polygons in game design are straight sided shapes (3 or more sides) and are defined by a few different basic components these being the Vertices, Edges and Faces.
The vertices are the points that are around the shape connected by the lines between them being edges while the faces exist between these and are manipulated by the main method of moving the positions of the vertices and edges.
In Auto desk Maya the vertices faces and edges can all be pulled apart through different uses and specifically selected to move separately from the rest of the shape as the edges keep the shape together and allow the shape to be able to take the forms that it is pulled, crushed and twisted into until you reach the end result which in this case the objective is to make a spaceship.
The space ship: the overall first go at the ship has come out better then expected with little bits of inspiration the more i developed it from its own design. The ship started out from a cube but with the use of extrusion of the shape, bevels and by pulling at the vertices and edges of the shape including the use of adding divisions to use more edges and vertices has given me more to use in term of the ships appearance and the first go has come out quite well but final product may change from this prototype.
Below is the front and side view of the prototype.
The lower poly ship that is in use is now fully UV wrapped.
There has been some problems with the design especially with the front cone.
Severe warping was happening around the front of the ship due to the shape being a full cone and was being crumpled up by the unfolding because it wasn’t able to properly unfold. This was fixed with the cut and sew menu by then cutting along an edge so that the shape was able to unfold itself properly fixing the issue entirely. The UV wrappings of each section of the ship have also been completed and are below.
UV wrapping compared to the actual creation of the mesh is a big leap as creating the mesh from a cube is relatively simple while UV unwrapping is relatively complex as it requires the selection of a number of faces capable of being unfolded into a 2D shape so that it can wrap around the part of the mesh it is connected to without issues such as warping.
An diffuse texture map is used to create the albedo of a texture. the diffuse is reflection a reflection of light on a surface while the albedo are a more specialised form of diffuse that represent only the base colours of a surface normally only being a single colour and is used through most types if design to create texture along side the diffuse which is what creates the albedo.
The UV models have been have been added to Photoshop and have had the material added to build the model design. On top of that the UV layout has been completed and the model is shaped up with everything in place. The current last part is to add the textures and colour to the model.
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The ship model is complete with its textures added and the design is complete. the model has been uploaded to Sketchfab and the textures on photoshop area saved and the maya scene is saved.
The project in the photoshop part is where i found it hardest with the uv unwrapping being mild in difficulty and the actual designing of the mesh to be extremely easy but fun.
A high poly ship being made
The design has been made with the uses of extrusion adding divisions and smoothing to get the look it has achieved
the ships development has progressed quickly with the UV layers being creaated with ease
The complete model of the ship as a faded areas of the textures designed mostly to show colour fade that many objects get with age to mix lower colours with brighter colours. This is my final submission design for the project
The base parts of 3d modeling are the faces which are split up; into tri’s, quads and Ngons. these being because of their edges and vertices, as you can probably tell tri and quads are triangles and quadrilaterals, but Ngons are anything that are a pentagonal shape and upwards.
In 3D modeling triangles and quadrilaterals are fine but you will need to stay away from ngons. this is because they cannot sub divide properly even on a flat surface they can completely disfigure a model
The beginning of the chest is finished with the low poly model being complete.
Phrase texel density allows you to specify the resolution of a texture being used allowing the texel density to be calculated appropriately for different texture sizes
11/12/19
High poly modeling is the finer details to a model such as smoothing the edges by using bevel and adding extra pieces to the model to give it a much higher level of detail sch as selective cutting the faces to create different patterns in the model giving possibilities of creating much higher detailed parts of the model which could lead to a great possibility of higher quality models.
My own high poly model has been developed pretty well but at the moment needs to be scrapped as there are some issues with the mesh which i am unable to fix.
02/02/20
as of this date the high poly model of the chest/loot box hes been created and the whole model has been textured within substance painter and is now currently uploaded to sketch fab.
