Creating high poly assets

So now I have already begun the process of high polying my models, here I will go the process of how I went about this.

I got a few references of console tables that were used in the Louis XIV  period, one for the back of the room and one for the middle of the room as the stage highlight asset.

https://lh3.ggpht.com/JGFO5oSyviFvMoDstUtTIGyOZ8ydcUxwEvz_Ja0UiW0rCStSEM5Ba1HWs1IIUSMxFR2cEAs=s85

https://lh5.ggpht.com/Epjy_CLyMbcUk87mZyH0-nJS06HW09AHFvlaImafvTAb-R9QKkzBdP0f6s-IeMjBCKTV=s170

https://lh4.ggpht.com/wrbP23HagyRi4fZOzJd4-Alh-5NJYnk0R87acvZqNI08YumZ0vBOhLIOIOg16Y-FopY6=s146

https://lh4.ggpht.com/Q7A01jE5IrHTi4joMPfeKRwCSG-fuhc6rK8iYJoTUFJrO9eQh8axhgBSHeWaAhG6zTwRnQ=s85

https://lh3.ggpht.com/K2FcossynW2OHUBIrQnzAaJNr5aWEEfNUOM0EPw-rUmSWmAWjkxWyZnWqIpn6AxRD5J0VA=s113

https://lh5.ggpht.com/eQJqETyJePR2q8ztRz7mHmmKTh2RsFsq2LqvhC0LD0EPkyRkoUlFLHRVJy247hzydDKi-A=s85

What went right:

I managed to bake out the normal maps pretty well and making the high polies were pretty simple as the only detailed parts where the legs, on both assets.

What went wrong:

I tweaked around with different woods and granite to get the best feel of the tables, still tweaking them now!

How can I improve:

Well now I know the best work flow of making tables, so working faster is my next step.

making the high poly of the leg I left the bottom bit square and alone as I would add details to this bit later using Ndo. This would save me time.

Candle Light

The candles make up the majority of lighting in my scene so I needed to nail these down properly.

I had a few candles in my main room to make this candle effect I needed to use a particle emitter, it moves my flame in a random rotation and flickers like a normal candle light would.

A problem I came across and still have is that when I move the camera off the flame, the light turns off, I have tried increasing the bounding box of the flame, but that still hasn't worked, problem is shown below.

Will try to fix this later on.

Making the wax was pretty easy, was simply taking a cylinder into ZBrush and moving the top verts and then subdividing and adding clay tubes down the side, then smoothing the inner groves.

I would add wax dripping down from the metal candle holder but due to time, I could not.

Rain on windows

I have been working on a water shader for my windows to make the hallway seem a bit more dynamic and believable

This is still a wip, and I would probably need to add some sort of condensation on the inside of the windows.

Here is how I managed to do this effect.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4048/4303835161_519bd7553e.jpg

What I basically did was get two different water droplet textures, I got a reference off google, put it into photoshop and painted white on the water drop lets, made the texture seamless, then created a normal map out of the white/black texture mask.

I then went into UE4 and created several nodes, the most important nodes would of been the time, and panner nodes, these made the water fall down and different times since I had two variations of water drop lets.

Some more main room ideas

So again I've changed the ideas of my main room, my thoughts are having 2 pieces of cloth with heraldic signs on them, which you can see on the right of the first picture.

I've also tipped the chairs in the room to make it look like something has occurred again in the room, also needed to do it to spread out the props and add more of them into the room.

I've also added a chair and frame in the corner which I am planning to put a cloth over, as if its being protected from dust, I will also redo the fireplace as that was only a place holder.

Will also probably add more assets to the backs of the wall, to make it look less bare.

As you can see I've added some particle effects (flames) I will talk about this in a later post in my blog.

Masking variations of tileable floor

I have been using UE4's preset floor, but now I wanted to give it a go and try my own floor, here is my process of how I went about making my floor.

So to create my Versailles floorboard I looked at some references first, I used this one as I could easily see the crisscross sections.

http://www.traditionaltimber.co.uk/demo/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/reclaimed-versailles-4ed.jpg

I then went into Maya and started building the different sections the cut faces tool was very useful here as I could put faces on the squares in a straight line. Then delete those polys later to make it look like the wood was intersecting.

Then I gave each wooden piece a different colour in Maya so it would be easier later on when it came to baking and texturing.

I then made the high poly of the shape which was pretty much turbosmoothing and adding edge loops to the hard surfaces. I then placed a plane on the bottom to bake the high poly onto. I baked the normal maps, cavity and colour map.

I then used these colour maps in Photoshop to easily mask out the generic wooden texture I used for the texture, then rotate the wood to make it look like it was going one way.

Here I made 3 different variations so I could paint in Unreal different colours to make the floor look less repetitive. 

Here is the normal map, I made sure that certain points were popping out and others weren't.

Here are the nodes I used for the floor, to make them tileable and less repetitive and also to rotate them as they were meant to be in a diamond shape

Speed tree - rain - sounds - lighting

So I have recently been playing around with Speed Tree and particle effects, I wanted to create something quickly to add into my environment as a silhouette the player would not be able to see the tree, thus making it a really cheap effect.

http://www.speedtree.com/

The top picture was me sorting out the lighting again, making it look foggy the further away you were from the scene.

I decided to make the outside look rainy/stormy to add more mood to the scene. I used speed tree to quickly get some trees out as, I just wanted black silhouettes of the trees to draw moving shadows into the hallway.

Alpha presentation

So today we had our alpha presentation milestone, I managed to get quite alot done for alpha but there was still a huge way to go for completion, in the presentation I talked about the changes I made within the scene and why, I wanted a main piece for the room but then decided on lots of little pieces to make a story for the room. I also added a mirror into the room to reflect the body bag that would be implemented later on.

I also experimented with lights I know I have a long way to go but i'm still trying to figure out the best way to light the scene to show things off.

Unfortunately I cannot find my alpha cinematic but it was shown on the presentation day to the class and tutors.

But I did find my blockout show reel which contained my alpha Environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCKOHZ_exj0

I have also added outside ambient sounds like rain to make it sound like there was harsh weather outside.

Next I will be working on making high polies of assets, and then texturing!

Lighting - making the environment more spooky (atmospheric)

So I've just played Silent Hills: PT and I'm in love, I really want to make a horror theme with my environment, so now I am playing with fog and lights.

I have changed the lighting and have had a few ideas that I wanted to do the environment - I wanted to make a spooky environment to achieve this I am thinking of having a human hung up by a rope/cloth with blood dripping down from his head (replacing the chandelier from the 2nd room).

The lighting will change in the 2nd room, Candles will be lit on the tables on the sides of the room.

A little more progress on my environment

I am quite ahead of myself now and have put down some of the major points of the hallway, still needs alot more polishing but hey I can see where this is going now.

I am still playing a bit with the lighting, need to fix some some of the light maps, finished off the hallway for now and will begin working more on it later but for n and going to start working on the main room.

I will begin working on the outside after, I am planning on having rain, trees and some sort of fog effect.