SHINDY LEONG

A1 - Diorama

SHINDY LEONG

Week 1

22 January 2020

Research and idea

Environment: Japanese Garden

Style: Realistic

Genre: Action-adventure, openworld

After looking around for what environment I want to do, I decided to create a diorama of a Japanese garden. I find their tradition and architecture unique. I also think the Japanese environment is becoming more popular, it appears more on games such as Overwatch, Sekiro and a new game coming out this year Ghost of Tsushima. Although these games have different genres and styles. Looking through several environment examples, I really liked the realistic style. This might be a challenging area but I would like to improve my skills with different software and get a better understanding. Learning the fact the environment has a purpose and why objects are placed on certain areas.

I looked at different gameplays, most of them were action-adventure, these are mostly open world. What's important is to focus on the story and make sure it actually has a meaning behind it. As a player we might like the action-adventure but it also has to have a good story within the environment. [3]

Screenshot taken from Ghost of Tsushima by Gamespot [4]

Research - game genre

I looked at the Ghost of Tsushima gameplay and did a short analysation. The two red circles are the rocks where the two characters are hiding from the enemies by the entrance. Since this is an action-adventure and stealth game it is a pretty common to use walls, rocks and other objects or a reason. As a player we don't tend to think about such stuff. Watching short gameplays and analysing the environment has given me a better understanding.

Thinking about it, the player tends to have the mechanics where they climb very often. Therefore the player will be on the roofs, to give them support, there could be boxes or trees next to the building to help the player. Puzzles appears in adventure games which allows the player to interact and explore the environment, however it should be quite obvious in the environment. This could be done by signposting like lightning, broken walls as example.

Research - Sketchfab buildings

To get further ideas I looked into different Asian buildings in Sketchfab. Mainly how they have set up their scene background, lightning, UV layout and texture maps. The different Sketchfab buildings helps me plan out which textures I could use repeatedly for different objects. The right one is a larger environment where she uses same texture for such as the stairs, planks etc. To fill out the environment she adds plants with the same texture but with different shapes. I will most likely get free textures and edit them in photoshop to add more details, but also include my own textures so it's not all downloaded textures.

Misc Asian Buildings by The Madraver [1]

Chureito Pagoda by www.plan47.ru [2]

Kyoto - Blooming spring morning - City Scene by Aozora. M [5]

Moodboard

For the moodboard I looked into other people environments, zen gardens, japanese gardens and different type of games. There are a lot of different perspective which will allows me to explore with it in the thumbnails. The moodboard consist of warm colours where red is the primary colour due the trees. Although the house, lanterns, rocks etc have more of the grey tone and not as much saturation. I also liked the lighting in the environments hitting through the trees which gives a nice effect.

Reference images

Week 2

28 January 2020

Thumbnails

Final thumbnail

Half way through the thumbnails I received some feedback about other ideas I could include such as make it obvious where in the building you should enter such as an entrance. Refining the ideas, I ended up liking number 6,8 and 9 as it’s quite similar to number 3. Although there are few sections I like of each thumbnail, therefore I will combine number 6,8 and 9 to my final chosen thumbnail.

Combing all the elements to the final thumbnail I decided to keep the path to create some leading lines and the low first-person perspective. I want the garden to look clean, therefore I decided to go for the Zen garden. My focus is the building as I can focus more on the details since Japanese houses is both traditional with its modern technology.

Lighting moodboard

3 IMPORTANT Tips for Greybox Level Design - ArtStation Challenge | VLOG EP.002 [8]

I created a lightning mood board to see get an example how the lightning would look in the environment. I like the light shining through the trees, to create that effect I will need to have larger or more trees in the environment. This is also one of the reasons I decided to go for a first-person perspective, so the 'player' is in a low angle.

I found a very useful tutorial of Polygon Academy showing his process for the Artstation challenge - Feudal Japan Challenge, how he sets up the lightning, uses the props repeatedly by rotating and scaling them and editing the terrain height. Since we are using Unity, I'm aware there is a terrain height tool in there and lightning etc. But I found this tutorial extremely useful as it's very similar to what I'm doing for this brief where he explains and has a clear process.

Week 3

5 February 2020

Blockout

I created a blockout of the final thumbnail to get a clear and accurate perspective of the environment. I had issues with another environment for another project which was the scaling, so I downloaded a free human chracter online as a guide to make sure I don’t do the same mistake. I did some research to get the right dimensions, although this is a blockout I wanted to get the correct dimensions so I can move on to the props without doing the same mistake again.

The top view is the whole garden, there is a large area which will be the Zen garden, but at this point it's just flat. I will explore and do some further research to give create the wavy illusion. There will be an entrance which will be quite similar with the tiles of the wall, although this isn't showing in this perspective. Therefore, I decided to keep the entrance model simple.

Props (images examples below)

1. Japanese House - Mostly wood

Roofs - Same tiles for top and bottom roof - Two different tile shapes and apply on a plane in maya
Walls - Top will have one texture - Bottom will have 3 which is the door, basic wall and the corner wall
House base bottom - Wood and stone texture
House planks (3) - These will be overlaying the walls
Planks (8) - Wooden texture
Stairs - Stone material

2. Japanese Lantern - Concrete material

Dimensions 70cmx25cm
Concrete material/texture - add some damage etc.

