Rebuilding The Realm

Learning 3D VFX through recreating locations from Final Fantasy XIVMeyko Holmes | Hyperion

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So I’ve been working at relearning (with the 2018 version) how to create UV maps for objects. If i want to add great detail and ‘paint’ my textures in programs like Substance Painter, you need ‘good’ UV layouts to make it work.

So what I’ve been working on is the Aetheryte from the plazas of the main city-states from 2.0 of FFXIV. The top 2 pics are orthographic views, the bottom 2 are perspective, one with wireframe shading so you can see the structure of the 3D object.

The middle picture is the piece the main crystal sits on, and its UV map i created just a little while ago (cylindrical objects are pretty easy...). I drew out some lines to the UV map to the corresponding part of the object.

For those who don’t know how custom textures are/were created, you would create the UV layout, export an image file with the layout (it would draw the lines and vertices) and bring it into photoshop where you would paint a general 2D image of what you wanted the texture to look like. Export the file out (maya supports .psd files) and bring it into maya where you could fine tune it.

But given a good UV layout, you can export the whole object file into Substance Painter, where each object has its own material/UVmap, and paint directly on the object in real time.

I know photoshop in recent years has included more 3D capabilities, but i’m running a CS6 so i’m not familiar with them haha but they’re probably nowhere near as efficient as Substance Painter.

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One of the ideas i had to help with animating/rendering and all that stuff, is to have my character (last name Holmes) investigate a mystery in Eorzea - one that involves the generic Warrior of Light character model, and possibly a new Primal or some major threat.

Its way down the road, but when i get there, i’m planning on using the location of my personal estate in Mist as his 221B Baker Street ‘Eorzea Branch’. If you’ll notice the little message board near the ledge fits well as a place potential clients post their request/mysteries.

It’ll obviously use Holmes and Watson (not sure if they should both be Hyur or not) but have thought about making characters for the common ones in the stories (like Mrs Hudson, an Inspector Lestrade - possibly as a fringe member of the Scions or something, and etc).

Working Series Title: Investigation Eorzea (each episode will have its own name). But i’m kinda torn...cuz that title makes it sound like Investigation Discovery and i think of those horrible cold case shows hahaha

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So I’m reconstructing the vendor stalls and hawkers alley in limsa and looking at the model for the awning and ‘counter’ objects, its interesting to see what they did.

Usually, if you’re gonna skimp on adding the actual ‘physical’ detail to a model, you just add the graphic detail to the texture map. For the awning, the little corner accent graphic actually got modeled into the mesh (albeit with no ‘depth’ detail) so the UV portion of that texture map would be exact.

Idk, maybe a game of this type benefits from that kinda thing haha i just thought it was a little odd was all.

Sine this is the base for every stall, and the only thing that differs between them as the objects on the shelves, counters, and hanging from the actual awnings, duplicating this base group and positioning them was a pretty quick way to add detail to the hawkers alley.

Most of the vendor-specific accoutrements are their own objects in FFXIVExplorer, so finding a good pivot point in them will make placing them a lot easier....texturing all of it is another issue all together haha

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So i’ve been taking a small break from piecing together Limsa because i’m mostly done with the big aspects of it (landmasses, bridges, piers, etc) and then realized that if i’m going to be bringing all this into UE4, i probably just want the landmasses and main ‘base structures’ in the maya project to send to UE4 and then create assets of the various crates/signs/tables/etc and place those inside UE itself.

Since most of those things aren’t part of large collection of objects in a single mesh (like the above image/right) if i’m going to spend the time placing them inside a program, it might as well be UE.

...although, as i think on it...if Maya has a ‘Send to Unreal Engine’ function in it, maybe if i place all the objects in maya, it will allow them to be assets/props in unreal engine and wont treat the whole thing as one giant singular mesh haha

Guess that would be good to know, so i guess i’ll find out.

Oh, and what i started saying was that i’m going through the FF14 Explorer software and creating a database of the objects in the folder for Limsa (obvious SOME objects will be in other folders, but for the most part, i’ve got the right one) that way if i need something i haven’t been able to find in my Ninja Ripper extractions, i can more easily find it.

