Elements of a story

I have chosen to use the game Portal as my example and i will use this to  help adapt my own story elements afterwards.

Setting – Test Lab, designed for testing aperture products

Characters – Chell, GlaDoS

Plot – Help test a new aperture science portal gun

Conflict – Glados kills off her test subjects

Resolution – Using the portal device escape and Shut her down

Point of view – The game is going through the point of view of Chell

 

Now using details above to help me create my own story elements.

Setting – Abandoned Manor

Characters – Rob, wannabe home owner who came to look at a property he could  fix up for a big family home

Plot – Locked inside, solve puzzles to escape and discover what happened to the manor and it’s previous owners

Conflict – Rooms shuffle around so you can’t keep  track of where you’ve been

Resolution – Solve puzzles to gain access to drawers, cupboards, safes and even secret rooms

solve riddles and anagrams to uncover the lore of the manor and previous owners

Point of view – Rob

 

 

Diagetic and non-diagetic sounds

Diegetic sound 

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Sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film:

• voices of characters 
• sounds made by objects in the story 
• music represented as coming from instruments in the story space ( = source music)

Diegetic sound is any sound presented as originated from source within the film’s world

Digetic sound can be either on screen or off screen depending on whatever its source is within the frame or outside the frame.

This is classed as diegetic sound because a band is represented on screen as playing the music for the city festival.

 

Non-diegetic sound 

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Sound whose source is neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action:

• narrator’s commentary
• sound effects which is added for the dramatic effect
• mood music

Non-diegetic sound is represented as coming from the a source outside story space.

The distinction between diegetic or non-diegetic sound depends on our understanding of the conventions of film viewing and listening.  We know of that certain sounds are represented as coming from the story world, while others are  represented as coming from outside the space of the story events.  A play with diegetic and non-diegetic conventions can be used to create ambiguity (horror), or to surprise the audience (comedy).

This is classed as non-diegetic sound because there is nothing within the scene to represent where the music is coming from and it is there to add intensity to the boss battle.

 

Why did the music get chosen for my project?

For our project We have chose to use variations for non-diegetic sound to represent the atmosphere of the world which changes as the danger increases.

C’n’T Final Submission

This is my final submission for the Creative and Technical project, I will be linking previous blog posts to save on overlapping any information.

I have learned a lot of new techniques from this project including alter texel’s, baking, a greater understanding of substance painter in general with how much a smart material can add to the detail of an model and make it pop even if it’s something small.

The first thing I needed to so to start this project was  have a talk with my team for the imagined world project and think about what models are needed to finish or what could be added to make the scene feel less empty. After the discussion I had decided that I would model a boat, this started by gathering images of different kinds of boats and different details of wood textures (scratches, chips, splits and knots).

Moodboards

After looking at different styles, shapes and details of boats the next step was to mock up some sketches of possible designs for me to consider, one I had doe this I then began looking at each of the small designs I have drawn up and began to think about which elements I could pick and forge together to create a final concept.

concepts 1

Now it was time to start modeling the low poly version and think about how I can expand on it to create a high poly version.

Creative and technical Low/high poly Model

Now that I have my base models finished I can take the high poly version into mudbox to start sculpting the details of the wood.

Creative and Technical – Mudbox Sculpting

Now both of my models are almost ready to put into Substance Painter, I just need to position them center in Maya and freeze their constraints.

Creative and Technical – Baking

I tried to bake my models but encountered some issues with the mesh, which turned out to be a problem with my UV’s one of the faces specifically.

C&T Review

I have since had my model reviewed and the main criticism I gained was about the issue with the face mentioned above as well as some texturing issues with stretching.

I have since re-aligned my UV’s and positioned them in a much better way so they are now sewn together and displayed more clearly.

Fixing my mesh

I then started to texture the modal and after having a talk with Matt about how to improve it. I began to add smaller details.

Back to Baking(and Texturing)

I have learned a lot from this project, a better look into how modelling is done within the industry and how other compatible software can really help improve the look of the model compared to what you could get out of just Maya.