3. Nature objects (5) - Stone material and leaves

Trees + leaves (2), rocks (3), bush (1) and plants. And the stone bricks for the path way

4. Zen Garden - Texture, gravel

Create the texture in substance painter as I can draw directly and get a better view of the whole environment at the same time

5. Entrance - Black clay material (tile roof) and black/brown wood

290cm (width) x 280cm (height)
Same material as wall, tiles

6. Walls - Black clay material (tile roof) and white wall (concrete??)

Make one prop and duplicate it
Some dirt etc
Same material as entrance from the roof/tiles

House set by Polygon Academy [9]

Roof tiles by Polygon Academy [9]

I found some great examples of a house set, for the house there will be three pieces which could be the door, basic wall and corner wall. This makes it a lot easier rather the duplicate it multiple times. The planks of the wall are also separate, this will allow you to move the planks without having to detach any vertices from the wall.

For the roof the guy created four different roof tiles which he applied to a plane, afterwards he would merge everything and bend the whole plane to create the Japanese roof structure. I might not go for this method, but I thought it was a great idea to create that kind of roof. Although I need to think about if it's necessary since the player might not see that part in game, or I could use one or two roof tiles.

Exploration lighting

After the blockout I did some exploration with the light to see how to create the effect I wanted where the light go through the trees. It's natural light and exterior environment, I downloaded a HDRI to get an accruate lighting. I liked top right and bottom right due to how the light is in front and shines on the stonepath to lead the player. The trees are still a blockout which doesn't give me the exact shape of the shadow, such as the leaves etc.

Lighting exploration

Thumbnail exploration

Using the bottom right image I did a quick photobash to explore with the colours and see what kind of material I needed for the props.

There will be some changes such as the light and shadow. For the light it should have a warmer tone as I think the tone in this thumbnail is more on the blue side. By doing that I will adjust the light to red/yellow lighting to create the warm mood. I will also create circles around the props that are in the zen such as the rocks and trees.

Exploring with the thumbnail gave me a idea how I'm going to work with the environment and what adjustments I need to do. At this point this is just an example how the Japanese Garden will look like.

Test assets and lighting - Unity

Unity Test

I imported my assets from Maya to Unity explore the 3D version a bit further. I had to do a few adjustmest before importing the light. I used the HDR light from Maya which I imported to Unity. The HDR came as a 2D plane so I had to change it to a cube to be able to move it to the skybox. (tutorial)

Notes for myself (import maya to Unity)

In Maya: Save scene as (Maya Binary) > Save in a Unity Folder so it imports to Unity directly. And open Unity project in Unity and drag asset

EXTERIOR LIGHTING and POST PROCESSING In Unity by Unity Guruz [10]

I found this helpful tutorial of exterior lighting, below are the before and after results. This gave me a better understanding of the lighting in Unity, this was also a quicker to adjust the lighting than in Maya as it doesn't have to render.

The HDR and Post-Process package manager which can be downloaded in Unity made the biggest different with the lighting. The Post-Process offers different effect such as Ambient Occlusion, Color Grading and etc. There is an effect called Screen Space Grading which I will use when I have finished the trees props later to create the spacing between the leaves.

At this point the lighting is sort of how I want it, although there might be some adjustments once I import my finished assets. The effects I used can be seen below. I made the environment warmer as I wanted which I managed to make in Unity.

With and without HDR and Post-Process

Exploring lighting with trees

After the lighting I downloaded free trees from Asset Store to give me a better idea of the lighting. The light ended up being too dark so I changed the value higher. At this point I'm starting to get a better idea how my environment will look like.

Asset Store Download:

World Space Trees (FREE) - Shader[11]

Week 4

12 February 2020

Redoing the roof - vertices didn't align correctly

Combining all parts together

Refined roof

Roof Adjustments

After importing the blockout environment I decided to refine the roof, since this will be a low-poly environment I decided to combine all the three roof parts together instead. This is were I will use normal map etc to give the effect of the tiles. The reason I went for this decision it because the roof is quite high up and won't be very visible for the player.

For the process I created three different parts which will be the corners and the regular straight roof part. I think even if I went for other option the results would be the same, since the texture will be placed on a flat surface. I tried the method where I placed each roof one by one but I would always end up with gaps.

Trying to fix the issue several times I decided to go for the other method at the end. Even though I gave it a try, it helped me analyse my mistakes. I could have done better such as think about the dimensions of the roof of every side and then divide the roofs with even dimensions. Anyways, I will be using cylinders to cover certain areas which will be a part of the roof as well, this will be later on. Therefore I won't have to be too precise trying to match the tiles.

Blockout assets

Asset - Blockout

Here are all my blockout assets that I will be putting into the game exporter and into Unity. This process was easier than expected especially when I had these simple blockouts. I will be refining some objects and wait for some feedback before developing the assets to it's final piece.

Importing as game exporter

After importing my assets to Unity as Maya Binary I had to re-export my assets as game exporter. The game exporter quickly export the objects and can export multiple object as a FBX file. I didn't like this method as I had to place each object one my one, but I didn't have any issues with this process.

As I was re-doing this I used different trees from asset store which I found more suitable for my environment. I got suggested about speed trees which is a quicker way to model trees. I might go for this option if I run out of time, I want to try to create my own tree.

Week 5

13 February 2020

Sketch - assets

Here are the sketches of the assets I will have for my environment. Number 1,2 and 3 are quite easy models, but I will be spending more time on the lantern as it's much closer to the camera. I will be making a lowpoly lantern in Maya and export it to Zbrush. The gate and wall will be a lower poly where I will use the same texture for the roof. The decision for this is because these two props won't be very visible in the environment and isn't my focus.

