XBFW3992 Honours Project

@charlottetaylorxb3992

54 posts

Substance Painter and Unreal Materials

For the main part of my project I have used Photoshop or Sketchbook Pro to hand paint textures for all my meshes, however for meshes such as glasses and glass candle holders I have edited the Unreal Engine materials.

Building up the amount of props in the scene I decided to save time by using the Unreal material editor to apply my own metallic/solid colour textures to the props which will only have one colour/material on them. I used this for the music stand and the glasses as the amount of props needing unique textures would have used up a lot of the time which I have explicated to creating my deliverables.

Music sheet reference image;

https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/the-flapper-s-ball-1920s-style-saxophone-quartet-digital-sheet-music/19984247

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Portfolio Progress

For my main deliverable for my honours project I am creating a portfolio, filled with renders of my 3D scene. I have created the background, and pages with information on to start the portfolio.

I kept to the theme of my honours, which was 1920′s America, I created the background in Sketchbook Pro using a similar colour palette to my scene and using fonts and images linked to the 1920′s art styles.

I think creating the background with the same theme as the 3D scene really ties the portfolio together and shows I have the skills to create an interesting portfolio as well as the 3D skills I will be showing off with the renders.

Important Information

In professional portfolios that I have looked at there is usually important information at the start, usually with the contact details of the creator of the portfolio but for mine, I have just added in the logos of the software I have used throughout this project. This is to give incentive about the project before you actually see the work. I think this is important as it gives the viewer an idea of what they are about to see without having to do any reading on what I have done, what I have used and how I have done it.

Using the same font and technique as the title page I have added important information to the tops of the pages of the portfolio, I think this is just a decent way of keeping the information about the project on hand while going through the portfolio.

I am creating the beauty shots inside of Unreal.

I will handing this in as PDF, made in Photoshop

Trailer music from; https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/jazz

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Environment-Lighting

Lighting in my environment is very important as I want the rooms to have a different feel form each other starting with bright lamps for the more social and welcoming eras, moving on to warm lighting in the entertainment room and dark, dingy rooms in the back which would have lights over tables for gambling and near the pool table and dart boards for games.

These screenshots are before the lighting lecture. I have only placed light where I want them so far, editing colour and temperature as I went.

This room is a comfy seating area, more welcoming and pretty than the other rooms, I’ve used white lights to highlight the room and draw the attention of the player into this room first.

I’ve used a warm tone to the lighting in these rooms as they’re decorative and grand, more welcoming and open compared to the other rooms.

These lower lights will only highlight the table. This is because the tables are the most important feature in these rooms, the dark and shady rooms will have gambling chips and cards scattered on the tables, hinting at the story and the primary use for the rooms (gambling).

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Filler Objects

Throughout this environment I have created models and textures that are hand painted based on realism. When it came to smaller details I wanted to focus on more important models.

For example texturing each individual book cover would’ve taken up a lot of time and having only a few different textures would’ve looked odd because of the repetitiveness.

The bookshelf and texture is the most important texture and model because this is the main part of the book set up you would see so if I left the bookshelf plain then it would stick out among the rest of the objects around the shelf.

Having only colours on the books made the most sense, creating the illusion of a lot of different books within the stacks.

Because the bookshelves aren’t the focus of the scene it makes sense to save time by only adding in the illusion of multiple different textures on, I will be making sure the items of interest in the scene, the objects that are the focus like the bar, furniture and glass are well lit and easy to see whereas the shelves, which are only fillers in the scene are dimly lit.

The shelves being bare wouldn’t make sense either which is why I created a stack on books for the shelves in the first place, I think the bookshelves make sense in the scene and work well as a filler to decrease the empty space in the scene.

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Improvments

The original texture for this chair was don’t in Substance Painter as this was my main focus at the start the project because my scene was going to be realistic. For the chair I have had a plain brown Lambert texture on the chair.

