Today, me and my group are tasked with making a vertical slice game as our end project for this course.
After our week 3 presentation I received feedback on my Art Style guide for the protagonist character; how I had to add a bit more explaining to some parts, like the do’s & don’ts, to make it understandable for the audience. Using that knowledge, I decided to make the final design of the real estate agent as it was still in it’s concept stages. However, when our tutors came to check on our group’s progress and I told them what I was doing they were under the impression that the design of the Real Estate Agent was already finalized and when they asked what else I was doing I had no answer. They asked if there was anything else I can do I did tell them that I did wanted to do some prop design but didn’t as I initially thought Corey and Eoin were doing them together, along with the environments. After the group cleared up that it was just Corey doing the props I was assigned to prop design as a way to help him with the workload. The group and I notified him about the changes made and he’s happy with my additional assistance.
Pre-planning
I created an asset list using Google Sheets so me and Corey can add any props the game devs would want to be included in their game, then we split the work between us to make the workload more manageable. The list however was subjective to change as the game development students would sometimes request us to make new assets for new places or ideas despite us believing the list was finalized. Sometimes we weren’t notified about these changes, which created stress for me due to the increased workload. The worst example of this by far is that they added a tutorial room based on a construction warehouse, with new props included. This made me panic as I was worried I have to research and design new props for it. Luckily, they told me that they’ll be the ones that’ll be making the props for that area.
Thankfully, they were lenient towards us with the asset development as they have no experience with how much time is needed for us animation students to create models in Blender so they want it to make it manageable for us if we are to complete our game before May. An example of this was the removal of filler props like kitchen utensils as they felt it would take more time for me and Corey to complete
I discussed with Corey about which one of us is going to develop the assets. We decided that Corey will create the designs and models for the desks, drawers, the TV, the kitchen and bathroom sink, the washing machine, the closet, the bed and the car while I’ll do the same with the tables, chairs, the fridge, the couch, the stove, the toilet and the showers. After we finalized who’s doing what, we marked the assets on the asset list a “P” for me and a “C” for Corey’s and anytime we finished the prop we changed the font colour to green to signify its completion.
Prop Design
Before I started sketching the designs of the props I took pictures of furniture from my house as first-hand references, with some additional images from the internet if I needed more detail.
References:
Afterwards, I sketched out designs for my props:
My initial plan was to take pictures of these sketches and import them into an app on my Ipad called “Sketchpad”, where I can refine the designs, choose colour pallets for them and add the photos of the furniture for easy reference work; kind-of like a concept sketch. However, this process took a lot of time so I was only able to finish one of the design which was the couch. Afterward, I decided to use the sketches I drew as references as to not waste more time.
Prop Modelling
The development of the assets went smoothly, albeit with a few roadblocks along the way.
During the development of the dinning table and the chair, the charger for my laptop stopped working due to it expiring from use. Because of this I couldn’t use my laptop without draining the remaining battery life until a new charger arrives and have to rely on using the school computers to continue modelling my assets, which I copied into a USB. Eventually, the new charger for my laptop arrived and I was able to continue normal.
Something that I learned while I was modelling my assets was to take size into consideration. Normal, I just scale my models to the size I feel is big or small but I never used a model for size comparison as I didn’t know what’s the normal size in Blender and Unreal Engine. This changed one day when the game students told me to rescale my assets, to make sure they aren’t too big for Unreal, so I used a cube as a size comparison. However, I wasn’t sure if the assets are accurately scaled to size as I wasn’t sure how Blender defines a default size so I had to ask Henry for help. He told me that he uploaded a human FBX file into the discord channel that apparently has accurate scaling so I can use as a size comparison.
I decided to test this out by uploading my table FBX with the human FBX into Blender and the results shown that the table was WAY bigger than I initially thought. In fact, I thought I imported the human FBX file incorrectly as the model was much smaller than I expected; it had the exact same height as a default cube mesh. I asked Henry on Discord if the human mesh’s size is accurate and he said yes. Realising that all of my assets are much bigger than they initially are, I had to go back and import the human FBX to each and every one of them as a size comparison and completely reduce their sizes to be more accurate.
Either way, all of my assets undergone through some design changes. Here are a few pointers into them.
Dinning Table and Living Room Table:
The dinning table was the first model I’ve made for the game and it went through some changes. An example of this was the original legs as the edges weren’t ovular and located at the sides of the table’s framing rather than rectangular legs on top of the base.
I used a “mirror modifier” on the legs so the that the rest of the legs will duplicated and located on each corner of the table.
I decided to “auto-smooth” the mesh instead of using “shade-smooth” as I wanted to keep the edges of the top table and the bottom frame sharp.
During the development of the table, I asked the group if I can just reuse the dinning table for the living room table as a way to save time and they agreed in the condition that I change it up to differentiate the tables between each other. I made the living room table have its height around knee-length while the dinning table had its length and width be long enough to fit 8 chairs.