The nature objects will be done in low poly and I will be refining the shapes etc in Zbrush. But I will be doing this part last, as I want to begin with the larger props and then to the smaller as I don't want to end up getting stuck with the smaller props. And for the ground, to create the waves will be done by using a gravel texture and baking. When I get closer to this process, I will do further research.

House set by Polygon Academy [12]

My biggest focus for this project is the Japanese house, this week I will be planning the different house sets and do a quick block out sets in Maya. Following the tutorial by Polygon Academy (above), he used textured and bakced planks for the house geometry which can be used repeatedly and is an efficient way to create the house.

Japanese House

Starting with the largest props, the house. I ended up with 13 house parts. The process wasn't very difficult, it took a while to get all the parts in place but I decided to go for this option because the second option would cause issues.

The second option was to create wall sets such as the edges, window and wall. I didn't go for this option because the dimensions on every side are different and I would be struggling with it, such as the roof as example. Using the first option allows me the create differnent 'pattern' with the inidivudal planks.

The shoji (window and door) will have a texture for the lattice frame and wooden material. I looked as several Japanese houses and the majority of them used this method. At this point I will be refining the larger assets and the do further detail.

House turnaround

Week 6

26 February 2020

I decided to refine all objects first before going to the details, so I refined the gate, wall and lantern. I also UV mapped a few props as it's easier to do in in low poly and then add in the rest of the edge lops. Although I hope this won't be affecting the UV-map too much.

I'm going to retopologie the lantern as I have unnecessary polygons such as the top. I found this lantern tutorial which shows the process through Maya, ZBrush and Substance painter, I will be using this as my guide. I think I might give Substance Painter a go, I have used it before, but it has been a while. I know how to use Maya and ZBrush, this is also as an opportunity to learn a new software.

The left lantern is the one I retopologised, I tend to add too many edge loops which gives the objects a bad topology. My issue is that I always try to keep everything in the same geometry instead of creating separate geometries. But re-doing the lantern helped me work faster and not get stuck, which usually happens when I model.

Japanese Lantern - 3D Modeling/Sculpting - ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter [13]

Rocks

[14]

I have been considering replacing the fine stones with natural shapes as I feel like it's appeals more in the Zen garden, it also feels more realistic. I used a shatter effect which breaks an object apart, this creates "rock" shapes. This is still a blockout as I might consider taking the rocks into Zbrush to give it more details, also because there are a couple of rocks closer to the camera.

The preview in Unity is how the rocks have been placed, I don't like the way they are placed as I feel like I lost the curve the path had. The gap between the rocks are also too far apart and rotation is weird. Although I will be sorting it out once I have done the final rocks, I think I will be flatten the rocks out more since it's too round.

Roof texture test

Roof texture in Maya

Roof texture in Unity

Here is the roof texture imported from Maya to Unity, I basically UV mapped the roof since the corners need to match. At this point it's not very accurate, this was just a test and how I would like the texture to look like in the scene. I personally like it, I also added normal map and ambient occlusion to create the heigh and illusion of the tiles.

I realised the textures didn't import when I imported the roofs even though I had embed media enabled. But in Unity, I changed it to Location: Use External Materials (Legacy) which search for the materials folder.

Week 7

4 March 2020

Roof - Adding in extra details

I decided to add in some roof sheeting as the house looked too simple and empty. I personally think this enhanced the Japanese structure. Gaming wise this details will be more obvious for the player rather than the roof. Since this prop is my biggest focus I can go further with it, for the wooden planks I used the instances. This will have a wooden material, however I'm not sure if I can rotate the texture UV in Unity. I will do further research, otherwise I will do the texture in Maya. But it would be learning do try it in Unity as I'm not familiar with 3D unity.

I could have done another method where I use the bottom part of the roof and used a roof sheeting texture but I found it too flat and doesn't look nice.

Roof tiles test - Wall and gate

I also wanted to explore with the gate and wall texture since they will have the same texture. I did a quick UV and added the texture. I could have used hyper shade but I want to be precise with the UV and texture since this gives be a better understanding of the software as well.

Gate in Unity

Scene in Unity

Week 8

11 March 2020

Low to high poly - Baking [15]

Export to Unity [16]

Lantern

Lantern Reference

Following the Lantern tutorial form above and week 6 I imported my lowpoly object to Zbrush where I added details and noises. This process went quite smooth since I have another module working with Zbrush. For the details I downloaded free alphas from Pixologic and used damStandard. I went for Zbrush since concrete has a mixture of holes, scratches and noises which could easily be done in Zbrush.

My plan to make my highpoly to lowpoly lantern will be done in Maya where I retopologize it and UV-map the low poly. I can export my low poly to Substance Painter where I bake in the high poly which creates the normal map. I will also be doing my texturing in there since I can do the painting in the software as well.

Zbrush high poly lantern

Export to Maya and retopologise. I actually didn't retopologise since the silhouettes were very similar, I used my low poly version I had from the beginning.

Lantern low poly and UV-map

This low poly is where I did a smaller change by bevel edges to get smoother edges. I also UV-mapped since I will be exporting it to substance painter.

The whole process in Substance Painter has been pretty smooth as I had tutorials to follow and it's the same concrete material. This is my second time using the software and I still find the layout quite confusing. Although I'm quite happy with the results since I managed to get the details I wanted as a low poly model and the model came out the way I wanted in Unity. Once all the final models and texture are added into Unity I think it will look great.

Lantern in Unity without light

Layers in Substance Painter

Textures - Normal/Albedo/Specular

Week 9

18 March 2020

Rock and stone

Process

I used the same process as I did above, here I used a stone shatter so I could explore with the different shapes that would fit in the environment. I chose one which I will be using for all the rocks by rotating and scaling. My process will the exact same as the lantern for the stone and rock. I want this to have high details as it's on the lower height level which will be visible for the player in game.

