Building
this was one of the four 3D scenes I made for my dissertation project. These four scenes are meant to show narrative through game environment.
Modelling:
First, I decided to plan the final render’s planned scale and perspective to help give me a better idea of how detailed the model would have to be. After this, I decided to experiment with different variations of the building’s shape, and in I applied them into one building. Originally, I made the staircase as a direct part of the building’s topology, but due to that being suboptimal topology I decided to make them separate objects.
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At one point, the project got corrupted, I used the corrupted file as an opportunity to improve the topology strategy of the model given that I already knew how the shape would turn out beforehand. Another significant change with recreating the model is the alignment of objects. After making the base dome, I added the ribbing detail, additionally removing the Ngon that was initially on the top of the dome. This will later be utilized as a place to put a narrative carryover to connect the scenes together.
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After the pillar was modelled, I turned the pillar’s face towards the location of the building and started blocking out the rest of the building itself. The reason I turned the pillar is to create the bridge more easily, as well as removing the bevel from the pillar to match the topology of the rest of the building better. After these preparations, I bridged the two pieces of the building together
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Once the building was remodelled, I added a terrain for the new version and changed the scaling to match, since I already knew the shape of the mesh I realized a detail which I overlooked that I could make the same mesh while keeping the topology cleaner. This will later be applied to the other models. Later on the scaling of the tower was changed to look more proportional to the rest of the building.
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Pre Corruption:
Post Corruption:
Preparing For Texturing:
When it comes to UV mapping, I first UV mapped the main environment, this was fairly easy due to the environment being a minimally modified plane. The first part of the building I UV mapped was the dome, then I started UV mapping the main building as shown in.
Initial Texturing:
The first texturing of the building’s terrain was a multi layered approach with materials downloaded from the substance painter community assets page. One thing that was noticed when the building was imported into unreal engine was that to keep the glass transparent there would need to be modelling inside the building, which although obvious was overlooked while making the model. This is not of much importance for the parts with dark glass due to it being more flexible, but it is an important thing to note for the area with the transparent glass in the tower due to that needing to be transparent to add the pillar detailing later.
Retexturing:
The terrain of this scene was one of the least effected by the colour space issue in comparison to the other scenes, therefore not many modifications were done in terms of colour, however, one change that was made as the spacing of the grass and how compact the texture is. In the second texturing attempt, the textures were less dense compared as an attempt to affect the scaling, however the scaling of the first version seems to be more effective for scaling compared to the new version. Since the old version is better at scaling and the new version is better at colour and dead grass radius it would be best in the refining stage to combine the best of the two. In terms of the building, a new section was added to the side to add more balance to the pillar and highlights were added beside the door to make the building seem more futuristic. In the refining stage it would be better if the top area is made to look more proportionate in relation to the black glass of the added area, this is because in its current state it looks like the top glass area is the height of two levels in one pane of glass which would not make sense in the type of building it is. Another thing that should be changed is making the texture of the building itself less cartoon-like. In terms of the grass, a free grass pack was downloaded from the unreal engine marketplace and added through the unreal engine inbuilt foliage system. One thing to note is that it is a lot less dense at a distance in the viewport by default for performance reasons which means that fine tuning would require changing the settings or zooming further into the terrain, however, the grass is fully rendered within the render itself.
