missing email

Ok for whatever reason it looks like I don't have your email address so I can't send you the max files, be really helpful if you got in contact with me so this stuff can be fixed in time

Doorframe scale models for Nikki

Got your doorframe models, everything looks really good but the scale when imported into the blockout is miles off and i can't scale them in the editor as doing it non uniformly squashes stuff so it all looks weird.

I'll email you the sections of the blockout with the doorframes when i get home, if you can adjust your models to fit them they'll slot in perfectly, best way would be typing in the vert positions of the blockout to the 4 corners of your door models and yeah i should have split the blockworld into ppl's relevant parts ages ago

Oh yeah saw your poster textures/designs for the first time today they look really nice really gonna help with the revolutionary aspect of it a helluva lot

Lobby wip - model pass

Okies, thought I'd post this up quickly been hammering out assets all night and I'm starting to populate the map with them.

All the models there are untextured at this stage i want to get stuff like the placement and scale of objects correct and perhaps start thinking about lighting it properly.

If you wanna talk to me or Ben where gonna be in the lab from 12 onwards today (28th feb thurs)

If you can give your completed models to Ben, upload them somewhere or email them to him, I can start arranging them around - I'm pretty poor at keeping track of what everyones doing so i may inadvertently start modelling the same asset as someone else, speed is key ppl!

Oh yeah please post crits and so forth - like i've just realised those pipes are in a 'orrible position...

Wall Reference (for Carter)

A Few Belated Asset Guidelines

This is probably way too late, but as I've just covered in my response to Joey's post there are some guidelines to choosing what asset you are going to make. I'd have thought some of these would be common sense really... Remember, this is a survival horror thing, some things are just inherantly not scary and ruin any atmosphere we have.

1) DON'T use famous brand names - it dates the environment too much, we want to leave it ambigous.

2) AVOID using plastics in anything but minimal quantities, as a general rule just switch it to the most plausible alternate materials. Plastic looks cheap and common, not mysterious, it generally just breaks the tension. Don't just necessarily do a straight coversion either unless its a pretty generic product (ie bins) find a similar product made of metal or glass or whatever.

3) This is abandonned DON'T leave objects looking new and ready for use. This should be obvious.

4) Mute out strong colours and stick to the pallette, it is there to help you - just because something is labelled as rust colour doesn't mean you can't use it on bricks, just because something is labelled ice doesn't mean it can't be used on a crate. The categories are starting points just to give you an idea of what we want with specific things. Don't pick colours way out of the palette without getting it by Nikki or me.

5) A general rule, but look at reference from the Queens building itself if possible if you are making things. Certain people in the group clearly are not using it and it's obvious in their work.

Assets

All my assets

Right Jesus, finally managed to get a quick video recorded briefly explaning how to prepare a model from exporting into Unreal - Having to use Youtube at the mo which took freaking ages to upload and yeah can barely see it but i think its clear enough just listening to it.

Stage Six won't work for me and im not entirely sure why, gonna try and work it out tomoz as well as doing one for importing into Unreal and creating a simple material but in the mean time theres this





Wooo...

Modelling & Texturing Guidelines

All art assets should be constructed and textured adhering as closely to the reference and concept as possible. Geometry should be built economically, with a polygon and texture resolution to fit their game play requirements whilst ensuring they convey a faithful reproduction of the real world settings.

Pipeline

Below is the pipeline that every asset will go through. You must follow this when working on the asset you have been set. If you do not show the relevant people your work at each stage there’s a very high chance you will get to the end and be told to do it again.

Modelling Guidelines

Below is a list of guidelines and standards to adhere to when creating scenic assets.

Basic Guidelines

• The assets should be created in max 9.
• The asset should be aligned so that the front is visible in the Front viewport.
• The asset, materials and maps should adhere to the specified naming convention.
• Ensure verts are welded.

  

• The intersection of separate model pieces is allowed; a judgment call must be made on when the use of intersection saves polygon count over mesh consistency/stability.
• Ensure all face normals should face outwards (or as seen) be aware of flipped faces.
• The asset Origin should be at 0.0.0. Reset the transform and collapse before exporting.

Naming conventions and file structure

• The filenames should be in the following formats:

  max: object_type_00.max
  

  psd: object_type_00.psd
  tga: object_type_00_d.tga
  export: object_type_00.x

  The number represents a variation of the asset. Do not include back

  ups of the completed assets. In the situation where multiple max files would share the same texture files then that texture file should have both number variations in.

  The tga files need a postfix that denotes the type of file it is:

  _d = diffuse
  

  _s = specular

  _n = normal
  _h = height

  _a = ambient occlusion

  examples: light_small_01.max

  chair_blue_02_d.tga

• The filenames should have no more than 20 characters plus the file extension.
• When all the parts of the assets are completed they should be put in a folder with the asset name. This folder can then be zipped and sent to the 3d lead.

  

Example folder

Additional

• Model in a representational amount of detail, but do not over complicate, detail can be textured in.
• Afford most of your polygon assets to th ose within the playable area, anything beyond this area will need less detail.

