House

Ok so I managed to get my fish rigged and a few animations done.

Iv been receiving concerns with the look of my project - thinking more about how the houses are going to look being tier 1 assets.

When I went to West-Stow the buildings they were quite rickety anyway and from my reference I was going to base my modelling upon that.
Here are a few examples;



I think a lot of this is going to happen in the textures but how these houses are made are with quite random and odd shapes, the entire thing slightly slanted and what-not add to their character and to what I was trying to achieve. I was considering trying to concept a little bit to slightly modernize the houses, thinking along the lines of chimneys and windows mainly.

Now iv got just over 40 assets done but I think I will now try to model one of my houses from my reference and see how it goes. As this is a tier 1 asset I will give more triangles to the detail compared to other things which I have done. Ill do the smaller of the houses first to get an idea.

In some cases I may have to exaggerate the rickety quality as some of these houses have been reproduced with straighter planks of wood, the buildings like my planned pub (long yellow building in the above picture) I can do to that style pictured, but some of the smaller ones looked to be more recently re/built where I may have to vary slightly.






This is the one ill have a go at, but ill add a few windows and make the roof slightly higher (like seen in my whitebox mock up for this building)

Just a bit of progression;


Looks terribly basic here but what iv done is made the general shape first just out of a box then to add more detail I decided to draw cut in-half cylinders which I'll then manually line up and place all around the building. Then adding a few loops on certain ones then moving/scaling/rotating to get the effect. The base building iv made I believe Ill keep to give the wooden pieces to rest on, 356 triangles so far.
There will be a beam in the middle of the entire structure with more cylinders going down.
On the reference on the wood also are little metal poles sticking out (for structural integrity im assuming) which ill also model and place.

Also iv noticed that nearer the corners of the house the logs are thicker for support also.





Making houses rickety is pretty time consuming work! Currently at 2928 triangles, Im not entire sure if this is too steep. Briefly looking back at the other buildings they are mainly flat pieces of wood, this type seems more cylindrical and so gives more triangles.. Im guessing this is alright for the important assets. Just gotta keep going - so far im liking the results obviously being better with textures applied.



Cut out pieces near the windows, its going well but the triangle count I am concerned with.. I Cant decide if its a good number or not - though in my triangle budget it'll be fine I don't want to over stretch what is low poly. As I said before this house is more unique as its made from more cylindrical wood... Anyway what ill do now is select a few of these cylinders and delete them/resize a few to again give the effect that I am after. I think after that I will then try and join the edges of the cylinders to make the building compact and get rid of the original box I created.






Yeah, this works pretty well but as ever im concerned with if that triangle count is reasonable. I reckon ill try a baking technique (nothing iv done before)and see how it goes from there - as I said while I can probably afford the triangles it doesn't strike me as good practice to get into.

3848 simply seems too much to me..

Ummm.. well I planned to do the baking thing but I got to this stage and wondered if it was actually worth it for this asset.. It seems like a lot of work to do and since iv about 103 assets to get through I don't think ill have the time for it..
I think I will bake for other assets though but this house as its rather complex with the half cylinders duplicated a few times.. the other houses wont be as awkward as this, which I think I will use the baking technique as the wood appears to be cut properly (still irregular though).


Its all a confusing circle but I think this particular house I will use about 2 times and as Iv said I can afford the triangles.. Will have to see.
For me to understand the baking progress I think my next step is to make another of my houses and try it there. Once I know how to do it properly it should put my mind at ease.