Terrain Texture

(My tileable terrain texture)

I always like to use as many of my own assets as possible.  In this project all of the assets have been made by me except for the skybox (and it's material).  I have dedicated a lot of time today to create a terrain texture to match the style of the other assets (see image above).

I think it turned out quite well, even if it displays a bit smaller than I originally intended.  I painted it in a way that would give the appearance of depth, without the need for a normal map (I am only using diffuse textures for this project).  The texture tiles without any noticeable seams and adds a lot to the scene (which you shall see later).

General Progress

(Progress so far on the level)

As this is the last full day I'll be working on this I thought it would be a good idea to give a general update as to the state of the project so far.  As you can see from the image above, it's far from finished.  The reference map it was standing on is finally gone and the models moved to ground level.  Over half the models have been UV mapped to display the texture properly.The main texture need a few more bits added to it and the terrain need a new one made.

So what does this mean?  Well I've decided to get the map as close to finished visually as possible.  The gameplay will most likely not be included in the submitted build, which will be a real shame (I am a bit stubborn though, so I haven't given up entirely on it).

I will be putting some images up of the finished assets in the next post together with some images of a finished map (hopefully).

UV Mapping

(UV mapping process for one of the models)

Following on from yesterday's post, I've been UV mapping to try and get the textures to display properly on my models.  The image above shows the process of packing the UVs into the space, which will allow me to add more colour information to the texture for other models.

(Testing the texture in CryEngine on the newly UV mapped model)

The image above is a screenshot of a test in engine to make sure it looks good.  All of the bricks are going in the right direction and are the same scale.  Still quite a few models to work on though, so I'd better get on with it.

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.