Project Management & Dev Log

3.1 & 3.2 - Weekly Project Management & Dev Log

Previous Feedback: "Your development logs were very well written and included a lot of detail, I felt that these could have been a little more evaluative on the whole there were elements that were very evaluative but some sections were a little descriptive and for the FMP it is important that these areas are improved for a top grade during the FMP. "

I then began working on modeling my final piece/diorama all together. Starting with modelling the base for the other assets.

(image of all the steps in the process to make the base)

It started with creating a circular plane and increasing the amount of divisions so I can create clearer lines later on when it comes to editing the edges so I can distribute my xgen grass more naturally. I then went in and using face, edge and vertex select I moved the parts up and around, sometimes also changing rotation to add some variability into the ground so It didn't look so flat and boring. As I was going towards making the original hill design like I planned with the torii gate and tree at the top/back.

I also stretched the edges of the circular plain so It didn't look so round and came out more natural, like a block of land.

Then I stretched the planes edge down to add some depth to the ground layer (image below) and just to flesh out the ground layer.

(stretched edges to make less circular)

The last step in the process was adding a texture deformer, a process I found within my xgen grass tutorial video I used, where I took a copyright free bumpmap photo or gradient (white noise or black/grey/white image) and added it to the texture deformer effect which create some extra slight deviation in the end surface of the ground model. (left is without, right is with texture deformer).

In the end this is how the ground texture turned out after more tweaking to things like the edges inside and out, twisting and moving the faces and the placement of the lines. In the end I was quite happy with how easy and quick the ground was to create but with also how well it turned out in the end. The small alteration that I had to add however was changing the mesh of the surface faces & edges to soften edges.

Here I marked out in red the edge lines that I wanted my grass made in xgen to follow, as it's only outline is which faces are going to have the splines on I had to go in and manually change the lines so that the grass followed where I wanted it to be.

(front and back side of final ground model)

(front view + ao)

This is also where I decided to start unwrapping as I was modelling to make the end process of creating the textures for my models later easier.

The unwrap for the ground was in the end very simple as it was essentially just one face. So I moved onto my next most important model, my Torii gate.

When it came to my torii gate I knew I was already happy with the laid out design/model I had made previously in my ideas generation. So to save on time I didn't bother to remake the wheel as redo a similar Torii gate and in the end decided to use the one I had already made with my scene in mind (picture above). The only thing left to do was to unwrap the torii gate. This was one of the harder steps over the entire process as it was without a doubt the most complicated model in my scene. It was difficult to completely unwrap it in one so I decided to split the unwrap into different sections first.

This made the total process a lot easier as I could focus on each individual section using its own map projection to unwrap essentially simplifying the process before then combing the objects and unwraps together again to create the finalised unwrap. When creating my finalised unwrap I played around with stacking the different unwrap shells for things like space on the unwrap but in the end I decide to not stack and of the shells as the Torii gate is the centre piece of my entire scene and as such with get a higher res texture so I want to add individual details to each side or part (for example each leg of the gate) so I don't want to make the texture for one of the more important object empty because of UV space and instead wanted to keep a unique look to the texture.

(picture of my final unwrap for my Torii Gate model)

I then connected the 2 models together and finished my first 2 unwraps.

I started to see the relation of my previous diorama test I created and this one and liked how there was a clear similarity but also you could see the development of my newer and more developed version. The next thing I worked on in my piece is the xgen grass, I wanted to get the procedural generated grass out of the way so I could see the individual set dressing as I start to add more models to the diorama to make sure I stay in line with the composition I originally decided on. It started with re-following the tutorial that taught me how to make the xgen grass the first time round and remade it in my scene for my new ground.

This time round though I focused on getting a more accurate colour and shape for the grass so that it's closer in shape and colour to my original design of my piece and so the grass doesn't glow neon green.

