Creating a Level for our Zombies map

Today we were creating levels for our Zombies project that we have been working on over the past few weeks, my level originally was going to be based inside of a computer with a giant room outside but I felt that i was too restricted for space so I was inspired by Call Of Duty WW2’s Toy Soldiers mode to create a sandbox map where the player character and the zombies are the size of ants.

This is the result of today’s work on my level.

At the moment I am happy with how it looks but I need to refine the sandcastles and create a better texture as the sand looks more like rocky mountains than crumbly sand.

To create the assets I used very simple shapes in maya and just resized and scaled them together then added basic colors to represent the bright and colorful children’s toys and then scaled them into my level to trick the player into thinking they are tiny.

Texturing in 3D Coat using a model from Maya.

Today I textured an asset I made in Maya using a new software called 3D Coat.

At the moment my knowledge of this program is very limited and I do not know how to effectively paint yet, you can see this by looking around the edges where the textures go somewhat smudged and doesn’t look as good.

So far though I am enjoying texturing in this program as it allows me to create more detailed pieces that will look better when I import them into my projects in Unreal, this is because the paint has a depth to it and it gives the illusion of wear and ridges when in reality the asset is actually flat.

3D Modelling and texturing dioramas

Over the last week we have been modelling and texturing a diorama that we chose out of a select few.

Here is the diorama I attempted to model –

 

Here is my current result, the current textures are very basic but I am focused on creating the models as my main goal –

At this point in time I have the tower shape and details created, I just need to create the matching textures and UV map them to work with this without any seams and keep it as detailed as I can.

3D Modelling Test

Today we were given a test to create a 3D model of an object, with the textures from a select few images.

I picked a mailbox based from the game Runescape,

Here is how I made it:

 

This is the image of the mailbox close to the finished product, unfortunately I did not take any photos during this process but have learned many new techniques and tools that Maya offers that I know will help me in my final project,

I used the image plane to import the concept art which I used for a scale for my model, I started by using a standard cylinder and stretching it to my desired size, once I had done this I used a pyramid and reshaped it to be lower and wider to give an overhang on the mailbox,

With this I started to give the body of the box a bit of flare on the bottom and top of it so that it blends nicely into the roof, and the floor itself.

With this basic template done I started to brainstorm ideas I could use for the door, I ended up reshaping the donut shape and deleting faces from it so that it would give me an archway and bridged all of the open areas so that it is all closed off.

Once this was put onto the model I created the letterbox by simply extruding a block inwards and texturing the indent black to give the illusion it is dark inside.

After that I used simple shapes to add all of the details to the body such as the door and the handles.

To create the step I used a block which I beveled to give the sloped look, this was a new tool I have learned which I have found very helpful.

The top of the box was just a simple process of extruding every other block and adding a brass cylinder to the extruded faces to match the image.

The most interesting part for me was the Ncloth tool, I had never known that this existed and had used it to create the flag,

To do this you switch the dropbox in the top left to FX and use the ncloth tool to set one as the passive collider and the other as the endcloth, with this done you use the timeline to get your desired shape and thats that!

 

Below is my finished design with all of the textures applied.

PEER FEEDBACK –

• The texturing makes it look cartoon like and well detailed
• The door could use some tweaking as it looks too rounded

Kian

I really like the way this has been modelled and how it looks very close to the image provided to create this from. this model contains a lot of detail but there are some things to be improved upon, such as some parts of the texturing are a bit stretched and out of place, also the step needs a bit of improvement as it is not the same shape as the image shown below.

review by Carl LipYEET

The texturing on the tower is incredibly well done and the modeling is expertly created. The overall shape of the model is incredibly well created and the door has a good shape. A way to improve is to give the small decorations such as the white V on the door a bit more attention with the texture.

Feedback from Ben.

 

 

 

Models for Hadleigh Castle (Overall)

The 3D Models I created for the project

For this project I modeled a horse stable, wall torch, trap door and a tree.

First of the set being my stable.

To create this model I looked at housed from the time period and noticed the wood supports were on the exterior of the house, which gave the houses of that time a very unique appearance which I used as inspiration for my designs.

To create it I used squares and cylinders which I resized into all different shapes to make the walls, window bars and the roof.

The next was a wall torch.

This will be our main source of interior lighting, combined with UE4 particle effects to create a flame, as it was very common of the time to use wall torches as light, I did a quick google search to give me ideas which I interpreted myself and combine different textures to give me my final design which I feel came out well.

Then there was a very basic tree to give the outside of the castle life.

This was a very basic design using 2D textures to trick the viewer into thinking it was a 3D object, I used our wood texture and basic leaves to do all of the tree’s textures. It was very simple to make, using only cylinders which I altered to give a more realistic and weathered look.

Lastly, I made a trap door.

This is the most complicated as I have to implement a bone system to create open and closing animations, this will be used above every ladder to access different floors instead of leaving the level open. It will make the castle feel more realistic.

