Si-Fi Apartment

Uni is over and I have to move on, I did work more on the environment for the graduation show however I now have to move on. I changed the lantern lighting to something more natural as it seemed like a night time scene mixed with a daytime scene. I also tried increasing the bounce of the light but that did not do much to the scene. So I managed to get a balance that I need, also took my work to Polycount, to which the users where extremely helpful in providing feedback for my work.

The next stage is creating a Si-Fi apartment. I am basing this from a concept art peace from one of the students from FDZ School of Design. Unfortunately the name of the student could not be found so I cannot fully credit them for their work. The environment is small, but this does require a large amount if skill with lighting and hard object modelling. As the resolution of the concept art is small I cannot properly look at the object clearly so I am sketching them out to get a feel of how the objects will need to be created.

While the graduation show is on I will not be able to dedicate 100% of my time to this as I need to be in to maintain the computers.

Update May 7th

The final configuration of the game has only one thing to add to it and it is complete to a hand in stranded.

The only snitched I had today was a slight Normal Map problem when I was editing the cylinder ends but I manged to get around that buy creating variants of the Normal Map and Photoshopping the details I wanted together. during this process I manged to discover a "Trick" into making nDo create more accurate normal maps to what i wanted. As i needed the edges of the cylinder Ends and the "Droops" to be smooth i highlighted the aria i needed to me smoothly normal mapped but without over exadurated detail, selected arias and painted them pure white, in this case, the borders except for the detail in the center, and re-imported the file for nDo to create the normal maps from. while towning down the over exadurated full spectrum which nDo automatically does. With this setting i manged to get a clean Normal Map for the Cylinder Ends and the "Droops" i created later. I used an alpha map to cut out the rest of the image. this also allowed me to hide the low topology of the roofing cylinder effectively without having to create much more cost by making the roofing cylinders higher topology. I also used smoothing groups to hide the low topology more effectively along the cylinder and bend the light around the object. luckily UDK 2014 supports smoothing groups.

using this technique i also created Effective normal Maps for the paintings i added to add some more interesting scenery for the environment.

The next stage was increasing the indirect bouncing of the light in order to brighten the shadows slightly so that the interior light could be effectively sen rather than hidden. At this point I was scared to manipulate with the lighting as I was afraid it would ruin the effect of a flame burning in the Chinese Lanterns. However with a group of opinions of people the changes I had made ended up being exactly what the scene needed. Another problem to note is that the the light and saturation varies from monitor to monitor so it is hard to fin a decant balance, but with the lighting so far it should be to a decent stranded for the majority of monitors.

In the two images above i had increased the redious which the lantern light projects light and lowered its intensity and changed its original reddish look to a more flame lantern look which looks more natural. I had also increased the the amount of bounces the light was allowed to do from a basic 3 to 10. this increased quality but with a longer light bake time from the average 6 minuets to 17, but the results where worth it in the end. However, unlike Maya's Mental ray, any number above 3 bounces is reduced in effectiveness, allowing me to be more accurate with the lighting if i needed to be. However given the linger Baking times and the qlaty i was getting at the current rate any more modification where not needed.

The next stage was finishing off the Roofing once and for all. I had previous problems with scaling the old roofing up to the UDK scail. In the end for the corners i ended up re-making them as putting them into the scene. I also made a mental note never again to to assume I need to mirror geometry to match up the UV's so that the become symmetrical in the game engine. All I rely needed to do was to move the UVs so that they where the same when the roofing tile was moved to another side in the game world. In the end this also turned out to be an effective way to hiding shadow seams between sections of the roofing.

I had also created different sized roofing Cylinders for the corner peaces well as a new roofing Cylinder to hide the seam between the changing corners.

At this point I had also implemented Roofing details such as the "Droops" and the updated texture of the Roofing Cylinder ends.

the next stage afterward was the populate the scene with flora to effectivly give the "Yin and Yan" concept which is an important Chinese rule for architecture. In prticuler when it comes to courtyards where there has to be an elegant transition.

As the deadline for my "Large" project loomed closer and closer i had to start making some quik nessisery ajustments. while at this stage the scene was at a decent standerd it was missing two eliments.

