Basic Rigging

 

You know, this was an experience. If I never have to do rigging again, I would be grateful. If I do, at least I know how to do it. Can I do it well? I'm not sure. But is there a skeleton and joints and constraints? YES!

Crate Textured

 

I wanted to make kind of a mossy old looking crate because I really like messing around with gritty textures.

I wanted to try Nick's workflow from the video instead of doing my usual PBR workflow. Ya know, I'm used to using the smart materials and working off of those smart materials. This time, I made a base color and kind of worked off the base color. I don't think it turned out exactly the way I wanted it to, because it still very much follows the PBR workflow. But I'm trying to push myself I guess lol. 

Rifts in War: Color Values

 

Blueprint Basics Homework

 

We've got an open door, we've got a closed door, and we've got a giant disappearing rotating chair!!! I did NOT fight for my life to do this assignment or to submit it in Perfore.

So basically, I watched the 1st video that Nitin posted for the material changing script. I had to look up how to get the opacity channel to show up in the material editor. After I fiddled around with it for a bit, I got the chair to disappear and reappear! Its a magical chair in a magical dock. 

For the collision requirement of the assignment, I made a door open and close on collision enter/exit. It was pretty simple and I added a timeline to it so the door wouldn't just snap open and closed. For whatever reason what I wanted to do and the 2nd lecture video wasn't clicking in my head so I ended up watching a tutorial on how to do the door. But then they started doing all types of complicated stuff so then I referred back to the lecture video and it ended up being pretty simple. I was probably just over thinking it. 

I also migrated over the 3rd person controller from a default project because for some reason the 1st person controller in the file is broken? I had to look up how to actually make the character show up when you press the play button but that was also pretty simple.

Here is my perforce submission!

Game Res Mesh

 

Tripod Protomesh

 

I had a lot of fun building this protomesh from the sketch. So, for this project we assigned a sketch for the person to model so this is Trevor's sketch of the tripod for our game. Overall, I think it turned out pretty cool. I interpreted the middle part that he had in the glass as a brain, so I wanted to do something like the Metroid brain. So, to make that, I actually used the metal ball mesh in Blender; they're really cool actually. What the metal balls do is kind of mesh into each other and they automatically connect to make kind of like an organic shape. For the tentacles, it's really just a point that I extruded along the shape of the curve and then I converted it to a curve and then I added thickness to it and then I converted it back to a mesh. Then we added the lil unreal mannequin for a scale comparison. It's rendered in Maya.

Perforce submission:

Lighting Assignment

 

Right SO! I ALSO fought for my life for this project too. I've restarted this project twice because for whatever reason unreal didn't want to save and NOW I can't upload it to perforce and its due in exactly 58 minutes. :)  (I shouldn't have waited till the last minute to turn it in sooooo... never doing that again lol) SO! Here is my blog post and my lil screenshots to at least turn in something. Will I have to restart for a 3rd time? Who knows! Perhaps I will, and another part of my soul will die. I'll let update and let y'all know! 

I've been fighting for my life this whole week and I know that I'll be fighting for my life for AT LEAST the rest of this week. I'm so tired and I really want a Jimmy Deans breakfast croissant sandwich. Idk, we've had really bad luck this week. My evil eye BROKE. You know it's bad when the evil eye breaks. BUT I digress. Let me get into my process because that's the whole point of this blog post lol.

SO! Look! Isn't to so pretty? I was going for the dock at sunset. I first followed the video lecture that Nitin had posted so I could get all of my settings right, and then I downloaded a specifically a coastal sunset HDRI from Poly Haven. I then looked at a couple reference images to get the vibe down. I love golden hour. Remember in like 2016 when we would all wait for golden hour to take those aesthetic selfies? No? Just me? Okay.

Anyhoo, I migrated the fantasy props pack from my other project and then I downloaded some pirates and some fire VFX from the asset library and I went to work! For the lanterns, I added the fire VFX into it and then I lowered the intensity and then I added a warm point light so it would cast shadows and emanate from the lantern. I really wanted to capture the pink and orange colors that you see during sunset so I made my HDRI a light pink color and I made my directional light a vibrant orange and then I messed around with the brightness and exposure of both of the lights until I ended up with something I was happy with. I also messed around with the rotation of the directional light so it would look more like sunset because you're not going to have sunset with a sun that is pointing down directly on the scene. That's high noon. 

I really like the way it turned out and I overall had fun with lighting; even though I think I'm so much better at lighting in Maya/Blender but perhaps I can get good at lighting in engine too. If I have to restart for a 3rd time, it may look better than this! Ya know practice makes perfect. :/

Update: I had to restart it :)

Crate: The Sculpt

 

I fought for my life

Art Bible: Silhouette

 

So, for my silhouettes I really wanted to capture shape language of the Ratchet and Clank enemies while keeping the overall vibe of the Tripod. When gathering references, I noticed that many of the enemies have these huge heads and small lower bodies, so I really wanted to capture that vibe. After doing the first silhouette, I realized that it didn't look right without the tentacles, so I decided to add it to the rest of them. I really feel like that addition makes it feel more reminiscent of War of the Worlds. For the very last 2, I wanted them super similar to the original Tripod and I think those might be my favorites; especially the one second to last. I overall had a lot of fun messing around with the silhouettes.

Here are my references: I added the enemies from Munch's Oddysee and the Grievers from Maze Runner because I felt like it captured the shape that I wanted.  

Here is my Perforce submission:

Medieval Werewolf

 

So, I decided to use the asset pack to make a lil medieval house and a werewolf. I really felt like the werewolf fit the theme and even though the scene is a little bland, I thought it still tells a story. So, see, picture this: Leopold and Clam are 2 medieval bros. That's why their house and surroundings are bland, because they're the equivalent of modern-day frat boys. They just needed the essentials. A badly built house to bring the maidens back and a table to take mead shots and 2 bowls for their protein filled haggish. They didn't even have benches for the table. Like I said, they just needed the essentials. 

They were 2 bros just chilling till a BIG BAD WEREWOLF came and crashed their party. They ran away and now all that's left is their badly built house and their empty cups... they couldn't run away that fast though; they were a couple meads deep.

Thoughts:

Perforce makes me wanna chop my legs off. I had a few problems, but I figured it out. I did feel really good after I figured it out! I really think that I was just overthinking it and I wanted it to be like GitHub and its NOT. I finally accepted it. Hopefully I did everything correctly haha. 

 

 

Crate: The Blockout

Here is my crate block out. See, so, I wanted to go for more of a futuristic look while still keeping the wooden planks look. Obviously, it's just a block out, but trust the process; its going to look really cool.

Here are my references. 

Art Bible: References

 

Our game is inspired by War of the Worlds in the art style of Ratchet and Clank. So I worked on the props slide because I LOVE designing and modeling props. 

To prepare of this project our group had a War of the Worlds watch party and let me tell you, I did NOT enjoy that movie. Everyone in the movie was making me mad; the dad, the kids, why was the girl always screaming and why was the son like "dad I need to see this" as if they're not in the middle of an alien invasion? But I digress. 

I decided to look for a bunch of objects that were common in the early 2000s since that's around the time period that War of the Words took place in. We decided that we wanted our character to start out in a basement and then go out to explore the destroyed world around him, so I wanted to look more for environmental props like things you would find in a dank basement or in a post-apocalyptic street. I decided to not look for weapons since the player wouldn't be fighting the aliens and of course the tripods in the movie are weapons in itself. I also decided to add in the collage of the Ratchet and Clank props because I thought it gave a great overview of multiple objects in the Ratchet and Clank universe.