#80.lv

[feedingfrenzy91]

Ubisoft CEO Blames Star Wars Brand Trouble for Outlaws Failure

Now this is just a bad excuse.

Gameplay: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II

May God bless you all.

Gamespot article: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ubisoft-ceo-blames-star-wars-brand-trouble-for-disappointing-outlaws-sales/1100-6533297/

Thumbnail: https://80.lv/articles/ubisoft-blames-star-wars-outlaws-failure-on-declining-relevance-of-the-star-wars-franchise

[mertsakligameartsma]

80.lv

Hey there! I'm Mert Sakli a Game Arts and Design Masters student deeply passionate about crafting immersive environments and mastering cinematic lighting. Specializing in environmental design, I create spaces that go beyond visuals, weaving in narrative depth. My works reflect a dedication to pushing the boundaries of games art through open-world landscapes and atmospheric interiors.

My latest project, a captivating blend of creativity and technology, takes you into the future of gaming artwork and design. Immerse yourself in two breathtaking 3D settings, each thoughtfully designed to convey a distinct tale. What differentiates this venture? The strength of Unreal Engine 5 brings life to every detail.

Experience the wonder of two unique lighting conditions for each two environments, demonstrating the transforming power of light in sculpting virtual worlds. Join me as we explore the seamless integration of Unreal Engine 5's sophisticated capabilities, pushing the frontiers of what is possible in the world of digital creativity.

Here are my inspirations and references on this project:

I built an old dungeon and an abstract architecture to play with it. I built the dungeon modular in Blender and transferred it into Unreal Engine 5, I can assemble it as I like easily.

Here is the abstract architecture. I also used some Quixel 3d scans for the background. I used exponential fog and Postprosses volume to give it a moody look.

I built one natural light scenario and one with artificial light for the dungeon.

And for the Abstract architecture, I built one sunset and one night time lighting scenario. I created water material for pool and I made water caustic texture. Here are the blueprints and the scenes:

I made a video render for each and I combined them together to see how the lights affect clearly the environments.

As I wrap up our journey through these captivating 3D environments brought to life in Unreal Engine 5, I extend our heartfelt gratitude for joining me on this immersive adventure. The convergence of art and technology has never been more apparent, showcasing the limitless possibilities within the realm of game arts and design.

[ellie-bygrave]

80.lv Article: Finished Piece

Creating an Antique Telescope

In this article I will describe the process by which I created this asset, with focus on the main tube of the telescope and the texturing of it.

Modelling

Before starting to model the telescope, I gathered some reference images in PureRef. Antique telescopes are a popular item listing on Etsy, so there was lots of reference showing different styles and builds for such telescopes.

The majority of the modelling process involved starting with basic shapes and extruding faces and creating loop cuts to achieve the shapes I wanted. I combined different aspects from each reference photo when modelling, so the final model is not an exact replica of any of the reference I used.

There are not too many small details on this model as the final application that I had in mind was for it to be backlit by moonlight, so the silhouette was more important to me than adding lots of unnecessary detail that would not be visible. The texturing also adds some detail to the model through edge wear and scratches. I added one level of subdivision to the model to smooth out the curved edges for rendering purposes but for use in a game or larger project the subdivision isn’t strictly necessary.

The modelling for the rest of the components was a similar process, starting with a primitive shapes, then scaling, extruding, and adding loop cuts until each part resembled the references I used.

UV Unwrapping

I’m neither a big fan nor very good at UV unwrapping models. Thankfully the components of the telescope weren’t too difficult to unwrap. I marked a seam down the length of the model and a few around the circumference in several places until the UV unwrap looked more or less even. I moved a few vertices by hand to straighten out the UVs in a few places, checking the texture on the model to ensure I wasn’t distorting the texture placement.

The UV unwrap for the legs and the other components was fairly straightforward, as these parts were either more simple shapes or had seams that were easily hidden. The process was the same though. I marked seams on the models then unwrapped them, modifying the seam placement until the models unwrapped nice and flat and with little distortion.

Texturing

The texturing involved building up several different textures in layers to create a more natural looking material. I began by using a polished brass texture set from textures.com for the base metal material.

I then used the roughness and normal maps from a different texture set to add more depth to the surface imperfections on the model. I mixed the base and new normal roughness maps together using a MixRGB node which allows some level of control over how much of each map is used in the material. I did the same thing with the two roughness maps but I also added ColourRamps to further control the amount that each roughness map impacts the material.

The next step was to add a dirt layer to the material. To do this, I used the second roughness texture as a mask with a ColourRamp to control the amount of dirt and how strong the dirt colour is on the object. The mask was used to mix the base colour image texture with a brown colour to create the look of dirt or grease on the telescope. Any image texture could have been used as the mask, but I decided to use a texture I already had as part of the texture set up for ease and it created an effective mask.

To create the edge wear mask I used the Bevel node and Normal output of the Geometry node and combined them using the Dot Product to find the point at which the two intersect, selecting out to sharper edges of the object. The Map Range node can then be used to tweak the black and white mask produced by the Dot Product, revealing white edges at the sharp points of the model. This produces a decent mask by itself, but it produces hard edge lines rather than a more inconsistent or patchy pattern that we might see in real life. To create this patchy pattern, I took a Noise Texture and subtracted that from the output of the Map Range, leaving a mask with more uneven edges.

This was then used as the factor by which the colour was mixed with a dark brown and the roughness was mixed with a light grey in order to make the edge wear areas a darker, more matte colour.

The final material can be seen here with the result.

I used this gold material on all of the components of the telescope. For the wood of the legs I used a simple PBR material with image textures I got from texture.com again.

The Final Object

I'm pleased overall with how this object turned out. The material is detailed and gives the item a used look, precisely what I was aiming for. I think it has a really strong silhouette, which is ideal for the use I have for it.

[ellie-bygrave]

80.lv Article: Asset

I've decided on an asset that I'd like to write an article about. For my development project I've created an antique telescope model that I'm very happy with in terms of modelling and texturing.

I'm going to write a breakdown of the modelling process, which was fairly simple, and the texturing. The texturing was more complex as I layered up the textures to get a more realistic texture with a lot of depth to it.

[ellie-bygrave]

80.lv Article: Ideas

This week's assignment is to write an article that could be published on 80.lv. The aim is to take a piece we have worked on and write an article showing the process of the creation of it.

I feel like I'm not yet at a level where I have much to teach other people in that way, but I might try and do a breakdown of a smaller project where I can really focus on one aspect of the creation to create a more detailed "tutorial".

I'm going to begin work on my development projects and see if anything from working on that seems useable for an article.

[jacked-in-jane]

A Tool for Cutting Faces in Blender

Save time on repetitive modeling tasks with this cool tool.

Useful & only $8 USD

[gamedev-resources]

Making a Post-Apocalyptic Metro in Substance, 3ds Max & Marmoset

Sasho Lazeski shared an enormous breakdown of the Zoloti Vorota project, talked about working in Substance, and shared a lot of useful tutorials for aspiring artists.

[gamedev-resources]

Meadows: Creating Stylized Nature in UE4

David Holland shared a detailed breakdown of his simple stylized meadow scene loosely inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Ghibli's My Neighbour Totoro.