Week 16, Semester 2

Review:

Upon completing my tropical environment, there were a few areas that could have been improved.

Adding taller, thicker bushes would increae the variaty of grass, weeds and ferns already in place. This would also reduce the repetiveness of height as each blade of grass, weed and fern stand at the same length. The textures painted across the island, especially across many of the hills and valleys could have been improved. The grass texture which was used, becomes very repetitive and detracts from promoting a natural looking environment. Increasing the number of organic and natural assets placed around the map, such as coconuts, fallen bamboo and sticks, could have been improved aswell. Towards the last few objectives, tree placement becomes a little scarce, especially towards hills in the background.

 I would have liked to improve tree placement in those areas, as well as increasing the variaty of assets placed throughout the water and water falls. Adding models which represent coral, leaves, seaweed, and other underwater vegetation would assist immersing the player in the environment. The temples are very rigid and straight, these models could be improved by breaking down the rock and adding overgrown grass and vines. Paying more attention to the smaller details, such as scattering animal bones, eating utensiles, tools and other signs of human pressence around the villages would improve the natural appeal. Painting darker grass and dirt textures around the base of huts and other structures would create a sense of human pressence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dPookryHo8g

Below is an optional link to my Vimeo page.

https://vimeo.com/52365119

Week 15, Semester 2

This week I began constructing a temple for the final objective. Here is a render of the untextured model, by the end of this week I am to have this model completely textured and UVW Mapped. This week was also spent improving and reviewing the asset lists, as well as blueprints to better explain the layout of the environment.

 

Rocks and boulders have been placed around the Temples, separating the models from their straight, rigid form.
The terrain has been darkened around buildings, which include painted trails leading to and from hovels, campfires, and other structures. Naturally, the grass would wear away where human activity is most prominent.

This waterfall has been created toward the final check points, as a river leads down into the water by the final checkpoints. Several boulders have been positioned where the water spills from the cliff, separating the water as it falls. Screen shot provided below.

Towards to end of this week, this last Temple that will be used for my final objective has been fully textured and ready to be imported.

To complete the final temple, a torch was modeled, and a basic fire particle effect was applied to the center of the bowl. Here are the clay and textured renders.

To finish of the placement of the final temple, large rocks and boulders were scattered around the perimeter of the temple.

Here is the final product, a birds eye view of the environment. Ambiance sounds have also been added. A mixture of jungle ambiance tracks have been applied to the First Person Controller, fire to the campfires, recording of a light stream to the water, as well as a recording of a waterfall to the WaterFall particle effects.

Week 14, Semester.

More assets were modeled this week, including a Sun shade structure and a basic bamboo fence. This week I will model a small nomadic port, as well as several boats and structures to fit that environment. Below is the sun shade structure.

Below is the bamboo fence.

 Boats

Second Structure

Later this week I also discovered a solution to the 2 sided textures rending invisible in Unity. For example, I would create a plane, extrude the center edge to form a basic roof, apply a texture and tick 2 sided. However when exported as either an FBX or an OBJ file and imported into Unity, the second side of the texture wouldn't render, leaving one side of the model invisible and the other not. The quick solution to this was to duplicate the plane, and apply a Normal modifier and tick flip normal, all accomplished in 3DS MAX.

At the end of this week I modeled a campfire in 3DS MAX, which has been imported into Unity as an OBJ file format. I have also applied a particle effect to the center log, which involves a fire and smoke effect.

 Here is the clay render

Here is the textured render

Here is the asset imported into Unity.

Saturday I improved the model of the boats, giving the interior some thickness as I extruded the polygons.

Week 13, Semester 2

This week I began painting grass across the terrain. I am in the process of blending in weeds, ferns, and two different types of grass. Tree placement will also be improved, as I have started to remove trees further towards the peaks of mountains and steep hills, whilst increasing the density of palm trees and bamboo across flatter, even parts of the land. This week I also completed my watch tower, finishing its textures, shown below.

I also updated the straw texture for the roof, of my hovels. I feel this texture better represents the straw roofing found on buildings in Papua New Guinea.

I also found that as I exported assets in the file format FBX, models would lose their textures and fail to import correctly. I decided to experiment with the file format OBJ, which has solved many of the issues that occurred whilst importing FBX files into Unity. I also began modelling and texturing various stones and boulders, which are currently being scattered throughout the map. Stones will be placed across the main path the player is advised to follow, whilst the larger boulders will be placed around the bottom of steep mountains.

 

 

  

 

Week 12, Semester 2.

This week I finished UVW Mapping the Mayan Temple. Here is the final model, ready to be imported into Unity.

Week 11, Semester 2

This week I began constructing a basic Mayan Temple. This will be used for the objectives which involve capturing and destroying temples. Below is a clay render of the model.

Week 10, Semester 2

This week I spent time modelling more assets for my environment, as well as texturing my Hut with the techinques taught through a PDF tutorial in 3DS MAX. I also began constructing a basic watch tower and a small hovel.

Later on in the week I began constructing temples which are noted in my blueprint. The design for these buildings will heavily reflect upon the famous Mayan temples. Below are several references images I will use for my design.

Earlier this week I posted a model of a log, here is the final product, textured and ready to be imported.