Week 3
This is the final production week on this project. Although I may work on polishing it soon after. The reason as to why I'm not immediately working to fix the issues, is because I need to move on to a new 3 Week project and start thinking about my Final Major Project.
Before I get into the production of creating the environment I want to put down a bunch of critique that I have for myself, and what I was graciously given at EGX when getting feedback from some lovely people from Creative Assembly.
Straight off the bat, the Narrative I'm trying to portray is not obvious. The hints that I have given (the Bag and the Map) are too obscure to understand the story, I need stronger evidence of the story. This could be due to the fact that the narrative is a bit too complex to convey with just objects, and that I need to simmer it down to a core essential idea. Maybe a mutiny would be better, it can be conveyed by blood and weapons on the ground as if there was a battle recently, there could be bullet holes or large slashes in the walls and pillar. This would be much more obvious. This is also something that I need to remember, I need to keep it simple and easy to understand.
Second, I haven't created a strong composition, I have multiple distractions and dead ends in the scene. I wanted to lead the eye to the window, and although having the window being the brightest area of the scene making the eye naturally go there, there isn't much after. I have two ropes that are somewhat close to each other. One which is tied to the cannon to make an escape route, that seems more normal because its a common element in the scene. And the other which leads you to the narrative props.
A problem with the lanterns is that the light naturally guides your eye, but it doesn't lead to anywhere. And leaves the viewer/player confused. I think something that could help this is by moving the rope which is tied to the cannon barrel should be moved over to the pillar next to the barrel. Then the rope which anchors the cannon to the ship should be untied and loose, so that the person would be able to push the cannon out of the way of the window.
The map looks too clean and should be way more dirty if its on the floor, also these narrative props could be moved to the on top of the barrel (next to the pillar) instead. This means that the rope from the window (the brightest source) would then lead you to the narrative items. Also there could be much more story added to this map. Maybe the person who stole it has to hide it, so its slightly tucked away, or maybe they had to fight for it and there's some bloody hand marks. Looking to the future, the problem with this narrative is as I mentioned above, and I should either change it or make it more obvious.
Although these shots look nice cinematic, there is a disconnection between these area's and the focus area. They are a nice plus, but it would be better if I could get similar shots from the focus area, and that makes sure that there is a clear.
There are also lots of bugs within the UE4 level, there's lighting bugs, there's really strange black area's on the ladders where there shouldn't be, and you can see seams on the ropes.
But the lessons I can take away from this are:
- Focus on a small area and have high detail.
-Start with a strong composition from the beginning.
-Spend more time lighting and set dressing.
-Have an easy to read narrative.
-Create the Master Material immediately.
There are positives from this project as well, this was a great learning experience as I had to use Materials and Textures efficiently to get the most use out of so little. The Lighting and Materials turned out nicely, there's quite a warm atmosphere given by the lanterns and cold from the white skylight. Also I had a fear of metal materials being too dark to see, and this was fixed by referencing PBR materials and keeping the values of the albedo above a certain threshold. This was also the first time of utilizing Parallax Occlusion Mapping properly for edge damage decals, which I learned a few things from trial and error.
Now onto what I was doing for the week.
As I mentioned before I learned about Parallax Occlusion Mapping or POM's for short, this can be utilized for various situations. Such as placing sticks or leaves above the ground to give a sense of depth, or using a height map for some bath tiles so each one seems slightly offset.
The reason as to why I wanted to use this in my scene is because I have a lot of tiling textures everywhere. And when everything shares a similar texture, things can look to be samey. Also, since I can't give all of my objects unique UV's, it becomes difficult to add character and age to the environment. Things such as scratches, dents, or scuffed edges have to be added in by using deferred decals.
When researching the workflow for deferred decals, I came across this video. Even though the tutorial starts in Blender, the same principles apply in 3dsMax. That video also helped me in setting up my decal in UE4.
This is the edge damage trim sheet I created, I wanted quite a varied array of edge damage, cracked edges, erosion, scratches etc. It was difficult trying to find any reference of edge damage online so parts of it was just experimenting with what looked interesting.
As an example of the Deferred Decal's affect here is my ladder before adding the Decal, which is above.
Below is what it looks like within Unreal Engine with the Decal applied, as you can see it adds an extra layer of depth to the model, also my reasoning behind the ladder being damaged is because it would be constantly used. Although looking back its probably more likely to be warped and sanded down by the friction of the feet.
A little tip for making assets with deferred decals that I found from trial and error. When making the planes that float on top of the model, make sure that it hugs the mesh tightly and has no gap. When you set up the Material you can adjust the offset of the POM, if your planes aren't hugging the mesh then there can be some lighting bugs such as being lit from behind which makes the Decal black. The offset can also be changed by a scalar parameter, so you can change the offset in an instance material.
Another example is this lamp.
Although a small critique I would give for this would to make the Decal planes larger, at this moment the edge damage is pretty much a micro-detail which can't be seen from afar. Making it larger should make it more obvious.
Something that I left to the last minute was collisions and light maps. The reason as to why I left this so long, is because a model can go through multiple iterations. If I want to change the model partway through production it would mean that I would have to make the light maps again and adjust the collision. Although its probably better to create light maps sooner so that I can start building static lighting sooner. There is a large difference between dynamic and static lights.
I know that a game ready environment and asset should have proper and well thought collision, as it is what the player interacts with. I know from playing so many games that sloppy collision can ruin the player's experience. However I did not have the time to create the best collision boxes. This is something that I can rectify later in the polishing.
I have learned a lot from this project, and I hope to learn more in the next.
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