11/4/2018 0 Comments Building...I always get a kick out of the horrified expression people adopt, when I tell them that I’ve been modelling all day. The mental imagery of me "dolled up" and pouting at the camera is quickly erased when I go on to explain I mean 3D modelling, as in building 3D models. The look of relief is always tempered by the knowledge that the image will come back to haunt them over time. I debated as to how low res to make the assets for this project. I toyed with the idea of just using the brush shapes in UE4 to put the scene together (a traditional 'grey-box' approach), after all the important aspect to demonstrate was the layout and the design choices. On reflection however, I thought if I added a bit more character to the assets, then the scene could be enjoyed by more than just level designers. I would shy away from fully texturing, or fully modelling the assets. Yet I thought it a worthy step to include a bit more character than the simple cube shape, to make the project a bit more accessible to a wider audience. I set about quickly knocking together versions of the sketches I had undertaken. I used Maya to build the models and imported them into Unreal. I kept a plain texture to everything, so colours and details wouldn’t overshadow the simplicity of the design layout. My first step was to initially sculpt the landscape, and as Overkember is named after the twin forks of its river I would start there. I also had a call to make concerning the time of day. Initially I thought a night-time setting might be nice, with lighting playing a large part of the visual appeal. After some rumination I rejected this as it would reduce the distance players would be able to see, and detract from the scale of the scene.
If this were to be a larger project than I first envisioned, then a whole raft of building types and models would have to be created. As it was a bonus feature to have partially detailed structures I settled on a few distinct types and would use them as a sort of placeholder, a suggestion of the type of structure that would appear in a more detailed scene. A warehouse, a mid sized house, a tavern, a hovel - these were the basic building blocks I settled upon. The next step was to put things together in the engine.
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AuthorIan is an avid player of video games, a watcher of movies, a reader of comics and books and occasionally a dad. Archives
May 2018
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