Understanding Lighting [UDK]

Lighting in UDK

Following the tutorial in UDK we learnt to add light points. We learnt how to create different types of lighting to create different moods. The lighting is crucial in creating the right atmosphere.

In my practice level I use lighting inside a building in a post-apocalyptic environment to create a dark grim and moist environment. I use dim lights to create this mood. I would prefer dimming the lighting even more but it may be quite difficult seeing anything. Plus it would take me 2hours+ to re-build all the lighting on my laptop.

In this example I use different coloured lights for the lit buttons on the machine.

All the lighting throughout the level is yellow; some are closer to white than others. Giving it a yellow tint combined with a lack of light creates an old atmosphere.

When I attempt to create a dark and scary mood like in a horror game, it is very easy to create. Scaling down the light points make the shadows bigger, the more shadows the more insecure the player would feel, because in horror games, the players fear what they cannot see. It is also the best hiding spot for monsters.

 Throughout the level I had carefully placed meshes that provide cover to help the player hide from monster or other such enemies if it were used in a game.

Working with Maya [Maya]

Working with Maya

While working through the 3D module I have learnt many helpful skills, using different 3D softwares. Though I have had many difficulties in Maya I have learnt how apply textures to a model. One big difficulty I had was applying the texture. I did manage to create the brick texture for the wall. I was unable to apply it whilst following the video tutorial. Nothing worked, not even errors appeared.

Here is a screenshot of where I had got up to in the texturing videos.

I selected the surface of the wall and held right click on the texture and attempted to add the texture but when I did, nothing happened.

Another problem I had faced was with the drainpipe. Whilst creating it for the second time, following the video, I could not curve the drainpipe no matter what I had tried. I followed the tutorial very closely but did not succeed. In the end I stayed with the original drainpipe which was made using the basic straight cylinder.

Overall the modelling of the house was rather simple. The tutorial was very helpful, everything was explained. This really helped me understand how objects could be made in several different ways. I’d imagine one way of creating an object and in the video it revealed quicker ways of achieving the same thing but with more efficiency because it was tidy. Sometimes I’d find a quicker way to making a particular model, this is great because it shows i'm getting the idea on how it works.

The texturing ended up becoming much more complicated than I had imagined. In Maya texturing consists of creating textures in Photoshop. After that you had to save two types of images, one in colour and the other in greyscale (for bump map).

This is nothing like texturing in UDK, if you texture by drag and drop onto a surface. I know there is a more complicated way of texturing on UDK, but I do not know how to use it.

Stating my Problems

Considering my time management, I had left my house un-textured. I had left a very important task too late. Having left the texturing so late, I couldn't get the help I required in finishing the house.

I could have improved on this task if I asked for help more often. Trying to find things out on my own wastes precious time, which could be used finishing work and creating new models that will benefit me for the future providing me with work to expand my portfolio.

I also have the problem in giving up every time I get stuck on something and then eventually coming back to it again, another way I waste time unintentionally.

The Model Design List [Zbrush]

ZBrush Model Design List

These items I have chosen are from my game idea. The game is based in a very dark kingdom in exile from the rest of the world because it had become so corrupt. The kingdom is full of monstrous creatures that roam outside under and inside the kingdom. It is a clash of medieval items and part pirate; maybe the genre could be called Medpirevil. I just thought too much medieval is boring and too dull, so I wanted to add a bang to the cold, dark and dirty medieval by adding guns and clever mechanisms. 

Here is the list of what I aim to create using Zbrush. Unfortunately I won’t be able to create many since I don’t have enough time before the deadline.

Items:

Dagger

Leather pouches

Glass vials

Staff

Sword

Giant worm

Plague Dog

Giant Parasites

Flintlock pistol

Fantasy grenade

Grapple-dart mechanism

Special:

Cult artefacts (dark shapes with inscriptions carved into them, almost like it is made of black glass with a tint of purple-blue)

The below are characters I aim to create with more knowledge and practice using Zbrush.