I didn’t like the simplistic style the plain colours gave the chair so I used Sketchbook Pro to create a leather texture, I used rough brushes like a dry maker and a bristle blending brush, mixing different shades of brown to create the image below.

I think the colouring of the leather and the texture the brushes has created looks good and is the simplistic leather, fine leather look I wanted for the chairs.

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Lighting

There was a lot a dark black patches in the rooms, I used spot lights to highlight the features of the walls which I want to draw attention to, like the portraits.

Before and after lighting

After a lighting lecture, learning about the different types of lights and how they behave helped me organised which lights to use and where to use them, I was taught how to use the setting to get the look I want within my scene.

I used temperature to create warm rooms in a among white lights and area this is to add colour and tone to the room, giving it a warmer, more welcoming feel.

I like the way the warm tones have effected props around the lighting, for example, before lighting the pillar prop was bright white and you couldn’t really see the wood grain texture I painted on. But the lighting adds tone and definition the smaller details which I like a lot.

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Portfolio and Video Preparation

My main deliverable for my honours project is a portfolio of the work I have done over the course of the project, I will be creating a title page which will also be used in the video for the hand in.

I kept the background in with the theme of the overall theme of my scene. I wanted to reflect the style of the scene with the title page. I’m adding a title page to make it more like a professional portfolio.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/sarabearhug69/1920s-font/

http://www.fontspace.com/thomas-e-harvey/talldeco

I used the above link as a reference to a font inspired by the 1920′s I used this to keep the theme of my environment my title page/background of the portfolio I am making as a hand in piece.

Colour Palette

Red and golden colours has been my overall palete for the scene, giving variation with the tones of red and golds used in the scene and using creme/golden in the walls and some props. You can see the palette of colours from the scene by adding an image of the scene into Photoshop and adding a mosaic filter onto the image.

This leaves the main colours of the images, You can use the colour picker tool to select the colours you want. This is what I used when designing the title page and the overall layout of the portfolio for the hand in.

Framing important information. On the second page of the portfolio I add in the logos of software I have used for this project. I framed the logos with diomond shapes, keeping the layout consistent by using the background pattern.

I think this is an important thing to have in a portfolio, the layout is the first thing an employer would see and therefore will be the first thing they judge.

I used the select tool in Sketchbook Pro to select the letters I needed and painted over the section, this caused jagged edges and some misshapen letters, which is why I drew over the letters using an ink brush in Sketchbook Pro for the headings on the pages.

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New Area - Easter Update

This area is the back room, I have expended the flood plan to fit booth seating in this area, the original plan was to have comfy seats, bookshelves and small tables.

However don’t think this fit well in the environment and was totally different to the feel I wanted to give. A room with comfy seats and books is warm and inviting but I wanted the room to be dingy, a place with room enough to play cards and gamble but with privacy in a dim lit room.

I’m having light hanging down from the ceiling so the only people that can see the contents of the table are those seated at the table. This link in the with gambling, doggy scene I’m hoping for.

I have also altered textures to be darker and damaged giving the look of neglect on the decorative side. Broken lamps and records will be added to the area to show past wear and tear.

Updated; The room currently

I need to add in small props like books and darts and a hidden weapon.

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2D Art for the walls

Using references I have created my own digital painting for the environment, I did this to add points of interest and variation onto the bare walls of the environment. i feel like adding these gives the scene a more realistic look and feel which helps with immersion, especially in games. I like the style of art in the 1920′s, the art used a lot of black, white and gold which I used in one piece. I think the black , white and gold theme is interesting but would have drained the scene if I overused it.

This was something I wanted in the scene no matter what the project would’ve been, this is to show a different set of skills in my portfolio as well as adding to the overall look of the bar.

These images in the scene draw attention to the player, into the rooms or to a view of a room which I’d like the player to have. Having something to draw attention stops people from walking around an are without fully looking around, this is especially useful in games. This attracts attention even while the player is playing the game and focusing on the goals and not, necessarily the art of the game.

If I had time I would’ve done research into advertising and into more art styles of the era to give more of a variation into the wall art and advertisements.

