Final Presentation

Final Showreel

Creating foliage grass

For grass I'm going to use some reference that was available in udk package

Grass texture on the ground mesh is to flat using planes gives the better impression of grass in a 3d space, by duplixatng and roaring planes with a two sided texture its easy to create a clump of grass strands.

Creating the alpha was rather simple I created my own way in Photoshop by using the lasso tool drawing a shape of a leaf and then filling it in, for the stem I painted it in and using burn to create shadows.

From here you can export the planes as a clump as a single object and then place duplicate and rotate across the landscape surface.

Adding Fog.

Fog or Height fog is a feature in UDK which is very easy to implement in UDK. It's available in the content browsers.

The fog helps position the environment make it appear higher up and a greater distance from sea level.

Creating my own Skybox

This post will be about how i went about creating my own skybox one of the most key asset in my scene as would it be for most outdoor themed environments.

So i couldn't find any useful resoruces online to help me create my own skybox, so instead i turned to look at the ones already avaiable in UDK in order to create my own.

From what i learned there were multiple UVs on a skybox, from this and the material editor i learned these UVs where for panning clouds.

At first i had a little trouble with the UVs positioning.

Here is my own version of the sphere that matches up with UDK's material.

Scaled it up in my scene and placed it accordingly, now i need to create my own material.

Creating the Character

Using the move tool i can change the shape of the body pulling it to my guidelines on the plane behind, in this particular image the shoulders and the back of the neck needs to be pulled upwards.

Side by side you can see the Zsphere blockout i started out with. And on the right you can see i have change the proportions further.

Using the Highpoly from Zbrush as my mesh to start painting polygons using Quad Draw. 

Setting up Quad Draw, which became available in the most recent version of Maya 2014.

Once i have finished the half of the geometry i duplicate it over in the +X direction.

Blending textures with Mesh Paint

Here i have painted onto the surface of my floor a grass texture to blend in with my grass geometry. 

My floor consists of 800 triangles, this is enough for me to get a good number of vertices for me to paint onto. The geometry will hold this information, so i can always change the textures later on.

Here you can see more clearly i have painted green to apply the grass texture, and the orange is an alternating texturing that surrounds it, the grass planes are the rectangular shapes that cut into the floors surface. 

Lastly this is the mesh paint material which is fairly simple and consists of connecting multiple textures to lerps and then assigning each texture with a vertex colour in which you select to paint.

Creating Foliage - Trees

When creating trees i usually follow a certain technique using curves to make the shape of the trunk and from there extruding a cylinder to the curve which follows the path.

Firstly adding the trunk base and using the UDK character for scale.

I created a plane and took some reference that i was using at the time and put it onto the plan as a texture, so i can use it during i create my tree in the scene. I also put it on a different layer and
By duplicating the trunk and using soft select i can create a pointed end and varied branches. 

Finished the branches now i need to make this geometry live and start connecting planes onto the surface.

Here is the final version of the tree inside of Maya.

Finally i export it from Maya and into UDK.

Week 10 Phiscal based rendering

This week we had a presentation on Physical based rendering or PBR.

I found PBR quite interesting, It's clear that PBR is going to get bigger in next generation of games and i think a lot of engines will take it further to make materials and surfaces as realistic as possible.

One place where PBR can be seen is in film CGI.

Using Colour Grading LUT in UDK - Final

Recently I came across a feature in UDK that allows you to dramatically change the colors in your scene using a Look up table. The guide i used to follow out this is from 3DTotal on YouTube. [2]

This method is fairly quick to do, with a little Photoshop knowledge using layers and adjustments to change the over color of the environment.

This is the strip that can be found the epicgames website as well as how to plug in the look up table into your scene. [1]

Original strip

Modified strip altered in Photoshop.

Circled here in blue is the strip and the number of layers to adjust the colour of the screenshot taken. 

Once the LUT has been created it can be used by ticking 'Color Grading Lookup Table' and selecting the modified RGB Table.

Instantly changing the mood of the scene.

References:

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ColorGrading.html [1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g6kyZ7kRPs [2]

Week 11

This weeks lecture was based on Compositing, the idea of Composting is to combine elements from different sources into a single image.


We looked briefly at history of where composting as been used.