I  have also learned to work towards a much higher standard of quality, this is gained from learning a better understanding of UV mapping and how to adjust the Texel Density to ensure the texture fits perfectly and does not have any stretching or overlapping.

 

 

 

Creative and Technical Boat Model by ScottW92 on Sketchfab

 

Back to Baking(and Texturing)

Now that the UV’s on my model have been fixed and the TexelDensity has been layed out and scaled to fit the model correctly. I can have another try at baking my mesh.

After going back through the baking setup process withing Substance Painter I attempted to bake my mesh again with a much better result this time around.

Although there is a slight discrepancy  on the sides as it has baked the edged of the seat on the side of the boat, on the model itself these are hidden by the placement of the seats. Altering the max frontal/rear distances can amend this slightly but it lowers the rest of the bake down to the point that it is barely visible.

This is how it displays with the frontal distance set to 0 (original value 0.02), as you can see the texture within the middle of the boat has just about disappeared completely.

Now with the Rear distance set to 0 (also originally set at 0.02),  this has removed the detail from the sides of the model.

after rounding out the edges of the of these parts after going back into Maya and then trying all of this again I ended up with the same result so I have decided to move on for now.

Ignoring that slight detail means I have a much better result this time around and I can finally get around to texturing the model.

This is the base texture that I added to the model and after speaking with Matt he mentioned adding some extra details to make it stand out more and show that it has been used previously (how else would it be docked on an island?).

I looked into adding more details such as moss stuck to the bottom and withing some of the cracks and even found a smart material which gave the appearance of water on the sides and even inside of the model.

So this is my final product, although it doesn’t show much in this image for the glossy water and moss details I liked how it has turned out.

A better angle from the underside of the boat shows the gloss given from the water detail and how the moss stands out from the rest of the model.

Fixing my mesh

On my last blog post I finished off with this image

The image shows a diagonal line across the side of my model which is most likely due to a face which hasn’t been layered out correctly.

After loading the model up in Maya I noticed that there was one face which was on top of another part of the mesh and need to be pulled out, after doing this it meant that my UV’s no longer fit withing the designated space.

This gave me some time to alter my UV map and sew pieces together so I could lay them out in a way that was displayed in a neater form.

Now that the UV’s have been fixed the other issue I had with texturing the boat is the stretching along the side which was due to the fact that I had not altered the texel density to accurately fit in scale with those parts of the model.

The TexelMap has been scaled to fit the model so now my texture should apply correctly, just to ensure that it is neat I double checked it by looking how they were represented on the model itself.

The model represents the Texel layout quite nicely, I can now continue with getting the model baked and textured.

C&T Review

Assessor Name: Shanice Brewster

Feedback –  The high to low poly baking has been done well and clearly makes the edges seem rounded and smooth. You have also included every aspect of a wooden boat and have clearly used references to make sure of it, making the boat seem more accurate and realistic.

In substance painter, the texture on the sides of the boat seem a little stretched and ruin the illusion of the wood. And the colouring seems a little patchy on corners from the metal handles on the side, the overall look of the boat will be hugely improved if these were fixed or coloured over to make them the same the same quality of the rest of the boat.

Creative and Technical – Baking

After having an issue with Mudbox opening my model again I have decided to have a look into baking my model and seeing if it can cover any of the defect that I mentioned in my previous post.

Thankfully my Model will work withing Maya so I can continue with this step.

The first thing I need to do is line up the models in the same position so the texture of the high poly lines up over the low poly to create a BaseMesh.

So I have my models lined up with each other, I need to freeze the co-ordinates of both of them and re-export them with the new transforms ready send into into Substance Painter.

After opening substance and going into file>new I was greeted with the window above and I have selected my low poly model to load into the scene as well as a unity 5 template as it is unity that I will be importing the final product into.

After clicking “ok” I am greeted with this interface which shows my model, it’s UV’s and some setting available on the side as well as tools along the bottom.

I need to click onto “Texture set settings” on the side and then I am greeted with this menu

From this point I need to click onto “Bake Mesh Maps” which will then bring up this menu with various options

The settings that I will need to alter to create the final baked mesh are max frontal and rear distance which control how the texture will stretch onto the model if there are any parts that are left uncovered altering these slider values will be able to amend that.