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So i’ve been looking for this Tempest Gate building FOR-EV-AR and finally realized why I haven’t been able to find it. Idk why they opted to build it this way, but its not a solid mesh - its constructed by repeating certain meshes (shown in bottom pic) and then piecing them together....essentially like you would do in maya haha except usually you combine them into 1 solid mesh.

So this was a pain, because first i had to find the island the gate sits on, then figure out (based on the brush near the base of the tower on the left/foreground) approximately where to place the structure on the island.

Granted, this structure (so far as i know) isn’t used in any cutscene...so they don’t actually put anything on the other side (since it would render and essentially never be seen).

So when mirroring the side you can see across to the side you can’t...it didn’t quite look right.

So i’m not sure what to do about it if i’m going to have the whole place be ‘explorable’. I’ll probably just wing it and make up some architectural elements haha

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So here’s a quick model of the workshop, took down a chunk of the exterior walls (in most places), so forgive the crudeness haha.

Dont try and open it on cellular data, the file upload size was 37MB - idk if that’s what it’ll download as far as cache...but wouldn’t hurt to be on wifi....or a computer haha

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So i have about 90% of all the objects i need (you can see em all sorted in the last pic, but not placed yet) but it was a little tedious getting to this point (cuz 2 big-ass airships were also in the scene...so i had to delete all those to get to most of the objects in the last pic).

Will probably continue looking for the last pieces i need before putting them all in place later.

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So im going to be trying to learn Unreal Engine 4 relatively soon, and since this is nice contained interior, i figured i’d use rebuild it and use it and its assets when learning how to import and texture stuff in Unreal (because the version of Maya i’m using has a feature to send directly to an Unreal project).

Its not too hard to piece together since pretty much the ‘framework’ got pulled and is all in place (stairs, the large back doors, etc) so i just have to move and group the Fabrication Station, Flight Control Panel, and other misc furnishings.

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The Zephyr Gatehouse.

Was a pain in the ass to piece together. And there’s a decent amount of cleanup needing to be done to the geometry itself.

sorry the interior isn’t lit very well, was just going for quick renders so just threw a small point light in there to help.

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Pier Construction Sped up - Original video about 10:30 long so its a a little less than 3x speed

Has music from Limsa and a funny ending sound effect

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Screengrab of my Maya scene of Limsa Lominsa.

Still missing a decent amount (especially since you can’t see ‘inside’ most of the landmasses - so i haven’t added Hawkers’ Alley and most guilds).

My file size is like 360-ish MB, and that’s like 95% just mesh/models. I haven’t done any ‘cleanup’ tho, so it might shave some off...but i’ve been combining and deleting history as i’ve been going so i doubt it’ll be a lot haha

The piers themselves was like 17MB and you can barely even see em in the pic haha (but that’s because i didn’t combine like meshes into a single one...not until i get into texturing and even them  i’m not sure)

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OMG this took me literally like 8 hours to complete.The ship was like 10 seconds...cuz for whatever reason that’s all like 3 different meshes i just combine haha.

But dear god, no wonder it always takes so long when i Port into Limsa - cuz just these piers alone, there’s a different model for the pier floor (one model for the switch-back, one for the inclines, one for the single 90-degree turn, etc), the ropes (different model for the ropes on an incline, a turn - different for the 30/40/90/180-degree turns), and then the legs (if you look at the last pic, you can tell there’s different models for the highest level and then the middle one...and yet 1 more for the lowest and ANOTHER model for the narrower piers in the middle of the first pic).

So i had to take a map of the Lower Decks, note how many sections are in each straightaway, which are ‘wide’ and which are ‘narrow’, etc. Then use it as an image plane and essentially duplicate each piece, move it, and repeat until i got it ‘blocked’ out for the most part.

THEN i had to go and ‘align’ them all so there’s no gaps or anything...and THAT was the most time consuming - I took some video of it for JUST the ‘floor’ part of the piers. AFTER that i had to do the legs, then the ropes.

