FMP: Analysing UDK assets

I've spent a little time looking at the UDK assets - in particular the foliage showcase level - This level is pretty nice and has assets with more fidelity than what I have made so far, and is a logical goal in standards.

The level I am looking for asset reference is the "Foliage Map".  I remember looking at this earlier in the course - This time round I actually understand some of it and it all seems to make more sense.  This is a good standard to aim for, and is above what it seems was the standard when the DMUGA course was initiated, with more higher budgets.

Here is a UDK supplied map that should be at C:\UDK\UDK-2013-07\UDKGame\Content\Maps\Showcases

Here are some of my favorite assets from the sample UDK level

Being a foliage map it showcases moving or wind driven foliage that sways, particle effects and a waterfall among other things.  I'm basically going to emulate the level of detail and techniques used from looking at the assets.  My project is a lot larger though and I seriously doubt I can pack as much dense quality in as they have here.

Among the most interesting assets are the materials - I now understand a bit about how to create materials and can borrow some ideas they use.  One is to have a "moss?" parameter which will add a tiling moss texture on the current one.

Another interesting asset is THE rock - they use one rock to create all the formations.  This is a typical technique used, but this is a great example.  Giving nearly 8k tris for a single rock I thought would be high, but not here.  It's worth remembering that the normal map has a "tiled normal" or "details normal", which is a simple tiling rock normal map over the top of the standard normal map.  This layering of two normal maps is pretty common.  The topology on rocks tends to be crap, even this one looks like someone used the pro-optimizer modifier, leaving some horribly acute angles in topology.   Something else odd about the rock is that the geometry has been opened along the map seam - I believe this is to do with the horrible map seams in UDK, this is a way around it

Here the statue has horrible seams on the UVs, which are also in the geometry - Yet not visible seams in UDK

I think I have sussed out their workflow a little.  Using Ubververt count I can see their assets are 100% ifficient - Even though they have splits in the geometry which is match on the UVs.  Using Textools I can emulate this by auto-smoothing the faces then creating UV islands by smoothing group.  After this each of the vert's needs to be unified to an average.  In my mind this doesn't seem like a logical way to create assets, in is probably a way around technical issues - Probably utilising scripts to automate their processes.

Personally I don't like cutting up my models - seems like ruining them, so I will fall back with what I already know

Designing the Colossus 3: Kit Bashing etc

The Third boss in Shadow of the Colossus.
See the eyes and architecture is almost
like ornate armour?

I know I want unique elements to the colossus - Like cold staring eyes and archectural features.  This will echo my reference and implies purpose and intent of it's construction (and help it not look like a load of rocks n crap).

I'm fond of the green assets - These I imagine as fingers, knuckles, and spine segments

I have made groups of objects to construct my colossi from.  Doing the work this way will help to break down the assets into their smallest forms - I want to make as few pieces as possible, but make them as detailed as possible.  Using the vertex colours I should be able to help blend in other materials and add variance to prevent any obvious repeating.  I will be focusing on the technical bits like animation and game logic more in March.

Using these low poly basic shapes I can construct accurate mock ups of my colossus early on and have a lot of leeway to amend and improve my design (I hope).  I will also combine other modular sets, such as boulders and foliage to construct the final colossus.  After putting these all together the next stage is dropping unused ones, breaking down desired elements and getting them all on one texture sheet.

Here is an example of a colossus design bashed together

and another

I quite like the bull one... I am going to make 5 more this week (one a day) & finalize it over the weekend.  During march I don't want to be designing - I want to be animating and joining stuff together in UDK & making stuffs.  What I will do is convert these into statues for my temple - giving them a stone material instead of developed modular assets...  I'm trying not to waste my time and efforts.  Also I enjoy a bit of sculpting in the evenings, which is a bit of an escape from technical rigging and animating and the like.

FMP: Assets 1

Here's a quick asset list for my project

I want nice looking assets, but I also want to be quite efficient.  I have been looking at the UDK sample assets to use as a quality comparison.  I have been using a checking script called ubervert to help also.

One simple way to to increase frame rates is to use less texture space.  Instead of having a diffuse, specular, normal, blending map and the like for each asset I am stream lining these.

Standard maps for me will only be the diffuse and normal maps.  I can maybe get away with halfing the normal map size also (which I think UDK does automatically with it's normal compression).  So if I have a 1024px diffuse I will have a 512px normal map (imported at 1024?).  With Targas you can imbed another channel in the alpha.  I will be doing this, so the diffuse will contain a blending mask within its alpha... This mask will be unique for each material and will normally consist of a height map and cavity map to blend stuff into the crack and deeper parts.

