The purpose of this blog is to detail the process of creating an interactive, story-based game. i will outline all the steps I have taken to ensure my contribution is of the highest possible quality by researching the necessary tools to deliver high-quality content.
All assets created for the project by me.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1olY-rIv4alW_X1c_jjUrJMIzshA0lYFX?usp=sharing
Week 1
week 1 was where we began, we had delegated our roles and I was now one of the groups 3D Modellers, because we had three modellers working independently on a variety of tasks, we had to collectively come to an agreement on the desired art style of the game as well as a workflow so that we could all work in unison.
We settled on the workflow of modelling in Maya before texturing in substance painter and importing it all into unreal engine using GitHub. This was agreed upon because both the game design students and the animation students were familiar and comfortable using Maya and substance painter. This would be a challenge for me as I had never worked with this workflow before, but I was excited at what I would learn from it and how it may help me in future projects, because all of the 3D modellers in the team would be using the exact same workflow this was comforting as we could help each other in times of need!
very early on in discussions everyone knew that we were trying to achieve a Tim Burton aesthetic, we found this rather challenging to put into text for a style guide and had to mainly use images to ensure everyone was on the same page.
Week 2
On week 2, we each set out to create models on our own to ensure we were all on the page. I created this shed using our designated pipeline and luckily it seemed that we were all on the same page!
To test out our new pipeline and try and get myself accustomed to the software I would be using over these 12 weeks, I set myself a task to make a shed, yes, a shed, during our meeting we decided that a variety of assets would be needed for a graveyard, and I felt this fit perfectly!
The time burton aesthetic is defined by the skewed proportions of everyday objects, making them seem unusual, just beyond the boundaries of our comfort zone. I found this aspect to be rather challenging, I was always trying to achieve hyper realism in anything I have tried to model before but this forced me to be more creative as it lacked creative constraint and would look out of place if it was realistic.
for the graveyard scene of our game, we needed a sky that would complement the style of our models as well as providing strong lighting, i took this as the perfect opportunity to learn how to create beautiful skyboxes within unreal engine as i had never used this feature of the unreal engine before.
As I was new to sky box manipulation, I did some research using the best learning tool I had at my disposal…YouTube! After watching countless videos to try and get a strong understanding of the system I found three that really bolstered my understanding and allowed me to create the skyboxes shown below.
After some deliberation and a crude voting system using emojis on the team discord, we settled upon the blue moon and sky.
Week 3
Week 3 brought the project more into focus, a meeting was held to ensure that the team were happy with the work the 3d modellers were doing as well as ensuring that we were all on the same page, style-wise, fortunately, we were. Everyone had gotten the hang of distorted world view laid out by our neo-gothic style.
To ensure no-one went overboard with the resolution of the textures or the vertex count on their models I created a simple rule sheet in bold writing for everyone to follow and easily remember.
I started work on a tree, I had never modelled a tree before and I felt it was a new and exciting task, not too long into the creation I had created a tree, or what could be considered a tree…I gave it a texturing in substance painter and called it a day.
Some time has passed and realized that I just was not satisfied with the tree, I raised this question with one of my lecturers and he recommended a software to me called speed tree, I found a free trial for it and gave it a go!
After some tinkering within the software which I found to be incredibly intuitive and forgiving for newcomers I exported my tree fully modelled and textured! This was an incredible software to use, and I understand why it is so commonly used within the industry and it is a valuable skill for me to have!
Week 4
Week 4 was where the real work began, a google account for the team was created so we could cooperate on documents. A meeting was held, and we came up with an asset list, enabling the 3d Modelling “staff” to crack on with creating assets while the other aspects of the game were created. This asset list was an extensive spreadsheet that allowed us to delegate tasks to each person and to also ensure we did not waste time by accidentally creating duplicate assets, this also better helped us to set a time scale for when the project would be completed as well as allowing the asset developers not get swamped under a seemingly endless list of assets.
My next asset to tackle was a pair of bedside tables, these were made from primitives that were stretched to give me the Tim Burton style that we were trying to achieve, skewing these simple shaped caused me some issues in the UV stage but it was easily corrected.
Getting everyone together on one GitHub repository proved to be rather difficult, I was semi-familiar with the GitHub cooperation system as I had dabbled with it in my free time, but as it was necessary for the teamwork in this project, I was forced to come to terms with its features very fast and I felt that this was definitely a very useful exercise as I am now much more comfortable with the system!