The process went pretty smooth besides that I shouldn't have retopologised before the high poly. But the results came out the way I wanted, realistic and with details. This is the objects in substance painter, I downloaded a free rock material from Substance Painter website and played around with the settings. Doing my second attempt with the baking, everything went smoother but I did forget some steps here and then.

Stone and rocks added into scene

In this scene I have rotated the lantern, imported the rock and stone. Receving some feedback I did some changed7 by adding the ambient occlusion and increase the dirt value for the lantern as it wasn't very visible in the scene from week 8. The ambient occlusion brings out the shadows which adds more realism to the lantern. For the stone and rocks I only used one of each where I rotated and scaled them, I think the assets came out pretty good in the scene and starting to bring the whole environment together. I also decreased the colour grading to have a more natural light and not depend myself too much on the warm effect as it looked to unrealistic.

Week 10

25 March 2020

Sand wave

Sand wave - Circle

Sand wave - Plane

Sand wave

My first idea was to use this wave tool in Maya to create the sand waves, but these came out as high poly. The images are just exploring if the circle or plane worked out the best. Since it's high poly I will instead create a lower poly one where I can add a high quality texture and create diffuse, normal map, ambient occlusion, displacement and roughness.

Low Poly Waves [17]

Unity sand wave

Here is an example with the sandwave, the issue here is the island doesn't really have a round shape. This could be a quite challenge to figure it out.

Low poly circle sand wave

Lines guide for sand waves

Sand wave test 1 - Low poly

I did a low poly round sand wave, however this will only be for the rocks. I will also create a different shape of sand wave to match the grass island as it's not rounded. I will use the sandwave and extend it and add more edge loops to create the shape.

Sand wave for the rocks

Sand wave straight

Unity Preview - Sand waves

I imported the two textures and I like how the straight one looks, but not the rounded one. I will adjust the texture so it blends in with the other texture, I will also re-scale the height as it very noticable its seperate objects. However, I think I managed to get the diffuse, ambient occlusion, height map and normal map work for the straight sand wave.

I could use a plane for the round sand wave as well, but I will try to adjust the texture in materialze and adjust the height first and see how that looks.

Sandwave plane

Texture

Sand wave test 2

My second option is a plane texture where I use the height, normal and ambient occlusion to get the illusion of the waves. I'm not sure how I feel about this, I tried adjusting the colour to make it blend with the straight sandwave. However, I still don't like how flat it looks. I will wait for some feedback and see what else I can do.

Round sandwave 1 and 2

Here is a compaision of the two sand waves. Getting some feedback, the right one have too many lines which is the reason why the right one looks better. The left one is still too high poly and need to be lowered a lot more.

Week 11/12

1-8 April 2020

After trying out different methods I'm going for the plane one. Looking from a game perspective it would be better to use a plane as it saves polycounts and it’s not something the player would pay attention in game.

This time I used a round sand wave image which I used as a base. This has more shadow and light, this means I will be able to get more details and create a better illusion. Since the base is plain sand, I used the same pebble texture as the straight wave to overlay the image to make sure both sand waves would blend with each other.

I still think I could have done better, I did some adjustment with the albedo in Unity so the hues would match. This is as close I can get, although I'm glad I managed to get the illusion of the sand waves even though it's just a plane. I might consider doing further adjustment with the sand wave if I have time since I have spent quite a lot of time on this area.

Terrain and mask map

Unity has a new terrain update which contains more tools. This wasn't mainly what I was looking for, but I found that they had texture paint and blending. Before that I researched for hours trying to find a way to do material blend or vertex paint ProBuilder, PolyBrush and trying out other downloads. It was just too confusing, and I never managed to get the texture paint working.

I decided to give the Unity Terrain a try which allows me to add height, paint/blend textures, add plants quicker etc. The reason I didn't go with this option first was because there were only Albedo map, normal map and mask map, which I had no idea what is was. Because I wanted to add height, ambient occlusion and the other maps. Doing some further research, I learnt that the mask map is the metallic (R), Ambient Occlusion (G), Height (B) and Smoothness (A). [19 ] Once I learned more of the terrain settings and functions I decided to go for this method.

Build Beautiful Terrains with Unity 2019! – New Terrain Tools Package by Unity [18]

PBR Workflow in HD Render Pipeline Unity 2018.3, by Unity Guruz [20]

Channel Packer [21]

Terrain layer

Mask map converter

What I like with the terrain toolbox is the fact it allows me to add as many texture layers I want. For the ground I will be used 4 different terrain layers, and each texture has its own normal map and mask map with different settings I can play around with. I had no idea how to create a mask map, but I found this Channel Packer I downloaded from GitHub and imported it to Unity. With the channel packer I can add the RGBA textures which converts it to a mask map, as example the Green (G) is ambient occlusion.

To be able to use the mask maps I had to use High Definition Render Pipeline, this is because I'm using custom terrain shader and HDRP supports the mask map. I think this is also good as the render will come out nicer. I made a copy of my unity project to make sure the HDRP doesn't ruin anything, I read that they suggested the HDRP should've been added before starting with the project in Unity Hub which was correct. I created a new HDRP project instead of 3D in unity hub and imported my unity project.

Terrain layers - Preview

This is something new I have added to the environment as I thought it looked too empty. With the grass, lantern, rocks and plants (not done), it makes the environment looks less dull.