• Pay careful attention to your smoothing groups, these are important as they define the shape of the model.

• Avoid non co-planar and non co-linear polygons (bent quads or polygons with 3 verts in a line), as they do not convert to game well.
• It may not always be beneficial to weld certain pa rts of the object together, for example all the stairs on a staircase.

Bevelled edges

Assets should have bevelled edges applied as this substantially improved the quality of the model in the way that it will interact with light.

Bevelled edges on an object

Poly Count

There is some flexibility within the polygon count for a

ssets. With the unreal engine we will be using more polygons than we have been able to use before but the general rule of thumb is Don’t use polys where they aren’t needed. The lower poly the model is the faster the game will run.

A: Object built using a reasonable numbe

r of polygons
B: Excessive use

of polygons does not improve object

Units and Scale

All assets are to be built to a rea

l world scale. Refer to your project manager for the correct unit setup and reference model.

Stripping

When working in Max the artist should build a model that will strip efficiently when exported into the real time engine. In order to do this, three main areas need to be taken into consideration: Mapping, Smoothing and Structure.

Stripping

· Mapping

Areas that need to be tiled should b

e mapped using the “polygon planar projection tool”. This will ensure that all the vertices are sharing the correct UV coordinates.

Whenever possible avoid mapping a quad and then tiling the geometry to create a surface; this method will result in a mesh that will not strip efficiently.

· Smoothing

Any area of polys where stripping is desired needs to share a smoothing group. A “Hard” edge will stop the surface from being stripped. This is not to say that all edges should be smooth, use hard edges when necessary – on the edges of buildings for example.

· Structure

When creating objects try to avoid producing polygons that fan outwards. Meshes should conform to a grid like struc

ture wherever possible. Fan shapes will not strip. The 3 images below are examples of this; the two to the left are how a mesh should not be modelled, the third image to the right is how a mesh should be mode

lled (note the grid like structure).

Texturing & UV Mapping Guidelines

Below is a list of guidelines and standards we adhere to when creating a scenic building.

Basic Guidelines

· Textures are to be created using Adobe Photoshop

· Textures must be one of these sizes : 2048x2048, 1024x1024, 512x512, 256x256, 128x128 or 64x64

· Textures should be shared where appropriate, ie 2 identical chairs should not have exclusive textures

· A combination real world base textures and Photoshop techniques should be used when creating your textures.

· You may find it preferable to work at a larger resolution when editing the UV’s for clarity of point placement, sizing down at a later date.

· Maximise the use of your texture sheet.

• Textures should be saved in the .tga format.
• Textures should adhere to the given naming conventions.

Unwrapping guidelines

· Fill as much of the box as possible

· Duplicate areas can be overlapped

· Every part of the model should be unwrapped but try not to waste time unwrapping unseen areas to a high detail.

· Make more detailed faces bigger than less detailed faces on the texture page

· Make sure all pieces are facing the correct way, if they are not then when a normal map is applied then it will go inverted on the pieces that are not facing the correct way. A easy way to check is to apply a texture with text on and see if it can be read.

Photoshop guidelines

All the different textures (e.g. diffuse, normal and specular) should all be in one Photoshop file before been saved out as different .tga’s. To keep from the Photoshop file getting messy the layers should be arranged into different folders.

Photoshop files authored for each texture set should contain the following:

Diffuse Map:

Diffuse texture

The diffuse texture should have as much light information removed from it. Windows should have reflections removed and replaced with a texture that represents what the texture would look like without reflections.

Specular Map:

The specular map is black and white and is used to control how shiny/reflective parts of the texture are. Black will be used for parts of the texture that appear matt, and white would be used for something that 100% reflective e.g. a mirror. In most cases the majority of the specular map will be shades of dark grey. If you want the specular to appear reflective rather than just shiny you will need to add an environment map to the shader in max.

The specular can also include colours, a good example of a situation of when to use a coloured specular would be on something like a beetle shell:

Height (displacement) Map:

The height texture can be used to help create the normal map. Areas of the texture are painted to show how high or low they should appear on the model. White is 100% high and black is 100% low. To create the effect of bevels etc the edges of the height map components should be faded using a glow effect.

Height map texture

For the unreal engine any height (displacement) maps created need to be saved in the alpha channel of the normal map texture. Do not use a displacement map on your texture unless asked to because at this stage we are unsure if we will be using them atall

Normal Map:

Normal maps are a way of creating the impression of a bump or indent on the surface of the model. The main thing that needs to be remembered when working with normal maps is that they do not actually move the surface of the polygon to make it stick in or out, all they do is add shadows and highlights in real time so it looks like that is happening.

In order to be good at using normal maps you will need to understand almost everything on this tutorial:

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/normal_workflow.htm

The first two pages of that tutorial are not as important for this project because they are about baking out normal maps from a high poly source but the 3^rd page is very useful for what we are trying to do because it explains in detail how to add texture in Photoshop with normal maps.

