My primary role on this project was Art direction (along with most of the other animation students) and prop modelling. The first piece of work I made for this project was two simple concept art sheets. Once we had decided on the style of the game and the kind of setting it would take place in I got to work trying to make a simple visual representation of what we might be aiming for. This was done to showcase my personal vision for the games art style and colour palette while also working as a way for me to check and see if my vision was in line with what the rest of the team had in mind for the style of the game. We had also discussed using a guiding colour throughout the game. This would be a colour that would generally indicate the direction the player needed to go while they were playing. Another purpose of these concept art sheets was to try and determine the best choice of colour to use. We decided that in a game with blue environments and pink/red neon signs that green would be a nice noticeable colour to guide the player throughout the levels. Overall the group were happy with the look of these drawings and we continued to develop the art style from there.
As we got further into this project we created an asset list of things that needed to be modelled for the game. I primarily worked on making 3D models for our scenes throughout the duration of this project. I used blender to create all of my assets. The first piece I made was a post box. This was generally a simple piece to create as it was comprised mostly of just cylinders and a few minor other pieces that made up the sign on the front and the lock on the sides. One difficulty I did encounter was creating the door as originally it was a part of the same object but when this was shaded to be smooth it ended up causing the smooth round look to be distorted. To fix this I just had to make the door a separate object to the rest of the cylinder and I encountered very little issues with the model from this point onwards.
The next piece I began working on was The ATM machine. This piece turned out to be surprisingly difficult for me to model as many of my first attempts ended in models that I was not satisfied with. I made 3 attempts to import different reference images into blender and model the geometry over these but even this resulted in models that weren’t quite what I had in mind. I eventually decided to settle for a wall mounted ATM as I felt like this might be easier to model and I figured it would be much easier to fit it somewhere in the levels. For this piece I just roughly based my model on the images I had gathered for my previous attempts and made what I had in mind. This attempt went very well and I was left with a piece I was happy with. For this model along with the majority of my other pieces, I created the model with multiple separate objects which I combined at the very end after sorting the UVs in such a way that they wouldn’t overlap. I did this so that once they were imported into the game it would be much simpler for the game design students to move them around and apply their textures since they would all just be applied straight to the one object.
The next model I worked on was a fire hydrant. This was my favourite piece that I made during this project. I wanted it to be somewhat unique looking so I gathered some images of interesting above ground style fire hydrants and based mine off of them. This piece was not actually overly difficult to make and I didn’t encounter any issues while creating it.
After this I made some miscellaneous simple pieces such as a lantern, a bench, some bottles, a paint bucket and a drain cover. I ran into very little issues with these pieces due to their relatively simple nature. the bottles, lantern and bucket were all just cylinders I altered to fit the shape more accurately. I also added a curve to the lantern and paint bucket as a handle. The drain cover was a plane I subdivided and extruded the face from. Unwrapping these pieces was also not particularly difficult due to their not so complicated geometry.
The next piece I began work on was a generator for the more industrial style level. I had some trouble creating this piece since I was unsure of what needed to be added to it throughout to make it a more interesting piece to look at. The main body of the model is a cylinder on its side. I used a curve to create the wire that connects the generator into a plug on the floor. I then extruded a certain section of the cylinder to act as a vent on the side. I modelled screws to fit onto this part and also created a more detailed vent cover on the side. At this point, the model still looked quite bare and didn’t have anything particularly sci fi about it. To counter this issue I added circles around the main cylinder and made pipes connecting them. These were all separate to the main object so that a glowing material could be added to them in unreal afterwards to give it a more complete and futuristic look. This piece was not so simple to unwrap as I wanted to have the holes in the vent cover away from the the rest of the cylinder in order to make it easier to texture them as a voids and the main body as shiny machinery. Overall it worked out okay but I did have some trouble with this part. I think my previous projects have given me a decent idea on how to go about creating random machinery models as I was able to create this piece relatively quickly even with the trouble I was having at certain points.
The next piece I made was another industrial themed asset. I had to make a conveyor belt that belonged in a factory section of the level. I decided to make this by creating straight lines of the belt itself that would then enter tunnels. I did this to make it easier for the level designers to place the conveyor belt within the level since they would be able to add it in sections rather than having to deal with fitting one long, twisting road in the level. I also unwrapped the tunnel with the intention of texturing the entrance as a black shadowy void so it didn’t like the belt was hitting a flat wall.
Texturing was the next step of the process after I had my pieces modelled. I found this step to be the most difficult as I struggled with finding the right materials for each of my models. I used substance painter to texture my models and tried to make use of it’s tools the best I could. I struggled with trying to envision my models in the actual scene so I’d know what kind of values would be best when it came to how metallic, vibrant or shiny they should be. This is definitely a step of the process I feel like I need to work on in future as I am generally happy with my 3D modelling progress but feel somewhat behind when it comes to having to texture the pieces I’ve made.
Evaluation
I am satisfied with the majority of the work I have done for this project. I felt that my concept art sheets were a good foundation and starting point for the team to further develop the art style and I was happy enough to be assigned the role of prop modelling at the start as I think it is my strongest area in relation to 3D in general. It is also the area that I enjoy the most. The majority of the work I done on this project was quite manageable as I didn’t encounter any serious issues with any of the models I had to make. The issues I did encounter were mostly just a matter of figuring out a way to make a model look more visually appealing which I feel that I eventually managed to achieve in each of those cases. My texture work was the main issue that I had with the work I produced for the project. I still feel like it is probably my main area that needs to be worked on in future and I plan on doing more research into it in future.