BA3a - Week 4 Summary

BA3a - Week 4 Summary

For this week I decided to merge the Task and the Creative Practice post into one page because my progress on the task this week wasn't as much to cover as last week. 

Task 2

This week I focused on creating the low poly version and doing the bake. I have covered this process many times on this blog so I decided not to go too in depth on my process and mostly show finished results instead. Here are a few pictures showing off the low poly without any baked information yet. I was not satisfied at all with the poly-count, unfortunately due to time pressure I didn't have time to optimise it more so had to leave it for now. 

Polycount: 16 515

UV Map

With the low poly done and the uv's layed out it was time to do the baking, this was rather straight forward process. I did an exploded bake on this one since there were overlapping objects and it gave the best result. The following images are the result after bake.

Normal Map and AO

Next week I will be texturing it using a mix of Photoshop and Substance Painter.

Creative Practice

This week I did two things with my Creative Practice, first I started to look into the workflow of creating rocks and see what the best approach for my project would be. Second I did further research on the Caribbean.

Rocks

By looking up various techniques that can be used to create rocks the first one I decided to try out is the following used in this tutorial: http://angelitoon.deviantart.com/art/making-rocks-process-186044779

Here the process is to first create a simple blockout in any 3d package (Maya in my case) to later bring it in for sculpting in Zbrush and create alpha maps to add the "Rock" detailing to it.

Showing my process from blockout to final sculpt

I then used decimation master tool in Zbrush to create a low poly version of it and also make various LOD's.

I created another rock using the same method as above but with a different style to it. I am more pleased with it since I didn't use as much alpha detailing on it.

I then brought both rocks into Substance Painter for baking and texturing. Here is how they both turned out.

Since as you can see the rock alpha detailing barely made it into the texture I decided to skip that part for my next couple of rocks. I also found this great image of modular rocks created for the game Uncharted 4: A thief's End so decided to try to make something similar.

Modular rocks created by Andres Rodriguez for the title Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

After inspecting how he created these rocks I made my own using a similar approach.

Zbrush Sculpt

Textured version

With these 4 modular rocks done I decided to try to make a test environment in Marmoset Toolbag 2 just to see how these rocks could be used to create a scene.

Next week I will be implementing these rocks into Unreal Engine 4 and start experimenting with a scene. I will also take a look into solutions to the water in the environment since it will be a very large part of the scene I will make sure that it looks good.

Caribbean Research

It is famous for endless blue sky and sunshine. And beaches of pristine white sand, palm trees and torques seas. But what many don’t know is that the Caribbean is created by volcanic forces and also are the target of some of the worst storms on earth. It’s tropical environment is thriving with wild life both on land and at sea. 

The Caribbean Sea contains over 7000 islands and reefs, these can be from just a few meters to many kilometres wide, every island is different. Many of these various islands even have their own unique wildlife. 

Legends of hidden treasures have for a long time attracted travellers to these islands.

There are 17 active volcanos throughout the Caribbean islands, this is the largest number of volcanoes in such a small area in the world. All the ash spread out of these volcanoes are the main reason why the soil has become extremely fertile, resulting in the incredible dense vegetation since just about anything can take root on these islands.

The Caribbean’s volcanic past have caused the mountains to be pushed up which makes them so tall so they can create their own weather. As moist air from the sea rises it forms clouds above the rich forests and provides them fresh water by the help of rain, this makes the Caribbean full of rainforests. 

Nearly all of the Caribbean islands have coral reefs of their shores, some of these because of the Caribbean’s volcanic past, have been pushed up to 300 meters above the sea level which have caused massive networks of limestone caves to appear. These caves act as homes to millions of bats, some islands can inhabit up to 70 different species of bats. 

Moodboards of the Caribbean Environment

The Story of my Environment

This week I also managed to finish the small story I wrote for my environment. I decided to split it up in two parts since my focus on the assets and implementation of the storytelling aspect to the environment will be in BA3b. This story was more just to get an overall idea of the theme I want to go with my cove to keep it in mind while building it.

Part 1

The ‘Slackjaws’… once known as the most respected privateers in the Spanish main were now labelled as criminals, low breeds… Pirates. A loud roar of anger followed by what sounded like a table being flipped came from the captains quarter. The doors slammed open… With a letter in one hand and an almost empty bottle of rum in the other, captain ‘Yorick’ shouts ‘Is this what is to become of the kings men?!’ he gives a loud snort while walking up to the top deck where his crew is waiting. ‘Listen up!’ shouts Yorik and sees his crew, well that is the ones not already staring at him that is, now turns their attention to the captain. ‘As you all may know this letter in my hand, this letter of marque… has now paid its due. As the Spaniards and English have called a truce they have decided that men like us are not needed anymore.’ 

As the captain begins to tore the letter asunder swashbuckler ‘Derrek’ asks ‘So… what happens now captain? We cannot return to port or we’ll be attacked on sight, half our crew have either been killed or abandoned us. What is your plan captain?’ sighs can be heard among the crew as they loose hope. The captain struggles not to share their feelings but if anyone on this ship needs to be alert it’s him. What they need now is a miracle… 

‘I know of a place….’ the crew and it’s captain turns their head to see who spoke those words and there stands an old man who no one have ever seen before. He wears rugged clothes and has eyes that are cloudy as a stormy sky and he doesn’t seem to have much in him left. Captain Yorik shouts to the man ‘Who are you old man and how did you get on board of my ship?!’. The old man smiles and says ‘Who I am doesn’t matter, what matters is that you and your crew needs a location to port and I happen to know of such a place.’ as the old man says this he pulls out a map and gives off a giggle followed by a strong cough. 

‘Would you like to have a peek?’ he says as he rolls open the map on top of a crate. The captain gives off a grunt, but in a lack of better alternatives he walks over to the map to look at the map. ‘Isla de cráneo?’ the captain says while pointing at what seems to be an island with weird symbols around resembling skulls. As he speaks those words some members of the crew gives a gasp of fear. He rises an eye brow while turning to his crew ‘I suppose, you have heard of this island before?’ one of the mean slowly walks forward ‘Y…yes captain’ while nodding in a rapid manner. ‘There are rumours of this island… People say that there is a curse resting upon it’s shores, men that have entered the island have never been seen again. The ships that sail by never dare to even go close to the island.’

The Captain turns to the old man with a questionable look, the man says ‘ And that’s the reason why this is the perfect place for you and your crew! Look at me! I have been to the island and can you see anything wrong with me?!’ the man giggles ‘You are a criminal now, and no man even dear to even go close to the island!’

The captain takes a step back, he mutters for himself while stroking his beard. ‘Crew!’ he shouts. ‘If we were to follow this mans advice we would have a place that we could call our own. I don’t know about you but with the withdrawal of that letter I lost everything I once had. With nothing to loose I say we at least journey to this ‘Isla de cráneo’ in the hope of building a new home. If you do not wish to join me then feel free to leave my ship but know this, we are now wanted men. The next time you enter port you will get either shot or hung’. 

The men look as each other, one nodding after another. ‘Aye!’ one man roars ‘I’m with you Captain!’ another. ‘That’s settled then!’ the captain shouts as he unsheathes his sword and put it against the throat of the old man ‘You are coming with us, and if you are wrong about all of this I will feed you to the sharks’. 

And so, the Slackjaw’s set off to what would end up as their new home, but little did they know of what secrets they would uncover…

Isla de Cranéo = Skull Island