Chair:
The chair and the cushion were made as separate meshes.
The back of the chair was changed as I didn’t like how the big bump at the side of the top disrupted the flow line that connected the back to the legs. To fix this, I had to delete the top part in “edit mode” and reconnected the vertices by clicking on “connect vertices path”. However, I was told by Henry to make sure that anytime I connect the vertices the faces has to have 3 to 4 sides, otherwise it will cause issues whenever the assets are imported into Unreal Engine.
I asked Henry how to make the back of the chair straight when I auto-smooth it and he told me to go into “edit mode”, select the edges I want to keep sharp and click “mark sharp” to make the edges unaffected by the auto-smooth.
Showers:
The shower asset when through a few reworks during and after its creation.
I used plane meshes as a placeholder for walls so I can have a visual reference for the location and placement for each part of the showers.
The pipe that connected the shower top to the wall was made with a solidified bezel curve mesh and I had to constantly relocate it around as it was either too far down or too high up.
When I was blocking out the model, I didn’t know if I wanted it to have normal shower drapes or a glass pane like the reference material it’s based on. I asked my group about what’s better and they told me to do glass. I changed the opacity of the glass to be transparent by switching the blend mode to “Alpha” and reducing the alpha levels. I had to change the colour of the glass as Corey told me to not make the glass too blue. I also had to separate the glass pane from the mesh as I wanted to keep the transparency.
Stove:
The stove was probably my favourite out of all the assets made due to the end result looking rather nice.
There were a few adjustments to the design. Originally, it was going to have an interior but it was scrapped as the group believed it was unnecessary for a low-poly model and to save time. Another addition was the inclusion of legs and some gaps between the base and the rest of the panels as I felt that the model’s appearance was to blocky.
Fridge:
Out of all the assets, I feel that the fridge went through the most design changes.
Originally, it was supposed to have its handles at the sides of the fridge doors, just like the sketch design and it’s reference material, but I couldn’t get it to look smooth. I tried giving it normal handles in-front of the fridge doors but it caused it to look like a closet. Eventually, I decided to just make its appearance resemble a generic looking fridge as to not waste anymore time.
Couch:
The armchairs of the couch were probably the most difficult part of this asset’s development as I want to the top face flat while curving the edges.
Rich House and Poor House:
The houses were more of an optional last minute addition to the game as they weren’t part of the asset list; they were included as a way to emphasise the themes of “classism” as the game devs put it. Either way, I had to completely rush making them.
References:
The models were made with simple shapes as they’re background models and won’t have the need to be detailed.
I wasn’t sure if I should texture them in Substance Painter or just add colour in Blender so I asked the group what I should do and they told me to just texture them.
After I finished all of the assets, I marked sharp and seams, UV wrapped them, and exported them as FBX’s to use in Adobe Substance 3D Painter and Unreal Engine.
Prop Texturing
My initial plan was to team up with Eoin, our group’s environment designer, during the Easter break as a way to have synergy with the texturing of both our assets. However, we couldn’t find the time to organise a meeting where we are both free to collaborate and eventually I decided to scrap this plan all together and asked Eoin to send me a screenshot of his textured assets, so I can use it as a rough basis for the texture’s aesthetics.
When I was starting to texture my assets, something went wrong with the tables and fridge as some of the faces are opaque. I asked my classmates on discord about this issues and discovered that it was because some of the faces are flipped, so I had to go to “face orientation”, select all of the red faces, go to the mesh tab, go to “normals”, and click “flip” to fix the issue.
another thing I wasn’t sure was how to texture shiny assets like the base of the showers, the fridge, and the toilet but I decided to use chrome textures and change the colour to white to keep the glossed texture.
Textured versions of the assets:
Unreal Engine
After I was finished, I compressed the FBX and texture files into a zip file, uploaded it to my Google Files account and sent the link into the group’s Discord channel. However, it took a while for me to be notified about how the assets look in the game because the game devs didn’t realised that, by not testing them they prevented me from finding any issues with the assets and fixing them. Eventually, they tested them and one of them sent me a screenshot in Discord, saying that they haven’t added the textures yet but they look nice and seem to be working properly.
Eventually, the game students finally added the textures of my props into the game and they look fine:
Unfortunately, the game development students couldn’t finish the game in time. This worried me as I need to send a copy of the game as part of my submission requirements. Eoin and Corey were having the same issue as well and decided to ask one of our tutors about what to do for this issue, they even have recorded footage about the conversation of why they haven’t sent the game to us. When they came back they told me I’m fine as the game students took photos of my props in unreal engine so I didn’t have to worry about it affecting me.
In conclusion, this was an interesting experience. For the first time working with students from another course it was alright. Although, there were times they didn’t tell us any changes made to the game but it didn’t affect the overall result.