Oscar G.Rejlander - The two ways of life 1857
Combined images from 32 different glass negatives to produce a single print



















I think the best part about composting is that it can be used to great effect and be so seamless problem is that it takes a long time.


Optical Printing/Compositing- The process of combining 4 celluloid. A foreground image and its matte (male matte) with a Background plate and its matte (female matte). These are composited onto a clean film using an optical printer

Used right up to about 1992
Computer controlled during the 80s
Modern techniques derived from this



Rotoscoping

A tedious process, in which the technique is where an artist will trace over live footage to create a mixed media.

An example would be Scanner Darkly from 2006:

Matte painting.

Originally, visual effects artists used matte paintings to  create "virtual sets" and "digital backlots" to solve the same problems in a more powerful, flexible manner. But these new technologies have their roots in traditional matte painting technique.

Here on the left is the original matte painting.

On the right is the complete matte painting composite.
















Digital composting is of today's technology and is on the rise along with Computer generated imaging makes it easier and faster.

An example of a modern day film that uses digital imaging is the film 'The Truman Show' shown in images below.

Photography in the town of Seaside, Florida

Final composite establishing the downtown area.

http://www.matteworld.com/projects/siggraph_1.html
http://www.matteworld.com/projects/siggraph_3.html

Creating rock cliff using ZBrush

A major asset in my scene is the water flowing from the rocky cliff. I noticed it wasn't very rock-like and needed retouching up as it brought the environment down.
From using ZBrush more recently i am more confident that i can create an improvement, which was very much needed.
So to start i will be taking a quick manipulated polygon from Maya and exporting it into ZBrush. I subdivided it equally so it divides nicely in ZBrush as well as extruded the faces inwards to define the basic shape more instead of having to sculpt it inwards.

To build up the surfaces to make it look like hard rock  i used the planar and clay tubes brush and then making sure the geometry was high i used the noise tool under surfaces to create fine detail. Once i created the high poly mesh i exported into Maya and then made a low polymesh using the decimation master.

Now using the materials in UDK i am able to create a mask with a base texture and a tileable diffuse and normal to create a detailed texture.

Using this newly created geometry i decided that it would look more interesting if i created a cave area above where the first waterfall is coming from and then suggests that the water is flowing from higher up.
It gives the scene a sense of size and is definitely captured when you have a character to use as reference for scale.

Week 10

This week everything i had planned to make needs to be inside of UDK finished ready for my video presentation next week.

At the moment i have been posing the character with my rig that i created and then i will importing it into UDK.

Using 3dMotive tutorial on the pipeline of animation inside UDK.



Website address: https://www.3dmotive.com/v105005

Week 9

As there are only a couple of weeks left towards the final deadline, I am continuing to polish my assets.

The lecture this week we looking briefly at the Graphics pipeline. This will be covering how graphics cards deal with rendering geometry.

I find these presentations rather interesting and helpful, it's nice to learn a bit behind what goes on with the hardware you're using by briefly covering it.

Sculpting Rocks

A big percentage of my level it made up of rock formations that surround the water and waterfall.

The reason i am using zBrush is it is much easier to create deformation detail to the rocks by using alphas that can be downloaded from the pixologic website. 

These are just some of the free alphas i could find to use for my sculpting detail.

One of the method i have learning when creating rocks that is it easy to get a noisy surface to create the rough and unsmooth surface a rough rock would have. This can be easily mimicked by a tool that is readily viable in all current versions on zBrush.

The tool is listed under Surface on the right side of the screen, by clicking it it will display an editor in which you can manipulate the curve and add points to create interesting variations of noised across the surface area.

Once the surface noise is done it must be applied as the preview is only a representation of the geometry could look like, this highly depends on the subdivison levels and the amount of polygons able to take on the detail.

Creating Normals, from zBrush is important to transfer the high poly detail to a lower division level.

There a multiple ways of creating a lower resolution of the higher geometry. It is possible to just simply use the lowest sub division although this doesn't give you much flexibility, another method is zRemesher a tool that will calculate current geometry and will remesh it to a low resolution using four sided polygons, this method doesn't preserve UVs so they will need to be created after, which can also be done well using UV unwrap in the tools pallet. The last way is to use decimation master which can preserve you're UVs and transform the object to almost any amount of triangles desired, the downfall of this is sometimes meshes can look very jagged and edged which with a bit of smoothing can fix.





