Ba5 conclusion

This unit of work has tested my abilities in 3D asset creation, photo realistic texture work and hand painted texture work, the second of which is completely new to me. I was faced with two mini projects in BA5. The first was to recreate assets from 1998’s Half-Life, a generator/transformer and a control panel. Both of the assets where made with a realistic design due to Half-Life being a realistic game with no apparent art style. Both assets had photo textures. I had already created assets with this kind of texturing before, but one difference with this project was that I included baked normal maps to create a more realistic surface to the asset. An area where the baking was most noticeable was on the bolts and screws that where dotted around both models. It gave the impression of a higher amount of geometry.  I was happy with the outcome of my Half-Life models. I feel they had an aged look which suited the underground bases of black mesa. I decided to use crazy bump for a lot of the normal mapping, and used my texturing abilities to create the ridges and grooves on the metal panels.

The second project in this two part unit of work was to make a loot chest in the style of Radiant World’s SkySaga. I knew I wanted to do a 3D project again, and my choices came down to the one I chose and Sony Cambridge’s project to create a trash compactor for Killzone on the Vita. The reason I chose to do the loot chest was because it required hand painted textures, and I had never done them before. The Killzone asset was similar to the assets I had already created in the last sub assignment. We had 3 weeks on each project. This meant that I had 3 weeks to create the half-life assets and 3 on the Loot Chest. I really overestimated the amount of time it would take to create the chest asset, as I allocated about 3 weeks to making it. I assumed due to the hand painted textures, it would take far longer, but it in fact didn't take too long to create the appearance I was after. Although I was happy with the Half Life assets, I feel I could have dedicated more time to them had I known what the Industry test was asking of me prior to the 3 week mark when we were informed about project 2.

I have learned a lot from BA5, from high polygon baking methods, to hand painted textures, all new things I've never done before. Things that I will be experimenting and practising in the future will defiantly be High poly baking due to it being one thing I had a lot of issues with. After this project I am certain it will be 3D that I will be taking into the future for BA6 and onwards. It’s an area I feel I'm comfortable in and one that I can see myself developing my skills in.

Finished Chest

interior

I've decided to make an open model of the chest (interior view). I need to now try and structure an interior from the existing exterior. I'm going to put gems inside (something seen in a lot of screenshots. Also I might put in a weapon)

I've put some gems into an open version of the chest. Underneath the gems i used a normal map i made in xnormal.

Colour texture

This is my colour texture, I'll probably go over the highlights and tone some of them down, but this is what the texture will ultimately look like.

Hand painted textures

It was a good idea to start with base colours, from here I could estimate how close I was to achieving the colour pallet that the concept art was using, and I also had a canvas ready to add detail onto.

First off, I added a few highlights to give variation to the block colours currently being used, I generally used highlights, and placed them on the edges of the chest.

Next i started to add detail, it was tricky to get the style right, at first the grooves where too curved, and didn't give the angular look that most of the sky saga assets possessed, I reworked the grooves so that they have more variation but more straight lines. I used 3-4 layers to achieve this, I used a base layer where the initial groove was to be, with a layer of detail to go over that, then I had a layer to give a variation to the wood colour in between the grooves. I then used a 4th overlay layer to make the wood darker so there wasn't much contrast between the light and dark wood on the chest. My main goal for the textures is to create as little noise as possible, because sky saga is a very simple game in terms as aesthetics.

base colour

This is the base colour applied to the chest, i now need to add texture detail and highlight to the texture to make the geometry pop out, and give it that "skysaga" look.

The Chest

This is the low poly model of the chest. I will make a high poly version with a few more chips, and with that model I will bake the detail onto the low poly model. This has a poly-count of 2500 which is what I estimate to be a reasonable poly-count for the chest in comparison to the workbench which is around 4500, but is also more complex and is larger.

bevels, chips n' nicks.

When looking at the reference assets, i noticed that a lot of the poly count was taken up by nicks chips and the large amount of bevelling. This is my take on that style with the chests key lock mechanism.

SkySaga Art Test

Skysaga: Infinite Isles Unveiled Art Test ­ 3D Art Test Your task is to create the ‘Loot Chest’ asset. Utilize the ‘Loot Chest’ concept art and example assets provided as a guide to produce your art piece The example assets folder contains two game resolution assets to assist you. They are representative of both model/texture construction and usage as well visual style and quality. The concept piece they were based upon is also provided for your reference. Good Luck.