Texturing In Maya Using Gradients

Creating my gradient –

First of all I had to create my gradient which I will use for the colors of my tree. I started by created a canvas 256 x 256 pixels wide and long and using the gradient tool to create a brown and green gradient. The bottom pegs of the gradient menu are to change the color and the top are for opacity. Once done I placed my gradient on my canvas and saved it as a JPEG.

Using my gradient to texture the tree –

To do this I opened the tree file and then selected the object and pressed the “Display Hypershade Window” button which opened the materials of the object, I selected Lambert 1 and then opened the wire map, I added a file to it which was my gradient and then had to connect the file wire to the objects wire map, to do this i dragged the out pin to the color pin of my object.

This gave it the colors but they were not correctly aligned.

To align them I opened my uv map, selected the trunk of the tree and selected planar on the UV tab, this then allowed me to drag the UV map of the trunk into the brown part of the gradient which then made the trunk brown,

I repeated this for each bunch on top of the tree to make them green with the top part being lighter than the others to create the effect of a light source impacting the object.

This is what it looked like when I had finished.

Creating Static Meshes For My Horror Game

Today I used maya to create 3 assets for my horror game, a flashlight; battery and a collectible item.

Flashlight –

To create this I used a cylinder and extruded it to give the base and duplicated the shape and shortened/ widened it to create the rubber handle. To create the switch I used a cube and extruded it into a rectangle and then rotated another cube to make the actual switch.

To texture it I selected the parts I wanted to texture and applied new material which for the grip I used lambert but for the switch I used Blinn.

Battery –

To create the battery I used the cylinder tool to create the body of the battery and duplicated then resized it to create the top part. To texture it I selected the shape and assigned new material then selected lambert. From here I selected the color and changed it to file, I had downloaded a battery label so I used this and applied it. I then generated a UV map to reshape it to fit my model.

My Collectible (Paper) –

For this I reshaped a cube to be tall and thin and applied an old page texture using lambert.

3D Modelling A Spaceship

This was my first attempt at using Maya to create a completely unique shape which hopefully resembles a small spaceship, To do this I placed a cube and then reshaped it into a longer rectangle to give me my starting point of modelling the body. From here I used the extrude tool to drag out the sides of my spaceship and then lowered the end to give me a point which would later become my wings. From here I made my top wing which I selected the top of my rectangle in the face tool and selected a thin strip which I then raised and pushed back to give me the backwards fin shape. I was now ready to create the cockpit, to do this i just extruded the front middle face and lowered it a bit to give me the dipped windshield look. After this i created my boosters by creating the small cuts in the 2 side faces and using pushing the faces back into the rectangle to make it indented. I repeated this step for the back to create the rear thruster.

After this I used the soften tool to smooth out all of my hard edges and then colored the spaceship in.

3D Modelling & Texturing in Maya

Part 1 –

  

For the first part we were going to recreate a block of TNT from the game Minecraft, to do this I started off by placing a cube and then highlighting it in object mode. I then pressed the UV tab and pressed automatic, this gave me the best possible UV map for my block to unfold. I then opened the UV editor which gave me a panel of every individual cube face. With this I selected the edge mode and then sewed them all together to give me a layout of the unfolded square. Once I had done this I downloaded the minecraft TNT block texture layout which I placed over my UV map and resized to fit the layout. The final result is displayed above.

Part 2 –

For the second part I had to create my own random shape, to do this I placed a ring shape and resized using the vertex mode and soft select which allowed precise changing of every vertex of my ring shape to give me that random shape as seen above. To create a UV map of this I used my object mode to highlight it all and selected the UV tab once again, from here I pressed on Cylindrical and opened the UV editor. I then had to cut my shape into 2 parts, to do this I cut the center of the outside and the inside to give me a separation in my UV map.

From here I selected the shape again and pressed planar on the UV tab and set it to my correct axis. I did this so that I had my shape outline in my UV editor, then I done it again to my other cut half to give me the other side.

This then meant that I can add texturing to my shape. To test if my textures will be stretched I used a UV map to test which areas would be stretched and how much it will affect the rest of my shape, this is my UV mapper I used.

Texturing A House In Maya

  

Today I used Photoshop to create textures for this house in Maya.

Firstly, I started off with a empty UV map which is similar to a blueprint of the house which showed me what I had to texture.

I started off by adding several layers for different sections of my texture so that if i made a mistake I wouldn’t have to redo all of my work. I then used the polygonal lasso tool to select the parts of my house I was going to start with texturing, once I had done this I filled it in with a solid color and then went over it with different shades of the same color to add shadows ad other details such as grass and weeds.

Once I had textured my entire UV map I could then import it into Maya. To do this I selected the entire house and right clicked to display options, with this I pressed “assign new material” where I selected lambert and imported my saved file. My end results are displayed above in my screenshots.