Games Art Spring - Final Submission

This is my final scene in Unity. I have applied numerous image effects (such as screen space reflections, screen space ambient occlusion and Tonemapping and Color Grading), and utilized Unity's realtime Global Illumination.

Games Art Spring - Creating a Rock

To create a rock, I followed a useful tutorial I found on YouTube. The process starts by cutting sharp angles off of a cube in order to break up the uniformity of the cube and forming the general shape of the rock.

 

Then, using the Trim Adaptive brush and a square brush alpha, I trimmed the hard edges of the shape. Eventually, this process will begin to resemble erosion and weathering on the surface of the rock.

I also started adding small amounts of noise in order to make the detail more varied.

 

 

 



Games Art Spring - Creating a Tiling Stone Wall

In order to use a texture on a model with large surface area, I will need to create tiling texture so that I can retain detail whilst also not using up masses of memory of a giant texture.

I needed to create a stone wall for the pillars of the garage. To begin, I tried to find an image of a stone wall that resembled the stone wall in Syd Mead's concept image. The image below was the closest I could find.

Then, using this image as reference, I traced around the individual pieces of stone.

Then in order to make this seamless, I duplicated the image four times and manually matched up areas where the stone pieces didn't match up.

Before

After

 

Then, using the center quarter of this image, I imported it into ZBrush and used it as an alpha mask in order to elevate the stone areas of the texture. I then used ZBrush's surface noise in order to create more detail, and I then used the 'trim adaptive' brush in order to flatten certain areas, simulating weathering over time where the coarse surface has been smoothed by rain.

I could then use this high-poly mesh to create normal, ambient occlusion, height and cavity maps from.



Games Art Spring - Modelling the Bike

In order to get the correct shape of the bike, I first created a model where I only concerned my self with the shape, and ignored the topology (and polygon count). Since the Syd Mead piece of concept art was my only source of reference for this bike, I had difficulty recreating the profile of the bike whilst also trying to recreate the particular intricacies of the model. In particular, I found difficulty in making the corners at the top of the chassis flow into where they connect with the wheels.

After creating the general shape of the bike, I could then use this purely as a template for another model that would have correct topology. I using Maya's 'make live' feature, I could modeling over the top of the previous model with topology as my primary concern, and be ensured that the overall shape of the model would remain the same. I was also able to model the trim along the model and around lights, as well as other small bits of detail (such as the fuel tank cap, or indicator side-light). However, I wasn't able to model the circular bits of trim on the sides of the wheels, as the correct topology in order to create this was not available to me; I would have to tackle this later.

In order to get the circular trim on the sides of the wheels, I first created UVs for the wheel with a planar projection directly along the x-axis of the model. I could then use this projection to create a normal map using NDO whilst ensuring that the circle I create in Photoshop will remain perfectly circular on the side of the model.

I then made a lower-poly version of the bike, as I would not need polygons for the in-cutting trim, as you cannot easily see their silhouette. Then, after baking my normals and ambient occlusion, I would need to combine them with the normals of the circular trim on the side of the wheels (Maya does offer an option to 'include materials' when transferring normals, but it seemed to only accept bump maps, not normal maps). Since they were a texture created in NDO and not geometry, I transferred them as a diffuse texture and them overlayed them on top of my baked normals in Photoshop.

I then modeled the antenna of the bike, and the final model of the bike was complete.

Games Art Spring - My Games Art Environment Scene

For my Games Art submission, I wish to try and recreate this piece of concept art (below) by Syd Mead. Syd Mead is a concept artist who also used to work as vehicle designer, so most of the shapes in his designs are geometrically possible. This should mean I will be able to recreate these objects whilst also retaining their appearance as they are in this image.


There are several features that the Unity game engine offers that I intend to leverage in order to create the same aesthetic in this image. Due to the reflective nature of a lot of the materials in this image, I plan to make use of Unity's reflection probes and the Screen Space Reflections Image Effect. I hope to use Unity's atmospheric scattering in order to create the lighting in the fog that can be seen on the right side of the mountain.

I plan on omitting the characters and car from the scene in order to make creating this scene achievable within the given timeframe.

Games Art - 3D Pathway Proposal (Old Idea)

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Actors/FogEffects/AtmosphericFog/index.html

Games Art - Final Model

Here are screenshots of my final model in Unreal 4. I was unable to fully texture on the body due to an issue with Quixel, and not leaving enough time to resolve this issue.

