Welcome to my development blog. My name is Alice Baker and I have been studying Computer Games Design since 2016 at University of Suffolk, Ipswich. I am now in the third year of my degree and I have chosen to specialize in 3D art for my Final Project module. I will be demonstrating my process of creating the final product of this project, which will be a set of 3D modular environment assets, using the programs 3DS Max and Substance Painter.
I’ve proposed many ideas for my final project over the past 6 weeks, starting from working with Romanesque architecture, to working on psychology, emotions such as awe and wonder, narrative themes and surrealism. My final project proposal was titled - “An Investigation into the Psychology of Space and its Relationship with Modular Environment Development for Digital Games.” After receiving feedback from my module tutor and specialist tutor, they were concerned that this could be too much for a final project. To see if I could produce my proposed final product, I was advised to have a trial run of the process to see how long the work would take. This would include -
· Sketching ideas inspired by surrealism and Romanesque architecture
· 2D concept drawing of the modular tile inspired by these sketches, informed by psychology research
· Modelling the modular tile in 3DS Max
· Setting material IDs ready for texturing, then UV unwrapping in 3DS Max
· Texturing in Substance Painter with PBR materials
· Uploading the model and materials to Sketchfab, to view the asset in a real-time viewer
The first step was to make some sketches and notes inspired by surrealism artists and Romanesque architecture. I started by looking at the artists Jacek Yerka and Zdzisław Beksiński and made some sketches inspired by certain features in their paintings that could be used in my environment, while also sketching any other ideas that come to mind. In the photo of my sketches below, you can see a mixture of artificial and natural objects. I thought about how different texture maps could be used, such as normal maps, opacity maps and emissive maps. I spent an hour on these sketches, which could be used for future reference with other assets, as well as the tile I am producing this week.
After creating these sketches, I looked back on the psychology research I had written notes on. In Mlicka’s article “The Psychology of the Interior,” she explains how “the corner is one of the most important spaces,” because it “provides us with immobility and solitude for the imagination.” (Mlicka, 2006) She also talks about how being isolated can be a negative or a positive experience, depending on whether or not the isolation is self-inflicted. From this research, I wanted to see if I could design a corner tile so that the player would have a shelter to hide in, for when they want to isolate themselves from any events of the game. Below are the concept sketches for my corner tile, which I spent another hour on.
The next step was to start modelling my concept design. I started with a basic corner piece, so I could then build on the shelter part of the tile. I wasn’t sure what the best solution as, until I remembered the ‘Bend’ modifier. I made a cuboid with multiple sections, so that when I used the modifier, I could bend the cuboid on the x and y axis, to create the base for the dome-like shelter. I iterated this design as I modelled and kept an eye on the x-view checks in 3DS Max. I used the same bend modifier to bend 3 pillars over the shelter inspired by my sketches, but after building them I realised that they took up too much space on the tile, so I decided to try another idea. I chose to inset some sections on the dome, with the idea that smaller details could be stamped into the sections later in Substance Painter. I then added details inside the shelter such as the light source and shelf, then I added a skirting and a ceiling coving to the walls. The whole modelling process took me a total of 6 hours, which included building, tidying and applying smoothing groups.
Once the model was finished, I set the material ID’s onto individual parts of the model, which would help me to place separate textures on the model in Substance Painter. Once I sorted the ID’s, I started the UV unwrapping. When I clicked on ‘Flatten Mapping’ in ‘Mapping’, I ticked the box that says ‘By Material IDs.’ This saved time by automatically grouping the UV’s together into their own material ID’s. All I had to do after this was to organise the UV’s is the most effective way, making sure all UV’s were within the 0-1 boundaries. This process of setting material ID’s and UV unwrapping took me 2 hours.
Once the UV mapping was finished, I doubled checked my pivot point and x-view checks before exporting the corner tile into a FBX file for Substance Painter. To start with, I used the default Materials and Smart Materials provided in Substance Painter and a brick texture I found on Substance Share by Game Textures. For the brick texture on the walls, I created my own Smart Material after editing and adding new layers to the texture, so that it could be used again for another part of the tile, or any other tile I make in the future. The whole texturing process took me 3 hours, not including searching for textures to use which took me around 30 minutes.
Once I finished texturing, I then went through the process of uploading the model and materials to Sketchfab. After clicking on ‘Export Textures…’ I changed the ‘Config’ drop down menu to ‘Sketchfab’, which would allow me to upload straight to the website, rather than compressing all of the files to upload from the Windows Explorer. After filling in the details for the model on the website, the file was ready to publish in the real-time viewer for the public to see. Below is the finished model, which took me 13 hours to produce from sketching initial ideas, to texturing in Substance Painter. I didn’t finish smaller details I was hoping to add into the tile such an emissive maps and opacity maps, but I have allowed for extra time towards the end of my project for any details that need to be added in my schedule.
Conclusion
After producing this tile and receiving feedback from my specialist tutor, I was advised to simplify my project into something more manageable. I have chosen to focus purely on Romanesque architecture, without the psychology research and surrealism theme. Although I’ve spent time on researching into the psychology of space and surrealism artists which won’t be used for this project, I have enjoyed researching into these subjects and I’ve learnt a lot over the past 6 weeks so I hope to use this work for another project in the future.
The aim of my project will now be to produce a set of modular assets, which will be quick and easy to use to create versatile environments. The new title of my project will be – “An Investigation into Romanesque Architecture for Modular Environment Development with a PBR Workflow.”
Bibliography
Game Textures (2016) “Bricks Lumpy” [ONLINE] Available at: https://share.allegorithmic.com/libraries/29 [Accessed 15th November 2018]
Mlicka, A. (2006) "The Psychology of the Interior." [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.agnieszkamlicka.com/texts/Agnieszka%20Mlicka%20-%20The%20Psychology%20of%20the%20Interior.pdf [Accessed 7th November 2018]
WikiArt (2018) “Zdzislaw Beksinski – 707 artworks – WikiArt.org” [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.wikiart.org/en/zdislav-beksinski [Accessed 15th November 2018]
Yerkaland (2018) “Imaginary landscapes – Yerkaland” [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.yerkaland.com/paintings-galleries/imaginary_landscapes/ [Accessed 15th November 2018]
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