Terrain layers

Using the different terrain layers I just painted on the terrain with the different layers.

Materials imported to Unity

I changed the raked sand as the ambient occlusion and diffuse map were too dark. The sand and the grass materials are used for the terrain, I used a base material which is the third material (green grass) and the two other grass materials I used to blend with the base material, so it gets the realistic look. This was a long process since I added height to the grass and a few areas of the raked sand that's close to the camera.

With the seamless sand I added height with the terrain tool around the rocks and grass and texture with terrain tools, I created a darker seamless sand texture to create more details by paiting between the heights. Lastly, I replaced the wooden material which a warmer tone to suit the lighting, I think it looks good as it goes well with the raked sand, lantern, grass etc.

HDRP

Unity camera view - HDRP

This is the Hight definition render pipeline, I would say the this looks better than the standard renderer? As the HDRP uses Realtime lightning and have different shaders, it has more contrast and shadows which I think mainly gives the realistic look. This isn't my final lighting settings, once I have my own trees imported, I will add some volumetric fog to get the light effect through the trees.

Top view

Week 13

22 April 2020

Roof tile and texture - Uv map - Before and after

Since the roof is one mesh the texture would only go in one direction. I selected the edges and cut the UV edges to be able to rotate the UV shells individually. I could have stacked the shells, but I wanted to have the correct scale for the edges of the roof. This is the reason I placed the UV's this way instead of stacking the shells on each other.

Final roof

Roof texture - Refine

I used the same roof tile texture from week 6. The texture was done in Materialize, I found it quite challenging to get the illusion of the roof tiles. For some reason the normal map was causing some lighting issues in Unity, so I kept the settings low and used the Smoothness remapping to enhance the shadows and brighter areas (Images below). I'm not sure what's causing these issues but when I turn off the light in the scene, everything looks fine.

However, the roof tiles won't be very obvious for the player in game so I'm not worried trying to get the perfect illusion. I don't think it's too flat, there is still some illusion there which is what I was trying to achieve.

Normal map causing light issues

Roof tile cylinder/ends - Texture

Looking at the roof tile cylinders, there were a lot of traditional decoration to the tile ends which I found fascinating. I downloaded a texture from textures.com and cropped out the image and did some image adjustments in Photoshop to blend with the roof. I decided to go for the traditional tile ends as it makes the house look less dull and would suit the Zen garden. I think I managed to get a good amount of details with the different maps I used even though it's just a low poly cylinder. The rest of the roof tile cylinder is just a roof texture where I did the same process. Since the rofe tile cylinder/ends are matt the details won't be visible as visible as the materials in Materialize.

Material for the roof cylinder and roof tile end

House - Shoji

No stains

Added stains with substance painter

Reference

Here is a simple washi texture I used, the left image above is without any stains added to it. I think this make the shoji walls look a bit too perfect as there isn't anything added to the texture. The bottom one is with stains that I have added by the edges to give it a bit more shadow and realistic look. When looking at the reference images the shoji were all white with not a lot of stains. I personally prefer a bit of stain to give the worn-out look, but this is also to enhance the details on the texture rather than being flat and one colour. I really want the shadow to appear.

Week 14

29 April 2020

Preview - window in unity

Window

The window have two materials, the wood material and washi walls. Adding the material this way will create less issues since the wooden material as example already has the normal map and mask map. If I were to UV-map it, it would've been quite unecessary since I'm using the same material anyways.

Wood materials

Shoji exploration

Reference

Shoji door

Before creating the final door asset, I decided to do some exploration with the shoji texture. When creating the top left one, I felt the materials were to repetitive with the same pattern. Therefore, I looked further into more reference images to see how the Japanese shojis looks like. I personally preferred the bottom left and bottom right one due to the wooden texture on the lower part of the door as it breaks the pattern a bit.

This was a quite difficult decision for me, I liked both a lot. But looking how the rectangular shapes affect to house did a big difference. The left one makes the house look narrower due to the rectangles are vertical. The bottom right has horizontal rectangles which gives a wider illusion of the house. I will going for the right once since I feel like the horizontal shape suits the house shape better such as the lower part of the building and upper part which also have the similar horizontal shape. Since it's only one house in the whole scene, creating the illusion of a wider house would make the game scene feel less empty. Also having a texture for the shoji will help will save polycount as it's a quite small area of the game which won't be noticeable by the player, it will also be in the shadows which won't bring the players attention either.

Texting window frame

Window

Once finishing the door and lower windows I began exploring the shapes for the upper window. Since the roof curves, it would affect the upper part of the window frame. At the end I went for the image below as I would add the shoji texture to the window. I used a psd texture which allows me to work efficiently rather than reimport the texture all the time. Since the UV-shells have different sizes I had to split them up this way, if I stacked all shells the width would have been incorrect.

Window and door

Once I finished the textures, I used Materialize to give some depth. It's not very visible on the image, but there is some height to the wood, so the image doesn't look too flat. The shojis are plain and doesn't consist of a lot of shadow or details, therefore it was quite easy to create the texture. I used the same wood texture here as well to create the shoji, this is because the whole Japanese building will have the same wooden material.

Week 15

29 April 2020

Stair in Zbrush

Concrete house base and stairs

I decided to redo the stairs and house base as I felt there wasn't enough details and wanted to add some individual cracks to the concrete. I brought the objects to Zbrush and added some noise, cracks with dam standard and used an alpha brush to add further details. Since concrete is quite smooth, I didn't want to go too far with the details. The same process was done with the concrete house base as well. The edges have some damaged added to it so make it appear more realistic.

