Before I began production I wanted to touch upon what I knew about building game environments. I know that compared to cinematics that gameplay needs to be lower poly and be able to run smoother, and that computers can handle heavier framerate, usually sitting at around 60fps, while console games usually play at around 30fps.
I found this tutorial extremely helpful on how to begin designing game assets and the following is the notes I made, some of them how-tos and some notes on considerations I should make before beginning.
Step 1: Plan your asset
- Is the asset a central piece of the environment?
- What art style are you using?
- What purpose does the asset serve in the game?
- use as many good reference images as possible
Step 2: Modelling
- If using Zbrush or adding details pick low or high poly to begin with
- Depending on how important the asset is should determine the polycount, something close up should be heavier detailed.
- PCs are more powerful than iphones so can handle higher poly
Step 3: UV unwrapping
- UVs are extremely important as textures need to be high quality, as detail is unlikely to come from the model due to low polycounts.
- Have decent space between UV islands because if it is bunched up there’s a risk bakes could not work.
Step 4: High poly model
- Best way to do this is to dupilicate the low poly model but keep everything at 0,0,0, as it needs to in the same place or the texture will not bake properly
- polycount and UV’s don’t matter on the high poly model
Step 5: Bake
- Bake high onto low in desired software
Step 6: Textures and Materials
- Make PBR textures for realism
Reference Images
Here I have included all the reference images I have used to produced my assets, both images from google and then screenshots from in-game play I took myself. Below are the main images I based the project off
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-zcp6NWo9bbu8TEcDxKewsDTDa47eE3X?usp=sharing
Initial Models
Below is the initial models I made before I received feedback on the likes of bevelling the assets more. They were orginally very square and although I was trying to make modular assets I was still making multiple versions of walls and columns that were unnecessary due to not planning my asset list properly.
Full Asset List and Link
Here I have included a link to sceenshots of wall the assets I produced for the project (there was too many to list here). As the buildings were quite smiliar but different size, the modular assets were rescaled to suit the smaller buildings. The assets I havn’t included in this but seen in the project would have been from quixel or streetlights made by Rachel Martin. There are also assets that didn’t make it to the final edit as I didn’t have time to include them but I’ve included them as they were made for the project with the intentions of going in.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sb7ZIM9aPY_Bs1pc_TDc0MdwgCKQwQu2?usp=sharing
How I Kept The Assets Game Ready
Modular Assets
After speaking to the lecturers, I exaimed the buildings in the references I was using. The buildings are flat walls, repeat windows, repeat textures etc. By following this to make my own buildings, I can make assets that are usually low poly, for example unbevelled walls as the edges are hidden by columns. It will also cut production time as i won’t have to start each wall from scratch. Also as both environments are set up to mimic each other, a small selection of modular assets should cover both environments.
Baking Textures
To reduce the polys I loaded into unreal, I tried (if it was possible with the style of asset) to bake the texture. This was done by making the inital asset, for example the wall shown, and then making another version with the same paraimetres, but added the details on the high poly version. I then took the low poly model to substance, baked the higher poly model onto it and got the details as a texture. If I then went to use a smart mask for example, it would recognise the edges from the high poly model and textured the low one accordingly.
Baking was extremely helpful for assets that repeated a lot, such as the walls or for hero assets like my AC Unit. The orignal AC unit I made was around 4000 polys which was quite high considering I needed to repeat this a few times in game. I was able to bake it using the above method and managed to reduce a 4000 poly asset to 40 polys without loosing details.
Details in Substance
For example, some assets I couldn’t bake, such as these planks . Following my reference from RDR2, I wanted to show aging from wear and tear using cracks and spilts. Doing these as models, it changed a 6 poly cube to an asset around 200 polys. Although this is still considered a low poly asset, I would need to duplicate this style of asset a lot in my scenes, for example the porch of the small building has around 20-30 planks, which could equal 4000-6000 polys, and theres multiple porches and balconys in the scene which are potentially triple the size.
To get around this I have took the base model and applied the desired details in substance, such as cracks or imperfections. If I use the heigh map on a minus, it emphasises the depth of the crack. Although this is not the exact same look in the end product, it is a good subsititue for trying to keep the assets low poly, as the plank example went from around 200 polys to around 50.
At this point of the project I had decided to focus just on creating the outside of the buildings. I intentionally wanted to create both environments and both insides of the saloon but I think this was too ambitious and I’d rather focus on creating the outsides, as I have done interiors of environments before and divide my full attention to it.