Once I showed the group the models I was further tasked to import them into unreal engine, as well as to help out with texturing them, as well as changing them from displacement maps to normal maps for UE. 

I have sense put the models through substance painter to get the normal maps for low to high poly work flow, as well as gave them textures.

When I put them all together inside of UE, it seemed to go well. The next morning I was informed that migrating from a different project changes the source files of the project, which makes the github invalid. A simple fix it to just undo my changes, and re import them back into UE.

As the guy in charge of the Maya and modeling side of the project, this was also a huge week for fine tuning how to properly import into UE and what UE cares about. For instance if you were to import a mesh made up of many models into 3D painter, all it looks for is the different textures. However UE looks for both, so if you create a house with a door or roof that are separate meshes, and export it all out as one file to 3D painter and then to UE. UE will take that model and break it into it's separate models. Meaning a house with a door that can open inside UE and the minimum will be two separate meshes. If you were to combine it all inside of Maya and export it out all under the same texture, then the door is considered the same mesh as the house and will not be openable. 

In total I am trying to say I have much better understood how UE reads and looks at models, textures, and rigs. To the point where I feel I could easily be the guy in charge of the models, as well the one helping, showing, and teaching folks how to import any information the need into UE, as well as how to keep a mesh combined or seperated on purpose. 

This week our team was gearing up for the production pass, where we had all known it was coming up. We were also starting to work on and test so many future ideas it was good to hone back in. In this we put a hard focus on getting the story boarding, concepting, colors, layout, etc. into a good spot. I volunteered for being in charge of editing, and creating the animatic from the teams story boarding, mostly because I was the editor for the last three team projects I have been on and seem to not be bad! I also wanted to help with the creation of the presentation, but ended up going over board and getting almost all of it done. It has been so awesome to see how the team has really honed in on our world, and how much effort the story boarding people have been working.

I started with making a new level inside of UE getting a smaller ground plane to practice on! This is not going to be out final environment by a longshot! But it is a great start for reference building and for our team to work together on it visually. I learned last week how to sculpt the land inside of UE, and with that I am going to push myself to get it looking even better! As well to get scale of the land to people, and buildings to be more realistic.

The blocking stage is interesting as we have had a few interpretations of what the "map" should look like. With the main point being water going through the middle! In this I will be sculpting a river into the lands as well working to create a waterfall point for the our waterwheel. We are thinking of a river and coastal city, in that I will be adding ocean in after I get the land looking better. So that we can start planning around our shots with the water ways. I feel we should not spend a lot of time making a bigger city. As it is so much more work for so few shots! In that I will be pushing for a scaled down city, as well as working harder to make a great blocking stage for the team! 

I got to work more on the landscaping along side the town this week! I have been enjoying this section a lot as it feel quite fun and free to sculpt and move things around in engine! I was trying to get a more realistic land for the backdrop of the city, a more mountainous place while trying to set the vibes of the port city. I have a good amount of work to keep doing on this all but I think this is a great start to start seeing the city come to life. I have almost no concept art for the city besides a map I drew at night on a whim. But it would seem the group is wanting the city to be even larger! While I do not have an issue with making it larger, my concern is we only have my one starter home, and it seems like no one wants to be doing 3D modeling so far. We are stuck on concepting and creating in 2D at the moment, and it makes me have concerns for if they want to make it larger. 

I will keep pushing the city and the blocking stage until we get to a happy spot with it! I am also going to start working on the encampment area once I get the concepting art for it! I am hoping to see the team start to finalize some of the things they started week 1 on, so that we can start moving our production along! 

Went further on the landscaping and changing the blocking of the city! I changed the side the encampment was on, as well as changed the city to better reflect the isolation of the camp. Not only through the wall, but the bridge over the river that seperates the areas. I sculpted more of the mountains and back drop to better sell the land and scale of the smaller city. I sculpted out a mountains and imagined the rich area would be in the most protected area there. I changed some of the sizes of the blocking buildings to better represent the scales of the buildings we will be importing. I also was asked to move the water wheel up to a higher and more obvious area behind the city. Finally for the encampment, I made it so that they have little choice but to be living in the walled area. As well as thought of Rooster's tower. and gave him a higher up location for his telescope to have a good view of the city.

I am finally am to start rigging Rooster for the final time! With his mesh being finalized, I was able to start on his final rig! I did run into some issues with scaling, pivot points, and not freezing the transforms. Which I worked with the team and ended up just fixing some of the issues myself. With this being the final rig for rooster I have been taking the time to think of just about everything we could possible need the character to do! From any movements large and small! I used advanced skeleton to create this custom rig for rooster where I added a lot of components! From the tail to the inversersed legs, while also making fk and IK switches for them! To making the ear controllers or breaking the eyes and making the custome movement the team is looking for! 

Eli is always saying he wants a sky bridge, as well was saying my first attempt on steam punking the house wasn't enough! With this I went back to Maya and made a bridge between the two houses! In this the silhouette is massively changed, feels more fantasy, and looks even more distinctive. My next set of structural scaffolds was also turned down for being too industrial. So I reworked a lot of the ideas! One of those was adding the crane in the middle of the house! It gave it a much more interesting look! 

Every day I was putting in at least 3 hours onto the buildings here to get the to a fully completed state for us! The building style that I work with Eli to create is an extremely intricate design of multiple materials all throughout the structure. Not only in the pipe work throughout all the machinery. But through each and every wooden panel, roof tile, and brick being hand placed. Having to maintain consistency throughout the brick, roof, wood, and metal. All the while needing to make it all look part of each other and intertwined. We have to keep in mind the audience is viewing this world through a locked camera. In this we can get a way with a sparing use of copy and pasting these buildings around. In this I challenged myself to create such distinctive front and back of buildings that you would never think they would be the same! I do this through many ways of silohouetes to the finer detail work. I think a great example of the changes in detail work would be the speakers and pipe work on the buildings. On one side the speakers are squared and the pipes are so dense it could be cable work! While on the other side the speakers ore circular with much less chaotic running pipe work.