Unit 69
For this unit I have to create one asset that is going to be a main feature of the game I am building for unit 18, it has to be below 8,000 trails, fully textured and have a high to low poly bake as well.
In this blog post I am going to evaluate my gramophone that I made for unit 69, I am going to break it down into four sections which are: What went well, what didn't go well and issues/changes along the way and a conclusion.
What went well in unit 69 Task 1 I found the research went well and came up with 5 ideas that I could create models from. I used three research methods, mind maps, mood boards and concept drawing. This helped me visualise what model I could make and how much of a challenge it would pose to me. In the end, I selected the concept that I thought would represent the level I am making in unit 18. I also found researching about modelling techniques helped me and I avoided big problems later. After I finished the research I started modelling my gramophone, I used a photograph as a reference guide which helped me a lot. I made the model into three seconds before deciding how I would connect those sections up. I was quite proud that I could connect hard and organic surfaces together and keeping the model below 8000 triangles. Task 2/3 I made sure I did research on how to UV map correctly and the different types of texture maps this helped me understand what these are for and how important they are needed for the model. When it came to the UV I manged to get all the UV shells into the 0 to 1 space and make sure when I had a checked texture overlaying it that all the squares were even. From this I was able to make a quick light map UV set. Experimenting with three different types high to low poly bakes helped me understand which works better with my workflow and how to avoid errors. I enjoyed using substance painter for making the texture maps as I found it a quick process and it was quite enjoyable using a tablet and felt like I was painting. Using masks on the layers helped my workflow and could have used less colour id maps if I did more research on the protentional of using mask in my workflow. Task 4 Even though this was a small task I was extremely with how the model looks in unreal engine when I had applied all the textures to the model. Learning about level of detail was interesting and I will be adding it to my workflow in the future as I think it is an import part of the game design process now and helps the performance of the game. Conclusion Overall I am extremely happy with how the gramophone has turned out. From the concept to the design process to the finished look. I have learned a lot about modelling techniques and how I can potential speed up my work flow, what works for my work flow and what high to low poly bakes work for me. Substance painter was a big part of my work flow for this model and I think I will be using it more in the future as part of my workflow with how easy it is to use and the high quality of texture maps it produces. What didn’t go so well in unit 9 Task 1 Even though the research went well and I came up with five concept ideas I felt I could have done more research on those ideas by getting actual reference material of my own and using that in my mood boards and I think I could have come up with more ideas for me to research. Creating the model posed a bit of a challenging creating hard and organic surfaces it left me with a few problems of floating vertices and double faces and a couple of n-gons which I wasted time on fixing but they were quick fixes and in the end the final model I produce was worth the trouble and provided me with a good learning curve. I would of also of liked to add extra geometry to the model to make it look more Edwardian but I could not as I was close to the 8000 triangles and didn’t want to go over on my low poly. Task 2/3 The UV took me a long time and felt I wasted a lot of time here that I could have been placed elsewhere. I manged to get the UV how I wanted but I still feel I could have done a better job on them, maybe placing them over two UV squares instead of one to get better texture resolution. The high to low poly bake didn’t go so well in mudbox, I kept getting baking errors where it would randomly place lines all over the model, I fixed most of the error by adding extra geometry but it has taught me that mudbox isn’t the best software to always do high to low poly bakes in. I got less errors from using Maya and substance painter by combining the two together. I had to still edit the normal maps that mudbox produced in photoshop as it created raises areas when it should have been a smooth. Creating the texture maps was relatively easy the only problems I ran into was the lack of materials in substance painter to use and the fact I had to compress my texture maps into one map via photoshop. Task 4 The only thing that didn’t go to plan in this task was I could not get the lighting correct in unreal engine, and found it hard to get the right angles for the light without casting to much shadow on the model its self or using too much light and ruin the contrast of the model. Conclusion Even though I ran into a few problems along the way with geometry and the high to low poly bake it has helped me learn how to avoid these problems in the future and that I need to start not using mudbox for all my high to low poly bakes as there are many ways of making them now. I also need to work on my UV as I felt this is the area I lost the most time on the model and slow down the workflow dramatically. Issues and changes I had along the way in unit 69 I didn’t make much changes from the research to creating the model, there was only minor changes that involved not adding detailed geometry to the model so that I did not go over the 8000 triangles and try to place that detail geometry into the high to low poly bake. I had to change what stencils I wanted to use in mudbox because I could not find one that would suit my model but I found a nice floral design that was used in wood carvings in the late 1800 so I decided to change my design to incorporated the new design. Other than this there was no other changes. The issues I had along the way was mainly with mudbox and not baking to my model correctly I found the reason to this and it was mainly down to not having enough supporting geometry lines in the model which cause the errors in mudbox. But this has taught me not to always use mudbox for my high to low poly bakes. Other issues have been noted about the time I spent on the UVs but in the end, they have worked and I will consider more research and practice more on this area in the future. Conclusion Overall I am extremely pleased with how model has turned out, I like how it looks and the textures I have created for the model. It was a learning experience for me I learned what could go wrong with high to low poly baking and what I could improve on in the future. I have enjoyed the whole experience from concept to design to the final product.
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AuthorWelcome to my blog about my game design and 3D modelling work Archives
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