Creating a master material and then instances seems to save loads of space within the package - Which I will assume translates into frame rate also.  Either way it is best to keep the package below 300MB, which I will aim to do.  Combining materials with vertex paint and overlaying also save on space - this also creates more depth and detail to a material without this.

As for the tri counts - it doesn't really matter! As long as it works and isn't redicoulous.  It is worth using much more than I have become accustomed to with previous projects.  The new and last gen game systems can all handle a lot of polys on screen and the scope of my level is limited.

I will be using LoDs also.  I have never done this before properly and will most likely use the auto function in UDK, apart from with foliage.  I will also do this for most of the collisions as it works pretty well.  There may be instances where collision detail is required and will manually create as needed.

I'm going to try and make assets as I go along.

My first boulder - I plan on having several re-usable rocks and such

I enjoyed making this statue, managed it in a day which is encouraging.  I'll worry about the material seperately.

I have learned a pretty efficient way of creating stone n rocks n bricks n blocks

The aquaduct is next on my list - I wanna make big blocks that I can make an aqueduct, and other items with more definition too.  With being a ruined temple it makes sense to make loose blocks first.  These can be used to build multiple things in 3DS Max and & UDK and I can easily replicate destruction.

FMP: Designing the colossus 2

Now I'm happier with the landscape I can focus more on the colossus.  I don't want to spend too long developing the design - I know it is important, but can always be a little better, and will undoubtedly prefer a different design later in the process - That always happens!

Well, I want it to have impact over being realistic or what ever, and will add extra crap that I don't think will fit but looks cool.  I'm considering massive chains like it is held in place maybe and even glowing eyes after its awakened.  Maybe even having some wings, maybe ripped like a fallen angel - quite Anime and JRPG ish... But people like it especially the young'uns!

I want a bit of surprise and have something for the player to work towards, and am hoping I can make it inconspicuous at first.  This will involve hiding the colossus' presence and camouflaging it as a rock formation somewhat.

Functional
The colossus has got to work - I want it attacking and stuff.  One way I was thinking of handling this is having the player on a mountain top and attacking the head and torso of the giant.  Another one was having the colossus be in some form of pit and have the player climb around it.

Here is a quick design to show the sleep and awake state idea.  I was originally thinking of chaining it to either side (where I was gonna have massive statues)
But I might use the space to facilitate combat

Limitations
All of the above involve too much travel.  Due to the size of the beast it can take five minutes just to walk a route all the way up them.  If Moses won't go to the mountain...  I am leaning towards having a rooted colossus (like the final colossus in Shadow of the Colossus).  With this I can actually separate limbs and other parts as different actors and mix with static meshes.  This might look gash though with the lack of dynamic lighting over millions of triangles - Will have to find out.

Armour/Ornamentation
One of the key features I want to add is carved parts - armlets, anklets, bracelets, collars, eyes for example.  This will help give it character and stop looking like a big pile of nature.  In Shadow of the Colossus they even give the colossi fur - It does look cool, and works great as the player often needs a surface to grip and climb... Not as essentail for my design maybe.

Lore/Back Story
I am going to give the colossus ancient & primitive motifs.  I will also look at the Wander (hero) from Shadow of the Colossus and apply some of his characteristics.  As this involves angular/chiseled edges I will sway from curves and use them sparingly.  Conversely I will have rounder bits early in level to contrast.

[Shadow of the Colossus] I will be paying homage to this character here a bit - quite like the lithic patterns anyhow

Materials
I will have to utilize every multi-sub object I can, giving me five materials to play with.  These can be very expansive, and I have no experience with skeletal meshes in UDK, I don't know how well they will be lit or how well they animate.  Will have to do some tests soon.

I think I prefer the stockier one I had originally

I'm developing the colossus here - Outlining sections and potential architecture

It seems I will spend forever designing the colossus unless I integrate it into the level with 3D modelling

I spent a little time learning about mental ray, rendering and viewport settings -My viewport is now sexxay (this is an iterative render though ;)

A new update for After Effects adds the option to create animated GIFs directly (above is my first go) I'm having a mess around - trying to get the colossus in the level and adjusting bits.  The animation is a basic grab - Which will be removed after I know the form of the colossus better.  Things like this help to get there - I will need to adjust the build of both the colossus and level to accommodate for some attacks - and some might just suck.  Is gonna be a long process with some trial & error.

