Tutorial - Unwrapping Tips!

I produced this tutorial for people who were unsure on how to unwrap things to one texture sheet.

Project Echoes and My Problem with Trees!

Currently fighting against a few problems with the level. The alpha planes are looking a little off in my level. Currently I have these trees in the level, but I find they're looking very flat and with them being so low I'm not sure they work well.

Here's a video of some rough game-play with these trees:

Here's the other leaves I've made which would relay less on opacity, and have more possibility for shape. I am also wondering if they would improve my FPS in Unity as they're would be less alphas to calculate.

Here's video of how it would look in game-play:

I feel that although the trees with the giant leaves are a better design, that they aren't right for this environment. Feedback from the team has confirmed this, so I'm looking at ways to make my trees less obviously game-y. I'm thinking if I move the leaves up higher that this would help as they'd always be further away and it'd be easier to dress the trees for viewing from below.

Echoes - The abandoned mind

Some bits and pieces of ruined buildings I've been modelling for Project Echoes. The general idea is that the pieces should be modular, so that different buildings can be created using the same pieces, which some texture variations. This is how far I am with them atm. As you can see I've got the modelling down, I just need to carry on with the texturing!

Here most of these are just diffuses in progress atm.

Project Echoes - Frozen Fountain

So it's been a little crazy trying to get all these props together, but here's my most recent one. Got the diffuse, bump and spec done, but I feel I might have to further work on it to give it the right feel. It's meant to be a fountain that's frozen mid flow, but I'm not sure that's getting across right now.

One thing I might do to solve this is to look at shaders which I could use in unity on the ice to mke it more belieable, and another thing I might want to do is add a layer of snow over the fountain, and then change the spec map to reflect that so there feels like a clear difference between them.

I'll get onto those things as soon as I've got the other props up to standard, but until then, fountain!

Echoes - Oh yeah, rocks

This week has been focused on getting some rock and cliff pieces together for the scenery for Echoes. These textures will be used for the Summer level, and I will be creating some alternative textures for the Winter level.

I'm going to add an emission map onto the rock pieces, as they're going to have glowing labyrinth sigils on them.

 

Rocks presented a challenge at first, mostly due to my inability to work out how to keep them low poly but have a lot of shape to them. I wanted these 2 to be modular as well, so they could be used again and again in the game to create mountains, and enforce game boundaries, but have very little effect on processing within the engine.

After research I found the best workflow for me would be sculpting them in zbrush, and then taking them into Topogun. I tried modeling them straight in max to begin with but I found that the task was possible, but very time consuming. First project I've tried this set up and I'm finding myself liking it a lot, I feel it gives a lot more speed to the process and lets you create what you want to more accurately. I definitely see myself using this a lot more in future, and after Project Echoes has been completed I can't wait to give it a go on a character

Echoes - Ambient Scenery

Update on the props I'm going for Echoes, these are some pieces of scenery for the level. 

Need to work into the rose bush further, but I'm making headway with the texturing. The normal maps don't show in the viewport render, so I'll get some in engine shots at some point soon.

Next on my list of Ambient Scenery is -

Modular Cliffs and Rocks

Show variation textures for some props

Optimizing foliage

Texturing Trees

After they're done, I can move onto the ruins in the summer environment without too much worry.