Characters:

Werewolves

Mutated animals (combined with humans)

Sages (Old/adult/teen)

Vampires

Hostile Creatures:

-          A creature that attempts to burrow under your skin and that instantly begins releasing its spawn. Found in wet areas. These creatures stay in large groups in roughly hundreds.

-          Gargoyle-like bat creatures, they fly amongst vampire bats and are considered the alpha-leaders of the bats. They guide the bats on which target to attack. The vampire bats surround the Gargoyle to hide its appearance before it attacks, making it a very evasive predator.

-           A severely mutated dog. It grows disease ridden spots that are designed to burst on light contact. These dogs are known for spreading diseases wherever possible. They don’t fight in packs, they are solo predators.

-          A fast burrowing worm that can grow up to 20ft. This worm tunnels through the mud walls in the labyrinth. When it detects heat through the walls it can launch itself out of the walls and into its prey.  While launching itself it sprays an acid at the same time, this dissolves the flesh and creates a very sticky substance as well. After burrowing its head into the prey (mostly humans) it pulls them into the wall. The acid sticks the prey to the wall, then the worm eats its prey stuck to wall, it also acts as hidden protection while it feasts.

Making the Sword [Zbrush]

Crafting the Sword (steps)

1.       I used shadow box to create the blade.

2.       The handle is simply a cylinder that was extended using the move tool.

3.       The guard is made up of one object that was cloned and rotated and move together.

4.       To create the guard, I used a plane to mask about a guard like shape with to hoop sides.

5.       Later extracting the mask out from the plane.

6.       I then masked the centre of the guard object excluding the hooped endings. I smoothed the mask and then used the move tool to bend it.

7.       Then cloned the object, rotated it 180 degrees and moved it into its clone.

I like the sword blade made in shadowbox, but I think the handle really didn’t fit in, because it was a very rough edged cylinder. Maybe if I subdivided it a few times and added rings around it for detail and a grip look it could work. When I made the sword it was the first time I had used shadowbox, to begin with it was awkward to follow, basically completely new to me. In the end I got to grasps with it. It helped me well when I had to do some complicated shapes on the Blunderbuss (flintlock pistol).

I hope to create some more detailed weapons using more of shadowbox, but I still do not know how to fix the smoothing problem I get with shadowboxed shapes. They shapes created in it are too smooth and sometimes create cylinder shapes. I think it is has something to do with what shape you choose to shadowbox.

Here is an image that inspired the model. I had a broken rusty sword idea in my head.

The screenshot is from the game Kingdom of Amalur. This is what your character is dressed in at the start of the game and this is the first weapon you get. It looks pretty deadly.

http://www.almarsguides.com/Almar's%20Stuff/Misc/Amalur/Rusty%20Longsword.jpg

Making the Glass Vials [Zbrush]

Glass Vials:

Large Vial:

1.       Insert a cylinder

2.       Mask about half of the cylinder (top part) and using the move the move tool, pull the top part up lengthening the shape.

3.       Still only selecting the top half, soften the masked object and scale it down.

4.       After scaling it, lengthen it again, because scaling it down will also shorten it.

5.       Keep scaling and moving parts of the object till you have a tower like top half with a flat top.

6.       Mask the flat top and using the move tool pull it up a bit to create the end of the neck (bottle neck).

7.       In an attempt in trying to get a nice end of the bottleneck, almost like a loop that is at the end. I used a deformation tool with spherize to create the edge.

8.       Mask the top excluding the unchanged bottom half (cylinder) use the move tool and move it back, moving it to a very awkward position.

9.        Masking a patch on the side I smoothed the mask many times and then move that inwards making the bend more interesting.

10.   To finish off the vial I need a cork. I began with inserted another cylinder.

11.   Selected the top with the mask tool and scaled it down making the cork shape.

12.   To make the vial hollow I simply selected the entire vial and extracted it out.

Small Vial:

1.       Insert a sphere.

2.       Position the camera so you are looking down on the sphere. Mask a small circle on top of the sphere. This will be the neck.