Again creating the procedural generated grass felt pretty easy following the tutorial and turned out a lot better than I was originally planning: shape and colour wise. To then tweak the colour of the grass I added temporary colour to the base model (and a temporary texture) so I could see the design better. Also I removed some of the grass in the areas where I want to add sand (when I create and use my own texture).

(Grass with the colour - Torii gate)

(Grass with the temporary grass texture)

In the end when I added my temporary texture with the colour it took some tinkering with how much the texture repeats but I also wanted to add onto it a bit so I decided to add a bump map. To refresh my memory on how to add a bump map I looked at this tutorial (below) that made it a lot easier to add the map and in the end fleshed out the smaller details of my model quite a lot (for the bump map itself I used a copyright free random noise map).

So this is what it looked like so far (with all of it unwrapped):

I then re did what I did for my Torii Gate with my pillars, however for these I did a small amount of remodeling / redesigning as I believe the older ones looked too simple and just a bit blocky (I didn't like their design). But overall they turned out similar but better and I just had to unwrap them.

(pillars - old on left, new on right)

I was much happier with the new redesign for the pillars as they look a lot more stylized and detailed. Looking much less blocky. I did make some small extra changes to the design to finalize it however.

coming up with these 2 head designs. In the end I chose to compromise and put the 2 different styles together which in the end created a design I was really happy with and I really like the look of.

(final head design for my pillars)

(final pillars models)

I then set dress the scene with theses assets and at first it felt a little bland an symmetrical so I decided to mix thing up by making the one on the right broken and as such only use 1 beam and have the 2nd pillar be a seperate broken model with the top of it being on the floor as if it had fallen off.

(broken pillar model)

To help with the unwrapping of the pillars I decided to do it in the same was as my gate so I split the object into parts before unwrapping each section. So I could combine them all in the end.

When combining the Unwraps into 1 UV I did have some difficulties and had to manually edit sizes and shapes here and there not only to make it easier for unwrapping but also to get everything to fit. So I would say it was quite difficult however overall it was much easier to do than my Torii gate due to it's more complicated geometry. (Just hoping these Uvs actually work for later).

(scene so far - unwrapped pillars)

It was then time to start working on some of the smaller assets in the scene and to start set dressing. This included things like boxes, barrels or pots to swords and arrows or just foliage like larger grass, rocks or flowers. I even thought about adding bamboo if I had time. Although first I had to make another one of my more complex geometry objects: my war banners. On the surface the idea was simple and to model it was easy however when it came to unwrapping I nearly had as much trouble with the banner as with the gate, even when breaking it down into simpler pieces.

Another thing is that for my banners with holes although the geometry actually re texturing them was pretty simple with just using a planar projection to grab the look since its flat. It was a little difficult on creating the holes as I had to use the multi cut tool and target weld tool to create and fix edges since it wasn't a face a polygon with depth after all.

These are the models I made when it comes to the war banner. From right to left you have a normal one, one slightly torn and another that's completely broken along with the pieces of it's broken shaft. Overall I'm happy with how the models turned out. The unwrapping was a lengthy and pretty grueling process however in the end I managed to make relatively clean unwraps along with the models which was nice. I also like the fact I could get some variation in and have not only 1 but 2 damaged variations to just spice up the scene a bit more so It doesn't feel so flat. When It came to making these banners I actually had an original version where I used a face instead of a really thin polygon cuboid but I quickly realised that when it came to making the UV and texture I couldn't texture both sides of the object. I then researched into ways to texture both ways of a face and actually managed to find that it was possible with the use of arnold materials in maya, but this meant that the 2 sided texture would only be visible when rendered using arnold and wouldn't be visible in the port in maya as it doesn't render the 2 sided arnold texture material. However this wasn't a complete issue, then main issue and reason I swapped over to the cuboid was the fact it's still a single unwrap/UV per side so I would have to use 2 textures for the front and back separately rather than how it is now, being all on 1 unwrap/texture. (another small reason was the fact the cloth of the banner wouldn't be flat and would have some depth (like the ones I studied in my looking at Final Fantasy 14).

these are the unwraps for my different war banner models:

Here is the Arnold 2 sided texture I created as a test to see how it worked for myself: (when learning how to make this material I gained an understand of Maya's hypershade and how to edit materials a bit more - especially getting more of an idea of what arnold actually is and what you can do with it. It was quite complex to understand as I ran into a few issues, a tutorial I followed showed that you use an arnold standard shader with your front and back texture but when I tried that It didn't work and only worked when just using the textures base.

