Here's everyone's busy week and what they would like to share below!
Hannah:
Prepping for our presentation to Sony this week I spent the day before making sure our art bible was up to date and coherent for someone looking at it for the first time as well as screenshots of our benchmark assets.
It was a concern how the chamber will be powered and how to give it the hero asset treatment it needs. However after a deep dive into it I really felt like having loads of wires running around would take away from the atmosphere we were trying to create. Looking back at the art bible and the iron lung power source I think something simple with a fuse box nearby and raising it off the floor to be more effective.
The presentation itself went well and we received some very positive feedback. A lot of the feedback on how to improve we were already aware of as a group, which means we are thinking along the right track! We need to make sure the vista eludes to a living world outside and make sure our storytelling elements really drive home the narrative!
After a quick clean up of topology and separating a few pieces out I finally started texturing the journals. As I wasn’t in one day, from home I began analysing references on how to go about my foliage assets and made a start on those too.
Willow:
This week has been very helpful for me in terms of feedback. As we had some representatives from Sony come in to review the block out stage for our project. Overall they seemed very pleased with the stage we where at and they gave some good feedback as to how we as a team and I personally can move forward. Regarding lighting they seemed pleased with my view of how the lighting should in the end look reflecting back on the art boards. They where also happy with the overall colour in the environment.
They suggested to make things a bit more dramatic with more light pouring through from the second room and some darker spots throughout. So this is what I have been working on implementing so far.
I have also had some feedback from tutors this week regarding my lighting and have been told that shadow and highlight values seem to be working, which allows me move onto adding some finer details. I have also re-established the physical light direction in the environment and set up my post process and camera values to allow me to have more control through the environment.
As we move into the next week and production starts to pick up I look forward to continuing to light this environment with its wide range of props.
Joseph:
This week we had the Sony reps in to view our work and reflect their Ideas and criticisms. Interestingly they didn't have many criticisms. They actually really liked the project and enjoyed the demonstration. The comments ranged from we had a strong art bible and a clear art direction to the idea is really cool and the length of the game play is good. Our blockout was playable the whole way through and was already being done to a high standard, so it was a great first impression.
My contribution to the level presentation was an interactive benchmark asset. The Vampire hunting kit. its an asset that combines many smaller assets inside it and in-engine it looks great. The simple interaction of lifting the lid also feels really intuitive and interesting too.
After the presentation I started creating 5x surgical tools a scalpel, general knife, amputation knife, bone-saw and a hand drill all are textured and me and I've taken on the finalisation of the stasis chamber. Interior and exterior final. this should be finished next week and ill proceed to move on to other assets.
All in all another great week. Me and Hannah also reviewed the finished work and gave feedback to the team. Onto next week.
Kyran:
This week the group had to prepare for the Sony presentation on Wednesday morning. With that, we worked strong through Monday and Tuesday to ensure we was out of grey box stage by presentation.
Stasis Chamber:
My biggest role and contribution throughout the week leading up to the presentation was creating our first pass stasis chamber, where the player will start in our game level. It had some challenges; setting it up so it could be opened by the player, as well as having all the interactive valves that the player uses to solve a puzzle. A massive contribution in the mechanics side of the process came from Tom.
Presentation feedback:
Wednesday morning, Hannah, Tom and I, spoke to Sony in a presentation of the project: overall they was impressed with the progress we had made with such little time into development, they then highlighted some areas for us to work on; which we will now make our priority for the next presentation. Some of these key things being the following:
- Stasis chamber- How does it get oxygen? Perhaps piping leading outside the building
- Some scale feels slightly off
- More life into the scene- i.e. sounds, crows flying away from the big vista point
- A more grand entrance into the surgical theatre: opening up a bookcase as supposed to a turning wall.
Dire Wolf Skull:
After this, Thursday I started working on creating a dire wolf skull, one of the other points Sony brought up is that we should start getting in more story telling elements; this really hits the subject on the nose of a monster hunter environment. So far in terms of progression I've finished my High poly mesh, I'm now in the process of retopology, I'm very carefully considering that there's a high possibility that the player will be able to pick this up and hold it close to them. So being generous with the retopology and then use the LOD system inside of unreal engine to make it more efficient for in game use.
High poly sculpt of Dire Wolf Skull
Kevin:
This week, I tried to get the posters ready for the presentation that was on Wednesday because it was 1 of the important assets that should be in the scene which shows story development. After finishing the posters, I was allocated to do the chalkboard because the guys from Sony said that the room looked quite empty. After completing the chalkboard, I was given the task to do a test tube with a stand as it's one of the important props.
Chris:
This week we had the presentation to Sony. Before the presentation, I finished up the Bookshelf I had started on the week before and even made adjustments to its size for it to fit in the scene. Lastly, I created the vistas for both the Lab window and the Theatre which turned out rather well. After the presentation, it was decided that my bookshelf would be used for the secret door. the rest of the week has been spent adjusting the model to fit the space, as well as re UVing and re texturing the model to fit its new requirements.
Urim:
This week was quite a busy week. We had Sony come in on Wednesday and give us feedback on our 2-week progress so far but before that, I had quite a lot to do in terms of getting the blockout stairs done as well as the exit and railings. This meant that I had 2 days to be able to complete it and get it into the scene as soon as possible so that it can be lit and ready to present the following day. I managed to model and UV each of those pieces and stick them into unreal with minor adjustments to fit the scene properly. In terms of textures, I didn't have enough time to complete a basic base colour pass and import them into unreal so I just used one of the wood textures that was made in substance designer as a place holder.
