Live Client developmet... so far.. continued

Now I had made a substantial start on the outside area with time running short and knowing how many weeks I had left I made a move and start on the construction of the challenge area one. Taking forward my knowledge of mistakes I had made on the construction of the outside area. I made sure before I started I knew what kinds of things I would be creating before hand. After recapping on my original design for this challenge ... (below) I got down to experimental building

I found 3DS Max a really good inventive tool. From my Drawings and research I could take certain aspects of things that I liked or was attracted and incorporate them into the design flow of a object as I was constructing it. after some considerable amount of building time here was a simulated look of how the environment would look like.

I quickly got on high poly asset building and texturing to create over all look.
Here are the assets from this scene in the games engine fully textured(with a design concept in there too).

When it came to the ball design I had a idea of a spindle designed ball that had water contained in the middle. The water colour in the middle would indicate the hole to shoot the ball in as the hole would be illuminated in the same colour. One ball in the correct coloured hole would open the door.

The only problem that presented this was how to create a convincing water texture using the games material editor. I will openly admit that I am pretty much a complete novice when it comes to textures in games engines. and water was going to be a challenge... and I can say with confidence I was right.

I found a tutorial in my book that covered the basics and worked through to the advanced stuff. trying to learn what each node does in UDK's plug and play, and slowly but surly this was the result of my endeavours.



a convincing water texture nether the less but I wanted to see if i could work on with what I'd learnt and to see what other people did and combine my 2 findings together to see what I could get.

eventually and with along time I came up with this.

which was a lot more tasty than the first =)

This pretty much brings me up to speed on my blog so thanks for reading an keep checking as there will be more coming up soon.

Live Client developmet... so far

As its been a while since I have last posted up on my blog ill try and cover a lot of there I am at the moment in one foul swoop. Its getting close to hand in time now so heads are down getting all the final stuff made.

Basically over the last few weeks I have been making and texturing like a demon trying to get enough assets out in this small time to make this project look half good. just as a recap this is more or less what my concept design was and where I thought it was going...

So in my development process here are a few of the things i made to fit in with the outside environment.

I knew I would have to revisit the base textures at some point so as a model to test them in the world space they were fine as they were.

After getting quite a few of my assets had been made I started to get towards the construction stage just to see how it looked when it was put together.

As with most developmental processes it needed a lot of work. I had a few play experiments with how the assets could be placed as well as changing the approach to the building to give it a few of a imposing building, but to little avail. I began to look over characteristics of different cultures temple like structures to gain some influence in how to create a temple like feel to the building as one it was very ridged in its structure, and two it didn't look like a temple. After looking over my images i had come to stockpile, I came to a conclusion that I had a lot of cultural influences in my workings which could lead to a confusion in how the piece visually presented itself. However I found that Persian style architecture seemed to embody the curvaceous stylistic approach I had worked towards.

I did a bit more designing and playing around with the environment but I felt I would have to leave the outside for a later date as I now had to start working on the inside to get the main bulk up my work in place to meet the criteria of my brief. this is more of less some of the designs and state of how I have left the out side area for now.

Asset Creation

after looking over my work again I realise that my topology needed looking at so here are some optimised models as a work in progress

Asset Creation

Carrying on from where the last post left off, with the normal map completed this lead on to the final stages of the asset creation. The Diffuse map that makes up the visible covering of the model is one of the most important things to be considered, as it makes up the look of the level and dictates along side other assets Diffuse maps, the over all feel to the game.

The images below show the process of the Diffuse maps creation. During the texturing stage like this Crazy Bump provides a quick look at what each map looks like on the model, once you import a mesh for the maps to be projected onto. The images below show the initial adding of the main texture and and use of images being transformed into size and blended in accordance to how the model has been UVW mapped.

Eventually I got to my first finished Diffuse design which can still be worked on at a later date once I start getting together my level on the games level editor.

Asset Creation

Just as an update for my wall panel I'm making here are a few pictures of its progression.

The above pictures show the high and low poly models (in solid and also in wire frame) I used to create the normal map. From here I unwrapped the low poly model, moved the high poly model inside the low poly, applied the projection mod, and then used the render to texture.

This gave me quite a nice normal map result as shown by the texture applied to the low poly version below. Due to the normal map being projected onto the low poly mesh from the high poly there is no need for messy unwrapping on the high poly models.This is a good method for getting detailed models without working overboard to get them.

To easily edit the normal maps I used crazy bump to give me extra definition, as well as quick spectral, occlusion and diffuse maps. The maps created by Crazy Bump can be used as a base for building the main diffuse texture. Images below show the effectiveness of the normal map on the main model; firstly in 3ds Max without editing in Crazy Bump, then with edits in Crazy Bump.

3ds Max Image

Edited using Crazy Bump.

Asset Creation

This is a sample of the pillar I have created for my Atlantis level. It is currently in its preliminary stage, and I am still not sure about its colour or texture, but that can be changed in Photoshop or Mudbox at a later date if needed. This post is more of a update as to where I am with my Live Client project so far. The wall panel concept is being built in low and high poly so that will be mapped, textured and posted soon.

Asset Creation

For those of whom are following my blog my Live Client is full swing into production. The bain of most 3d artists is learning unwrapping techniques properly, as it is a lengthy process to learn effectively. From my previous posts you have seen my door model, to which here are the finished moving parts of the door, with all the maps applied (normal,diffuse,specular,custom light maps). Using a combination of Photoshop, 3dsmax, and UDK editor here are the assets in the game editor. The first image shows the door closed and second shows the door open.

Image 1



Image 2

Normal Mapping

As a part of building assets, getting used to different styles of mapping seems to be a necessity. Normal mapping is where a high poly object is projected onto a lower poly model to give the illusion of a higher poly piece using less geometry.

Here is a image of the wire frames of my concepted door concept (see older posts) and another with the normal maps applied. Enjoy!

Wireframe Image



Normal Mapped Model

Beginnings Of Concept Finalisation

The identity of the game so far is starting to shape up quite nicely, so now to get more of a idea as to what the game flow is going to look like, I drew up the best ideas I had on mini games. This so far brings my blog up to date.

I have been working on my Personal Research Project in the time since my last massive upload onto my blog so im going to see if I have the OK to post that up here before my hand in on January 10th.

Idea Building for Live Client Project

With my baseline research together with reference images and ideas beginning to formulate, the time came to get out the trusty pencils and pen and put those ideas on paper. My ideas for this game were starting to formulate around a multi room puzzle game, each room presenting a element of skill and problem solving applied in a different way to progress to the next stage or room. For this kind of idea for the game to work I had to get lots of ideas down as possibilities as potential problems and challenges I could build using the games engines systems I had most understanding of. The sketches below show some of my ideas I bashed out as preliminary ideas.



Now I had some preliminary ideas down it was time to take a quick break from them to consider which ideas were going to work best in the game. In this break I cracked out some rough designs on designs of items that could be made to go in and stylize the game. These designs are shown below.