I will also need to check that the mesh suffix matched the ones that I have saved onto the names of my mesh within Maya, in this case My mesh Suffix is set with Capital letters for High and Low so that will need to be changed within these menus as well.

On the options sat the side I also need to go into the “ID” tab and ensure that the color source is set to material color and not the vertex color as it is set to vertex by default.

After those settings have been change and the high poly mesh has been selected it is time to bake the model

After clicking the bake button on the bottom right I was greeted with this progression bar

It will also update the model and UV map as it advances

Weirdly I am getting a line issue across the side of my boat even though this is not part of the mesh and has not appeared in any other software.

I will look into this issue before I continue any further as the final step is to texture the model.

 

Creative and Technical – Mudbox Sculpting

I have exported my model from Maya and imported it into Mudbox, not I need to find what tools are available to me withing the software that can help me create a wood grain texture on my model.

There happened to be a wood stamp available which I can apply to my model with the sculpt tool, this will require a lot of tweaking with small values as the mesh of my model is harder on the sides than the front and back so the values will need to be different to accurately give the same representation if the texture when it is applied.

 

As seen by the picture below there are a couple of lines that could still be improved by being smoothed over a little, this is mainly where the shape of the boat angles to create the bottom. The texture appears that I hadn’t lined it up as preciecely along that line as I thought.

 

The wooden texture seems to be imprinting harder along some points of the surface than the other, it looks alright from a distance but up close you can see that the density differs as well as some of the line not being lined up correctly.

After adjusting the imprints to better align around the boat it looks a bit nicer but I’m still having an issue with the different in depth for some of them, this can be fixed by onw of two ways.

The first option is to go over the object with the stencil and sculpt tool again or go over the current lines with a varying strength smooth tool depending on if I want to match the deeper line or the one that haven’t imprinted as much, for the sake of keeping the detail and having it stand out more over a distance I would like to go over the thinner lines with the sculpt to increase their density.

However the imprints on the top down view imprinted a lot nicer than the outside ones and looking at the differences I believe it could be an issue with the spacing and scaling of the stencil.

Changing the spacing on the sides to have thicker sized planks instead of thinner ones has improved the printing quality but it has also created more issues on the front/back side to go over with the smooth tool again.

 

Iv’e tried going back to this model another day to touch up on the smoothing issues I mentioned above and Mudbox is starting to have some trouble opening my model.

I have tried opening up my low poly version instead and that goes in fine so I decided to try and export the model from Maya again but it is still giving me the same issue.

Creative and technical Low/high poly Model

I have began to work on the modelling part of my creative and technical project which is a boat and then a set of ores to follow.

The low poly version of the boat is a very rough shape with pointed edges, I will use this as a bade model for the high poly version by duplicating it and advancing the model from that point onward.

The are only 138 faces in total on my low poly model and am wanting to double this amount for the higher poly model which will be gained by beveling edges and cutting in new section to better refine the shape.

looking at the model from various angles shown below shows exactly how basic this base model really is and could possibly still be improved a little further without getting too close to the higher poly version.

The higher poly version has a more refined shape which conforms as the front isn’t as pointed and the edge isn’t as sharp as well as the back of the model having more edged added which were then brought froward to create more of a rounded shade.

The back part of the model has shaped really well but looking from a top down view the front of the boat is still rather pointed. As this part of the model has already been beveled I could try smoothing the faced around the point, I will be testing different things to try improve this part.

 

 

The bottom of the model had a better curvature but the vetices could use a little adjusting to align with the center point.

The side however seems to have taken to shape quite well and I am happy with leaving that part as is.

 

So apart from  a couple of minor fixes in mind I now need to import the model to Mudbox and begin adding some wood grain and scratches to the High Poly Model.

 

 

Experimenting with shader graphs

I had been trying to find a way to animate a surface and give it a more realistic feel to represent water or even lava which will both be required for this project.

After a lot of research I found out that the best way to do this is to use shader graph which is a new feature available with unity 2018.