THE ART TEST


I've been looking at some game play, assets and concept art of the game and very quickly it is apparent that the game is very SQUARE orientated. It's a voxel in the same vein as mine-craft, but it has much higher polygon assets. The environment is built up with square blocks, and the assets in game are high polygon assets with very appealing and friendly square features.

From looking at their loom and workbench assets I've determined these guidelines:

Texture Resolution: 1024 (Colour/Normal/Specular) - Painted Texture

Polycount: between 4000 and 6000 polygons

Shader: "UberShader"

Design: Soft angular shapes, square and cartoon appearance. (Strong bevelled edges)

Colour: Strong contrasting and basic block colouring

Mesh: Asset is comprised with between 5-7 meshes that have been combined
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I'm estimating I'm going make a roughly 5000 polygon asset due to the simple nature of a loot crate. This is going to one of the first times i've made a truly 100% hand drawn/painted texture for an asset. I'm most likely  going to bake normal maps where needed for a nice finish to the assets aesthetic.

The models have lots of very simple and visible chips and nicks built into them. It gives the model a sense of age, yet the textures remain very clean and "new" looking. There are no sharp features to the models, everything is nicely rounded.

Using floating geometry

I had already finished my assets before I learned about how to bake normals via high poly assets. So i had to apply the UVs to my existing normal made with crazy bump. I made one screw and duplicated it over my CB Normals texture. I'm going to try add more things like this to my asset.

Assets in UDK

This is a screenshot of a UDK scene with my assets. I mocked up some shapes and new assets to fill out the scene.

The ideas and concepts I've applied to my assets.

The assets are a remake of assets within the distressed black mesa facility after its abandonment and evident destruction. Something I took note of when beginning the assets was that they needed to be very detailed at a head height level because they are going into a FPS game. I knew there were limitations in terms of the poly count, so I would have to use normal maps to add geometric detail to flat low poly assets.

The game that the assets would be situated in is a half life game. half life games don't really have an art style, instead they focus on making very realistic looking worlds. Each Half Life released by valve has been a leading example of graphical fidelity within the gaming industry. The textures within the games have mostly been photo textures (with exception to the combine and Xen textures). With this in mind, I have actively made sure to use a lot of photo textures in my work to make the materials appear realistic.

As the Brief describes, the third game would be 30 years after Half Life 2, which is 20 years after the events of Half Life 1, that makes the black mesa that the player is returning to at least 50-60 years old. So it's very important to make sure everything looks aged and worn down. Before I got to work, I established a setting, and a likely environment to which the assets would be located in. In the original Half Life (50-60 years ago) the setting already felt old, so I knew it would have to look much more worse for wear in my recreations. Also since the first game there has been an atomic explosion just above on the surface, and likely a massive Xen invasion within the facility, Along with probably 50 or so years of nothing. With this knowledge I assumed it was safe to say the power was defiantly out for the count, and that there has probably structural damage to some of the equipment. Some of the damage i've applied to the assets include a overheating explosion to the main cooling vent attached to the transformer, and various cracks and wire damage to the control panel.

I kept the colours consistent with both assets. From looking at a lot of assets within Half Life I noticed that there was a vast amount of military hardware and equipment, the main colours where dark greens and blacks. Also much of the lab equipment used the same colours. Most of the text is dark orange and yellow, on green and black panels and walls.

Along with all of this, much of the old underground facilities had a really rustic feel. So it was important to add rust, scratches and possible damage to some instruments.

IN UDK

Xnormal

I was practising with xNormal, I want to add bolts and nuts to my scene. but first i must try and reduce my poly could because it's to high to start adding high poly bolts.

I wasn't happy  with how my light turned out, i started trying to make some simpler assets.

I was much happier with this button. It might make in on one of my assets. But i still want to practice more with X normal.

Below are some of my better Normals, although I am still not unsure what happened to the lower portion of the cylinder.

Transformer/generator (WITHOUT FLOATING GEOMETRY)

mapping

This is a bump-map I made for the pylons. I'm particularly happy with how it turned out. Im teaching myself more about specular and normals. map

Creating the electrical transformer

It has taken me quite a long time to establish a form of generator for the asset design. I think because the original model was so unrealistic and low detail, a starting point was harder to come by. The idea behind this asset (top) is that the boss chased Gordon into the generator room and got tangled in the transformer cables, then Gordon tuned on the power and defeated the boss. The event caused the transformer to overload and the cooler on the side exploded. this is why there are metal fragments and debris on the side of the asset.

Transformer/generator references