The final update.

Since my last post I've changed a few integral parts of my project that wrap it up to be a few steps from being finished, most namely enclosing off the environment, increasing FPS through optimisation so on and so forth. Little changes that mean everything when it comes to turning this whole progression into a fully functional stand alone environment.

 Since my project is so closed to being finished I thought I would wrap this blog up with a final post of the progress since its start and finish with a final tour of the environment. 

Here are the screen shots of the final project!




Please note that some features such as the tilting ground textures will change!, these photos are more or less the end product give or take a few small things. 

This is a video of the environment (please read caption)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqqDrBA-3U4&feature=youtu.be

This video was taken on a very old laptop, FPS isnt representative of the final product


This project has been very fun!, I've learnt so much and I've also learned what I would change for a project of this calibre next time. I believe the environment I chose was too big. It meant a severe lack in quality in places and this really shows. However, the whole experience has been very enjoyable.

The end of the FMP is nigh.

I've recently held back from posting on this blog, this is mainly because the progress of the FMP is rather bland. Its simple texturing and rendering of small assets to make the project feel whole. But now the project is nearing its final destination I thought its now time to upload a long list of changes that have occurred since my last post.  I have finally got the project to a standard of which I'm content with. This screen shot is the standard of which I want my final project to be at and still run at an FPS acceptable for a high grade. As of now the lighting builds weirdly into not reflecting the quality of this screenshot. Thus more work needs to be done of the FMP, saying this, I'm happy with the current project and am finished adding more assets or changing the landscape. It needs collision to be added and such but as it stands this is the quality of the final submission. 




I'm rather proud of the outcome so far. I believe this is up to a standard in which a real game could be marketed with. Ofcourse there are changes I would like to make, most namely being, smaller assets in which describe the story and follow a narrative through the level. However as I am one man with five other modules there are limitations to what I can achieve. 

I'll start a list of the changes I've made since my last post in order of what I deem to be the priority. 

- No more cel-shader
- Tree textures
- Fixed gate model
- Animated dragons that give life to the environment
- 2 Dojo buildings situated to the right of the temple
- Improved pond textures and micro environment
- Textured static dragons
- Textured buddah
- Tweeks to the temple textures, temple foundation textures and more....
- Blossom leaf particle effects
- Tower remodelling 
- Mountain planes

Cel-Shader

The cel-shader offered a unique style. This style separated me from the rest of the crowed. It allowed for individuality through styalization. This would eventually mean I have a better chance of getting a specified job within the industry that adhered to this style. It also means my FMP doesn't have to reach a realistic quality that artists have the bar of so high. 

However ultimately my project does look more authentic, natural and aesthetically beautiful without it in my opinion. So regardless of those key factors I want my FMP to look the best it possibly can. 

I posted an image on Facebook of the before and after to gain some critical feedback from a general popular that would infact be my clientele later down the line. The feed back was overwhelmingly positive and the consensus is that the environment without the cel-shader looked best. 

Tree textures

Although its just another model being textured in the grand scheme of things. The trees being textured helped fill the environment. Helped really make it feel complete. So this was quite an essential piece to the puzzle. 

The tree texture it's self is far from perfect. It has a clear seem directly down the middle of the trunk. This can be fixed if I have to time to go over it. If not I will direct the trees in a way that the seem can't be seen from the fixed walking direction the character is forced down.

Fixed gate model. 

The gate needed complete revaluation, it was missing faces, the textures were of a bad resolution, the detail to the model was moderate at best. I've revamped it so when close to the model it still retains as much screen priority as it does when you first spawn in the game.

Animated dragons

This was a large step off the road. I didn't even know if I could animate a dragon. I simply did it because it thought it would bring the environment to life. At first I struggled greatly. I used the already built in presets of animation for a CAT rig within 3DS MAX. This was not how a dragon files so i scratched it and reanimated it from a fresh start. My thought process behind the animation was that a dragon's structure is much like that of a tail. So if I made the whole CAT model with the kenetic formations of a tail within max then it would easily allow me to CAT pose the model and create key frames to auto animate. Getting the free forming movement of a tail is surprisingly hard. The biggest problem with this was actually the auto-key. The auto-key kept building the movements in a way that didn't suggest a constant wave going through the tail. So I had to either add around 16 key frames to give max a better idea of the movement I'm going for. Or pick 4 very precise key frames that allow max enough information to build a movement I'm happy with. I went with the latter. Although its still clunky its not the a level I'm unhappy with. So i kept it and added it. The only problem now is the textures. In which I will revisit soon enough. 

