Game Scene Final Project Post

Final Post - Dec. 11, 2022

For our final project our team decided on recreating the church scene from Devil May Cry 4. My part of this project was to model the interior of the church and for a bonus I created a god ray particle effect for light to be beaming into the church from the windows.The idea of the particle effect was to help great a shining beam of light coming into the church to give it some light from the darkness. This is somewhat part of same kind of feeling that we are trying to pull from the game itself.

The models I modeled were the pillars, curtains, modular walls and doors, an alter, floor, balcony walls, and modular ceiling pieces. The curtains were the toughest part to export next to creating them. I made them with animation that shrunk the rods that the plane was attached to on the top and bottom to pull them together and since its animated it’ll have a wind effect to help generate curves onto the plane.

Now for the hard part to exporting the curtains, using FBX does not work. It’ll export the object but it will be invisible. So to fix that it took some testing such as trying different ways to apply color with using lamberts or aiSurface applied. Thankfully one of my instructors offered to help after I asked what could I be doing wrong and requested a copy of the file to play around with and after some time returned with the answer of exporting it as an OBJ. There is still so much to learn about maya and that is just the beauty of it.

The sizes of the models will matter and if you have more than one modeler then it will matter way more because if you do not setup a template for them to build off of then there will be more than likely some size differences that do not match up.

One of the other things I discovered was using the boolean to cut holes into shapes with other shapes adds a lot of unnecessary edges that makes it tougher when cutting UV’s. So there is an extra step of cleaning up the edges and then cutting the UV’s.

What I have really taken away from this project is taking a role in a group and pushing to get as much work done and out as possible. There is several ways of creating models with animations being one of them. Another thing to look out for is the quality of the UV’s and to minimize the stretching as best as you can. Ensure that the size of the models match the ones that your other modelers are making or better yet make a template for everyone to build off of.

Sprint Review 5 - Nov. 30, 2022

In this sprint I finished up a lot of the major models and started to texture as well. I have also made a God Ray particle effect for the dome to act as if light is filtering through the stained glass (still a work in progress). The stained glass is being a bit tougher to mimic than I had originally thought but it is not a major piece so I believe the chandelier and the God Ray particle effect will help to draw the player's attention to that instead of the stained glass. Though I still intend to work on it as much as I can. I believe if I tweak the colors and the normal map a whole lot more I can maybe get a better look overall.

Something I had not realized was the method of creating the dome with the ceiling did not cut who easily. I used a boolean to subtract the faces and create edges to hopefully make a nice open space for the dome to just slide into. No, unfortunately, there are some angled edges that can be seen. So I plan to go back in and connect and merge the edges and vertex points to hopefully clean that up.

Some other issues I came across was exporting the modular curtain wall. The curtains would not show up visibly in Unity. It would show the name for the curtains but not the curtains themselves with the rest of the modular wall. Thankfully our instructor Tony was able to find a solution by exporting as an .OBJ instead of an .FBX. The assumption is that because I used animation within Maya to create the curtains the .FBX cannot translate to Unity but .OBJ can. Just something for anyone reading to know in case you are making objects in Maya with animations.

Sprint Review 4 - Nov. 16, 2022

This sprint I further worked on the inside models for the church. Mainly the roof and working with ways to measure out the entire room. Many of the issues that are coming across is filling the ceiling with models so that there isn't just nothing. On top of that it's also knowing what to put there in that empty space as there isn't a whole lot of reference for the ceiling because its not really something the player looks at in the game. especially during combat. So just going off some of the images available is to make it kind of jagged and or just what you would find in a church such as this. At least one that is resembled from this style.

From the top image I tried to find ways to put in edges to make it show the team can put in textures for glass and to contain that glass. Because the whole dome doesnt need to be glass. So I am gonna try to bake the objects onto the dome so it will lay up against the dome.

In the overall scene I am trying to set it up to fill out the entire scene of the inside of the church. I have the benches going up to the back of the church. Additionally most models have been UV'ed for textures to be put down soon. As well for feedback if anything needs to be altered or changed due to some oversight or other.

Sprint Review 3 - Nov. 9, 2022

In this one-week sprint, I worked on more models for the interior of the church. I finished up the modular curtain wall I was working on as well as a trim piece for it. Additionally, I finished the bishop's podium. The other model I did was the flooring and chandelier for the ceiling. I think this was a productive sprint in getting models done.

For the chandelier I used the duplicate special tool which really came in hand to spread the light source models all around instead of just doing it by hand. For the modular curtain wall I have the trim pieces to cover the rough parts to the curtains which help to hide it.

What I need to get done is a modular wall for the stairway and additional modular walls with more ceiling pieces. Additionally, UV'ing will need to be done which will help with the process of sorting all the models into groups for export for texturing and then placement into unity.

Sprint Review 2 - Nov. 2, 2022

I am part of a team of four that are tasked with setting up a scene from Devil May Cry 4 video game. We have chosen to do the church level. I am tasked with modeling the interior and UV'ing the models as well. I plan to make a lot of the models modular so that we can snap together the models in Unity.

In this sprint, I have been working on making modular walls. Some of these walls contain curtains so I have been designing some various curtains through animation. Basically, I take a plane and attach it to another object and keyframe some adjustments and play it. Then I pause it as soon as I see a certain look that I like. I've had to attach additional objects to help achieve a better look as well.
I have also been working on the priests center podium and have been utilizing the deform tool bend to get that nice curvature.

After finishing the curtain walls I intend to work on the uppermost portion of them that have to do with arches so that will be another modular wall that will snap on top of the curtains. Additionally, I will finish up the podium and have the stairs done next that will lead down into the benches which will make it a flooring piece.