This is the tutorial I followed to learn how to make double sided faces using arnold materials:

There are also 2 other tutorials I followed that go over the maya's own tutorial version of how to make a 2 sided material however in the first it recommends a "better/faster" version of making a 2 sided material that uses arnold materials like the tutorial above. However when following this tutorial using arnold 2 sided I finally got it working as this was the tutorial that made me realise that it wasn't working due to having an arnold standard material attached to my front and back textures. The tutorial above clearly shows using materials alongside with the front and back texture, but I couldn't get it working so at some point I hope to get that working and learn it for future projects. Another thing I couldn't get working was following the 2nd tutorial and maya's own tutorial version of making a 2 sided material, this version seems useful in other ways to using arnold and in the end I would also like to get this version working so I have the choice of a 2 sided material with either maya or arnold materials and not just the base texture. After getting a base arnold version working I quickly realised that I would have to go over this again and learn it properly (a.k.a get it working) for when I do my leaves for my tree or maybe some over foliage in my scene as they will be a face that has 2 sides for different textures but will also need working materials.

This is how my test using textures and arnold materials to create a double sided material turned out after I rendered it (compared to in the maya port view): you can see there is no textures in the port view but when rendered it shows a front and back texture (both the model on the left and right are the same just flipped).

I then started on some boxes for my scene. I went through a series of designs and iterations slowly adding onto and improving what I liked until I made my final design which was a sort of combination of all the bits I liked from my previous designs (left to right for old to new).

It was hard to find something exactly I like but looking at the boxes in final fantasy 14 that I took screenshots of I was able to get a style I liked and moved away from western or modern crates. It even gave me the idea to add a handle so it feels less flat.

In the end I liked the design and it was relatively simple over all so I went onto unrwap it.

It was a pretty easy and simple unwrap which was a nice break. I did a small amount of manual editing when it came to the layout of the UV so that it was easier to texture later on down the line. But everything was uniform so there were no issues.

so far: (box+banners - grass)

(+ grass)

I then came up with 3 barrel designs: 1 rounder, 1 shorter and 1 taller. Personally I prefer the 2 on the right (short + tall) because after looking at some japanese barrels through image research they have very little bend compared to western barrels you expect to see on pirate ships.

However I didn't like how similar the small and tall ones were so I created some variation.

making a lid for the tall one and making a smaller bucket version for the short one.

So I imported them to my scene and unwrapped them. Making a finished bucket, short barrel, long barrel & lid.

There were a few issues with unwrapping that I made when modeling with extra faces inside that I had to clean up but overall it was pretty simple, less than the box. But still easy. However in my opinion I'm not the biggest fan of my unwraps for the barrels as they come off as unclean or unoptimised to me. Like I could improve it somehow. We'll see how true this holds up when I texture them.

I then made some pots to also fill the scene, modelling them off a screenshot I took from Final Fantasy 14 and their pots.

I really like the 3 similar but separate designs, they are very simple by design but are nice in the scenery. Currently though the edges of the pot are very hard so I decided to modify it and soften the edges of the mesh to make it smoother.

which made them look much better and smoother. I thought about creating a cracked or broken pot variation however After putting my current pots in the scene I feel like that would be a bit too much damage and would not only be complex but would also overcrowd the scene and kind of kill the bits of set dressing I've been adding up. So I went and unwrapped them: 1st was the thicker:

Then the smaller thin one:

and lastly, the tall thin one:

It's the same as with the barrels as I'm not 100% on these unwraps as they either seem a bit off or the feel like they are going to be difficult to use when it comes to texturing the models. Especially the last 2, trying to wrap my head around the texture being a giant rectangle when the model is a pot. It's just hard to wrap my head around and texture properly. It's proportions are correct you can tell that by the squares on the pot itself being squares so you know there isn't going to be any stretching of the texture itself but it still feels like there is an issue to it.

