Off The Map-(Part 13)

Week 33 

Off The Map- Evaluation 

This week post will be the final one about Off the map project and I will evaluate my work and summarise the process and outcomes, I will also talk about what I have learn during this project and how I have improved overall as an artist.

Off the map project was a competition sponsored by the British Library and GameCity it is based of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and the point of this was to create a playable level based on the themes that were given (Oxford, The Underground and The Gardens). The project started in February and the deadline for my submission was the 8th of April however the final deadline for the competition is the 22nd of July.

What worked well ?

I have approached the project on the same level as the other groups, I have tried to maintain the same work load to possibly learn other stuff that yet I haven't had the chance to explore and this project was the best opportunity so far to not only  improve as an artist but also my UE4 skills are much better and I feel more confident using this software.

I also think that the second idea for my project worked really well I felt more organised and more clear as to what I need to produce. I also found the modelling process really enjoyable and I really liked the fact that I can be free with what I can produce and how far I can develop this scene.

As to more technical side I think the wind in the foliage worked really well, it really gave more life to this static scene as well as the lighting, improved and made the wonderland look magical.

What didn't work well ?

On the other hand there was a lot of misunderstanding during the process and I found that I lost a lot of time finding out what I needed to do mainly because I didn't have a clear brief to relate to, I don't know what it was expected of me at the end. So when I approached the project for the first time I have combined a very ambitious idea but unfortunately it was unapproachable in the time given.

Also some assets from my previous idea for my project couldn't be reused like the fountain and other objects that I made just because they did not fit in that world, which was very inefficient and time consuming to produce a new bunch.


Any changes ?


During the process of making I decided to make couple of changes. The first one was that I didn't follow the concepts I have designed for the environment due to the change of my project.

I have also changed the grass because the first one didn't work well with the environment and the wind effect that was then applied didn't look too effective so I decided to model simple planes and alpha the grass.

What would I do differently ?

If I was aware of what I needed to produce I would have came up with a better environment that was small but worked well with the theme. I would also spend more time on re-designing the rabbit house so that the idea was more unique. I would produce better assets that fit the theme and make the scene look more like a wonderland from the book.

Overall I am very happy with what I have produced and this project was the only opportunity that I had throughout this year to fully explore and be introduced to working in Unreal Engine 4. I also think there is a lot of things that needs to be improved about the scene however I think that this was a good learning curve for me, and I enjoyed the time creating this level.

Off The Map- (Part 12)

Week 32

Off The Map

This week task was to populate the area with assets and do final touches to the scene. I imported all the assets, I had to make sure everything is named correctly and it's all assigned to the right folders.

To distribute the grass randomly onto the environment I have used the UE4 foliage tool. The tool was very helpful, it saved me a lot of time, where this time was then used to work and further to improve the lighting in my scene.

The most significant part was making sure that the scene looks vibrant and spectacular and the only thing that was missing was the atmosphere. I have changed the sky colour to purple and orange to give more magical (sunset) feel to the environment I have also added some point lights and spot lights to lit the important areas in the scene like the rabbit house and the way towards it, so that area it's not too dark. I have also made the mushrooms texture emissive so it can cast some light to those dark areas, I tried to avoid any black shadows in my scene so I used spot lights under the mushrooms to lit the spot with different colour that the mushroom would cast. I have also used directional light which really changed the look of my environment, I was able to achieve this incredible light that shines through the trees when you look up which really gave a nice character to the level.  

Also to give a bit of depth to the forest I have used post process volume which is one of the options that can be found in UE4 as well as I have allocated blocking volume so that the player cannot escape the scene blocking off edges of the forest.

Off the map- (Part 11)

Week 31

Off The Map

This week’s priority was to unwrapping all the assets also making sure that everything is textured on time and the scene looks up to a good standard.

Before I started unwrapping I had to ensure that all the assets are ready to be imported into the scene, so I had few assets still to model and most of them were assets that would be re-used to populate the scene such as trees, walls and foliage.

