House creation and texturing cont'd

Iv been continuing to texture the houses I originally made and this is the last one, I adjusted the texture uv's half way through as I had some issues with texture stretching particulary on the roof section.



So that is more or less done, there are a few issues with textures still which i need to address but Id like to start on another house.

Id like to do this house but also slightly smaller versions of it, and perhaps vary where the door is to make it interesting.

So on with the bigger house!

As normal starting off with a box and with swift loops cutting out the shape. On my reference There arn't any windows (or only 1 very small window) but I thought that would look incredibly boring so iv added a few. On the reference on the single side I think would be quite interesting but I may modify a bit as a diagonal decorative piece completely covers it. Could have it like a little canopy raised slightly, almost like a porch.



For this one as opposed to other houses iv made, iv placed some little marker blocks on the corners and they are unwrapped and positioned around. My plan was that if the texture looks too samey I can grab the front faces and rotate or swap with the other one. (small bit of variation but every little helps)
And im on with making the slats for the house which I will unwrap so duplicating to fill the house will be easier. I think for the windows Ill make them more shutter like (but unable to actually see into the house). At the porch section I may make a little bit of a room inside that I can fill with assets in UDK. I don't want the inside to be the focus though, just a little area the player can pass by, my other houses are inaccessible to look inside.




Now originally i said about having the porch window open but how im going to arrange this big house is the side with the door pointing towards the village path so having the open window at the side would be a bit pointless so iv decided to make the left window the open one where others will have little cracks in the shutters. Just to add a bit more interest.


Right managed to unwrap and now onto texturing! My plan is after I texture this main one ill slightly edit the model and make a couple of smaller variations of it (makes more houses quickly). Now ill be darkening the wood a little later once all the textures are in place to match my reference.


Right so getting there, first impressions though is that it looked a bit dead - it needs colour to liven things up a bit. I think decals would work best for this when its imported into UDK. As how iv made the texture sheets to save space some elements use the same area but blobbing green onto it probably wouldn't work. I could maybe do something on the bottoms of the lenghts of wood.
Anyway ignoring that issue I think it works pretty well, still bits need tweeked and finished.
(I will also morph the vertices slightly to give a more rickety effect)




So yes, there are still a few things left to do on this mesh as I discovered a few issues, and ill have to bridge some polygons and resize some elements. So the buildings are going well though im starting to get a little bored of them. Ill try and get this model and the little variations of it finished then see, id like to try some trees again as they are quite big in my level also.

Touchup and new houses

Right, yesterday I managed to get on pretty well but I think ill change the colours quickly on the workshop. I don't really like the overly brown tint as it looks pretty fake so ill lay it off a bit and see how it goes.

Quick 2 minute job


This works better as it blends with the other houses also, I think I will model or make some alphas of foliage which can intersect or overlap the roofing area. My very tightly packed texture sheet for this workshop (and other buildings) wont allow me to do this but in UDK it should work a treat.

Right next I think ill try and texture my longer house (yellow with beams) and also my first house I attempted. I need to speed up in the modelling of these buildings now so I can place properly.


Right a few texturings later, still to be finished but i think to have some form of climbing plants on the sides of the house would help it. Its looking a little too plain and needs some colour to break it up. If I should paint on these plants or leave it for my models. Not really sure, the PSD of the texture sheet will be kept handy if it comes to that.
I will continue on this house until all the areas are covered.

Right after this I was starting to get a little bored and I was interested in looking about how to do convincing grass, I managed to find quite a good tutorial which helped - it focused on rendering to texture techniques which I didn't really understand.
While I realize these are small assets which i'm directed against it will be quite a bit part of the level and while I wanted to get a sense for how foliage can assist my buildings.

Anyway yes it started with making a few high poly meshes involving the bend, FFD3x3x3 (which I never even heard of before!) and turbo smooth modifiers.
The idea is to model the individual blades of grass, taper them and with this ffd modifier being able to bend the blades to get a natural effect. Make a few variations of the blades then with a 2x2 segmented plane in the background arrange it so the bottom 2 segments will be 1 model while the halved segments above will be 2 different models.



