12th August 2013

When creating models in 3d studio max to import into UDK the file format of the textures used is extremely important. I had been working with PNG file formats. I would unwrap UVW for each mesh. Then create a UV map for my mesh and render a UV map in a PNG file format. I then would import my PNG file into photoshop and texture as appropriate. After that my PNG texture would be applied to my mesh in 3dstudio max, which always worked fine. I would then export my mesh as a .FBX file which includes both the mesh and the textures. Next I would import my mesh into UDK as a package. After this one of two things would happen. Either UDK would immediately crash or else the model would import with no textures attached. After a lot of trying and trying again it became clear that the problem was the texture file format. I then began saving my textures as .tga (TARGA) files and the whole thing worked perfectly with my models being easily imported. I still have not been able to successfully also apply a bump map to my meshes.

7th August 2013

This week I am concentrating on finishing the 'Island Level'. I have begun modelling the pier and roads. I have also made the sea. Water is a very complex material to make. The water material is unlit as unlit materials render much faster it also needs to move randomly, appear to reflect the sky and it also requires a level of specularity. The following texture creates a surface that moves in realtime and also has reflections. 

This resulted in the material which can be seen in the image below. I also added fog as this adds atmosphere and a more realistic appearance to the sea in the distance. In this case I added an Exponential Height Fog actor.

31st July 2013

I have not posted over the last few days so this is a recap on what I have been working on and some of the developments that have been made. 

I finally created an accurate heightmap in photoshop which I was able to bring into UDK. I created the Island using the Unreal Landscape Editor. I was able to measure the Island in Unreal Units and then convert these dimensions into metric dimensions in order to create as accurate as possible model of the island. The actual dimensions of the Island are 900m x 700m with an elevation of 24m. The heightmap I used was 509 x 509 resulting in 127 quads per section, with 4 sections per component, and 4 components in total. I then smoothed out the contours of the model using the various brushes in the landscape editor.

I then began to apply textures to the model. I created a material for the Island and added a few different textures to this material. I painted these textures onto the Island. (I did not spend a lot of time perfecting the texturing as this is something that I can come back to, and is also something that I could end up spending/wasting a HUGE amount of time on.) One issue that I would like to correct however, is the tiling effect that can be seen especially on the grass. I have tried looking at a few tutorials to correct this but none have worked so far. I will keep looking. The tiling effect is very visible when you look at the Island as a whole as can be seen below.

It is not too apparent in game mode in the areas close to the viewer however it does become very apparent in the distance as seen in the image below. I also decided to get rid of the default HUD and player weapon/arm from the game interface (as seen below) as these were in no way in keeping with my project.

I wanted to create more of a "tourable" environment. Taking away the arm was simple. All that was required was to go to - View - World Properties - World Info - and tick the "No default inventory for player" checkbox. This removed the weapon and arm.

The HUD was removed using Kismet. This was done by right clicking and adding a New Action - Toggle - Toggle HUD. I then added an event to trigger no HUD. I chose the event to be Level Loaded. Once the level is loaded and visible I connect this to the Hide the HUD. I then added a variable to tell the HUD to remove from all players. This was done by right clicking and adding New Variable - Player - Players. The HUD is no longer visible.

Below is the level with the HUD and arm removed leaving a much more clear and cinematic type of view.

I also have added a sky dome to my level which already brings the scene to life and gives it a more realistic feel. I also plan on adding the sea and some fog to enhance the atmosphere of the Island and create moving clouds.

My aim for the next few days is to focus on the areas of importance and work out from that. I will create block models for all of the buildings on the Island and the fort and then begin modeling the spaces of interest in more detail. I will not be texturing the whole Island in detail as I do not feel I will have the time. Instead I will focus on the path that the user will take from the pier up to the fort. At the moment I think that my "game" will consist of three levels. The first being the walk from the pier to the fort. The second entering the fort and the third level being entering the prison cell. 

I have also done some research into creating the damp/dirty/weathered effect on my buildings. I have been looking into Unreal Cascade, however, have not found anything that could help me in developing the effect. It has been suggested to use decals to achieve the effect, so I will also look into this.

