Conclusion

This is likely to be my final entry for this blog so I decided to look back over the course of the project, summarise what I've done and how I achieved it, as well as explain things in more depth.

To start with I worked on my own with no assistance on any part.  it was incredibly tough, especially as I started late and only had a couple of days a week to work on it.  this meant I had to work very quickly, as 3D modelling and texturing can be very time consuming.

The design and concept evolved over the course of the project, from a game about chasing Dracula around Whitby, to a game where the player collects Jet artefacts whilst exploring Whitby Abbey, to a scene that tries to capture the style of a painting by Francis Jukes.

The concept art was produced to help me plan how I wanted to layout the level, as well as act as a very short storyboard for when things would happen.  I also worked on making the project logos that I needed for the submission.  With the changes in design I was worried that I would need to rename everything, which thankfully never happened.

When I knew what I was doing, I started making the whitebox assets.  The models were constructed in a way that allowed me to add detail at a later point if needed. these models remained for the most part, relatively unchanged and being used in the current build of the level.

I decided to use a few texture sheets as possible and I've managed to use only two textures.  The overall aesthetic I was aiming to achieve was inspired by Francis Jukes (provided by The British Library's asset pack) and popular videogames that use a painted style (such as World of Warcraft and Vagrant Story).  Components that make up the abbey are chunky and angular, and the textures were hand painted by myself.  The brick texture took the longest out of the texture pieces, as this would be the most visible part of the game.  The UV's for all of the models were mapped to a single texture as stated before, which probably took the most time.

It's been hard work but very rewarding.  I've learned a lot more than I thought I would during this project.  I will most likely take this project further and turn it into a more polished portfolio piece, as I quite enjoyed the visual style used.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Texturing

(Untextured whitebox model of Whitby Abbey)

I now have Whitby Abbey mapped out with 3D models and it looks okay.  I will be adding a little bit of extra detail to a few of the models but most of them are likely to remain as they are.  The next step is to create a texture I can use on them.  Most of today was spent hand painting a texture from scratch (no photos were used in its creation), with various stages of testing to see what it looks like on a model.  I'm not trying to create a photo-realistic recreation of Whitby Abbey; instead I want a painterly look as stated in the Style Guide post.

(A small section of the texture I've been working on today)

I can't apply it in engine yet, as I will need to redo the UV maps to use the texture properly and efficiently.  For those who don't know what a UV map is, it's a 2D representation of the geometry of a 3D model.  It dictates where an image will be displayed on the surface of a model.  As you can see from the image below, the texture looks quite good on the model even though it hasn't been mapped properly yet.  I am aiming to map them tomorrow or Sunday.

(A test render of the texture on a model without finished UVs)

The texture will be merged with some others onto a single material so that multiple meshes can use the same texture space in engine.  This increases efficiency and demonstrates optimisation for game development.

Troublesome Day

Yesterday ended up being slightly problematic in terms of being able to work on the project.  Most of the day was spent in the hospital waiting for a rather unpleasant gastroscopy procedure.  Despite this I returned home and got on with some 3D modelling, working on the tower section of the scene.  The day was made worse by an untimely power cut, which corrupted the file I had open and forced me to use a backup save, costing me around an hours worth of work (really wasn't my day).

On a brighter note, I've managed to finish the tower model and can continue to work on the project next weekend.

Whitebox Models

(More place holders in engine, looking a bit more like an abbey)

As I expected, I have already fallen behind in my schedule, so I've spent as much time as I could today 3D modelling.  First of all I worked on finishing the middle and upper sections for the inner walls and importing them into CryEngine.

(Basic shape of one of the abbey's main walls)

The next stage was to create one of the big walls at the end of the abbey, together with the two spires either side.  The wall is only a basic model at the moment, although more detail will be added at a later point.  It's probably worth mentioning that most of the detail will be added through the texture, as it will be a lot quicker.

(One of the spires to go next to the wall)

The spire model I made has a bit more detail and was a lot more difficult to make.  There are actually two different meshes for this (one for each side of the wall) because of the way they are shaped.  Ordinarily I would just use the same model and rotate it in engine, however there is chamfering on part of the model that would be in the wrong place if I did so.

I'm hoping to get most, if not all of the basic shapes built before Monday so I can start texturing or adding gameplay.  Hopefully no more unforeseen events prevent me from working on it.

Whitebox Stage

(Early whitebox stage with place-holder assets in CryEngine)

I finally started 3D modelling various place-holder assets to get a general feel for how the game is going to look.  It also means I can test the designed gameplay mechanics sooner, giving me more time to fix any potential problems.  I'm using 3D Studio Max to create the 3D objects for the world (both whitebox and finished versions of them).

I will be researching how to implement the game mechanics using the documentation provided by Crytek on their site, as well as any useful tutorial videos I find (I'll provide links to everything I use in subsequent posts).

Once all of this is done I can start replacing the place-holders with the actual game assets.  Texturing for the final versions will be done using Photoshop.  I will post images of finished assets as well from time to time.