The high poly model was originally finished but after finishing the original version of the high poly model i had realised that while i was detailing the front of the model the selection options had clipped through the model and the back of the model had been changed to a point that is couldn’t be undone so i had to completely scrap the original model and re-do it from scratch. This however was not as bad as it could have been as the re creation of the model had came out looking better that the first as it was mostly a case of not going overboard with the modelling tools like what i did with the original model where i had done multiple extrusions around the front using the cutting tool to add lines so i could give more detail to the model through me not constantly checking on the whole model i had created an irreversible mistake which in the end turned out for the better.
It wasn’t to hard to re make the high poly as its just a case of making a copy of the low poly and changing up some of the details on it. The low poly had also received work on it since i had made its original form in the image above.
Once the high poly model was completed again the next step was to get the model into substance painter. once i had the model in substance painter by exporting the low poly into it as an FBX i proceed to baked the FBX of the high poly onto it. Once the baking was complete i used a number of materials to create effects on the model which i have based off of what you could consider a blood alter.
The way i created the creased worn substance on the model is by using the fabric material and the veins effect as the veins creates swirling patterns which will randomly go of in multiple directions and as i have learnt from using substance painter previously was that the fabric material cuts into the model which as i have shown can create a worn look if matched with the right textures to go with it. The polygon in the centre of the model is tide to the theme of a blood alter and i used the red along side the water trail material to make it flow into the pool below. Around the rim of the chest is what is intended to be a sharp metallic blade continuing the blood alter theme.
The loot crate i have spoken about turned out nowhere close to my original plan an the whole reason i went for the currently finished model is because my original idea turned out to be to much for me to try to model. the original plan was to go somewhere along the line of the OverWatch loot box but give it a draconic theme with 4 large spire coming out of it which 2 of theme are currently on the complete model but still nowhere as detailed as originally planned. The original design i had in mind was for it to be based around the liked of a dark fortress theme with its textures along side the sharp draconic theme i wanted to go along with it but in the end it was to much for my current modelling skills to handle. over all though i’m happy with the outcome of this project.
21/2/20
over a few week i have been developing a sword and shield for the SnS Project (sword and shield) bot of them at this point in time have been through concepts and are now modelled and have the UV layers completed.
the continuation of this project is substance painter and the high poly models.
22/2/20
the high poly models of the sword and shield and they have been exported into fbx files.
23/2/20
The sword and shield have been through substance painter however due to some ID error with the baking process neither have the high poly models baked onto them and since i have no idea as to what is causing the error i have had to paint the low poly models of both still trying to get colours to properly work and through multiple tedious issues I’ve been having with the software i have had to in some places make due with what i currently am able to use.
I entered this project with ambition as i had been looking forwards to doing this project and feel as if i was overly ambitious as i wanted to create something special in terms of the sword and shield but in the end i have been left with disappointment but of coarse there is a first time for everything and i will most likely be continuing my own personal project that i create in my free time to help hone my skills. overall though i am disappointed with the outcome as there are things which i don’t understand where they have gone wrong and i still have issues using substance painter but concepts and the base models i am proud of, i just wish the end result had come out looking a bit better than it currently has but i will be continuing in my own time to get better at these sort of things.
10/6/20 hero piece project
for my hero piece i plan of having a sword in the stone scene with the sword embedded in a pile of rocks with light shining down on it.
11/06/20
the textures of the sword are finished.
Unfortunately for a foreseeable future i will not be able to use substance painter as every time i place a model in it it claims parts of the model are “null” and the model turns into an absolute mess.
I must say though im still pleased with the result of the sword.
In all honesty i was hoping for the final result to be a bit more grand than it is as the lights in Maya aren’t the best in trying to create an actual effect of light from a certain direction. instead they just light up and area and their isn’t any real showing to the lights path. overall im not overly disappointed with the result of this as the sword came our much better than i initially thought it would, with substance painter being problematic at the moment but i just wish i could have made it look a little more grand.
12/6/20
i put the hero piece through unity to try to get better lighting.
My next plan is to possibly animate the camera to fly around the sword.
The camera fly round is finish. the Camera movement is a little wonky as i was moving around the camera myself and since it isn’t a perfect circle it gets a little close to the stone at some points.
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