FMP: Basic Structure

I don't want the player to have to know the back story or lore of my project to enjoy the scene.  What I do want is an interesting and simple structure to the event.

Simplified structure

The player starts in an enclosed area - like a cave or ruined temple.
The path to go is pretty obvious and leads towards the outdoors.
When arriving at the outdoor area I still want an obvious goal, but also with exploration options.
An introduction cut scene introducing the colossus
Camera shots/animation to highlight the method of defeating the colossus
Victory/ destruction of colossus animation & end

The basic layout for my environment - I have stripped it right down

Beginning , middle, end.  The last two are triggers to destroy colossus, how exactly I haven't decided yet

Environment's history

I have decided to have an ancient temple feel.  I'm considering having the whole island be a ruined temple, with evidence of the structure fallen in on itself from previous colossus battles.  I am going to use alters as focal/plot progression points.  Having all the triggers unified within a setting will help guide the player and add character to the project.

Scale Issues

While I want a massive colossus I also want ways to combat it, and it seems the bigger it is the further away it has to be just to see all of it.  I don't have the technical know-how to have a colossus that I could climb on, which very disiarible for me.

Here is my block-out type thing - Getting scale and locations this week

I really should try for a third-person view, while this would make it much easier for the player to navigate (if I get the cameras right) This brings its own set of issues.  I'm already behind schedule from starting late so don't want to add too many hurdles to slow me more.

Ideal fight structure

The symbols on the map will correlate to tasks - maybe mirror the runes from the alters on the colossus' limbs - each of the two runes might disable or destroy an arm for example, leading to the final stage of the battle where the colossus uses their head.  This would pile up the drama and give the player a cool sense of scale.  This could be altered to the colossus falling down exposing the head for a final blow or something.

For the main/central trigger I was thinking of surprising the player with the path falling away as the colossus wakes early

FMP: Materials 1

Materials are pretty important, and there are job roles purely as texture artists.  Currently the taught standard is with three main map types, diffuse, specular, and normal.  Recently Marmoset 2 gives everyone access to physically based rendering, which is important and looks spiffing.  UDK shaders can be quite complicated and technical, and is the final destination for my project materials.

Workflow wise I have been using nDo2 a lot in Photoshop and Zbrush to get nice map sets.

Below is a default brick material in Marmoset 2 - I had a look to see how it works so I can emulate & understand them a bit.  It's probably an idea embed the greyscale maps into the alpha channel of TGAs for standardising my textures.  Is nice to have some kind of map to use for blending 

Sample material "Quixel Brick" from Marmoset 2

JPEGS    size (px)

_ao	512
_d	1024
_g	512
_h	256
_n	1024
_s	1024

Sample material from Marmoset

Gravestone at Welford Cemetary

Material created from photo

UDK Landscape Material

Here is my basic landscape material setup - I'm happy with it for now

To use the landscape functionality in UDK you obviously need to have the appropriate textures - Grass if you want grass, cliff if you want cliff features.

Here I am landscaping in UDK, using the brush to sculpt the form and also to paint different materials.

I'm impressed with the variation and control you get from using the landscape tool.  In the above picture I am combining two types of contrasting rock texture (large and smaller forms), grass, and a "border" material (which is organic noise I made from the above gravestone material).  I'm quite happy with the varaition - keeping in mind that there will be rocks and foliage on top of this.

Combining different texture density (and normal height contrast) materials can help add interest and variation - tools to guide the player

FMP: Environment design 1

I am currently working on refining my environment to fit in with my needs and the pace of the level.  I have already started on a map and have a small starting area, however I want this to open up and be more grandiose after the first part to give the "level" more structure and interest.

I've been thinking about this quite a lot & have started on quite a few modular sets to fill out the level and add interest.  The main problem is to structure - it has to accomodate a giant colossus and even exagerate them.  I also want to have a basic scripted (involving triggers and events instead of life-bar depletion) battle.

Efficiency

I want to be using the same assets a LOT.  Looking at ancient civilizations and architecture they use the same patterns and a favourite technique of mine - tiering.  Tiering is a great way to build and also to imply scale and create uniformity to break up.  I'm thinking of using a lot of pillars and arches for example.  It would also be prudent to create damaged variations and allow for vertex painting to add grunge.  On top of this there will be foliage and other crap on top of this.  Designing assets to be re-used is a good idea - Rocks can be rotated and re-scaled just like trees - So I will try and ensure they are as re-usable as possible.