(update on overall look of scene)

I then created a plank for the walk up, easily one of the easiest objects in modelling and unwrapping. I also like that I was make it look a little worn and older by adding some alterations to the geometry so it wasn't jut a flat cuboid and it feels a bit more alive.

this allowed me to add the walkway I wanted that lead up to the torii gate. I wasn't 100% on these wooden planks right now. Especially when it came to the rotation and orientation of them as right now they feel a little out of place, but once I update the ground with my own texture which has sand there and splices the sand and grass I think it'll work and look better.

I then did some looking into how to make rocks in my scene rather than trying to make them with no experience. It started by looking into this tutorial to understand the very basics or a simple method I could use to make low poly rocks:

But this led me to find 2 other tutorials that show a lot more generated type of making rocks, rather than hand crafting or sculpting them. I could either generate them or split a large piece into smaller (like how real rocks crack and are just smaller pieces of larger rocks).

In the end I liked all the methods shown and thought it was really cool to be able to generate the geometry and rocks for my scene so rather than picking a single method I decided to use a blend of all 3 to create the rocks for my scenery. Even editing generated rocks so they are more varied and fit in together better. Originally they came out with soft edges, I took a look and tried hard edges too and in the end realised I prefer hard edges to soft.

Now having some rocks in place leading up the path it started to come together a little more. I played around with their shape and size as I wondered whether there were too many or too little scattered around.

I added some larger rocks to fill out the back side of the diorama and overall I'm really happy with not only the rocks themselves turned out but also how I managed to put them together in the scene. Also when it came to unwrapping the rocks it was relatively simple, the unwrap is quite clean if not a little difficult to view and understand so when it comes to texturing there may be a few small difficulties but I think it's largely workable with. Especially since I doubt I will be making an individual rock texture for each (talking about texture per rock not 1 UV per rock).

the only thing now that's getting to me is this small patch of dead space where there is nothing. I want to fill it but at the same time I feel too much could take away. So maybe just something small and another of something rather than something new.

I then moved onto modelling a sword (katana to be accurate). I did this by adding an image for reference in the background and modeled it using a cylinder on a large scale. Then going in and editing bits of the sword. For example some of the edges were not the right thickness and some of the sword looked a bit wonky so I went in and did my best at fixing it up, In the end I'm pretty happy with how the whole sword turned out but I'm not the biggest fan of having to manually edit it, there must be a better way to line up the vertices of the edge of the blade so it looks less wonky rather than doing it by eye. The tip of the sword was a particular sore spot for me.

I thought about creating a broken sword variation but I quickly realised the difficulty in that and instead settled with the fact I could hide a part of the sword underground to make it look shorter because its broken.

(update image)

I was now left with this list of objects: lanterns, shrine-stones, arrows, candles, tree, bamboo, plants/foliage(flowers or else)

this was a list of possible objects left that I wanted to add to my scene however I was starting to run out of time when it came to modelling and unwrapping and thought I should move onto texturing soon. I had already tested a few of these in ideas generation like the tree, shrine stones and candles. Another factor is that my scene started getting really full of objects and a bit overcrowded so I was wondering about if I added things like lanterns and shrine stones the scene would get overcrowded or not. I knew for sure that I definitely wanted to add the tree. Also when it came to bamboo I realised that It would obstruct the view when looking from other angles. So I want to keep away from lanterns or bamboo as it would overpopulate the scene and lose its slightly untouched look.

