Week Two

Week Two

Terrain Textures & Cel-Shading

After creating the FMP proposal, I can now begin the modelling process. Originally I was going to use photo realistic textures and then air brush & photo process them to create similar lighting conditions on each texture, then use them to create a photo realistic environment. However on second thoughts this shows less skill and is relatively easy to produce. Instead I've decided to use the vector painting system within unreal & my own hand painted and generated seamless textures to create my terrain with. 

To start off this process I've began by creating a seamless wood chip texture. This is my process of how I've accomplished this to what i believe is a believable result. First off, I created a brush that resembled a wood chip. 

  


After creating this brush, it was relatively easy to then reproduce a texture from a reference by layering different sizes and colors of the stamped brush. This creates the illusion of depth as if wood chips lay beneath the others.

You can easily tell this is a seamless texture. However this texture is not of main focus and will be nearly out of sight. The ins and outs of perfecting it is not necessary. If from a distance can you still see the repeating texture then I will have to re-do it.

Cel-Shading

Cel-Shading is a way to create cartoony-look-a-like models through texture. It allows for an stlye to be applied within engine without recreating it through use of textures and 3rd party software. This increases work flow immensely and also creates an effective look art style. Within UE4 theres an advanced post-processing system built in. Cel-shading works with the post processing so it encompasses everything in the build. Meaning you have to create custom Cel-shading blueprints for the two tone shading effect. Like so - 


A basic rundown of this complex looking blueprint is that it takes the light rendering before its cast, limits it down to a simple if statement, and applies a colour tint to the light rendering. For example, if the light intensity is greater than whatever the boundary for a shadow value is, it condenses the range of light above it into a single shade with a colour tint you can choose to create a two coloured lighting system.

The black outline blue print, (the one on the left) is alot more complex and to explain but less important so I'll link my reference videos that explain instead and along with the paste bin for the blueprint of the outline shader that i copied.

https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/5dofdn8_/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UBNXneL1oo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQw1CL0xYBE

The effect is striking, quick and easy to use after the initial set up.The use of the technique was mainly inspired by games such as borderlands.