Confirmed

* Traditional middle earth/medieval Europe style landscape with hopefully a little twist & style.

* Simple path with an avenue or two - more like a technical demo then a playable level.

* Beginning, middle, end - development in palette, shapes,  proximity & scale.

* Arena style - is all about getting introduced with a colossus

Motifs

* Greek / Roman style architecture - Aqueducts!

* Ancient foundations - evidenced through wear and decoration

* Eclectic ornamentation

* Fallen Empires - nature over taking ruins

Two ideas need combining

The hardest part for me personally is finding an idea I am happy with, I have two ideas I want to combine, which is also difficult.

MAP2 Start at A.  I think the cave may be replaced with the gateway from MAP1

The other side of the above.  I was imagining looking far down into the mist with the wind noise would add height & scale

A long walk to the final destination, which should turn into a colossus and shit kicks off.

Although crude, many images like this have been drawn to help visualize content, vistas ,paths & stuff.  Imagine a tall narrow corridor/gateway that leads to an even taller structure which starts to move = lots of verticality.

So for today I am going to do my best to combine these - One problem in my mind is I wanted a mossy tranquil start and an "epic" mountainous follow on, but I don't want the player do a mountain hike.

These shapes here I have decided as my layout.  You start in the crescent and the colossus is at the round mound.

Here is the horseshoe shape integrated with the landscape.
The design is actually inspiring some back story - maybe a moon/mezo American temple?

I have changed the origin area into a horse shoe shape - This seems to give the level more direction and is also quite typical of ancient structures, with the natural cliff walls providing primitive shelter.  It also gives room to create "display shelves" and is a nice way to give the player stuff to look at without hunting it down.

Travelling the path in game feels right.  It is a little long/time consuming though
but the scale is about there.

This horse shoe, (which I will now call a crescent to reflect it's lunar symbolism) works really well, it combines elements from my first and second map.  It has a definite goal, nice vistas, room for tweaking the path (crossing over the gap or going under and over bits).  On top of that it has visual strength and is akin to an ancient moon temple.  The landscape has also been giving me ideas on how to build the architecture - I have come unstuck.

FMP Environment: Landscapes

Landscapes are important, and not quite as time consuming to create as you may originally think!  The landscaping programs below are very small files and have totally open free versions - great for students!

It's worth noting that I am using UDK, which has a weird internal formula for its landscapes and you actually need a table to know what sizes you need.  Cry Engine is more straight forward.  My map size is 2017px x 2017px, which has 256 components = maximum detail & decent size of 8km x 8km

Weight Maps
I didn't know about weight maps until recently.  Basically these are like alpha masks over the landscape map.  These dictate the blending of layers and can be altered how you extrapolate them.  This will be a base to start off the texturing in engine according to your needs.  To clarify they can automatically apply textures to a landscape in UDK.

World Machine [VideoTutorial]
+ Very flexible and responsive, can manually create islands and shapes.
- A bit fiddly to learn
- Weight map functionality needs a macro to be downloaded

In world machine you can use custom shapes to form the terrain.
Here I made a horseshoe shape for the start of my level

Terresculpter    [Tutorial series for UDK users]
- Less flexible workflow than World Machine, as no nodes - is all destructive
+ Easy to work, has UDK sizes stored, can import, re-sample to convert to UDK sizes easily, can export weight maps easily.

I was originally creating the maps within UDK - which is ok as it has lots of very useful tool to start from scratch, but its real power will be to alter and fine tune an imported landscape to fit my needs.

1) World Machine to create unique landscapes
2) TerreSculptor to generate weight maps & re-sample/upscale height map
3) Zbrush & 3DS Max to develop further - Can possibly make caves and unique formations to fit with landscape.
4) UDK to finish and texture

There is a size difference though for in UDK (cheers Epic) which doesn't help the process.  On the plus side you can import multiple landscapes into the the same map in UDK - This means you can copy sections from one map to another manually.  This is good as I have a few bits I like already, and can transfer them if I want.

There is also a little program called GW TerraNoise, which is similar to world machine, but specializes in creating tiled terrain maps - These are freakin' excellent for alphas and grunge textures.  This has been very useful for sculpting natural details in Zbrush.