I did make the arrow because it was small. Even when reference images I found it difficult to model the arrow and get it the proportions I wanted. Now thinking about it I realise that using an image and importing it like I did with the sword would have made modelling the arrow much easier. With the unwrapping I just split it into sections first and it became easy. I then spread these arrows around the environment. I was really happy with how well they sort of blend into the environment especially since they are less jarring then having swords everywhere. When placing these down I did quickly realise how much my scene was getting full up and realise if I wanted to add things like lanterns, shrine stones or candles up the path or under the gate itself I would have to remove things to clear the space. Like removing all the swords under the gate to be replaced with these shrine stones and candles.

I did create some low poly candles in the end that would go along with my shrine stones but seeing as I still had the tree to model and then texture everything I dropped these as well as the stones so I could focus on the important stuff.

I even unwrapped the simpler versions - If I have time I will texture them and add a few into the scene even without the shrine stones.

I then worked on my final and hardest model: The tree. To be able to make a tree I needed a tutorial to follow and found this series which was pretty hard to follow but gave good results as I started to follow it so I did. I like the design of the tree and although it's not exactly what I wanted from my tree it works well for my scene.

1st part of the tutorial:

tree after part 1:

tutorial part 2:

my model after part 2:

In the end there were more parts to the tutorial series: a 3rd for adding more branches by copying 1 branch over and over and moving/rotating it slightly so you had a bunch of branches all over that looked different but were the same and also a part 4 that showed how to add leaves and texture the tree however at this point I had run out of time. So rather than dropping the tree completely I decided to run with what I had: either a dead tree or a tree after a fire. My compromise leant towards the latter idea of having a burnt up tree. I'm not 100% happy with being forced to compromise but It's my fault for my lack of proper time management.

Here are my finished models/scene:

grass is made with xgen as such can only be used when rendered as it's either a render of grass or can turn into poly (aka turn every blade of grass into a model -> still works for rendering I guess),
Difficulties in unwrapping the tree
too much -> should have focused on individual objects rather than scene (or in turn removed complicated objects)
not allowed to use smart materials in substance

due to the lack of time of me leaving everything way too late (and that my grass doesn't fully work anyway) I'm moving away from a scene or environment and going to focus on the individual models in my scene and texturing those that are more developed and finished. So I have a selection of a few finished models. So I will be texturing: the Torii Gate, the Fences, The sword, the box, the barrels, the pots and the arrow. At least I hope to finish all of those objects. I still am not 100% sure on whether I will use substance or photoshop.

these are the objects I hope to be working on from now. Fully modelled and unwrapped. Only needing textures (either via photoshop or substance).

When It came to texturing I decided to use a mix of both Photoshop and substance depending on the model for efficiency and to get the most out of each program - even though my skills in substance and negligible compared to photoshop. I started texturing with working on my simpler objects in photoshop as their Unwraps are a lot simpler and easier to work with when working in 2D only. So I started with my easiest object: my lid. It started with exporting the Unwrap as a Jpeg to Photoshop then finding a copyright free wood texture from a wood texture blog and using that to build my texture. I did this by editing the photo via cropping and image editing. I changed exposure, contrast, brightness and colour balance to get a nice looking wood texture that I liked. Not only that but making sure the colours of each section of the wood wasn't too out there and different so when I cropped it into different sections It looked natural. I then cropped and copied different sections, editing the vertices so things lined up and then added a bit of shadow to it with a shadow for the underside of the lid and a shadow for the handle that sticks out on top. When I imported the texture then into Maya I realised there were gaps between some edges of textures and rather than manually editing the shape and size of every texture to fill gaps I decided to just fill the background with a colour close to the overall colour of the texture so they would be filled in with the in-between colour.

(wood texture I chose unedited)

(Final Texture In Game)

(texture with Unwrap Overlay)

(finished final lid texture)

I then repeated this process for my other simple Unwrapped objects using a mixture of real life textures, image/colour editing and brush tools.

Sword Texture (not as happy with this one due to flat colours on handle)

Arrow Texture (really happy with how it turned out)

I then textured my 3 Pots: not the happiest with the wider one due to unwrap issues but I do like the other 2 as they are simple and work.