Refs and links

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NCloth

For decorative details in this environment I used NCloth, an FX tool in Maya which mimics gravity on a mesh. I textured this tool at the start of the project and wanted to use it especial for the table cloth, it gives variation to the scene and adds decorative details which, I think, improve the overall look of the rooms.

I was given the idea to add curtains/drapes by Ken and so I looked into reference images for the environment and found some I liked.

Reference image found at; https://www.pinterest.com/pin/378513543660264668/

I used Maya to simulate a more realistic looking cloth then edited the result in Maya to make it a little less realistic but decreasing the amount of ripples in the fabric and by making the curves at the bottom more defined. i feel this made it so the cloth(s) fit better in with the style of the scene.

In Unreal I think the NCloth looks good and fit in the style of the scene well.

I will also be using NCloth to create some fabric sticking out of boxes in the dressing room and to create a cleaning cloth for the bar.

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Unreal Materials

For this project the main part of the scene has textures all hand painted by me in Photoshop or Sketchbook Pro, however, for the glass and reflective textures in my scene, on items such as the candle holder or the mirror in the dressing room I have edited the Unreal materials to get the desired look.

I changed the colour, roughness and metallic of the Unreal glass texture to create a pale yellow,

I did a similar thing with the Chrome material in Unreal. I change the roughness to give the chrome a mirror look to it and applied it to my model in the dressing room.

I made a base colour and normal map in Substance Painter and added this to the chrome material in Unreal.

Adding my own dirt and marks on the mirror, adding story and I feel like this shows the type of people that use the mirror which adds to narrative in an environment like this.

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Evolution of the layout

Since the project has began the overall floor plan of the bar has changed, gotten bigger and more interesting.

My initial idea was to have a bar area with seating, a bar, a cabinet and lots of small props but feedback encouraged me to expand the room so I have more variation of props to be making. Such as the stage room with table cloths and candles, or the dressing room with boxes and damaged furniture.

This shows off my variation of skills, to alter models to be similar but have a new purpose or a new story, to come up interesting rooms and create flooring, walls and props to suit each of them.

I think the overall project has increased my abilities as a whole which helping me keep in mind about story and feeling in a scene.

I liked the initial bar scene because it was a chance to work on my skills as an interior environment artist, I liked the simplistically of the room and the idea overall but I’m glad I expanded for the other rooms have given me chance to explore narrative as well as creating lots of variations of my own models.

Expanding the scene gave me variation of the areas, giving me more to model and a variation of textures and themes of items. For example if I had one large grand room I wouldn’t have had an area with cardboard boxes and clutter and mess.

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Improving on models

Improving current UV’s and textures.

This week I spent time going over the models and textures I think I can improve on, some models I didn’t know had issues with UV’s until I started to texture them, these models were put on pause while I still had the bulk of my models to make. Now I am happy with the number of models and the overall look of the scene I have gone over and changed models such as the booth seats and fixed UV’s on models (the stool as an example)

This process didn’t take long but I feel it was needed to improve the overall work I’ve been doing.

Stool

The stool had overlapping and unfolded UV’s which caused the textures I made to warp and distort, I fixed the UV’s in Maya, organised them out so the textures lay on the model the way I planned. I put this job on hold because the placeholder stools where in Unreal so not having the stools didn’t affect my work, unlike the wall textures, did.

The wooden wall texture wasn’t tiling so I had to go back on myself to edit the 2D texture inside of Photoshop, moving, resizing the panels to be a tillable image which editing the overall image to improve the look of the normal map, also made in Photoshop.

Booth Seating

I feel like the original model wasn’t realistic enough and I wanted to have a back to the booth so I had a way of breaking up the room which was useful for the booths which where on the out areas of the room, this acts as a divider to the rooms different areas.

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Flooring improvements

For the stage area, I took out the actual stage as reference images showed the most common thing in these types of bars was a tiled flooring for performances like dancing and music

I used Photoshop to create a tile, using the warp filter to create an effect on the tile so the texture wasn’t just plain black and white.