Above is the concrete material I had before, I personally think the concrete has a brown tint, but I want it grey since that's how most of the concretes are. But I liked how the details are appearing on the concrete material. With Substance Painter I created the concrete texture, however the house base looks too blurry. I went back to Substance Painter, changed the scale and reimported it again. But the texture was still blurry, I think this is because the UV shells were too small.

At the end, I used the texture from Substance Painter on the stairs and the brown tint concrete material for the house base. I changed the colour in Photoshop to grey. I think this gave better results and exaggerated the details. The reason I didn't use the same material on the stairs is because I wanted to keep the edges and cracks I added. I would say the concrete might be too bright, but I also like it since it goes along with the lantern material. If I had the brown tint, I feel like there would be too many different materials. And the Zen Garden's usually keep it simple with their house and gardens.

Wall

Diffuse, normal and mask map

I refined the wall texture in materialize to enhance further details. The roof has the same material as the house, all I did was scale the UV in Maya to make in line up and get the correct scale. Other than that, I'm pleased how the texture appears in Unity with the correct light and shadow. I didn't want to get too into the walls as it's something the player wouldn't pay much attention to.

Gate

Materials

The gate are reused materials which is also used from the building. Looking at other gate reference images it mostly consisted of wood, concrete base and a clay roof. I decided to reuse the materials as it felt unnecessary to create new materials if the materials are the same as the house.

The gate is also another object that isn't very visible in the game scene, and it will be in the shadows since the light is pointed towards behind it. This also goes along with the house and sort of creates a connection between the two objects. I preferred the wood material since it enhances the warm tones for the environment.

Lighting issue

Lighting fixed

Lighting issue - Shadow

I noticed an issue with the lighting, when the camera was close to the mesh, weird shadows would appear. I'm not sure what's causing this, at first, I thought it must have been something with the normal map or height map. But changing the scene settings - shadow I increased the value of Max distance and split 1,2 and 3 shadows. I assume the distance was too short which caused the weird shadows and had to be blurred a bit. I still think the HDRP has more issues with the lighting than Unity standard lighting.

Week 16

Water - Garden

OCEAN shader with Unity Shader Graph! by PolyToots [21]

Shader graph

The water hasn't been a big focus for this project, since I have extended the submission, I had more time to explore and create other assets. I found this tutorial that shows how to create an ocean shader with the shader graph. I have been curious how water is created, and it would be interesting to get a better understanding of it. The shader graph consists of quite a lot of nodes which I found confusing, but this is my first time using it. I did understand some of the terms such as the normal strength, depth etc. But wasn't sure why the nodes were connected. I also thought creating this shader could be useful for future project which I could reuse.

The outcome could have been better but since I'm using HDRP 2019 there were a few issues with the transparency and reflection. Therefore, I increased the normal strength to enhance the tiny waves as it would be a windy that day. What I would have liked the results to be, is to make the water more transparent and have some reflection to it. I couldn't find any water from asset store as there it didn't support HDRP, this was also another reason I decided to use the shader graph. I also looked at a couple of water gardens, the water was mostly green/blue due to the environment and green surroundings.

Settings

Water - GIF

Wave example

Plane water

I used a 3D plane and added the material to the mesh, the material was edited with the shader graph to create the water. The plane could also be duplicated seamlessly if I wanted to create an ocean which I find very useful. The settings also allow me to create strong waves and increase the normal, waves, foam and change colour. I'm pleased I went for this decision as I now know how water is created, this was one of the options. What's great about it, is the fact there are so many options for me to play around with as well.

Trees

I did some research which trees Japanese gardens tend to have [23], the maple trees were very popular and black pines trees. The maple trees are a good option as there are so many varieties with the colours, but for the Zen garden I decided to go for:

Black pine tree
Shaina Japanese Maple Tree (red/purple)
Korean maple tree (green)
Korean maple tree (orange)

I think this will be a good colour palette to suit the warm tone for the Zen garden. And the green will be the neutral colour to balance the tone for the environment. I will be scaling the trees in different sizes so the trees don't look too similar.

Reference

Easy Unity tree tutorial by StudyBreakTuts [22]

Black Pine Tree

A few weeks back I mentioned SpeedTrees which is a quicker way to create trees, but I realized I had to pay for the software. Going for a free software I found that Unity has something similar to SpeedTrees. At first, I decided to create the trees in Maya and model the whole body tree and use plane cards for the leaves. But I found the procedure too time consuming, especially if I'm doing 4-5 trees. Working more efficient I decided to work in Unity and create my own trees and use my own textures. I also thought it would be learning to get familiar with Unity a bit better since it's a game engine we are using for most of the projects. With the tutorial I followed I got a better idea how to add new branches and leaves, each branch has its own option which allowed me to increase or decrease the frequency and size for the leaves. I could also change the option for the root of the tree, create crinkliness which makes the branches crooked etc. There were so many options, the whole process to create the first pine tree took a very long time until I got satisfied with the results. I still think I could have improved it as the pine trees have sectioned leaves and more leaves. But I didn't want to add too many cards so Unity would crash or lag, but there aren't any issues with it yet.

The textures are all download from textures.com, I used the diffuse, normal map and mask map to get further details. I like how the bark appeared as it gives some depth into the tree. Only thing I'm not satisfied with is the shape of the tree.

Pine tree

Creating body tree in Unity

Acer pseudosieboldianum (Korean maple)

The last three trees have very similar leaves and bark, so I decided to use the same bark texture and use the same leaves besides that I changed the colour with colour balance in Photoshop. I personally think this process was more efficient, and I don't really think the player would pay much attention to the details on the trees.