(thin pot)

(tall pot)

(wide pot - probably the worse of the 3 due to lower res and the angled unwrap with some small unwrap issues making the texture look a bit messier)

I'm not the most satisfied with the way the textures for the pots turned out. I don't mind the fact they are minimalistic or simple per say, that's not the problem, but it's the fact the texture looks quite cartoony and a tiny bit doesn't fit in with the rest of the scene. Because it looking cartoony I don't like it the most but since they are background pieces I didn't mind as they still blended in. This is when I realised it's because of the material (lambert) that it looked matte and cartoony - So all I did is change the material from lambert to blinn and they looked x100 better (get a more shiny surface).

my 2 barrels:

I'm actually really happy with how my textures for my barrels turned out. They look relatively highly detailed and they actually look like barrels. They blend into the environment and they aren't jarring while also looking relatively detailed (no high detail effects like weathering as its been left over or any marks like "gunpowder" to say what's in the barrel but a more minimalistic detailed look. I was satisfied.

(short barrel textures)

(tall barrel textures)

Normal Warbanner:

Torn Warbanner:

Broken Warbanner:

This is my war banner design/texture It's a relatively simple design but its a design I planned from the beginning. Thanks to my unwrap the texturing itself wasn't too hard as well. I'm actually very happy with the way it came out even though it's incredibly simplistic It still feels a lot more realistic than my pot textures. If I went back and re did it I would work more on the cloth and design of the banner and make it more realistic and make it less matte and smooth. Adding imperfections to make it more realistic as there isn't like a base cloth texture I could find and use as a base.

I then re used the same texture to create the torn version. However I ran into the issue that the way I did my Unwraps are very annoying as they didn't perfectly line up with previous versions So I had to go in manually edit and sometimes redo sections of the texture as It was misaligned and made the the texture look weird (skewed and textures where they aren't supposed to be). For the holes I didn't bother removing it manually on the texture and just let the model crop out the bits of the texture it didn't need.

Unfortunately again, I had to manually re edit the position and sizes of the texture again so it would fit and line up as I had moved around the unwrap again so it didn't line up properly when reusing before. However in this one because there were actually a small amount of sections missing due to half the stick holding it up being gone everything was shuffled around slightly. I'm pretty happy with how the broken variation turned out but again I want a more realistic looking texture. But also I want to add some damage to the banner actually on the texture and make it higher detail. Scratches, cracks, cuts and burns all across the wood and cloth of the banner (also things like washed out colour or dirt or wet due to rain, all these different effects). I wanted to make it higher detail and show off different weather effects as the broken banner has been left there to rot but I ran out of time to make any high detailed textures with that sort of detail.

This is then the simple unwrap for the bottom of the broken war banner re using the same textures from the 1st banner and just moving them around.

Ground Texture:

Then using some real textures for grass, sand and dirt I created my ground texture. I did this by doing a lot of work in photoshop to edit the direct image I used for the textures. This took editing brightness, exposure and contrast to try and get my grass and sand colours and brightness (saturation etc) to really blend in with eachother. Another think was adjusting the colour balance of my grass so it fit in with the colour of my xgen (I also fiddled with the xgen shader colour so it fit better with the colour balance and exposure I used for my grass). Another thing I had to do was repeat my grass and sand texture over and over (got a seamless texture specifically so I could have it repeat over the face) and then use the clone stamp tool to remove any visible seems of line and colour - so there wasn't things like visible sunspots where you could see the repeating lines of lighter colour. I also used the clone stamp tool to make the sand blend in better to the grass so It didn't have linear edges.