In the previous weeks I have modelled grass that was then allocated in the scene, however after it was placed the final appearance wasn't very impressive and the grass looked chunky and too big, I tried to make some changes however I couldn't get it to look the way I wanted so I decided to use planes instead of modelling the grass one by one which resulted in a better appearance and increased efficiency.  

My last task was to organise the texture sheets, I decided to use four 1024, three 2048, one 512 and two 256. The most visible object to the player I have allocated in 2048 textures but also I have make sure that I use the texture fully and I placed other assets to make use of the space.

Unwrapping and Texturing

Week 30 

Unwrapping and Texturing

This is the last stage to fully completing this project. I must say that texturing isn't my strength however I do enjoy unwrapping but I still need more experience to do it efficiently and correctly.

In my first attempt I just used base colours in the albedo map with out any material definition and this was one of the major improvements I had to make. This time I tried to use material textures of different fabrics to have some definition I have also tried to alpha so stuff however some of then didn't work as I have planned and one of them are the fluffy pom poms. I think they look to flat and I cannot see the fur definition which was very disappointing, however I have tried to improve this by working with the normal map and re-create the fur at bit more. 

1024x1024

512x512

Overall I think the textures don't look too bad however I am not fully satisfied with how it came out I think they need more work to them then just giving some fabric, I think they need re-designing which means going back to the concepts and re drawing some and adding more details in terms of cloths  

Rigging

Week 30 

Rigging


This week I took another break from the Alice in Wonderland project and I have concentrated on the character

This week I have attempted rigging my character. This was not necessary, however I thought this will be a good way to gain more marks as this was a stretch goal and learn something I only did once in my first year. In the beginning I have struggles a lot with attaching weights and overall rigging the character however after two attempts that accidentally have been deleted I finally got around it and it only took me three hours to get it fully working where normally I would spend like the entire two days to work it out. I was happily surprised as to how fast I have picked up this new skill and at the end I have really enjoyed this

Off The Map- (Part 10 )

Week 29

Off The Map- (Part 10)

This week is another small update as to how far I got with my Alice in wonderland scene.

This week I have attempted  to make my scene more busy so I have modeled more small assets that I can re-use. 

Screenshots of my scene 

I have also implemented effects such as wind, I thought this would give a nice finish to the environment. However I have noticed that the effect is not as impressive and effective as if I had planes with alphas as my grass. But I have decided to keep this in my scene as I will also have tree's that will have planes on them and I think this will look much better giving the scene this extra touch.

As well as I have managed to make the gate open as the player walks towards it, this was another technical difficulty that I have attempted. In the beginning I thought that the best way to do this will be by creating a blueprint however I was told that there is a easier and quicker way to have this fully working and this can be done in the matinee editor.

Topology

Week 28 

Topology

This week was a really busy week for me, a load of work and lots of improvements to make. I took a slight break from off the map project and I’m back to making improvements in my previous project the dichotomy character. After a review from my tutors about my whole year worth of work I was advised to improve certain parts and re-submit my work. 

Before and After

The first problem was the topology on the face, it wasn't correct and it didn't have a nice flow through out the model. I have spent a tremendous time on correcting the topology using the previous model. However it was just impossible to change it as I would have to completely change the whole face and this would have taken more time than re-doing the entire face from the scratch. Now looking back the the previous model I can see how I have improved this time and the model looks more neat and efficient in terms of budget.

Example of a correct face topology,  I have based my model of this example   

The second problem was that some of the parts of the body such as ears were not attached to the face as they have been created separately. Also it was pointed out to me that they were too detailed for such as small part of the model and I was told to spread the tris equally depending on how visible is this certain element to a player. So when I was finished modelling the face I have extruded and modeled the ears from the head so that the character looks more natural. 

Off The Map- (Part 9)

Week 27

Off The Map- (Part 9)

During this week I have been working on modelling the rabbit house I have based my concept off a hobbit hole

Rabbit house , Orthographic View - 3d model 

I had loads of fun modelling this asset and my next task will be to model more foliage to cover the house and make it more natural and more organic, like it belong to a forest.