Bibliography: http://pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/alpha/

Week 8 Alpha Presentation

This week i present Alpha to my lecturer. I showed my recent cinematic for my level as well as my character and d the scene it inhabits which is my diorama. Overall I have receive good feedback for my alpha presentation .

My rate of progress has been good and my lecture believes it has been a improvement since I last saw him the week before .

I went through challenges I have came across and mentioned the development of my water materials.

Looking ahead for my work i need to focus on some key areas of my level. 

To work on the rural environment

Improve the texturing and rock work.

Textures for my character the rest of the body mainly 

the skin and focus on sculpting cloth into the geometry of the dress 

Wind and water material needs tweaking as it is a little harsh at the moment and is quite rough and needs to be smoothed out like i made for the hair.

Cinematic is good will need to tweak the angles of it so it doesn't cut through the leaf geometry on the trees. 

Jon pointed out that even if i wasn't able to make the character completed well before i can still make a good environment if i polish up the foliage and the rest of my scene enough.

Some screenshot of progress for my Alpha presentation.

Character texture that i showed for my presentation.

Here is the water i have been working on that i showed for my presentation.

Week 7

http://phill.inksworth.com/tut.php

This week after some feedback from my lecturer i need to work on my scene and water more to breakup my water intersecting with the ground more using rocks and foliage.

One of the the most beneficial comments this week for my lecturer to look more at reference of rivers and water and to identify parts that i should be including into my scene.


Below is some reference that i found from quickly researching google images.

 This one here has a nice rocky cliff that drops down sharply, if i can replicate this in the coming weeks it will be massive improvement to my scene.









This one here shows how much the land slopes into the water and that shape of the river











This one shows how rocks intersect with the water as they slope down and how the colour changes.

It is also useful for mossy rocks reference.

Week 6

Week 5 - Looking ahead

This week i want to make sure that i can execute my plans for my environment.

This is starting off by looking at different materials inside of UDK. As reference i have been looking at level already available in the editor.

This map that it supplied by the Unreal Development Kit is heavy in foliage and rocks, it has the majority of the elements that i want to include into my scene.  As this is a showcase level it is of a good high quality in a small space built to specifically show of features.

I am also looking at tutorials on 3dmotive.com for how to create a water materials.

I found that there are many ways of creating water in UDK and it depends on how you want to your water to turn out.

I hope to take aspects of what i learn and apply a range of different methods towards different assets.

Week 4 - Character features

This week i am looking to take a step back from the sculpt of my character and focus on other parts such as the hair.

Now i have got my head sculpted i have taken this into Maya just as reference to start modeling the hair.


[Image]

.Week 3 - Pre-Alpha Presentation

This week i had to present my idea on what i will be working on over upcoming weeks towards my final project.

I talk about my plan that i have constructed, in which i will be assigning hours, to specific tasks.

Week 2 - Plan

At the moment i am developing a plan that i will use throughout the rest of the semester to help me keep on track with my work.

My plan will help me to set out targets and allocate time to individual pieces for my project.

I am going to use Google docs for my plan as it's easy to use and is accessible from any machine as it is browser based, it works very similar to Microsoft Excel.


Here is my plan that is very rough at the moment, but this allows me to change dates and times around if i need to.


I think one of the main problems with my project is that i have to manage my time much more carefully as i am working on two parts on my project the character and the environment this makes the plan seem to be much more necessary and vital to making smooth progress as well as keeping on track. Without this plan is it very likely that certain areas will be overworked and others under.

Developing idea for Character

For my project this semester i need to create a character from referenced for my scene. It needs to represent the 2d character well in 3d so i need to think carefully on how i want to approach that.

My first initial thoughts are that i would like to do a woman, as i currently don't have an female characters for my portfolio. I also was thinking of doing a character with weapons and armor, however i didn't want to attempt this yet as i have no previous hard surface modelling or sculpting experience and so i didn't want to set the bar too high and i needed to rethink and be a little more realistic with my time given. I worked this out with my plan and there seemed to be too many things to learn and grasp.

My original image that i wanted to take inspiration from, something like this but more high polygonal. 

I created this using Photoshop, as it's just a basic concept i wanted to demonstrate the feel i was going for.