I looked around online until I found a nice tutorial that explains the process as well as showing everything step-by-step, although he does not explain everything in detail and does skip over a few thing he also references a video which does go into everything in more detail for those interested. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuzB93F39P8)

First things first after opening up unity I needed to install a couple of thing s this was done by click on window > Package Manager > all, once this window is open I then needed to look for and install Shader graph and Lightweight Render pipeline.

Shader graph is used to create the new material and the lightweight render pipeline is used so it can use it as an animated texture.

Start by creating a PBR Graph which is listed under the new shader option under create > shader when right clicking on the project bar, after you have this you then need to create a new material 

Once you open up the shader you are greeted with this window and your master node which what you will soon be linking everything to this node, you can press space bar within the window to create a new node

from here you want to create a sample texture 2d wghich will allow you to staore a texture within the node, you will then need to create and sample texture 2d and convert it to a property by right clicking it and selecting property, this one hooks into your sample texture 2d and make sure you want to change this to normal map because we don’t want a default texture so we’ll come along and we’ll just hook the the RGB a into normal and then just hit save so now we can actually put in a normal map here.

I have one ready it’s just one that I found but either way if you bring in a grayscale image or something that isn’t quite right for a normal map unity does have a nice little feature to convert it it’s not the best but a lot of times it’ll do.

After this we can create another vector 2 node and call it gloss as per the video and set a value of 0.71 as also advised and connect it into the normal map node that was made previously.

Make a vector one or just space pick the one give it the property and we’ll stick that into smoothers and we’ll expand this give it a rename smoothness now that’s there and we can adjust it, so we have a normal map all good to go now we want to animate it and shadow graph handles that is with a tiling and offset node so you want something like this and the offset value here which is a vector to this is this is the we want and the reason it’s a vector2 is it’s two directions you know it’s a sort of your X&Y; so it’s either going to scroll down this way or it’s going to scroll across the other way or if you enable them both it will kind of come at you in a diagonal direction because it’s scrolling across both so we want to just basically animate one of these values so we want to plug in our own vector two into this and so we want to go back to two and again it’s just x and y so we will specify just the Y for now and we’ll connect a time node because at the moment there’s nothing here telling any of this to animate and if we use a time then it will do something over time like per second or per frame so we’re going to bring in a time node and this will multiply by our vector two so space multiply,  so we’re gonna connect up just the time to our vector two which is only working across the Y and that is what is going to go into tiling and offset.

If i then connect this into the UVs of our texture 2d and it’s starting to scroll but at this point it’s definitely way too fast, what I want to do is add in another multiply to affect the speed ourselves so dropping another multiply, so then we just want another vector one and we’ll convert this one to a property and rename it as speed with a default value of 0.1 as suggested and so now that will connect into the multiply node so now it’s a facet adjusting the pan speed it’ll either go fast or slow (set at 2.1 in video) the next thing to do for a kind of a fluid motion basically want the gloss to be moving and bouncing around.

we’re going to just use the same normal map but scroll it the other way and we’re also going to change the scale ordinarily I would change the scale sort of based on world positions so you can change the scale in the shader itself. There’s already an available  time node here with the speed so the only thing we need to do is connect up another vector2 with a multiply because if we want to have a different offset, we will do minus 1 and put that into that and bring our time into start for this and it doesn’t really matter if they cross over. We want to basically combine these two and the way that it’s taught in a lot of clips is with a normal blend it’s designed specifically to blend normal Maps, you probably want to control each of these speeds independently.

The next thing to do is just affect the color and this is so we’ll start by just adding in a fernell-effect let’s rename it  main color, so we have a color node now we can adjust the colour of our material so we want to basically change this color based on where we’re looking and we use  the fernell as the mask for that and make a new property color again we’ll call this top color use the fernell and we’ll just connect this  into the albedo.

The end result should be something close to this string of mess.

and the final result in editor should play out like this but will vary on colours chosen.

I still need to play around with directional speeds and colour blending but I like the look of this for my first attempt.

 

I have since realized that using the Lightweight Render Pipeline cannot co-exist with some default texture material and causes the default materials to become hidden and unusable.