I used inverted colours on the tiling, adding a warped effect to create pattern on the tiling to add detail so the tiling wasn’t repetitive.

I didn’t use a normal map but I added metallic to the texture in Unreal to give the texture a shine to it.

My floor was one mesh with multiple textures on one UV map which caused stretching and pixilation of the texture which I wanted to fix beforehand in, I split the flooring so each room with a different flooring had one UV map, this makes it so the texture isn’t stretched or shrunken to fit into a shared UV area.

This is a comparison of the floor texture in the stage room, Before was when the textures of all the flooring shared one large UV map, I went back and split the flooring so each texture got its own UV aking the texture and the normal map higher quilty, I like the end result as it is the exact way I want it, with no obvious pixels or discolouration which was in the top image.

The final result was a high-quality flooring which was seamless and fit well within the environment well.

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Update -Easter

I am focusing on details like posters, small props like glasses, ashtrays and dart boards.

I feel like these props give the scene realism and points of interest in the scene, items that will draw people into the rooms like a painting, a wall texture or the lights.

I will be filling these shelves with small props, I wanted something to divide the main bar and the seating area but I didn’t want more walls and door as I wanted variation, I looked at reference images and in similar bars and thought thin shelves would work well as a divide between the two rooms without be too in the way.

I want an area that is subtly cluttered, like the people have crammed everything they have in they have to make the area look fancier than it really is.

With the back room I wanted a plain area than the other rooms as it would be darker and dingier than the other rooms for decoration for the walls wasn’t a bit must have, however the props such as the pool; table and the dart board where important to give the room a purpose and more life.

With the glasses I tried various ways to create a glass texture, I used substance painter, and Unreal to get the glass texture right but i feel like some of the glasses looked to realistic so I have put the glasses into Photoshop and redone the textures. This is to make sure all the props match the style of the overall environment as, any differences, would stick out and ruin the environment.

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Lighting Test

Wall Lights

Using directional lights I can make the wall lighting more realistic in the way its funnels out of the shade on the prop. I like the way the light trails onto the floor but would like it better if it faded out softer.

Lamp

The issue with the small lamp is I need the light to come out from inside the lamp shade but Unreal lighting doesn’t work if the light overlaps a mesh, this causes discoloured lighting on the mesh itself and one the floor/walls around the mesh.

Colours

An issue I picked up early on is the effect which is caused by 2 lights having different colours which overlap. the way my rooms are laid out now will avoid this because the colour and intensity of the lighting will depend on the room you’re in, for example, the back room will have red tones, lighter intensity and the light sources will mainly be lamps.

On the other hand, the main bar will have yellow/white lights coming from wall lights with a higher intensity as the main bar is the first room the public will see and so is dressed up to be welcoming and open which the lights will reflect.

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Update

Improvements

My main focus this week has been improving textures and importing them into the scene, I have found that I needed to organise the assets and textures I have in the Unreal file.

I made it so my walls and flooring had specific textures assigned to them, making it easier to add in the textures or to swap out a lot of the walls or flooring at the same time.

I have created a new pillar wood, this was because lighting in unreal made the original texture slightly glow due the white of the texture, I also fixed the pillars UV’s as the new texture went vertical at first.

New Area

I added a new section after taking out the office room, this is because I think the new room shows off the models I have made more than a dark, dingy office.

I also think this new room gives more of a 1920′s vibe with the art on the walls and the props such as the floor lamps which I like a lot.

I am adding in paintings and posters into the level which I have created myself in Photoshop/Sketchbook Pro, using references for the fashion and art style of the time period.

New Wooden walls

The wooden walls I had in the scene where flat and too dark to see any detail like the wood grain etc, so I made a new version with large panels and a variation of colours which gave the normal map more of a detailed wood texture which I like a lot.

I went back on myself with this texture as it’s not seamless, this wasn’t a problem at first because the wall was originally going to only be on one wall as a feature wall.

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