3.       Use the move tool and bring pull out the selected area to create the bottle/vial neck.

4.       Mask the entire object and then extrude. Remove the model that isn’t hollow.

5.       I created a different type of top/cork this time to not become repetitive. Insert a sphere.

6.       Using the move tool squish the object to make button like shape or near enough flatten circle shape.

7.       Mask the centre of the circle on both sides.

8.       Use move tool to push both sides inwards to create the indents.

9.       Mask the bottom of the circle.

10.   Use the move tool the pull it outwards to create the part that fits into the vial to act like the cork.

11.   Pulling it out will probably make the end smaller. Use the scale tool the make it thicker again, making sure it seals the top of vial not allowing any space between the cork and vial.

12.   Use the curve tool to cut the pointed tip of the cork bottom.

 The vials were relatively easy to create. To get the weird bend on the larger vial I played around a bit, masking the top have and dragging it around to see if it looked good while bending to one side. he smaller vial was easy to make since it was just a sphere with a neck. With it being pretty easy I wanted to create a more complicated cork/top. So I made a practical top with a grip.


Here are some reference pictures that are closest related to m vial ideas. It mostly concerns the smaller vial.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kunikodarkangel/5114581119/in/photostream/lightbox/

http://tamaraeatondesign.blogspot.co.uk/

http://en.paperblog.com/blue-glass-bottles-with-6-bids-9-auction-ends-wednesday-jj-s-auction-service-155850/

Making the Blunderbuss [Zbrush]

The Blunderbuss

Gun Frame

Insert cylinder. Use move tool to stretch it length ways. Mask half of the cylinder and start curving it into the handle of the pistol. To create the end of the handle, mask the end and enlarge it, and move it up against the handle so that there isn’t a gap between the handle and the round end. To increase the bulk to the gun, I masked the bottom of the gun (under the barrel) and using the scale tool, enlarged it. Enlarging it will make it move the whole thing uneven, to using the move tool after scaling it fixes this. 

Barrel

Mask the top half the untouched half of your cylinder. Use the one of the flatten tools to create a flat surface. The barrel will go here. Insert another cylinder for the barrel. Make it fit along the flat half of the cylinder with half of the barrel sticking out.

End of barrel

To make the end of the gun, insert another cylinder but this time in a separate subtool. I have to do this because the shape must not be a poly mesh. So with this in mind, select the cylinder, select the Initialize tool and drag the bars across using Tapertop (to enlarge the end or shrink) and Inner Radius (This makes the shape hollow making it fit correctly with the barrel, or at least making it look like a hollowed out barrel).

Add to the bulk

To make the gun a bit more bulky, I added a block above where the trigger will go. Simply insert a cube, subdivide it a couple of times and place it in the central part of the gun.

Flint Mechanism

To create the trigger mechanism I used mostly shadowbox e.g. the frizzen and flash pan. But to create the cock that holds the flint I used cylinders and a box. I subdivided the box about four times and masked the centre and right part and using the move tool moved it out a little. I then used the inflate balloon tool to make it look like the piece of flint using the same shape. The stem part was one cylinder that is made to look like several.

Skull & swords

I made the skull and two swords with shadowbox also. I inserted a plane and then used the shadowbox tool. I draw a very detailed image. Yet it didn’t come out and fine, most of the image is there. I was going to have it on both sides but I couldn’t because the flint mechanism would cover one side of the gun.

Ramrod

With flintlock pistols you must not forget the ramrod; this is what you use to push the ball down the barrel. The ramrod is placed within the gun structure under the barrel.  Insert a cylinder, size it down to make it quite thin. Mask the end and enlarge it slightly, I enlarged it quite a lot because my gun is not very accurate so it almost has a cartoony look. Bring the end back against to close the gap between the enlarged part and the rest of the cylinder.