I downloaded a leaf image where I used the lasso to cut off the edges and to enhance the details, I sharpened the image. Having one leaf on a plane card would make the game engine too heavy, instead I put multiple leaves for one plane. I painted on my own branches to create the illusion it's connected with the other branches. I got this idea from the free asset trees I used for my environment. I used the same normal map and mask map for the leaves as it's the same shape and texture anyways, this method worked fine

Leaves texture - Base map, normal map and mask map

Bark seamless texture made in photoshop

Final trees

Here are the final trees I created in Unity with something similar to SpeedTrees. I'm pleased how the process went but think the trees could have looked better. The shapes don't look similar to the maple trees or pine tree, this could be because of the top of the tree which created the weird shape. However, I increased the frequency for all leaves to more it looks less empty. I still think I managed to get the different shapes for the maple trees even though it's the same species?

Tree exploration

I did some tree exploration to see how the colours would affect the tone of the environment. I also placed trees outside the walls to fill in the empty areas as well. I couldn't place the tress how I wanted on the left side, I had to move and rotate the trees until I got satisfied with the light reflection on the ground. There are more shadow in the environment due to I increased the leaves, I think this creates a new effect where the light goes in between the leaves. I personally liked thumbnail 3 and 6 due to the orange tree in the front which bring the warm tones for the environment. I also think the colour complements each other quite well.

Tree number 3

Plants

Reference

Looking at a couple plants images, I decided to go for two plants and one shrub. The plants will be placed in random areas and the bushes will be in front of the house to make it look a bit more colourful.

1. June Hosta - plant

2. Heuchera - plant

3. Baccharis Patagonica - shrub

Process plant

I began with the June hosta plant as it had an easier shape and larger leaves. I only used one leaf texture, I couldn't find any other flat images. First, I created the texture which is a 2K image, this texture was set as a material for a plane. I duplicated the plane and added more edges and shaped it into the leaf using the vertices. I think if I make the plane shape is as similar as the hosta leaf, it will be easier to bend and give better results. I wanted to make it lowpoly as the leaves will be duplicated to create the final plant shape. The process was efficient as I did some research beforehand, I decided to go for this method as it's similar to the hair cards which I have done for another module. I'm pleased how the final hosta plant came out, although it would have looked better if I used different patterns for the leaves.

Final plants and shrub

Here are the final plants and shrub. I decided to go for a different kind of shrub as I didn't manage to find any good images of the Baccharis Patagonica shrub. The shrub was created in Unity with SpeedTree, I thought this option would be easier as I'm comfortable with the process and would like to learn how to create other nature objects with SpeedTree. The process for the Heuchera plant was done the same way as the Hosta plant, I created 3 more leaves for the heuchera where I added some other colours, changed the shape etc. I really like the colour of the heuchera as it matches the trees.

Overall, I'm happy with the textures but could have done better with the shape and sizes. I would have wanted the shrub to be rounder as the reference images above, but it was pretty difficult as Unity had to load every edit, I also struggled making the cards go to the same angle.

Lighting

Volumetric fog - Directional light

Once finishing plants, I placed them all over the environment. This really made a huge difference as it makes the Zen garden look more lively.

Back in week 11/12 I mentioned the volumetric fog which is the sunlight going between the objects and creates the realistic look. This was my final touch, and this really made a huge difference, without the volumetric fog I think there is too much contrast and not enough sun light. With the volumetric fog it allows me sunlight into the scene and gives the fade affect.

The GIF on the left side is quick experiment I did with the directional light to see how the volumetric fog would affect the environment. I'm pleased how it turned out as my goal was to be able to get this sort of lighting into the scene since the beginning of this project.

Here are a couple of images of the scene. The environment turned out pretty good, especially the tone of the scene as it gives the warm feeling.

Reflective summary

The project has been very learning, I really enjoyed the whole process even though I was struggling planning sometimes. I didn’t have any knowledge about baking and speed trees at the beginning, now I’m aware of the process and have learnt new software's. It was mostly Substance Painter I wasn’t familiar with, I’m a bit more familiar with it now but there is still a lot to learn.

At the beginning the planning and process was effective as it was mostly creating thumbnails, research and do blockout. Planning the house was a bit complicated, especially the different parts of the house. I also realised I got the wrong dimensions which made me create unnecessary parts for the house. This would cause gaps between the roof as example because I got the wrong measurements. What I learnt is to be better at planning and think about the dimensions next time.

I was also struggling with the sand waves as I wasn’t sure how to make the straight and round sand waves to blend with each other. For some reason I made it more complicated for myself, but I think I was too focused on trying to make them blend and get the wave illusion. After several attempts I ended up with the terrain, this method worked great as I learnt how to use different textures to add grass, height etc. This tool made a huge difference for the environment which saved space and better workflow. I didn’t struggle with the texture or UV-mapping, there was mostly materials created in Unity since it was one material for the assets. I mostly used the camera-based UV and cut the edges, I find this method works better for me.

There could be improvements for the project, I could have done the Japanese house better as I think there isn’t enough details appearing. The wooden planks could have been done in Zbrush by including more details and enhanced further details with the normal map and ambient occlusion. I personally think the house is too plain and dull, the upper windows look too flat. I could have increased the normal map or height to make the wooden frames appear more. Since the trees was done with SpeedTree it was a quicker way, but I was curious the software worked. The trees weren’t my focus for this project so I went for the easier option, otherwise I would have modeled my own trees if it was my goal for this project. I think if I created my own trees manually the environment could have looked better, I wasn’t able to get the shape I wanted which is why I’m not very pleased with them

However, I’m still glad about the effort I have put into the project. My goal was to be able to get the volumetric fog for the scene and I like how it turned out. This gave the realistic look for the environment which did a big difference. I’m also pleased how the baked assets turned out such as the lantern, rocks and stones. I liked the amount of details that was shown and how I managed to make them look realistic. I will definitely do this for my further project as this is something I enjoyed and gave great results.

