Game Scene Presentation

Final Game Blog

I've completed my StarCraft 2 game scene. Maya 2016 was used to model and UV, Substance Painter was used to texture / create normals, Unity was used to implement the objects and render, and Crazy Bump was used to create additional maps. 

Final tri count:

Nexus: 2968 tris and 1659 verts

Forge: 1644 tris and 918 verts
Gateway: 1496 tris and 912 verts
Minerals: 172 tris and 108 verts
Pylon: 734 tris and 377 verts
Assimilator: 1572 tris and 878 verts

The least strenuous part of the assignment was modeling. Except for a few exceptions (assimilator!), I feel like I was able to capture the general essence of the shape of the objects without too much stress. If I were to go back and change anything, I would have bumped up the poly count on all of my objects except for the mineral. With the poly limit we were given, I could have done a lot more making the shapes more defined. For what I was able to capture however, I'm content with it.

I would say the hardest part I faced was dealing with the textures because StarCraft has more of a stylized, hand painted style with unique looking parts. One of Substance's strong points is the ability to drop in pre-made materials, which didn't help me for most of the detail the objects required. I had a difficult time making stylized texture in Substance due to the lack of artistic brushes. I also had a strange brush bug where Substance would make my brush appear tiny despite cranking up the size to 400 (the max size!). I showed it to Justin and he didn't know a fix for it except to try making the models themselves smaller. It worked a little bit, however despite scaling my objects down to around 1cm the brushes were still really small compared to their preview.

Here are three render shots from Unity:

And here are all of the objects within my scene including their maps:

Mineral

Pylon

Assimilator

Gateway

Nexus

Forge

Game Scene Blog 7 - Texturing

So I've begun some detailed texturing. I'm about done with the mineral, however I haven't tested the emissive in Unity yet so here's hoping I don't run into too many problems! I've also begun work on the pylon and assimilator. I went back and stacked some of my UVs, which I think will help tremendously with the texturing process. Right now I'm just trying to get the material right before going into the smaller details.

Next week is the final blog so between now and next week I need to complete all of my texture work. I want to begin transferring my objects into Unity ASAP so I'll have to get a lot more work done.

Game Scene Blog 6 - Texturing

This week I've added the base colors to all of the objects for my game scene. I was in the process of testing some Substance materials / smart materials for some of my objects to see what I could come up with, however nothing looked quite right. The assets are more stylized and painterly in StarCraft so I'm wondering how I will compromise between the original assets and ones realistically achievable in Substance. Perhaps I will use Photoshop in order to get the more intricate designs done. I'm not sure how much we are allowed to do in Photoshop actually.

With the base colors complete, I will be adding more complex details by next week.

 

Game Scene Blog 5 - Normal Baking + Texturing

I've moved to Substance Painter now to begin making the texture maps. Right now I am working on baking the normal maps for all of the objects. I've been messing with the poly count of the low and high poly in order for there to be less critical seams in the normal maps. Because of the amount of tris in my low poly, some of the normal maps baked with obvious distortion so I had to go back and either up the poly count on the low poly or reduce in the high poly. Now that I'm done with the normal map baking, I will be moving on to texturing. By next update I want all of the objects to have basic textures. Once all of the objects have their base colors in order, I will start adding more detail in the texture.

FireHouse Final

This is my final FireHouse modular model. In total it reaches 21k tris and 13k verts, most of it going towards the rounded trims on the building. I spent most of my time with the building's multitude of trims. I had difficulty with the corners until I discovered a technique where you can alter the rotate options to Step Snap at 45 degrees, which I applied to the vertices, and then duplicate it over to the other side to form a corner. This allowed me to make more precise corners with minimal touch-up, which was nice! Texturing in Substance was a lot easier when I utilized materials. It's a super powerful way to crank out appealing textures.

Here is the link to my FireHouse in Sketchfab:

FireHouse by Kristen Malone on Sketchfab

Game Scene Blog 4 - Modeling + UVing

I'm done with modeling and UVing! I've also made the high poly of each object for normal map baking except for the mineral (when I attempted to do Mesh > Smooth it becomes majorly contorted, I'm guessing due to the points and triangles. Because the mineral has hard edges anyway, I decided not make a high poly of it). The assimilator and gateway definitely took me longer to model than everything else because they're such weird, unnatural shapes, but I've got it as accurate as I could. Now that I'm done with the Maya portion, my next step is to go into Substance and begin texturing!