1. Trees in the background to make the world feel bigger and not make the player feel clustaphobic.

2. Music was needed for the scene as i had no other sounds (ambiance and effects and so on). while a nice outside ambient would be nice to set the mood, I preferd music in the end to keep the player entertained and to give them a grater impact of emotion through the game. I decided that the Civilization 5: "China", section of the soundtrack souted the best over a previous shangrila type music which was good but sounded more indian rather than full on anchant china whic Civilization 5 had.

the audeo was set large enough to cover the entire aria so i did no need to worry about the player not being capable of hearing it.

I have also updated the materials on all objects to make them more enhanced. The walls have a stronger specular making them more interesting

The final stage is now editing the UDK engine files so that it exports my game with my setting rather that their Unreal Tornimnt level settings.



With the settings now in place and fixed, the game should run as planned when exported. i have just added a Cinematic for the opening scene of the game, so hopefully it shall hape the planned impact on the player.

Camera also moves to highlight arias of the level such as specular and texturing and arias of general interest which i have worked hard to achieve. the cinematic is a slightly too ling but it does show the map in a different light.

at the moment, it is now safe to call the project complete for the hand in and time to prepare for the Graduation show version which will hopefully have Oculus Rift installed.

As a final of the blog, hear are the reforences i used in the making of this project.

Update May 6th

Working hard at this point to finish off the level. at the moment I now have the flora in the level so there is now a balance between Organic and Architecture. Which means that the level is now in accordance with traditional Chinese courtyard architecture.

I have also finished the roofing corners so they look natural which the corners connect, all I need to do is finish off creating the Cylinders for the corner peace's and then change the diffuse texture to a darker form which works well with the base of the roofing and they are complete. also need to re-texture the Cylinder roofing ends so they have a border around them, as well as lower the resolution of them to something like 128px or ever so slightly higher as a 512 texture is not needed for them.

I have had time to play around with the Chinese lanterns, Lighting on different monitors are needed to be looked into as it varies from screen to screen. At the moment it is looking like I will have to update the lighting intensity ever so slightly and maybe the range, but I am also trying to retain that lantern effect as I am in danger if it looking unnatural (in turns of a flame inside a lantern). I have also experimented in the material editor for trying to make the lanterns flicker however to no avail. I have achieved a basic flicker but it does this to the entire lantern and the flicker can become too bright quickly.

The next stage is to put some trees in the the background to make the world feel bigger and less claustrophobic for the player.

Music will be added to the scene very easily and quickly. At the moment I am going to use the Civilisation 5 Chinese Peace theme so that the player will imminently think "China" rather than "maybe Japan or China I don't know".

I have also been looking into how to export the scene without the dufult UDK death-match game-type. I have looked into the Kismet commands but I have yet to test this version of the build to see if it removed the "Gun and Inventory" of the type.

I have also set the game-type to "Simple_Game" as well as set the world property's to remove the default Inventory assigned to the player on start up. I may have to look deeper into the UDK files and edit the "Classes" and possible the "Profiles" too in order to achieve the effect I want.

The player spawning with a gun in hand as well as having an inventory would ruin the atmosphere i am trying to create in the level.

Hear are the screenshots of the scene so far.

At the moment I have yet to see if this works in the game export. Fingers crossed!

Update May 1st

Moving on with adding everything into the scene, I am now moving completely to UDK ad advised by a guest speaker from "Born Ready" games company as well as lecturer advice.

At the moment there will be no new models unless they are absolutely needed.

also editing Normal Maps so there are more effective. Will also need to create lights for the interior sections as they are exceptionally dark and hides the detail of the Normal Maps and Specular Maps of the walls, as well as becoming hard to see them in the first place.

Also completing the roofing within the UDK project with cylinder roof tiles and Normal Mapped Alpha textures to hide low poly ends which are working well. Will need to exit the texture in order to make for a more realistic and traditional looking end but otherwise the result at the moment is adiqet enough for me not to take much notice.

The next task is for the corner peaces of the environment to be added

Hear are some screen captures of the progress.

Roofing Ends are 512x512 which is probably too high for its worth as these are quite small in the scene, however they work well at the moment so the priority of theme has been pushed to a lower level until the main priority's are finished.