Final Year Project - Week Seven: (13th March - 19th March)
- Ryan Harlee Jones
- Mar 20, 2017
- 5 min read
Final Year Project - Week Seven: (13th March - 19th March)
Monday:
The Monday session went how it usually does most weeks. I discussed the progress of my project with some of the tutors, and got some general feedback for progress and things I could change for the better. This week, with all the steps available to me to create the scene, I was advised to get the assets into an Unreal Engine 4 scene so that I could set up a lighting test. This was mentioned, as similarly to when artists do textures, lighting can make or break a scene pretty heavily if ignored for too long. I also got a little advice on when texturing to take note of where the rock sections would be lighter because of sculpting and such to make it seem more believable.
Fig 01. Entrance Ceiling Panel Asset (Jones, 2017)
I uploaded my weekly blog entry fairly later in the day due to being busy with normal day chores, although after doing so then went ahead and created the newer ceiling panel which was originally giving me a little bit of bother to create. Tuesday: Tuesday morning I woke up to a very pleasant surprise. During the first few hours of the morning, emails had been sent out to students that had been chosen to showcase their final year projects at ExpoTees. I had managed to get a place at this event, and had to get my picture taken for the brocher later in the day. This was an unbelievable confidence boost, although I knew I had to be prepared for the added pressure of getting things like creating the poster into my schedule.
The Tuesday also consisted of going over what remaining assets were needed rather than wanted, so that I could put everything into the Unreal Engine 4 scene. The floor panel was something that stood out in comparison to the rest of the assets in the scene. Considering the floor panel was one of the first assets that was originally created, I felt as though it needed some tweaking to bring it into line with the other newer assets. These tweaks included shrinking indentation gaps and replacing some of the asset edges.
Fig 02. New Floor Panel Asset (Jones, 2017)
Wednesday: The Wednesday, I took note of everything that I needed in the scene to accomplish the minimum, and then noted down everything which could be added although if missed wouldn't make the whole scene suffer. I had been contemplating what to place in the centre of the room below the Artefact asset for quite some time during the creation of my scene. After a discussion with some students in the lab, a conclusion was made from an amalgamation of suggestions. I decided to create an asset that was like a small staircase to a lift panel, this would be able to move downwards into the floor, so as the panel lowered, steps would line up to help the individual make their way to the elevator panel, and to know when it was active for use.
Fig 03. Floor Centre Panel Design (Jones, 2017)
I ended up creating a 2D design for this panel, as originally the design could have gone in any direction. I decided to design the panel in direct relation to the elements associated with the shapes, as mentioned in prior posts. I designed a few symbols which would act as my elemental symbols in the scene, and thought that each step would only lower with the desired elemental power source restored on the central artefact.
Fig 04. Floor Centre Panel Asset (Jones, 2017)
A new floor panel was also designed after this asset was created. The floor panel, even though I had done some tweaking to it, still felt out of place with the rest of the assets, so I personally felt the scene would work much better as a whole if I redesigned the floor panel. The other change with this design was the use of the elemental symbols also, so that the room had a better balance between the two types of symbol usage.
Fig 05. Revised Floor Panel Design (Jones, 2017)
Thursday / Friday / Saturday:
The Thursday, Friday and Saturday all consisted of some planned events a few weeks back. I didn't personally get a chance to work on my project during these days, due to having no access to any machine, although this made me feel uncomfortable, considering the deadline is ever looming closer, the time away was very refreshing mentally.
Sunday:
Fig 06. Revised Floor Panel Asset (Jones, 2017)
On the Sunday I came in and started to go through the list I had prior created, I worked on making use of the floor design I had created, and built the new floor panel with hopes of the design fitting better. After creation, It looked better in my opinion, although I had to do some smaller tweaks to the design to make it fit more comfortably. The image because of smoothing groups that are applied make some of the indentations hard to see, although the cleaner nature of the floor, contrasts well with the slightly busier environment I feel.
Fig 07. Revised Floor Panel UV (Jones, 2017)
The unwrap for this specific asset, I thought ahead and decided to unwrap the asset with the idea that the texture will be the same on each panel, therefore stacking the UV's on top of each other to make the texal rate more efficient. The only exception is the panel in the centre which will display a different symbol, so that asset's UV section is the only one not stacked.
Fig 08. Unreal Engine Scene Screenshot (Jones, 2017)
I also on the Sunday managed to get all the pieces into an Unreal scene to make sure that the scale of all of the pieces felt right. I originally also put the pieces in there to test the lighting layout that I wanted to use, although when I baked the lighting because the assets were not unwrapped it caused some issues.
Summary:
This week, because of the days that I had taken off, have made progress very slow this week. Even during the days that I did make progress on, it was very limited progress. I plan to go through each asset I currently have an unwrap them all in a specific order, from the ground upwards. This way I can do a final sweep on if any vertices need tweaking, or any assets need changing, to then finalise them by unwrapping them, allowing me to do a proper lighting test without the assets shadows causing issues.
-RyanHarleeJones
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