 

 



Games Art - Creating Textures: Part 1

As I wanted to adhere as close as possible to the actual Boba Fett costume (Empire Strikes Back version), I have chosen to recreate the actual scratches that were painted onto the original props.

In order to do this, I would trace all the different layers of paint/weathering from various reference images, and then try and morph them into place on my own model's UVs.

After recreating masks of the front-left part of the helmet, I realised that this process would take an extremely long time, and it was also difficult to find reference at a high enough resolution for all parts of the model.

However, I had found the somebody online had already created an accurate template of every layer of paint on the helmet. If I was able to use this template, it would save a lot of time. I emailed the creator asking if I could use the templates 

Since he said yes, I then morphed his template to my own UV's. This meant I could use them as color IDs in Quixel.

Color IDs from Bandi Levante's Boba Fett helmet templates.

Here is a link to his forum post where I found the templates:

http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f23/rafalfetts-boba-fett-helmet-template-project-39781/



Games Art - Baking Maps: Part 2

For the body, I had to go through the same process as the helmet. I baked an ambient occlusion directly onto my automatic unwrapped high poly model, and then transferred them to my low poly as a diffuse texture and as separate pieces. The normal maps I baked as separate pieces as well.

 

Games Art - Baking Maps: Part 1

I have decided to create two separate texture sets for my model. One for the helmet and one for the body. This is so I don't have to work with a 8192x8192 Photoshop file that my computer wouldn't be able to handle. Even a 4096x4096 file nearly makes Photoshop crash on my computer, but editing two 4k textures is a lot more manageable than one 8k texture.

Currently, I have a fair amount of wasted texture space, which is mainly due to how I've unwrapped the bulk of the helmet (at the bottom). I could scale up the individual pieces to fill this space, but I would then have an inconsistent pixel density on my model. I also can't scale the pieces up uniformly without unwrapping the main bulk again with more seams, as it is already scaled as large as it can go (from edge to edge). I have chosen to keep this UV layout, and use some of the extra space for the body UVs if there are parts that can be easily separated.

I ran into a lot of issues trying to bake an ambient occlusion map. First was the issue of envelopes clipping and sampling an undesired surface. I was able to fix this on the normal map by doing each piece separately, but the ambient occlusion is reliant on the fact that all the pieces are done at the same and are in the correct positions. I needed the individual objects to occlude each other's ambient occlusion rays, but not the transfer rays from the envelopes to the target meshes. I solved this by baking an ambient occlusion directly onto my high poly model (using automatic UV unwrapping) and then transferring it to my low poly as a diffuse map. This meant I could each piece individually, as a diffuse transfer isn't dependent on each piece being done at the same time.

Games Art - High Poly Asset: Part 2

Final render of my model before ZBrush sculpting.

Games Art - High Poly Asset: Part 1

For the high poly model I plan to make the majority of the shape in Maya, and then add the more organic elements in ZBrush (e.g., the bullet hole on the helmet, the folds in the clothing).


Below is the first 'iteration' I have created. It is the basic shape of the helmet. The proportions are still slightly inaccurate, there is no detail on the side panels and no smoothing.

First Iteration of the Helmet

Below is a slightly improved version. The dome of the helmet is a more accurate shape, and the whole model has been subdivided and smoothed. The side panels and antenna* are still only placeholder. The image was rendered with Mental Ray and has a three-point lighting setup.

Second Iteration of the Helmet

Below is the final version of the helmet I will continue to sculpt in ZBrush.

Final Helmet Model before ZBrush Sculpting

 *It's actually an 'External Targeting Rangefinder'. Since that's a lengthy term and most people mistake it for an antenna, I will simply refer to it as the 'antenna' for the purposes of this blog.

Games Art - AAA Game Asset

For this unit, we are tasked with modelling and texturing a AAA-quality game asset. I chose to create a Boba Fett bust similar to the one pictured below, as I believe the weathering on his helmet and armor will take advantage of a PBR texture setup.

Boba Fett bust

I have created a reference sheet that I can use in Maya to create the helmet. However, there are many different versions of Boba Fett's helmet with slight variations and I was unable to find perfect front + side reference images, so I will not be following the reference exactly.

Helmet Reference Sheet

Knife Tutorial on Maya