The reason I added dragons and not another creature was because I already had static statues honoring dragons within this fantasy Chinese environment so it would make sense for the statues to be built around existing creatures in the fantasy universe. The rough idea is that the dragons were also being hunted in this magical world due to being pure magic beings and also found refuge on this island along with the magic wielders finding refuge on the island. Thus you can see sleeping dragons around the environment and such. Which is a nice effect.



Within this picture above you can see the new water shader and also the dragon in the top half of the picture. The dragon is attached to a spline that loops in a pattern. This gives a simple effect that the dragon is constantly flying around the environment. 

You can also see the mountain planes in the background. This really gives the illusion of seclusion as if there is something more beyond the green hills of this temple ground. And are very cheap as they are simple alpha cut outs. They are actual photos sourced from google images. I will make sure to fully credit the photographer as this is actually the single and only aspect I have sourced from the internet and used within my project. 

2-Dojo Buildings.

There's not much to say about these Dojos. They were mostly a spur of the moment creation, like much within this project. The texturing is was a simple process that followed the same pattern as most of my buildings in this environment and its the same for the modelling process. The tiles of the roofs are the same as the other buildings which made for an easy build. I've tried to brand the custom made Chinese logo I've shown previously into as many buildings within this environment as possible to give it Identity to the people that It was originally built by. 

Quality of life changes. 

Quality of life changes are just as the subheading suggest. Small changes that make the quality of life for the character within this environment a bit more enjoyable. In short, Wind movement changes, texture saturation changes, landscape changes, contrast changes, so on and so forth. Simple changes that can add all the difference. The devil is in the detail as they say.

Buddah, dragon and tower textures. 

Some of the feedback I got given from changing futures week was that the tower textures were too low res for quite and important building within the environment, so I upgraded them. I've also added a jade smart material to the dragons and Buddha. In a real environment this amount of jade would be completely unrealistic but because It's a fantasy environment I believe I can get away with it. There are changes that need to be made such as adding a sub-surface material to it to allow for some translucency in the gem stone to give it a more believable feel. 



Overall the project so far is going well and very nearing its end. Apart from collision and a few texture changes, maybe some more particle effects the environment is complete. 

Week 14 

Big update!

So this update is quite large. So I'm going to give you a before and after from what it was in my previous post to now. This is so you have some relevance to go off on how much its changed and what has changed.



As you can see just from the front view dramatic changes have been made. Most importantly the temple in the background has finally been textured. Seeing as this is the biggest change I'll start with it.



The temple has been reduced from 85.5K triangles to 55K. This is a loss of almost 30K triangles nearly cutting it down by half. As you can see there is no real change in the geometry from the first temple to the second in the before and after picture. The reason the temple has been further cut down isn't because of performance but actually because the UV unwrapping of the first temple was abysmal. It was awful. So, to fix this, I had to actually remodel the entire temple apart from the walls. This took an approximate 3 hours to do simply because I had a temple to already go off. The way I molded the temple made it both efficient in time and UV unwrapping space. A big thanks to my tutor Ian for helping me. 

The texturing of the temple took a while to establish. The thought process behind how to texture it was messy. I went through many different ideas. I started originally by handpainting a seamless wood texture and then applying it to the UV map. Although this looked effective it didn't fit the style unless I hand painted all the textures. Given my time frame this wasn't an option. So then I opted to using substance painter materials. The material I have mainly been using for all my models is a wood texture that has variation of normal strength. This is good because not all wood would look the same. Although I believe all the structures would be made out of all the same wood as the trees were sourced from the same environment. 

There are still a couple of things that need changing with the temple. For example the specular reflection on the roof is too much. The colour of the walls doesn't match the colour scheme for the rest of the environment. The roof joints still need to be textured. They only have a simple green material on them that unreal supplied. 




I've stated previously that the normal maps appear weird when under post processing effects due to the cel-shader. However, in this picture I actually do not mind it to much. I think it adds to the style more. So I might not try and fix this visual interaction. 

The only problem I have with using substance painter is that I feel as if the textures aren't mine. Everything within this environment was sourced by me. Either I took the photographs or painted it. This for some reasons bugs me but I guess this can not be helped. 