Overall, I feel I have improved my knowledge in various areas when creating all these different assets. There were different pipelines for different objects I will, such as baking, creating the plants and speed trees. But now, I’m more familiar with Unity as I know the terrain, SpeedTree and HDRP materials works. Other than that, I’m pleased how I managed to get the tone for the game and achieve the areas I wanted.

Reference

[1] TheMadraver, (2019), Misc Asian Buildings, Available at: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/misc-asian-buildings-f247420476d9447da6c94c44d8d41034 [Accessed 22 January 2020]

[2] www.plan47.ru, (2019), Chureito Pagoda 忠霊塔 3Dモデルのダウンロード, Available at:https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/chureito-pagoda-3d-f6767c7ec3b641579cef4a66a1bcce67 , [Accessed 22 January 2020]

[3] Luban. P, (2002), Designing and Integrating Puzzles in Action-Adventure Games, Available at: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2917/designing_and_integrating_puzzles_.php?page=2, [Accessed 22 January 2020]

[4] GameSpot, (2018), Ghost of Tsushima Full Gameplay Reveal | Sony E3 2018, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqfx-1UrT-0, [Accessed 22 January 2020]

[5] Aozora. M, (2019), Kyoto - Blooming spring morning - City Scene, Available at: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/kyoto-blooming-spring-morning-city-scene-b3aa6e99b3d14d37a55ea19ed97d33f1, [23 January 2020]

[6] Polygon Academy, (2018), 3 IMPORTANT Tips for Greybox Level Design - ArtStation Challenge | VLOG EP.002, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wziE0AYCoo, [31 January 2020]

[7] Coulter, (2020), What is the difference between Chinese and Japanese pagodas?, Available at: https://www.proprofs.com/discuss/q/123284/what-is-the-difference-between-chinese-and-japanese-pagodas, [Accessed 3 Feburary 2020]

[8] Polygon Academy, (2018), 3 IMPORTANT Tips for Greybox Level Design - ArtStation Challenge | VLOG EP.002, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wziE0AYCoo, [Accessed 5 February 2020]

[9] Polygon Academy, (2018), Creating Modular Environments in Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) | ArtStation Challenge EP.003, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC0uL_QQWeY&list=PLBi3xvwvY3dncU0vlOi7gov3AFmXhRTOm&index=3, [Accessed 8 February 2020]

[10] Unity Guruz, (2019), EXTERIOR LIGHTING and POST PROCESSING In Unity, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-jzVBp0Prg, [Accessed 10 February 2020]

[11] RRFreelance, (2019), World Space Trees (FREE) - Shader, Available at: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/shaders/world-space-trees-free-shader-117088, [Accessed 10 February 2020]

[12] Polygon Academy, (2018), Creating Modular Environments in Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) | ArtStation Challenge EP.003, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC0uL_QQWeY&list=PLBi3xvwvY3dncU0vlOi7gov3AFmXhRTOm&index=3, [Accessed 20 February 2020]

[13] Topology, (2019), Japanese Lantern - 3D Modeling/Sculpting - ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter, Marmoset Toolbag, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhmXx9g90EU, [Accessed 27 February 2020]

[14] Mike Hermes, (2015), Maya 2016 tutorial : How to create rock debris for your scene in minutes, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDMHPVJO2Og, , [Accessed 27 February 2020]

[15] Mike Hermes, (2017), How to 3D model a LOW POLY street with HIGH POLY detail, Available at; https://www.youtube.com/watch?index=172&list=PLyMuCmXTUZG4uMfXMExf8KGJmXTYH4GIW&v=ofPJTDTYduM, [Accessed 16 March 2020]

[16] Jayanam, (2017), High poly to low poly workflow : Export to Unity & UE4 (7), Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jslxj9fPixk&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2PSNHbrIbj8WZvWq7jJMPbQ-hrzKCBySnyKIWHbr45MXH435H7Nv3_HxM, (Accessed 16 March 2020)

[17] Animation Insanity, (2018), Low Poly Waves, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AduFPwftoWA, [Accessed 25 March 2020]

[18] Unity, (2019), Build Beautiful Terrains with Unity 2019! – New Terrain Tools Package, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aExdxF4OKBo , [Accessed 9 April 2020]

[19] Unity, (2019), Terrain Layers, Available at: https://docs.unity3d.com/2018.4/Documentation/Manual/class-TerrainLayer.html , [Accessed 9 April 2020]

[20] Unity Guruz (2019), PBR Workflow in HD Render Pipeline Unity 2018.3, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd7E2i8zgCE, [Accessed 10 April 2020]

[21] PolyToots, (2019), OCEAN shader with Unity Shader Graph!, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=241s&v=FbTAbOnhRcI, [Accessed 6 May 2020]

[22] StudyBreakTuts, (2018), Easy Unity tree tutorial, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgfxiLs7Ozk, [Accessed 8 May 2020]

[23] Dave. G, (2019), Classic Trees for a Japanese Garden, Available at: https://www.thetreecenter.com/classic-trees-for-a-japanese-garden/, [Accessed 8 May 2020]

Google Sites

Report abuse