This is when I found out I needed to re-unwrap everything and will be retexturing most of the models because of the re-unwrap. The reason the re-unwrap was needed because the scene was being ported to Substance fully as I was originally texturing the models as if they were models within a game but now I was moving away from texturing like a game and towards a real render scene. The whole point of this process was to make it come out and look better as a finished product. Like the reason for the whole scene being imported to substance is so when I bake the AO it's done over the whole scene so the AO is specifically for this scene. To start this as a whole scene and since it was a render I could actually use my xgen grass and we needed to convert it to geometry. So I converted the xgen grass from primitives to Polygons. Keeping the high desnsity - but due to the overly high poly count as each grass blade had too many faces I reduced the face count of the mesh to bring that number back down. This whole process however meant that my textures I made for the individual objects would most likely be unusable but It did mean I could use my grass and use marmoset & substance fully (get most out of it) to build a better looking scene/render of the scene) which in the end I was much happier doing than leaving it as it was or texturing individually with no grass.

It was then re unwrapping the different similar elements and grouping them together (objects with similar materials or sections: e.g barrels, pots & boxes or all my Torii structure like the fence and gates or all my banners or my planks and rocks etc). It was a process of going through them, unwrapping and grouping before adding a material to that group so when imported into substance the whole section was grouped under one material.

Here are my different material groups and their unwraps:

Keep in mind for these unwraps the one that looks like a random clutter of slightly bent lines is my grass unwrap as every single blade of the grass is unwrapped as one and they are all laid out Equidistant. Also keep in mind that for the Banners Unwrap here it is the unwrap after I fixed it and re laid it. (lower down I talk about a substance issue where I thought I'd have to remodel my banners due to the messed up AO bake but it was just the Unwrap not being laid out - so the unwrap here is after I fixed it and laid it out).

Also note that the 1st image is the unwrap of my tree as with the help from a teacher showing me how and doing it himself was able to unwrap the tree fully which turned out pretty nice and clean with pretty much not being able to see the seam at all.

(pic of tree with texture pattern at end of list).

After finishing the unwrap and and grouping (adding new materials to the groups). I just had to export it as an FBX and import it to Substance Painter as a new scene then off to bake.

Maya vs Substance of Final Model:

I think the models with the AO baked in Substance makes the whole scene look very nice overall as the depth starts to really show and make the whole scene stands out a lot more over all.

However this led to running into my models for my banners because of the way I modelled the banners as geometry and not a face and target welding the wholes as the AO baked the back on the front and the front on the back so they needed to be remodeled as Faces/Planes.

However that was actually wrong and it was because the models' (plural) unwrap wasn't laid out so I just had to layout it and then reimort and rebake which fixed the scene.

<- here are the fixed banners.

Final Texturing:

Here is the collection of my final textures and them on their 3D model counterparts: made in substance using 2K textures and 4K bakes for AO, height etc. For the material of the scene I used "pbr metal rough with alpha blending" as the alpha blending meant that there was 2 way lighting so you could see both sides of my grass.

The Torii gate itself was actually pretty easy to texture as it was just adding a wood texture and then different fill colours to different areas to simulate paint. Using masks to show where the paint is and where it was with stuff like fading and chipping as the paint starts to wear away. To make some of the more significant fading appear I used my ambient occlusion bake as a sort of guide or mask for where the paint would be more faded as those would be the more rough areas, especially closer to the ground where weathering effects like rain would start to pile up on the gate. It was a combo of the ambient occlusion bake, a dirt generator and manually painting using a brush to get the desired chipping and wearing away of the paint for the black and red paint on the gate. In the end I wish I could have added more more finite detail like small scratches and marks from things like swords and maybe also things like moss or just something from nature on the gate but over all I'm very happy with how the gate came out in the end.

The ground was relatively simple as well as it was like recreating my previously made ground texture from before but using substance based materials and matching their colour and saturations so they all come together better. I also added an extra layer of ambient occlusion to make the ground shadows stand out more. For height and roughness as I used substance based materials rather than my own texture I just used parameters to adjust the height and roughness (in the materials) rather than like originally planned creating them by using greyscale in photoshop. As such with the height I made the height of the sand a lower height than the grass so it looked like a proper path (including the fact the sand material had waves built into it that worked well with the path look). For the grass texture itself it was actually a mud and grass texture layered on eachother but because the mud texture's colour was a bit flat and dull I adding a colour fill to then multiply it's colour to the mud to make the edges and underneath of the ground look better. For the sand placement I just had to use a paint brush to manually mask where the sand is in the scene.