I made some alpha maps in order to add to the Chinese aesthetic. In which I then just converted into a normal map within substance painter. 



Although the one on the left doesn't look too good at first glance when converted to a normal map it turns out fine.

Next on the list is the flags.

 The flags were a very long process. Not modelling wise but trying to get the animated within Unreal Engine. I first tried to add a cloth simulation to a model within max. Collapsing it and baking an animation. Then reversing the animation so it looped. It didn't look great but each flag on the model was uniquely animated and it looked close to how Tibetan flags fly in the wind. The problem with all this after spending a substantial amount of time on creating this was that I found out Unreal Engine doesn't support vertex animation... This was a huge waste of time. But I learnt something. So then I went on to plan B. Actually using blueprints to get an animation working. This didn't work so then I had to make a plan C. It turns out Unreal Engine has a great cloth simulation built into it. 

The engine requires a hierarchy of models for this to work. You need to link the flag as a separate object underneath the rope model. This is so when you import it as an FBX the flag is a bone of the rope. Then by painting the weights within the engine you can tell it where the flag attaches to the rope. Then by drop and dragging wind from the engine search bar it then automatically works. This was a very informative tangent I unwillingly went down and I'm glad I did. The reference video for where I learnt how to use this cloth simulation with in unreal is here - > Thankyou to this guy

                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOq8OB_3AQ&t=317s

The only problem with this simulation is I'm yet how to work out how to get the wind to treat each individual flag differently because at the moment they all move near identical to each other. Changing the physical model of each flag does not change anything, nor does detaching them from one object. So the only Idea i can think of is through either scripting a wind radius as the wind radius within unreal engine doesn't seem to work too effectively. I think this is because the scale of my level is a lot larger than its Intended to be. 



Next I'll talk about the new gate model. 

So this model was more basic than it is now. This is due to the poly count on the temple decreasing, allowing me to update models that do not match the rest of the environment in its detail. The tiles are identical to the tiles on the temple to keep thematic consistency. I've textured the walls with the self made alpha maps. The normal maps on the circle entrance are very strong and need to be bought down. Apart from this I'm happy with the texturing on this wall and claiming it to be finished.



I've also changed the fences to be more wooden in nature rather than golden metallic. This is so it fits the environment to a greater degree. 

Because of how contrasting metallic maps looking within my environment I've used them sparingly to bring attention of not only your eyes but of your thoughts to sparingly make a reflection of a temple that is not great in wealth but proud aesthetically. 

Lastly I've added a foundation base to the temple. This is because the temple resting on solid ground looked unnatural to a real life Chinese temple. It also adds greater dynamic to the map layout so it's not boring walking around flat ground. 

Week 13

Post Christmas holiday.

I didn't touch my FMP during the Christmas holiday simply because of the vast amount of work I had for my other modules however since being back for a day I have added a few changes to the environment. 

First of all the second presentation of the year gave me some valuable information. This presentation took place on week 10 of University. After my presentation I got given 4 sets of information I need to work with to improve my environment.

- I need a way to blend the spawn zone of the environment into a bigger setting so you cant see the end of the world terrain.

- I need to re texture my rocks as the texturing doesn't resemble rock.

- I need to resize my large trees as they do not look realistic (in terms of proportion)

- I should focus on my temple when it comes to texturing before anything else.


I will work on this information as soon as possible. For now I've added simple pond plants and other flora to decorate the inner area of the temple and fill it out from the emptiness that it was. Attempted a few texturing tests around my environment to try and grasp a style. However, for now I will try and match the texturing to the aesthetic qualities of flora, which is quite basic, calm colours that blend in well with each other.

All the textures at the moment are just placeholder. There are a few problems I need to address. For example the resolution of the lake floor although being 4096x4096 you can still see pixelation in the grounds normal maps. This might be due to the cel-shader not being able to render normal maps correctly due to only a two tone lighting system which makes the normal maps come out strange and not correct (this is also an issue I need to fix). 

Metallic maps and roughness maps seem to work correctly however they bring out a contrast within the environment that contrasts with the style. Meaning it doesn't quite fit the washy colour scheme and makes a very strong colour.

This is the area I need to make fit into a larger environment to keep a consistency of the "illusion of seclusion" functionality of a small game environment. To address this, I will most likely create another terrain past the one that the player spawns on, and then map planes with tree alphas on top to give the illusion of a forest surrounding the temple.