I have attempted to model the grass as soon as I have finished the rabbit house and I was stuck for a bit as I didn't know how to approach it, so I have attempted to do some research I have looked through online tutorials and how other artist have attempted it. I was mainly looking how to create a realistic looking grass as possible I thought this would give a great look and atmosphere to the entire scene as most of the assets in my scene are plants and trees.

There are different ways of  modelling grass, it can be easily done using planes as this is most commonly used technique however I have decided to model grass as thin long leaves in a batch.

To help me set the grass in UE4 I have used a paint foliage tool which I found very useful, I could easily change the size of my brush and the scale of the grass which gave more randomness to my scene.

Off The Map- ( Part 8 )

Week 26

Off The Map- ( Part 8 )

Under normal circumstances this week would be for detailed planning and whiteboxing, however given that time is now running short and I had a very strong image in my mind of what the rabbit house scene will look like, I moved straight on to recreating the landscape. After sculpting the landscape I imported all the assets, as well as making brand new ones such as a  bridge and a garden gate, detailed with the suits in a pack of playing cards.

My next task was something completely new to me, making water in Unreal. With the help of various online sources I made a decorative body of water at the front of the house as a nice little water feature and to challenge myself with learning even more about UE4.

Off The Map- (Part-7)

Week 25

Off The Map- (Part-7)

Week 25 was an exciting week, the new goal was much more approachable and I didn't have to think about the other scenes that would need a different variation on the same, wonderland style. Luckily I had a lot of the research already done and could even implement a few of the assets I had already created. I was advised to research existing environments around Oxford, however I ran into issues where wonderland as written by Lewis Carroll didn't line up with environments in the area. So I used an inspiring image online, that closely resembles my visualisation of wonderland.

Off The Map- (Part 6)

Week 24

Off The Map- (Part 5)

This post will be really short just catching up with new task and brief for the project. After a review from my tutors, we reached the conclusion that the environment I was working on was far too large to make a fully detailed, immersive and impressive scene. We decided that it was too ambitious for one person in the given time frame, therefore instead of making an unpolished and rushed environment that wouldn't look good on my portfolio, I would scale back development constructing only one of the scenes that I was going to work on, the rabbit house.

Off The Map (Part-5)

Week 23

Off The Map (Part-5)

This week my post will be pretty short during week 22 and and week 23 I was modelling the assets for my scene along with these assets I have shown in my previous week made a few other items to add some direction and variation to the world like a signpost to direct the player, as well as lamps, large leaves, mushrooms, lily pads and teacup fountains. I must say I have really enjoyed this process it was a nice way to see my concepts come to live in 3d. Also this was a good opportunity to model objects with greater detail.

Off The Map (Part-4)

Week 22- Week 23

Off The Map (Part-4)

Week 22 was all about modelling assets. Starting with a quick mood board on foliage, I moved on to develop many assets that are core to wonderland and some reusable assets that will help the world feel busy and alive. The picket fence was the first model of the day, an easy item to model that will look natural whilst providing borders for where the player can access so that they stay in the area. The picket fence alone would stick out and look unattractive so I decided to model a reusable rose and some foliage that I could fit through gaps in the fence in order to give the world border a nice, overgrown and natural look.

Off The Map- (Part 3)

Week 21

Off The Map- (Part 3)

This week my focus was level design, I used tools available in Unreal Engine 4 to sculpt the terrain of my landscape, making hills and valleys that added a natural feel to the surroundings. This task proved difficult because it was my first time using these tools so I had to use videos and other resources available online to teach me how to construct a landscape. Another issue I ran into was the scaling of the environment, I got round this problem by modelling a fountain to place in the map that helped me scale the environment, by eye, to a suitable level that fit the size of the playable character.

