19th July 2013

I made a rough sketch model of one of the buildings yesterday. The modelling of the building was very simple as it consisted of the same bay mirrored twelve times. Many of the buildings with in the fort are very repetitive like this. One of the most important aspects of the modelling is going to be applying the materials and textures, along with good lighting.

At the moment the sketch model is very basic. I created a basic wireframe model and then applied an Unwrap UVW modifier to the mesh. 

I created two separate UV maps for the roof and the front facade. I rendered these UV templates as .png files, saved them and reopened them in photoshop. I then was able to apply different materials to the various elements of the facade.

I then applied new bitmap materials to my model and used the .png files that I created. The result was very flat and unrealistic when I rendered my views.

This is due to a few different factors. At the moment I do not have way to create good quality bump maps and normal maps. These can be created in a number of different ways. I will need to test a few different techniques to see what is the fastest and most economical technique available which also produces good results. There are numerous plugins available for use with photoshop and also separate applications which create normal maps. One application that I have tried with a UV texture map that I created for an earlier sketch model is CrazyBump. 

I have not yet applied this normal map to the model so it will be interesting to see how it effects the appearance of the model. This application also creates other types of maps such as occlusion maps etc. to enhance the appearance of the textures on the models. 

The textures that I have used for this UV map were also not of very high quality so this is definitely something that would need to be addressed before creating the final models. Also the lighting for the models will be essential to create good quality and realistic models.