The overall feedback from Sony was amazing, we had great insight on what works and what doesn't form a professional VR studio company. They mentioned a bunch of things that would help us improve the scene immensely. After the presentation, the official production had begun and everyone was back to work with their assets at the highest quality possible. I started to re-evaluate all the meshes in the theatre room and made them more efficient as well as complete the textures for them. I then started working on the small doors and getting them up to a high-quality standard 3d game asset.
Adrian:
Its been an exciting week as we got to show out scene to Sony on Wednesday for feedback (So it was all hands on deck in preparation).
The presentation went well and I have to give props our team members that presented and pitch our scene. They did a fantastic job at coherently explaining and conveying the narrative, mood, mechanics and progress through our scene. They did team the proud.
Speaking of Props, my role this week as an prop artist consisted of making to two prop ready for first pass (the term we used, when the object is modelled and textured and ready to go into the scene for review). I also start to block out the shape of the 3 prop.
Prop 1 - Chandelier for the main theatre
Thankfully this prop was not of the ornate glass chandelier variety, just think of the transparency cost in VR as well setting up the render order ordering. Although I imagine making a ornate glass chandelier would be fun and challenging.
This chandelier is 99% all metal apart from the bulbs. My main challenges making this prop was to keep the poly count down, baking the metal chains on to two planes that are perpendicular that look believable in VR.
The chandelier contains and lot of round pipes and sphere shapes, which can be problematic as to keep the silhouette and shape when viewed up close normally requires an increase polys to stop the curvature of the edges from looking like straight lines.
For this prop, I made sure to leave the parts of the chandelier that are closest the camera with enough poly's to retain the illusion of it being circular. The higher the parts of the chandelier I reduced the poly's on the edges as the viewer is never able to get up close (to help with optimisation).
The metal chains were fun to make and I tried two different approaches. My first was to model the chain (by making and link and duplicating it along an animation path) then to try to bake it on planes. The second method was to apply a normal map (plus alpha map) of a tiling chain link in UV space.
The first approach I found some what troublesome as getting the planes to match the chain geometry was fiddly, it baked ok but looked a little weird in places.
The second one yielded much better results and did a go job at faking the 3D effect of the chains.
With texturing I just applied a painted metal material, then tweak/blended the micro surface normals to try and match the reference imagines. After which I painted a dust colour/texture layer to try and mimic how dust would primarily stick to the top surfaces and not the underneath.
Prop - 2 Spinning Chalkboard
For this prop I made a block out version in Maya, then put it in to Zbrush to soften the edges, give them character and damage. After which I decimated and retopolgised in Maya. For the texturing in substance painter I applied an awesome wooden material created by member of the team. Then further tweaked and painted areas for detail.
I am currently working on modelling an old Victorian leather surgical bag.
Viktor:
Another week of production and feedback from Sony. Great achievements.
The first half of the week we spent on getting everything ready for our presentation on Wednesday which for me included helping out with some environment pieces. The first room needed an extra door and I've done a first pass on the sarcophagus too so we can measure the size and find an appropriate place for it.
For the second room, I've done the mesh for the floor that includes a platform that hides a pit with the surgical chair in it. It was fairly simple but I've tried to add some details from the references to make it as interesting as it can get.
After the great feedback received, we've all continued to work hard and start to get some great quality assets in the scene. I've done a human skull that I'm very pleased with. At first I was very conscious about the poly count and made it visibly low poly and faceted, but with the feedback and help of one of the tutors, Tom, I've redone the final version to about 5k polys. It looks way better now and there texturing helps to take it to the next level.
Next week I'm planning to block out the rest of my assets from the list and once that's done, i might have some time left to experiment with some advanced material setups for the use of detail normals, slice masks for the props and material blending for tiling materials.
Luke:
This week i finished texturing the crate, and the jug then moved onto some of the smaller assets as i finished my top priority assets, i created the medical trolley, mortar and pestle as well as the distilling device in Maya. should Finnish texturing all of these by Monday afternoon.
Shay:
I spent the beginning of this week making sure there was no grey left in the environment so it was ready for when Sony came. I did a quick pass on the wooden floor and walls and also the plaster. The rest of the week I updated the floor material so it was better quality I also added geometry so it didn't look super flat. Hopefully by Monday they will both be added into the scene
Tom:
25/11/2019 - I started refining the valve puzzle so it would fit Kyran's container design more, luckily this only meant I had to place the valves manually rather than dynamically, something I should learn to do more often rather than just trying to make something more clean. I then made sure the wheels would spring return in a combination pattern.
26/11/2019 - Final day before the Sony presentation, I did a rush to finish the game sequence and get a good game flow working, so that the player could start and finish the game. This involved implementing the rising theatre platform, the key inside and the final lock. I also moved all objects out of the main level into their respective levels. My final changes before submission were making the chair swivel and opening the vampire survival toolkit
27/11/2019 - Presentation day, we did very well, Sony seemed quite impressed with our blockout and there were no hitches, except the first puzzle being difficult to interact with. Certainly due to the nature of the valve and how a person would usually open them. I also started modelling! My first asset for this project (and maybe even my last, due to the massive amount of work piling up on the programming side of things) the 19th century gramophone.
28/11/2019 - Finished modelling the gramophone today, the object didn't need a high poly, so I was quite lucky on that end. I also finished UVing and started texturing it too. I'll be posting some pictures soon on it.
Our next milestone:
The next milestone for the team is to be met two weeks from now: the first room (lab room) should feel to a fleshed out/ somewhat finished standard by this point. I think with the size of the team this is a very achievable milestone to be met. We will be doing end of weeks review every week for the rest of the project to ensure we are meeting our milestones.
Summary of the week:
To round of this blog to a conclusion; I would like to stress that the team has worked very hard over the course of the week leading up to the presentation and even into the starting of full scale production.
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