The final tri count is as follows:
Nexus: 2968 tris and 1659 verts
Forge: 1644 tris and 918 verts
Gateway: 1496 tris and 912 verts
Minerals: 172 tris and 108 verts
Pylon: 734 tris and 377 verts
Assimilator: 1572 tris and 878 verts

Fire House Progress 1

For this project we are modeling a modular version of the building from Ghostbusters.

So far I have the modular wall pieces measured, UVed and put together to create the base building. I also have all of the types of trims the building will have created. The next step will be to UV the trim, create corners (using the multi-cut tool and making edge loops at a 45 degree angle), and piece them together onto the modular building. Once everything has been completely modeled and set up, I will move on to texturing the pieces in Substance Painter.

Building reference

Trim pieces

Building with modular pieces

Game Scene Blog 3 - Modeling

Since last week I've completed the majority of the objects I need for my scene. I've finished the nexus, mineral, and pylon and I'm mostly done with the forge. The assimilator and gateway still need a good chunk of work but  I'm making decent progress. Because the assimilator is shaped really bizarrely, I feel I might have more trouble modeling it, however I have some good reference images so I think it will just take extra time.

The current tri count is as follows:
Nexus: 2992 tris and 1659 verts
Forge: 1644 tris and 918 verts
Gateway: 534 tris and 298 verts
Minerals: 172 tris and 108 verts
Pylon: 734 tris and 377 verts
Assimilator: 804 tris and 449 verts

All of my models are well under the poly count so I have some wiggle room to Mesh > Smooth some parts that might need it. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with how my completed objects turned out. Other than the fact the objects themselves are shaped rather oddly, I haven't had too much difficulty modeling. Texturing will probably be the hardest part of this project so I want to have the modeling done ASAP so I can spend more time on it.

By next update I want to have the modeling done and the UVing process started.

Game Scene Blog 2 - Modeling

This is the second post for my Starcraft 2 game scene. Right now I'm working on modeling the major objects in the scene. They are still a work in progress, but I am trying to construct the basic shape before I begin adding edges and rounding them out. Due to the game's fixed camera, it's difficult to get a good read on the object's shape, but I believe I got the basic gist of it. Currently I have started a nexus, pylon, forge and mineral. The nexus is at 1244 tris (limit is 5k) and 684 verts, the pylon is 314 tris (limit is 3k) and 167 verts, the mineral is 134 tris (limit is 3k) and 88 verts, and the forge is 792 tris (limit is 5k) and 426 verts.

In the next two weeks, I would like to have the majority of the low polys and high polys completed, including the ground and cliffs. If I complete those in time, I will then move on to UVing.

Objects laid out in bounding box

Nexus (WIP)

Forge (WIP)

Pylon (WIP)

Mineral (WIP)

Low poly tower

Here is my low poly tower! It was modeled in Maya and textured in Substance Painter. The low poly is 468 tris (limit was 500) and 286 verts and the high poly is 3388 tris (no limit) and 1758 verts. The assignment was to create a tower for a tower defense game on a platform like mobile / portable. I went for an academy styled tower with an observatory and telescope based on some concept art we received as reference.

The modeling part of this assignment was pretty straightforward, however texturing hand painted textures with Substance Painter was pretty tough. I was able to get the basic shading information thanks to some tutorials presented in class. This involves adding a fill layer with baked lighting, HSL (Hue Saturation Lightness), and levels layers based on world space normals information. After applying this fill layer, all that was left was applying the hand painted textures using my tablet. It took me quite a while to get the textures the way I wanted them, especially since - to my knowledge -  Substance is currently limited with its brush types. However, I'm happy with the result!

Finished tower

Wireframe

UVs + Maps

Low poly suitcase

Here is my final suitcase! The mesh was made in Maya, the textures in Substance Painter, and the AO in CrazyBump. The high poly is 4700 tris (limit was 7k) and the low poly is 1450 tris (limit was 1.5k).

I didn't encounter too many major issues with modeling or texturing. I spent a lot of my time making sure the measurements and proportions were correct, so I used the Distance measurement tool and Duplicate Special instances to ensure everything was even. I'm still not very skilled in Substance Painter so it took a while to get my textures to look decent. Using alphas for details like the stitching and the logo on the front really helped the overall appearance. I also used textures from www.textures.com for the leather body and copper pieces.
 

Substance renders

Wireframe front

Wireframe side

UV and maps