Screws

The screws used for holding the flint mechanism were made with a cylinder. I sized the cylinder right down, subdivided about 3 times and masked a line down the surface. With the masked line I used the move tool to subtract into the cylinder. Duplicate it and use it for the other part.

Problems faced & solved

Flint mechanism

I found the flint mechanism slowed me down quite a bit. I managed to create a believable vice and flint with only a cube. Only part I dislike is the stem of the vice, It looks like I put a bunch of small cylinders together, plus it doesn’t fit the type of design.

Barrel end

In the beginning I did not use a separate part for the end of the barrel and instead I tried to enlarge small parts and using the move tool to attempt to make it smooth. In the end it was off, it was smooth and did not fit very well. With some help I create a separate shape and realised how easy it was to achieve the shape I wanted.

Trigger

The trigger was tricky. I spent a lot of time rotating a cube and stretching to all sorts of shapes. In the end I managed to find the right rotations and deformation tools to make it work.

Trigger guard

This was quite awkward to work with. I still think it’s odd. I wanted to extend it, making it follow down the handle of the gun, but when I stretch the shape too far it flattened out too mush losing the round cylindrical shape I needed for the guard. I eventually decided to leave it in its early stages.

Fixing parts that were in a straight line

I had several problems with using the move tool the scale objects. I later realised that I had only enlarged the shape from my point of view, so I had to keep checking the side of the shape to fix it. One example of this was when I was making the ramrod, from my point of view it looked fine, but from the side it was an oval shape, so I had the use the move tool from a side tool also, doubling the time to enlarge the rod.

Overall, the making of my blunderbuss has taught me the most on how to manipulate shapes. It is by far my most favoured model. I’m eager to create a better version with more personality.


When trying to find a suitable flintlock pistol design to follow, there were just so many and so many brilliantly designed pistols. In the end I found what looks like a cheap model flintlock to try and build. It wasn't anything too fancy which was great for me because I could add more too it. Having seen so many flintlock pistols, it will be added to my list of life ambitions, to build a real one.


Here is the reference picture I found.

Importing the House [UDK]

Importing Steps

1.      Open UDK

2.      Open content browser (ctrl + shift+ F)

3.      Right click ‘New Packages’ then select import.

4.      Select the file e.g. Street_Export

5.      Right click the mesh you have imported

6.      Select ‘Edit using static mesh editor’

7.      Click ‘Collision’ tab

8.      Select ‘Auto convex collision’. Adding collisions to the mesh makes it a solid object. When you play the level with the house you would be able to run straight through the house without an collisions set to stop you.

9.      You will get a box with 3 slider options. Move them all to max, then ‘Apply’.

10.   Click the house model and drag it onto the map

11.   Close the box with the sliders. On the right of the static mesh editor window select the dropdown option ‘LODinfo’ – [0] – Elements. You will see numbers [0] to [16]. (Note: [0] doesn’t do anything if textures were applied to it). Each of these numbers represent a part of the house e.g. windows, doors, lamppost, roof etc.

12.   To apply a texture to the house, click on a texture in the content browser and then click the green arrow next the box within one of the numbered dropdowns.
13.   After texturing the house, we looked at adding a light source to the lamppost. Right click the surface or ground and select add player – add light (point). You can then drag, rotate and enlarge the light source to whatever seems to fit with the lamppost.


I enjoyed working through the Unreal Development Kit because I had used it before on my previous course. Though I never imported a mesh from a software related to Maya. I previously used Blender to create models and import them into UDK, yet I think I've completely forgotten how to do that now.
Learning to import meshes from Maya to UDK has really inspired and motivated me to continue with Maya, because both those softwares are easy to access and I could practice it at home over the holiday.


The only tricky part with this tutorial was which number was which part of the house, when I was trying to texture it. Good thing we were given the solutions to each number otherwise it would have taken forever.