I haven't really experimented that much with high to low baking or other render to texture techniques. In my vehicle project I learnt about lighting maps which was just a touch on this.
Anyway yes, the idea was to then duplicate the blades and move around as desired. Have them quite close together but not too close and to add to the natural effect to have smaller blades on each side of the 'model'.

Then after that is quite a long technical way of doing things with rendering to texture making alpha maps, colour maps, highlights 1, highlights 2, and base colour.

These are all the maps I created from the render to texture 3dsmax route.


Fairly easy to do actually and the plan was to merge these all onto 1 PSD to get that nice looking grass texture you see in games.
It s actually very technical to do but produces really nice effects, I couldnt believe the result!



Was pretty chuffed with this.

So then was about assigning the textures to models and then arranging around using bend modifiers so the model is seen from all the way around. Then arranging in clumps, I thought doing it as 1 big clump, a medium clump and a small clump which can be put in certain areas would be useful particular around my other assets.



SO put into groups and then exported to UDK, and here is what they look like in Udk.


The idea is to have a grassy texture underneath the grassy model so at the moment it looks a little weird but im confident that when I come to terrain texturing it will work well.



So yes that's grass, Im really pleased with the results and I feel a lot more excited now to see it actually working. Why I didn't do this in the first place I don't rightly know but there you go!

Right Iv sort of sidetracked a little here but I still plan to get all my buildings done and placed by the end of this week. Once they are done and placed then everything will slot together.

Ok so more progress.


Its slowly getting there though my reference for this house isn't as good as my others so iv been having to nick some textures form other houses its going well though but I still reckon it looks quite boring and not much going on. Ill try to crack the clay towards the bottom of the model for interest and maybe add a few bits of moss but that's about it. I think in udk once I get the fences modeled ill vary it a little and maybe have a little bit of a wild garden around areas. Also maybe I could model some little plinth things which could be nailed onto the wood, whatever I do I don't think ill be able to fit anymore on my texture sheet for this building so ill have to place things onto it. Which is good as it gives me freedom to move around.





Ok so that's house 3 done, though I think this looks more of a store room. Think it works reasonably well but again ill have to see what other foliage ill use and see if I can place around to make it a little more interesting. So next ill work on texturing up my first house then after that Ill have to model and texture 4 others.

Texturing and S'nuff

Right so recently had a presentation, I had doubts about my amount and quality of work before the presentation started and what was said re-enforced my concerns so I know that im on the right track.
Basically I needed to have more of the bigger assets modeled, placed and textures. To be honest I was concerned starting doing this which is why I worked on the smaller things first rather than the correct way of important to less important. Anyway! anyway! I also knew that I had to spend more time on trees to get them nicer looking.

Straight from that I decided to work on my little 'shed' which will have a couple of variations especially for near the fishing piers.
Started with the modelling.


Then continuing with the texturing which went pretty well actually!



Although its still quite plain looking, I think ill have to spread more greens and things around. Obviously these sheds will be full of things so that will aid, also being surrounded by trees and other things to stop it looking nasty, could maybe also make a few little signs which are pinned.






So that was the shed, which I managed to complete in a day, fairly happier with the project now and by doing more of these bigger things it should start to come along nicely.
I continued on the workshop also - i think ill edit this slightly as the colors seem a bit weird. I have kept psd's of my textures so any tweaking will be an easy affair.



Also worked on 'house number 2' which I was happy with, I had the dilemma of windows but I didn't really want the inside visible to the player. In my reference I had a snap of a sort of reed cover which I thought I could place inside the windows. Also had a good reference shot of a door which I used.



And this is everything in scene, I will continue to model and texture the remaining large assets and get them placed. Once this is done I should be able to get a better picture of what my level is going to look like. I will also look into foliage again as they are pretty important, all is going well and I feel a bit boosted to get my things done now! Im feeling a little more confident now and amd looking forward to it!

house 3/Pub

Right next im going to attempt to model this house from my reference, I was thinking this would be suitable for the pub of the village as it looks the most modern. What ill do though is model this as it is and maybe use for an individual house and then modify for the pub (I need to consider how its going to be made as ill want to make a little yard also) but for now ill model this as it is.