Off The Map( Part 2)

Week 20

Off The Map( Part 2)

I have had the time to study the book and other resources including meetings with tutors to discuss what my project will be.

I have to produce a scene where I include the tea party and the rabbit house. Because the individual scenes in the book I thought it would be a good idea to link these to parts of the book, that are pretty far apart, by using a forest environment and a path between them.

I decided to start off creating mood board around the rabbit house, this mood board contained anything remotely that looked like it belonged in wonderland and would be useful assets when constructing the rabbit house.

When I had enough information and imagery, I created quick concepts with photobashing techniques. It soon dawned on me that my approach had been very random, so I targeted my concepting towards creating houses that animals could live in.

With house concepts out of the way, I moved on to designing the landscape.

Off The Map- ( Part 1)

Week 19

Off The Map- ( Part 1)

This project was based around Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and was a competition sponsored by the British Library and GameCity. With materials such as maps, text and illustrations provided by the British Library, in a group of 6, we had to chose a theme to base our level around, these themes were Oxford, The Underground and The Gardens.

When I first heard that this was the basis of the task I was genuinely excited as I love the idea of a fairy tale world with a lot of seemingly random pieces, this project was going to push the creative part of my mind and I didn't need stay inside the realm of reality.

My excitement quickly turned into shock as I was informed that I wouldn't be working in a group of 6 like everyone else, but I would be on my own. This would have been okay if my brief was drastically smaller scale and was given clearly with proper guidelines and instructions. Instead I was given a scale around half of what the groups had to do, even half would be a monumental task for a single person.

To get myself going I constructed mood boards in order to give myself a creative direction and guide in the way I wanted to take this project. I also read the book to make sure that whatever I constructed remained true to the original tales.

Container City- Evaluation

Week 18

Container City- Evaluation

Q. How did my abilities improved during the project life cycle?

I have picked up new skills as well as improving current ones along the way. I have learned to make and implement blueprints from scratch to perform basic tasks as i have shown by making a extractor fan spin. Along with creating blueprints my general comfort in building levels in Unreal Engine 4 has improved drastically.
During this project I had to make more than enough mood boards and concepted multiple photo bashed shops and bars, this gave me plenty of practice at designing level components and room layouts. this project also helped me to organise my texture sheets as well as improving my ability to make textures that look old and worn

Q. Any difficulties during the project?
The only problem I felt occurred was the synergy between team members, communication was an issue, but in the end problems were resolved and a good level was created.

Q. Was this project successful?
The task was completed to a good standard and most objectives were met however there were a lot of unpolished aspects that needed improvements and some stretch goals that could have been implemented.

Q. How would I approach the project next time?
If i was to approach this project again, I would go for a different environment as in my opinion as dusty barren landscapes are overused in dystopian settings. I would have picked a busier, more organic environment where rain or other weather effects even as basic as wind could be added and particle effects such as pollen or dust could be implemented to provide a much more immersive level.

Q. What needs more improvement?
There were a few improvements that could be made to the level, small things that stopped the level from reaching its potential as a concept. The sound feels like a last minute addition that could have done with a little more variety. Some of the textures needed a higher resolution and detail and the floor could have done with more variation as it repeated a little too obviously throughout the level. A few of the surfaces were quite flat as normal maps needed more depth and detail. The grass at the end of the level needed scaling down a little as it was too low density and resolution too low to be the height it was.

Container City (part 3)

Week 17

Container City (part 3)

This week I have undertaken another task of modelling and texturing additional  assets for the level. I have used images I have gathered from Pinterest and other sources as a reference to help me model. For these assets I didn't have a specific tri budget so I tried my best to keep object as a simple geometry.

Lastly I was left with texturing. I have used 512x512 texture sheets.

Creating a blueprint was my last task for this week, I had no idea where to start but after a few tutorials I was quickly picking up the skills I needed to understand how blueprints work and how they can be used to add cool features to a level. I made a blueprint to make a extractor fan spin, adding a little immersion to an otherwise static level.

And here are some beauty shots from the level