Week 5
On week 5 I created two assets; one was rather simple while the other proved to be much more difficult.
The first asset created was a shower head, this allowed me to get a better understanding of texturing reflective metallic materials within substance painter. This also taught me how to assign these textures within a material in UE4 to ensure that everything looks correct.
The fireplace was a bigger challenge as it would require some blueprinting within Unreal Engine so that the fireplace would be dynamic. I modelled the fireplace within Maya before texturing in substance painter. I added the fireplace to the UE4 project, I then used the fireplace asset as a static mesh in a new actor blueprint, I added a fire particle system that I found for free on the Epic store and there it was, a dynamic fireplace.
Week 6
Week 6 had me learning something I have wanted to learn for quite some time, how to create see-through materials in Substance Painter. Thus far I have avoided glass objects as I knew I wouldn’t be able to, on the asset list was a pill bottle, I knew this would be a simple thing to model but would require a translucent material. With some tinkering in Substance Painter this is what I came up with, I feel it perfectly captured the essence of a pill bottle, if I were to do it again, I would change it to be more stylised.
The translucent orange plastic allows you to see the pills inside the bottle, I feel that this adds another layer to the immersion of this model.
During this week I also created three low detail wooden cabins that were required for the project, these cabins would be simple background environment dressing so they wouldn’t need to be detailed as the player would never be seeing them up close.
I feel that these came out great! I tried to make each of the cabins visually unique to one another to add some variety while keeping poly count and details low.
Week 7
I began creation on a camera model, unfortunately I made a mistake and somehow did not realize that another team member had already created a camera but nonetheless the camera was finished I feel it will fit within our game nicely as a prop.
Also on the asset list was a bathtub, I think that this was a nice model to work on but if I were to make it again I would have added water to the inside of the bath to make it more realistic and to potentially add to the realism of the game experience, if I have time before the end of the project I may add that in, I feel like this model nicely captured the “burton” style we wanted to achieve.
Week 8
Some time during this week, while adding an asset from before I realized that the game had no thumbnail, logo or splash screen. Although this was not part of my job and not on the asset list, I consulted with the rest of the team as to whether I could take some time off asset creation and try to create a logo and splash screen as I felt it would add another layer of polish to this project.
My first attempt at our logo I felt was at a lower quality standard than I was ultimately able to achieve, it was generally well received by the team but personally it did not sit well with me as I felt it would misrepresent the level of quality in the rest of the game!
I went in-game and used the high-resolution screenshot feature of unreal engine to take some nice in-engine renders to use for the splash screen. I took 2 and let the team decided which we preferred.
I then used out chosen image to create a splash screen for both the game and the editor version of the game (I know it won’t be visible in the end user experience, but it looks cool).
I was so unhappy with my initial logo that I decided to make a version 2 to see would it be an improvement, and to my surprise, it was a vast improvement and was far superior to the first one!
I then added these to the UE project, this logo/thumbnail makes the game look much more enticing when its sitting on your desktop or taskbar!
Week 9
Following feedback that I had to lower the vertex count of my fireplace, I tried to lower it, but I ultimately decided to just completely redesign it from the ground up! This allowed me to fix the minor gripes I had the original model. I felt this was a great learning experience and it taught me the importance of iterating on designs throughout the creation phase.
I created an ink and quill model, I found an image of a featherless quill and it inspired me to create it for this game, this model was also in the asset list, so it was a win win. Both the ink and the bottle were transparent, so I was able to use the material opacity texturing skills I learned a few weeks ago for the creation of this model!
Although I enjoyed creating this model and believe it turned out great, if I were to recreate it I would add a feather to the it to make it more authentic and to get a better understanding of using plane textures for things such as feathers, leaves and grass.
Week 10
I felt the game was lacking an intro video, this is present in every game, and I felt that ours should be no different! I had previous experience in Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Photoshop, so I felt I was the best man for the job. I discussed my idea with the team, and everyone agreed that I could do it. I used the same font as the splash screen to ensure that the different artworks were coordinated, with the help of some masking and keying I came up with this intro. I exported it as an MP4 and imported it into the UE4 project, using the project preferences, I set it as an intro video.
I feel that it helped pace the beginning of the game by using sound effects to set the scene for the player while also giving credit to our team by using our studio name. I felt that I could use my skills that I learned from before the elevate the game to another level.
I created a series of textures so that single book mesh could be used a variety of times, having a few different textures would add some variety to the books when placed together so they player would not notice the repeated asset