THEN i imported it all into my main scene (which is now almost 400MB) and aligned them all vertically and correctly.

[rebuildingeorzea-blog]

So i realized my progress for getting the models into one scene was a bit flawed and time-consuming. So i adopted a new method today that got me a great deal in a decent amount of time (and also let me fix a scaling issue i had without having to start from scratch again).

So as you can see, some of the interior structures are in place for areas where i don’t have the landmass imported yet (bottom left corner of the 2nd and 3rd pics).

Ignore the ship, i know it doesn’t go there haha

NOTHING is textured, I’m trying to be very good about not stopping to do random textures here and there and getting the whole ‘scene’ compiled and stitched together before even trying that.

I realize parts of the pics may seem a bit blown-out or over-exposed...deal with it for the time being haha these are just quick mental-ray WIP renders.

-- After scene is done, cleaning out the majority of triangles comes next. Then adding more definition/resolution. THEN texturing. Lighting (mostly working on ‘actual’ light sources and interior scenes - Hawkers’ Alley, Drowning Wench, etc).

-- THEN its onto my Player Character: Meyko and relearning how to rig and skin.

-- THEN (god knows how long this ‘then’ will be) animations with random stock characters.

*phew*

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Imported it into Maya and got it like 98% lined up (the lines i made in Photoshop may not have been 100% equidistant from each other haha i KNOW the ones in Maya are). And btw, my grid lines are also a medium red...so if you can’t tell then that should so how closely i got them all lined up haha.

I’ve got a separate Maya scene for the Lower Decks and the Upper Decks, which I’ll continue to work on until they’re mostly done (at least with the landmasses and large general architectural featuers (chimneys, ornate archways, lights, etc.) and then once I’ve got em mostly done, I’ll import each scene into Maya, readjust its scale and placement, and then try and work on the Low detail coastline to have a good place for my next venture (as far as remodeling the terrain).

[rebuildingeorzea-blog]

So i was going through some of the texture maps and kinda had a realization (which felt like a dumb thing to have since its pretty obvious haha).

The texture on the left is a standard texture for a lot of ground/pathways and the one on the right is a ‘weathered’ version of it. The realization is that instead of making weathered version from scratch, they just put another layer on top and created the weathering haha

in the span of like 1.5 seconds i went ‘OH! Oh...oh yeah duh’ haha

[rebuildingeorzea-blog]

So i’m almost done...maybe 60%...getting the major landmasses that compose the city together. Then its the architecture built into/around them, then the smaller ‘furnishing’ objects.

The hardest part will probably be getting the little islands north and south of the city. They’ll be the last things i try and get (i’ve already got some) and by taking the grid they use in the game map and duplicating it and adjusting it, i created a new origin (as maps start at the upper left corner and in 3D space they start in the ‘middle’ of all directions).

So by placing the Aetheryte at the origin i created a new grid system (which will be X and Z since you’re technically looking DOWN the Y axis at the map) that way when i import/find one of the islands, i’ll have a general coordinate to place them at in Maya.

Obviously i’ll have to do some tinkering with an image plane and scaling to get what i have constructed aligned/placed correctly...but it shouldn’t be too hard haha

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So i was able to find a font file containing the Eorzean standard font here: (http://dachoutom.org/ffxiv/fonts.html)

Most of the time they never use the font in a style big enough to REALLY matter haha so just using a standard font would probably suffice, but for authenticity I’m gonna use this for the ‘No Entry’ signs and anywhere else it might appear.

Given that the font actually exists means i could introduce more detail to certain items - like if i were to ever animate my character pulling a Hunt Bill off a bulletin board and show it, i could actually reproduce the regular font they use in the game (you know, to tell you what the mark is, where it is, how much gil and seals you’ll get) in the eorzean font on the bill itself.

Granted nobody would likely be able to read it as well as Times New Roman haha but it provides that extra layer of authenticity and detail to the world SE made...which is what i’m trying to do in the first place haha