to see all the pieces fit together just fine.
Once I got that bad boy built and out of the way, I began to create my own structure with the pieces I had which was preeetty challenging. I'm honestly not really sure what this is but I thought it looked cool enough.
Structures made, I moved on to creating blueprints. I turned my structures into their own individual blueprints to easily move around and edit the pieces as I wished. Inside their Event Graphs, I created a simple rotator node system to make them slowly spin.
With my blueprints in hand, I began to build the scene. Once I had a layout I liked with my structures, I began to bring in some lights, created a light flicker material light function, did some color grading, dropped in a planar reflection, dust motes, lens flares, etc. I just went kind of ham basically.
Finally, I dropped in a camera and created a sequence to show off my work. I struggled with getting some flickering and such under control and ultimately couldn't figure it out. Another problem for future Yam. Anyway, here's a beauty shot and a video of what I ended up with. Enjoy!
This week we learned about values and how to further incorporate 3D scenes into our 2D concepts. We were given several different render passes of a sci-fi shot and free reign to do whatever we wish with them in Photoshop.
The apocalyptic pictures of the Oregon wildfires I've been seeing this past week are still very fresh in my mind so I created something along the same vein.
For this week we were given several Lego structures we could pick to proxy model all the pieces for. I told myself I wouldn't go ham this week and I thought I wasn't but I accidentally picked one of the more advanced sets to do for this project and got wrecked. I started with the astronaut Lego boy, sculpted along his model sheet, then crashed and burned when I got to the helmet.
Not really knowing how to approach it much less make it look half decent, I decided to just do a different, easier set that I could do with the time I had left.
I modeled and scaled all of the pieces by essentially eyeballing the reference and using the 2x2 pieces as my measurement base.
As I started amassing pieces, I began making scale decisions based off how they fit together.
For this week, we were taught about silhouettes and the importance of creating quickly recognizable shapes. To practice this, we used a model of a space ship to manipulate as our base. I began by switching to the top view on my orthographic camera, hiding the lights in the scene, and then pushing vertices, moving pieces, etc. until I got something interesting.
After getting a nice shape, I brought it into Photoshop to add finishing touches. I experimented with bizarre organic shapes and drew inspiration from old school sci-fi anime that I loved growing up. This was fun!
So for this week we took assignment 1 to the next level. We were tasked with creating a cube environment with our own custom textures a la Minecraft. This project kicked my ass mainly because I was chronically dissatisfied with my scenes and kept spending too much time trying to make them better instead of simply starting over again. I went through 2 iterations (a cavern, inside the belly of a whale) and finally settled on a 3rd that successfully combined elements from both, a ship graveyard.
My biggest inspirations for this project were these images:
I started by unwrapping UVs for the same cube from assignment 1. One of my biggest mistakes with this project is that I began building the scene before creating my materials so it took me more time to get a finished product. Alas! After I built my scene I took the UV cube's UV map into Photoshop to begin painting my textures. Throughout the course of the assignment I ended up with multitudes.