Right basically as this is a different sort of house than what iv been modelling there probably wont be as many triangles involved as it is basically wood and a clay substance and most will be done in the texture, I still want it to have a certain amount of detail though. So on the picture iv started by drawing a box with a few segments and then manually add wooden planks and edit slightly. Once again I will be unwrapping as I go along to save time.



Ok so this is the base done, the house does look very regular but I will be morphing slightly ti make it as rickety as possible - reaching 1509 triangles and the moment (which is alright for what it is).

Workshop

Right, one of my biggest assets now - the workshop. I want this to be one of the most detailed of my assets and in my reference there is a lot going on inside it, this is also in the middle of my level and so acts as a sort of focal point.
Ill be going through my processes while working on it as im sure there are elements ill have to think about while doing.



So first of all I thought doing the wooden pillars would be the logical place to start, drawing 10 sided cylinders, 'rickety'ing' up to give the effect of tree trunks and placing some holes. On my reference the way this is done is by shearing a rectangle in the cylinder of the trunk but on each pillar afterwards the holes go down past the original on the other side (probably a way of giving it more support).
There are fences inbetween each area also.



Getting all together, the distances between may change as I model. Im unwrapping as im going along to save time, I do not want too many variations of the poles as it eats up the triangles and will have difficulty fitting on the texture sheet.



Going well, at 1080 triangles though but being one of my 2 biggest assets I think that's alright.






In my reference it seemed a little weird as the whole workshop faced backwards towards the village with no means of getting inside unless walking behind. For my level however I want it facing outwards to invite the players inside to have a look.


I decided to rearrange things a little, and opened up the front a bit more and swapped the safety anchors to the other side. for argument sake I could put 2 on the corners at the front..




Hm Im not sure why but this does not look like a workshop to me.. It seems to have more of a quality as a stable - maybe its because there are no assets around or inside it but... I dont know whats wrong with it. Maybe having a look in UDK will inspire whats wrong with it - if anything.

Hm it looks alright but it isnt 'fat enough' I don't think
This is better, I still have to add the boards to it, I think at the back to ill have some planks, making a wall, to give it more of a secure effect.

Here iv added the fencing around the area and also resized it slightly as it still looked too short. I think its size now is a good thing but what im going to try now is putting up some boards at the back of the workshop (thinking of terms of security if the village were real) Im not sure if its going to work but Its something I need to have a go at.


This is just quickly testing with planks put onto the back but.. Don't really like it all that much, if it was 1 complete board of wood I think it'll be alright but.. the gaps in this (as inbetween boards) I don't like. I can try to simply scale them so they fit properly.



Ok so managed to get this far today, think iv done reasonably well. With a board on the back I do prefer and also if necessary I could hang a few assets on there. reached 6946 triangles which is probably reasonable for a tier1 asset. As I said at the start of this post assets which I will model will go inside it so it will not be as bare as it looks.
I will continue to model some more houses - hopefully get them all done by the end of this week.

House 2

Modelling another house today, I started straight away on this.

The house that ill be doing now is one based upon :


But also this for the roof :

(as the roof for the other looked rather plain)

I think this house will be duplicated a few times towards the start of the level.

I didnt really think to record screengrabs but I managed to get to this stage

A bit squarer than the one I did previous which also makes this a lower tricount than the other (I will be doing the doors and the windows a little later)
I forgot to make certain sides high enough for the roof so ill do that now, since I wanted my houses to look a little more modern than my reference I think ill add a beam to this straight section seen in the image and then above it have a slightly different material.



So this is the final thing for that house, I lengthened it slightly as in UDK it looked a little stub.


I also just put my modeled assets into UDK which ill start arranging properly. Since the houses are the biggest things at the moment ill try and get the rest of them done as soon as possible.

The next building Ill make is the workshop area based upon my reference, think this is going to be my biggest asset with the tricount (next to the boathouse) but ill try and restrict it as much as possible, for example the fencing I wont model every little branch used but use an alpha.



This is going to be the biggy but the insides of the workshop, i.e the kiln stool baskets etc will all be separate assets (some iv already modelled) which will be placed in Udk, so ill only be modelling the structure.