Exporting to engine

Asset completion checklist

On completion of any asset, the following checks should take place:

• Remove any textures/ materials from the material editor that are not used.
• Ensure the correct material is on the asset.
• Remove any smoothing group problems and ensure bevelled geometry has the right smoothing applied.
• Unhide and delete any unwanted geometry, lights, cameras or helpers in the scene and make sure there are no hidden verts or polys in the asset.
• Ensure that all verts are wielded up if they need to be.
• Select the mesh and make sure the x-form is reset and the normals are facing the correct way.
• Ensure the pivot point is central to the mesh but the z value is set to 0. The whole asset will then need to be set to 0,0,0 in max world space. In the case of small objects that meet the ground, the pivot point should be positioned centrally to the portion of the object that meets the ground.

WHAT U NEED TO DO NOW!

This blog is to discuss the meeting today in greater detail and details on what will happen in the future of the project.

During the meeting we basically discussed whats needs to be done. We decided that the rooms we will concentrate on will be the Court Yard, Main Room, Lobby, and Second Floor Lobby. This hopefully wont be the finished project, lightening our work load will help us concentrate on getting a visual style right. We will be able to break each room down and work on getting to look as close to visual style.

For Monday everyone must have TOTALLY FINISHED all the models you have been working on, these models MUST fit to the technical spec which will be outlined in a video tutorial in another post.

If your model is not finished it will be put in the game how it is. We do not have time to keep going back over little things. On Monday everyone will get a new assets(s) to make.

Please include .max formats on Monday

When you hand your models in on Monday can you please include them in the original .max format as well as the .ase format suitable for Unreal, please

A video tutorial will be available explaining how to take an object from max into unrealEd and all the problems you may run into

5 steps to making barbed wire

Hey Hicks you went offline so i thought i would wack this up here to show u what i was going to say to do.







I can spell completed really.....

Lobby texture set

Okies thought I'd fire up a quick pic of what im doing at the mo, I've annotated it with changes and stuff we need to add just need to ok it with people. The weakest element here at the mo I think is the floor - its just a flat temporary texture i wanna add a really gnarled up model but thats up to Ben and Nikki to think about (Har har!)

Also this view is on the 'unlit' view so the texture are as bright as there gonna get - i've included a lit view below this but the lighting is really temporary so don't at all take it as final, we don't even know where the lights coming from yet after all.

URGENT

Nikki is away this weekend, so until she gets back I'm effectively the art lead. Anyway, basicly it concerns me a lot that last I spoke to Nikki she hadn't had ANYONE send her their concept art or reference images for their objects.

This worries me because it means one of two things:

1) People aren't following the pipeline.

or

2) People just aren't doing the work.

As we haven't had any meetings since this was set effectivly it means we have no idea how people are working, or whether they are working to the art style guide. I've seen Carters wall textures, and those were fine, and just seeing Bens work then at least gives me an idea of where hes going.

EVERYONE else however I have no clue of at all, I want to see all reference images and/or concepts depending on how applicable by SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE VERY LATEST. If we don't do this then the end result will look utterly incohesive which will suck.

All images should be either emailed to me at weird.mind@gmail.com OR post it on here.

Remember, if you don't follow the pipeline we can easily just tell you to redo your work when you do it wrong because you haven't checked it against the right people, or if we don't have time at all, we just won't use it.

Thankyou.

what ive been doin.

This is what ive been doing over the past few days:





Its nowhere near finished, but i have totally unwrapped it (which wasnt fun). I need to make sure it fits properly into the engine before I add damage and variation too it so i will have to wait till i get back before i continue with it.

Meanwhile im going to start working on rubble. Ive done this quick sketch already:

I intend to make the bricks red as they are actually red on the outside and I think it will help supplement the colour pallette well.

Lift with ice and bullet holes

here is the lift with ice and some bullet holes. It's well under the recommended poly limit at 4966 tris but i can easily add to it.

Lift/ no ice texture layer

this is the lift without the ice and bullet hole damage layers. This was rendered with a diffuse and normal map, the spec made it look horrific for some reason.

Concepts omited

Just downloaded the art style guide some good stuff but i noticed none of my concepts are included, I'd understand if they simply didn't match the colour palette yet nearly every single concept image in the guide fails to match each other or the colour palette specified

Seeing as most of these were done before we had a definite style guide it seems a bit rude to simply omit mine without good reason given

Quick update on the wall textures

Heres a quick look at some of the textures i've made working on a few mor at the moment - all of these are interchangeable with each other, so elements such as the metal trim can be swapped around.

Image res for the image is 256* actual size is 2048*

A word about cylinders

If your creating a model containing a number of cylinders it might be an idea to follow these guidelines,

Small: 8 sides

Medium: 12 sides

Large:16 sides

Small is smaller than the player or human, medium roughly the same size and large bigger than the player.

Dale if your doing the railings it might be an idea to use 8 or even 12 sides for them

smashed glass refrence

found these pics of glass, thought you could use them Alex.

art bible

link to the art bible.
It's not 100% complete yet but look through it and tell me if you think anything is missing.
Get it here

thanks

gate concept

here are the concept for the gates, please tell me what bits u like and what u don't i need to know.......ok thanks.

Newspaper - 16 tris :)

Even when the world is going crazy there always seems to be Football News on the back page...