29th July 2013

I have been working on various elements of the project over the past few days. Last week I processed some of the impulse that were recorded during the site visit to Spike in the various areas of interest. The preroll silence was trimmed from the recordings and then they were deconvolved in Apple's Impulse Response Utility to remove the sweeping sweeping signal from the recorded tracks. What then remains is the acoustic signature of the space. I was then able to export this and use it in Logic as a reverb plugin and apply this acoustic signature to any sound I wanted.

I have also spent a good bit of time working on my landscape. This is very much a work in progress at the moment. I began by trying to use the CAD contour drawing to create my terrain. I imported the contour drawing into 3D studio Max and converted it to an editable spline which I then converted to a terrain. This however, result in a very 'messy' mesh which was very difficult to extrude from. I also used the terresculptor plugin for 3D studio max which produced a similar result as below.

Continuing from this I am now using the Unreal Landscape editor to import a heightmap of the Island which I created in Photoshop using the contour lines from the AutoCAD drawing that I have of the Island. I assigned a different shade of grey to a different level on the contour map which resulted in the heightmap below.

The black area represents the lowest point (sea) and the lightest shade of grey represents the highest point of the Island (the fort). When the height map is imported in UDK the result is a lot better than trying to create the terrain mesh in 3D studio max. I plan to do some more work on the landscape in UDK tomorrow as I am still struggling with the scale of the Island as there does not seem to be a way to enter real dimensions into UDK to define the size of the landscape.

24th July 2013

I have had a lot of trouble with UDK and importing my meshes from 3D studio max into the UDK platform. I created my mesh and textured it in 3D studio max. I then exported the mesh as a .FBX file. I opened UDK and went to import the mesh into my assets browser, however, every time I went to import the file, UDK crashed and I had to force quite the program. I tried a lot of things to get the file right. Firstly I selected all my vertices and welded them, just to make sure my mesh was contiguous. I then added a normal modifier and unified normals to correct any vertex alignment issues. I reset the xform and then re-exported my file. UDK still crashed. I then removed all my textures and applied a standard material to my mesh, exported the file and imported it into UDK. Finally UDK did not crash and my model was loaded into my assets. I will need to figure out why the texture was causing so many problems as this could prove to be a serious issue as it would severely slow down the whole modeling process.

Once I had imported my mesh into UDK I then was able to place it in a world to see what the model looked like. Here a second issue arose and that was to do with scale. When I added the mesh into the world it was quite small and not to scale relative to the user. I tried many different unit setups in 3D studio max to rectify this. The one that seems to work now is to customize my unit set up to 1uu(unreal unit) = 2.56 cm. Then in my system set up, set 1 unit as 2.56. Then when I import my model to UDK the model appears to scale.

23rd July 2013

Today I spent most of the day continuing on with the models. I managed to fix the issues I had with the shadows yesterday however I made only a little progress as some of the UVW unwrapping caused some difficulty which really slowed me down. I also did some research in the evening.

22nd July 2013

I have made a start at accurately modelling the buildings within the Fort. My plan is to start with the buildings that I intend to model externally only and get these done in a short amount of time, leaving a bit more time for the buildings of interest.

The first model that I have concentrated on is known as the 'B' block and is one of the more recently refurbished buildings within the fort.

I have not yet applied any materials to the model but I have more accurately modelled the facade which already makes the buildings appear to have more depth and interest than the previous sketch models that I had experimented with (as seen in previous post). 

One issue that appears to be arising at the moment is the unusual shadowing that seems to be cast under the over hang of the roof. It should be an evenly distributed shadow however, it appears to be broken and unnatural. This will need to be sorted.

This morning I also applied some texture maps to the sketch model that I had been working on. They all seemed to enhance the appearance of the texture and make the model appear more realistic. However, the displacement map caused the mesh to become distorted when this map was applied.

Tomorrow I plan on working on the acoustic information that was gathered from the visit to Spike and to get some more of the buildings modelled.