The grass over all was pretty easy it was just masking the colour to the ground texture's grass but to make the grass pop a bit more I added a world point/position gradient (as the other gradient types weren't working) so that the upper portions of the grass are a lighter tone and it looks less flat colour wise. To make the grass itself pop I added another layer of ambient occlusion that I already baked to make the shadows just really push out the grass.

For the planks and rocks it was again using substance materials but for the rocks I used a texture that also had parameters for more or less moss so I actually duplicated it and upped the moss intensity before then re-masking the rocks so I had the ones in the front use the less mossy texture and the ones in the front use the mossy version so I had some variation in the rocks that were in the nature and those of the path.

When it came to the tree due to the fact I couldn't go with my original idea of modelling a cherry tree as I didn't know how I had to improvise with my current tree model. Since I didn't have time to create or add leaves my main option was just having the tree be a dead tree. However I felt that was a bit lack luster so I wanted the tree to be burnt and left over from an attack. This meant adding emissive orange to be like embers that are hidden underneath a charred surface from the tree climbing up from the root. I also adding a black charred look to some of the grass that surrounded the tree to make it look like the fire spread.

The swords and arrows were relatively easy however there were a few kinks in texturing them when it came to the handles of the swords. To make the wrap like design I used a rope texture coloured red and scaled it up to make it look like the handle was wrapped. But for the diamond shapes on the swords I had to place them manually on top and just masked off that area from the rope texture so the wood texture I placed underneath with a lower height level would then be underneath and look like its wood beneath the unwrap, left in diamond patterns. The only difficult part about the arrows was having to get a high resolution feather and then turn it into a texture through editing it manually in photoshop. For example manually dithering the edges a bit and adding gaps in the texture. For the colour of the arrow's feathers It was just using a fill layer in substance and playing with the opacity of the arrow's feathers so they look slightly see through.

This was my scene so far after the first day of texturing in substance: only having the pots, barrels, boxes and banners left to do.

Before vs after for my textures of my banner and other assets:

Overall I was really happy with how these turned out. I was able to reuse parts of my original photoshop texture for my banners as a basis for their designs which was super useful to make making them that much easier. Also I really like how the dirt/damage looks on the banners as it was made from the ambient occlusion of the scene so the banners that have more damage look more damaged on their textures as their ambient occlusion reflects that damage and amplifies the black damaged areas of the banners while keeping the undamaged version only dirty (also for the cloth material of the banners I used a bamboo texture which worked really well when scaled up). For the Pots, barrels and boxes I think they turned out really well as although I had difficulties of thinking what was actually in the barrel that didn't have lids and having to in most cases manually add the dips in the planks height gaps as their projection mapping of the auto version wasn't working properly and required manual intervention. So although there were some difficulties over all they turned out really nice and with the help of a teacher I was able to come up with the use of the open barrels and pots and fill them with water. Using a highly reflective shiny material and creating ripples it created a water like effect which turned out really nice (lastly it needed some colouration changes as the water would have been sitting there for a while).

Now here is the scene in substance with all the finished 2k Textures:

I then moved onto exporting those textures out and importing everything into marmoset toolbag to get some better and more realistic lighting, being able to use effects like raytracing and make turn around videos (and mess around with the skybox of the scene). This was for creating my presentation stills (renders) and turn around video.

(substance export settings)

Then it was just a case of adding the materials to the original fbx file from maya and adding some lighting like a few emissive lights for the areas I added emissions and some yellow-ish directional lighting for the sun. Creating this in marmoset: my first look at my final scene

It still needed some tweaking with the amount of AO, the lighting and the skybox but overall I was extremely happy with how this turned out as a scene and in my opinion looks a lot better than I thought it would turn out.

Model/Scene layers:

SketchFab Upload:

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